"on The Way"

“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.