“On the Way”
Philippians 3:4b-14
The late Fred Craddock told a story about a missionary family in China who were forced to leave the country sometime after the Communists took over.
One day a band of soldiers knocked on their door and told the missionary along with his wife and children that they had two hours to pack up before these troops would escort them to the train station.
They would be allowed to take with them only two hundred pounds of stuff.
Thus, began two hours of family wrangling and bickering about what they should take.
“What about this vase?
It’s a family heirloom, so we’ve got to take the vase.”
“Well, maybe so, but this typewriter is brand new and we’re not about to leave that behind.”
“What about some books?
Got to take a few of them along”
On and on it went, putting stuff on the bathroom scale and taking it off until finally they had a pile of possessions that totaled two hundred pounds on the dot!
When the soldiers returned they asked, “Are you ready?”
“Yes,” they answered.
“Did you weigh your stuff?”
“Yes, we did.”
“Two-hundred pounds?”
“Yes, two-hundred pounds on the dot.”
“Did you weigh the kids?”
“Um…no.
Weigh the kids?!!!”
And in an instant the vase, the typewriter, and the books all became trash.
None of it meant anything compared to the surpassing value of the children.
Sometimes things happen in our lives in such a shocking way that we are instantly forced to view all of life in a new light because of it.
What had previously been of value to us comes to mean absolutely nothing—and we are more than happy to leave it behind.
And that is the way it worked in Paul’s life as it pertains to His relationship with Jesus Christ.
Paul had been a proud Pharisee, blameless under the law.
His past was and still could be an asset to him, not an embarrassment or a subject of frustration and despair.
I mean Paul had been looked up to.
He was a leader.
He was an upstanding citizen.
But, do you know where he was when he wrote the letter to the Philippians that we are studying this morning?
He was in a Roman prison…awaiting possible execution.
And it’s all because of his faith in Christ, and his decision to consider all his worldly status garbage in comparison to following Jesus.
“I consider everything a loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Jesus Christ my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things.
I consider them garbage, that I may gain Christ and be found in him…”
Since Jesus found Paul on the Road to Damascus, everything is different.
Where he once ran after Christians to persecute and approve of their murder, he now runs toward Christ to be found in Him.
Where he once prided himself in his ancestry and his achievements—that stuff means absolutely nothing to him now.
Paul has a new goal, a prize that is worth it—Christ Jesus His Lord.
C.S. Lewis once wrote that we human beings are far too easily pleased.
We content ourselves with Spam when free steak is on the menu.
We fool about with little things like “drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he or she can’t imagine what is meant by the offer of a vacation to the ocean.”
Once you have seen the ocean, can you ever be satisfied again playing in a mud puddle?
Once you give your life to Christ and taste and see that the Lord is good, can you ever truly enjoy the sinful life again?
After I gave my life to Jesus, as a teenager, I tried many other things—many other ways of living.
But, I had experienced what it was like to walk in relationship and love in Christ Jesus.
And, ultimately, I could not go back.
I could not go back and ever be happy in my garbage again.
“If anyone is in Christ they are a new creation; the old is gone and the new has come!”
Have you experienced this truth?
Now, just because we have given our lives to Christ, does not mean that we have arrived—not in the least—not even close!!!
What a long way I have to go.
But, again, it is one of the things that makes this Christian life so exciting.
Last week I was on the phone with a dear old friend.
And I was discussing some of the things, some of the motivations that have guided many of my decisions.
And I was like, “They weren’t Christian decisions, because they were made on the basis of material gain, ego, and the like.
Then I said to my friend, “I wish I were a real Christian.”
And I guess what I meant was—I wish I were a perfected Christian or I wish I had arrived.
John Wesley, the founder of the Methodist Movement defined Christian Perfection as “having a habitual love for God and neighbor.”
And that’s the best definition I have ever heard.
And that is what I want to have more than anything in the world.
Why do I allow such garbage to trip me up?
Before Paul’s conversion, he had believed that righteousness or goodness or perfection was something he could achieve through his hard work and dedication, through his own efforts.
If he just gritted his teeth and tried hard enough, he would succeed.
He just needed to have enough will power.
Paul’s vision of the race of life had been one that turned his days into a grim and grueling guilt-racked grind, a kind of never-ending death march where you have to justify your existence and self-esteem every day, a joyless jog up a never-ending hill in cold, snow and rain.
Life was a battle that Paul had to conquer on his own.
But Paul had been running the wrong way.
In the book “Born to Run” author Christopher McDougal argues that most of us have been running the wrong way—literally running the wrong way.
For example, we think of running as a means to an end, like getting in shape or living longer.
And when we run, we try to protect ourselves against becoming injured by padding our feet with the latest high-tech running shoes.
McDougall points to the Tarahumara indigenous tribe of Mexico to show us a different way.
The Tarahumara have honed the ability to run hundreds of miles without resting and without injuring themselves.
Part of the reason for this, McDougall says, is because when the Tarahumara people run, they wear only very simple sandals, and so from a young age they learn to run upright, on the front pads of their feet instead of on the arches or the heels, the way our shoes encourage us to run.
But beyond this, the Tarahumara run the way they do because they understand that running is a way of life.
It’s part of what it means to be human.
Why else would crowds of human beings get the crazy idea to get together and run for 26 miles, unless they were made for it, unless it was somehow in their DNA?
The Tarahumara understand that the human body is born to run.
For them, it is not a chore but a gift.
There is a scene in the book where a well-known track coach is watching two Tarahumara runners compete in an ultramarathon of 100 miles through the mountains.
The track coach is studying the runners, watching their technique, trying to figure out what makes them tick, and what lessons he can take back to his own track team.
But what strikes the coach the most isn’t their technique; it’s the joy they have when they run.
These runners race up one of the course’s most heartbreaking hills and they are still laughing, churning up the slope like kids playing in a leaf pile.
What makes the Tarahumara special is that they haven’t forgotten what it means to love the act of running itself.
The next time you read Paul’s letter to the Philippians notice how it is filled with so much joy, even while Paul is in prison.
Paul is running the race, pressing on, straining forward for what lies ahead—and he is doing it laughing!
He is running in a different way now than he did before.
He is running with the freedom of someone who has nothing to prove.
This is not another battle he must conquer by gritting his teeth and trying harder—because now the
Marathon—Like News has reached him that God has already conquered, that God has already won the battle!!!
Christ has done for him what he could never have done for himself.
He no longer has to justify his existence by his achievements in the race of life; Jesus Christ’s sacrifice for him has justified his existence.
The huge burden of expectation that was on his shoulders has been removed.
Now the race ahead of him, however hard it might be, isn’t a grind of guilt but a race of grace.
Now he is free to choose to run.
He follows Jesus, not because he must, but because he may, because he can!
He knows now that he was born to run.
He hits the hill with a smile, because there is nothing better than knowing the beauty and love of Christ and letting it flow through you to others.
He runs because all the way to heaven is heaven, because the Christ who is the prize at the end of the race is also, mysteriously, the pace-setting partner at our side, meeting us stride for stride.
This race of grace is not some test of willpower or personal worth anymore; it is a joyous journey with good news filling up our soul.
Where does your confidence really lie?
What are you chasing after?
What is getting you up in the morning and putting you in motion?
Are you running the right way?
Are you running in the right way?
Do you want to know Christ and be like him?
If so, there is good news.
Jesus Christ died and rose from the dead!
Love has defeated death.
So run--for your life.
Run this race because you were born to run this race.
Forget what lies behind.
Strain forward to what lies ahead.
Press on toward the goal.
Keep your eyes on the prize.
Because the race and the prize is Jesus -- and He is worth it.
Thanks be to God.
Amen.
