Rev. Jeff Chapman, Faith Presbyterian Church

I read somewhere this week that the average American, once he or she is 65 years old, will have spent 100,000 hours of their lifetime at work.  Eight hours a day.  Five days a week.  Fifty or so weeks a year.  40 to 45 years in a row.  By the time it’s all said and done, 100,000 hours.  And that doesn’t even include all the hours of school work, housework, yard work, parenting, volunteer work, and all the other necessary labor in life for which we receive no paycheck.

When you see that figure up on the screen what is your initial reaction?  Do you feel grateful to have something to do all these years?  Does it make you resentful as you think about all the ways you would rather spend that time?  Maybe it just makes you feel tired.  100,000 hours at work.  How does that make you feel?

When it comes to our work there is a prevailing thought in American culture that goes like this.  We are stuck with work and there is no way around it, or at least no responsible and respectable way around it.  Work is simply something we have to endure in life so that we can get on to what we enjoy in life.  From the time we are kids we are taught, “Get your chores done first and then you can play.”  This is why so many of us spend time at our jobs working for 5:00, working for the weekend, working for vacation, working for retirement.  We’ve been told for so long that real living isn’t work but is instead what comes after our work is done and what we can do with the money we earned from our work.

Now I know that not all of us feel this way, but let’s at least admit that this is the dominant cultural mindset.  And that’s a problem, because when the Bible talks about work it paints a whole other picture.  In fact, from God’s perspective work is a beautiful gift, an extraordinary blessing given to us for our great benefit.  Let me say that again, slowly.  Work is a beautiful gift, an extraordinary blessing given to us for our great benefit.

I have come to believe this statement is absolutely true.  Over the course of the next three weeks, I hope to show you why.   To get at this, these next three sermons on work will be framed around three questions.  I’m indebted to pastor and author Tim Keller for these questions and for much of what I’ve learned along these lines.

Why were we made for work?  Why is a life without work so unfulfilled?

Why is it so often so hard to work?  Why is work too often pointless, fruitless and difficult?

How can we overcome the difficulties of work and find satisfaction in our work through the Gospel?[1]

Today we will focus on the first of those three questions, why we were made for work.  Before we do, let’s ask for God’s help.

4In the day that the Lord God made the earth and the heavens, 5when no plant of the field was yet in the earth and no herb of the field had yet sprung up—for the Lord God had not caused it to rain upon the earth, and there was no one to till the ground; 6but a stream would rise from the earth, and water the whole face of the ground— 7then the Lord God formed man from the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and the man became a living being. 8And the Lord God planted a garden in Eden, in the east; and there he put the man whom he had formed. 9Out of the ground the Lord God made to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food, the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil…

15The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to till it and keep it. (Genesis 2:4-9,15, NRSV)

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Here’s a question.  What is the very first thing that we see God doing in the Bible?  God does a lot of things in the Bible.  God teaches, forgives, loves, judges, heals, rules, commands, but what does God do first?  On the very first pages of scripture we find God at work.  The creation account which opens scripture culminates with these words in Genesis 2:2, “And on the seventh day God finished the work that he had done, and he rested on the seventh day from the work that he had done.”

The Hebrew word for work here is not a fancy word.  In fact, it’s a word used elsewhere in scripture to describe ordinary human labor.  That’s demonstrated in the passage we just read when we see God getting his hands dirty, so to speak, as he bends down to shape humanity out of the dust of the earth and then plants a garden where none existed before.  Anybody here who has ever worked with clay to sculpt a piece of pottery or worked the ground to grow a vegetable garden knows that these activities require effort.  They require work.

When God eventually came to earth in the person of his Son, Jesus Christ, how did he spend his life on earth?  We think first about how Jesus taught, and healed, and performed miraculous signs but that is not how Jesus spent most of his time.  Remember that for the great majority of his life Jesus, God in flesh, worked as a carpenter, as an ordinary day laborer.  If Jesus were walking the earth today his hands would look more like those of a construction worker than those of a priest.  They would be hardened and calloused and strong.  If this is not a strong image that you have in your mind of Jesus, it would do you well to form it there.

Here’s the point.  Work, by nature, is sacred because God himself is a worker.  Work is holy and blessed.  Work is good.  It has to be or else God would not participate in it.  And this means that when we work, at least when we work in the way that we were designed to work, we do what God does.

In Genesis 1:27 we read that “God created humankind in his image, in the image of God he created them.”  Now, as humans we reflect this divine imprint in many ways.  We see the image of God, for instance, in us in the way we play, and love, and rest, and think.  Added to these, one of the most important ways we are meant to reflect God’s image is in the way we work.  As the great reformer Ulrich Zwingli once said, “There is nothing in the universe so like God as the worker.”

What is the first thing that we see humans doing in scripture?  We just read it.  God creates a man out of the dust of the ground and then God plants a garden in paradise and puts the man in the garden to do what?  To relax?  To swing in a hammock and sip iced tea all day?  To take a leisurely stroll and smell the flowers and pick the blackberries?  No. Verse 15 tells us that God puts the man in the garden “to till it and keep it.”  Right off the bat, first thing, God puts the man to work.

Notice something crucially important here.  Human sin and the fall do not enter into the story until Genesis chapter 3.  When God puts humans to work we’re still in chapter 2, in paradise, at a time before sin enters the world and when everything in all of creation is exactly as God intended it.  This means that work is not the result of human sin, as it is so often thought to be.  Work is not a curse, not a result of the brokenness of this world.  No, work is God’s design from the beginning.  Work is a blessing.  Work is something we were made to do, to always do.  Work (and I’ll say more about this later) is even something we will still be doing in heaven someday.

Deep down you know that you were made for work.  We have all experienced a time when we were given good and meaningful work to do and we did that work well and, as a result, we were filled with a genuine sense of satisfaction.  The opposite is true in people who, for whatever reason, cannot work.  Talk to people in nursing homes, for example, who find themselves, because of age or illness, unable to work, and many of them will tell you that what they most long for is something constructive to do, some way that they can be a help to other people.

As humans we need food, water, sleep, beauty, friendship, prayer, community and love.  We also need work.  Work feeds our souls.  We feel loss and emptiness in life without good work to do and when we cannot find good work to do there often results a profound sense of discouragement, even depression.

So what is work?  Scripture makes clear that we were made to do it, but what is it.  Well, using poetic language, Genesis describes it this way.  God creates a garden and then puts us in the garden to “till” it and “keep” it.  Work, then, is about tilling and keeping.

How many of you have planted a garden this summer?  What happens if you plant a garden and then leave it alone?  Good things do not happen, right?  In fact, maintaining a garden is at least as important, and at least as difficult, as planting a garden.

The Hebrew word here for “till” is the word `abad.  It carries with it the sense of harnessing, even enslaving, something for its potential[2].  It’s the idea of taking raw materials and working them to become something that is beyond themselves.  Think of a farmer who takes a patch of ground and some seeds and works, or harnesses, that ground to bring out of it a bountiful crop.  A carpenter, you might say, enslaves a raw piece of wood and shapes it into a chair.  A musician tills musical notes to bring forth a beautiful piece of music.  A writer harnesses words to communicate ideas that move people to action or truth.

When the Bible speaks of humans being set down in God’s garden to till the earth, scripture is teaching us here that God has given us the raw materials of this created world and tasked us with joining him in harnessing them for something beautiful.  Tim Keller says that human culture or human civilization is simply what results when humans take the raw materials of God’s creation and work to employ them for greater purposes.[3]

So what are those greater purposes?  Well, for one, we are not to use or abuse God’s creation for our own selfish ends.  At the same time God tells us to “till” the garden God also tells us to “keep” the garden, or to “guard” the garden.  This means that we are to be good stewards of a world that does not ultimately belong to us.  We are to work the “garden” not for selfish ends but for God’s ends.  Specifically, we are to take the raw materials of God’s creation and, with his help, work hard to harness them in ways that benefit other people and the world around us.  This is the sort of work which I believe brings God great pleasure.

If this concept seems a little out there, let me try to bring it down to earth.  A writer named Lester DeKoster explains it this way.  What he says is so good I’m going to quote him at length.

Work is the form in which we make ourselves useful to others…in which others make themselves useful to us.  We plant [with our work]; God gives the increase to unify the human race…

[Look at] the chair you are lounging in…Could you have made it for yourself? … How [would you] get, say, the wood?  Go and fell a tree?  But only after first making the tools for that, and putting together some kind of vehicle to haul the wood, and constructing a mill to do the lumber and roads to drive on from place to place?  In short, [it would take you] a lifetime or two to make one chair! … If we…worked not forty but one-hundred-forty hours per week we couldn’t make ourselves scratch even a fraction of all the goods and services that we call our own.  [Our] paycheck turns out to buy us the use of far more than we could possibly make for ourselves in the time it takes to earn the check… Work…yields far more in return upon our efforts than our particular jobs put in…

Imagine that everyone quits working, right now!  What happens?  Civilized life quickly melts away.  Food vanishes from the shelves, gas dries up at the pumps, streets are no longer patrolled, and fires burn themselves out.  Communication and transportation services end, utilities go dead.  Those who survive at all are soon huddled around campfires, sleeping in caves, clothed in raw animal hides.  The difference between [a wilderness] and culture is simply, work.[4]

Work is a gift and a blessing from God.  When we take it this way and use it how God intends, we join God in shaping the world in ways that bring immense benefit to people in particular, and to the world in general.  And this can be true in whatever field we work: education, politics, business, law, technology, the arts, social services, construction, law enforcement, manufacturing, and on and on and on.  In fact, one of the main stumbling blocks we have around work is we have been deceived into thinking that most work is secular work and only some work is sacred work.

Listen to me.  Nowhere in scripture is this idea given any credence.  In fact, at the heart of the Christian Gospel is the truth that Christ has come to redeem all heaven and all earth which means that all people can become holy people, all ground can become holy ground, all time can become consecrated time, that all work can become sacred work. The great Dutch theologian Abraham Kuyper once famously said, “There is not a square inch in the whole domain of our human existence over which Christ, who is Sovereign over all, does not cry: ‘Mine!’”

Do you believe this when it comes to your work?  Do you?  Whose work do you believe is more important in God’s sight, the work of a pastor or the work of a plumber?  Who is doing God’s work, a missionary or a math teacher?  If done honestly and with excellence, the work of the plumber is not only just as important in this world as the work of a pastor but it is also – get this – just as sacred in God’s eyes.  All work which is done in service to others and for the building of culture and civilization in ways that help this world flourish is sacred work and is, for that reason, deeply pleasing to God.

Think about it.  When Jesus walked this earth he did call a few people to leave their fishing nets to become apostles and do what we might term “religious” work.  But that was just a few people.  Most people were called by Jesus to stay right where they were, to follow him as disciples but to remain carpenters, fishermen, farmers, and so on.  The Apostle Paul was also clear in this respect.  In I Corinthians 7:17 he writes, “Each person should live as a believer in whatever situation the Lord has assigned to them, just as God has called them. This is the rule I lay down in all the churches.”[5]

How well would the world function if we were all pastors and missionaries?  What a mess.  The work you do, assuming it is done with honesty and integrity and for the service of the greater good, is just as important, just as sacred, as the work that I do.  In fact, going to work or school on Monday morning can be just as sacred an act of worship as is going to church on Sunday morning.

Do you believe that?  Is that how you feel about Monday mornings?  Of course, there are times when we find ourselves in dead-end jobs and we may need to make a change.  There are also particular jobs for which we are better suited than others.  There are also times when we need to stop working and rest.  God even commands that we do so.  All this is true and each of these could be the subject of a whole other sermon.  Still, do you believe you could get to the place where you begin to see your work, whatever that work, as sacred.  Can you begin to see that even when your work is difficult your work can bring you deep satisfaction when you realize that you are partnering with God to harness his creation in ways that bless others and glorify him?

Tim Keller tells about a man named Mike who is a doorman in New York City.  (Photo…not Mike)  Now if I asked you when you came in here this morning to name for me jobs which involve doing sacred and holy work, work which joins God in forming the architecture of his Kingdom here on earth, I highly doubt any of you would have named the job of doorman. Thankfully, that’s not how Mike sees it.

Mike is one of fifteen doormen serving a large Manhattan co-op; his apartment building is home to about 100 families.  Now in his early sixties, Mike emigrated to the U.S. from Croatia as a young man and worked many jobs, from the restaurant business to manual labor.  He has been a doorman for the past twenty years, however, and to him it has become far more than just a job.  He has come to care about the people who live in the building and takes pride in helping them unload their cars, find parking spaces, or welcome their guests.  He sets a high standard when it comes to keeping the lobby and front of the building clean and attractive.

When asked what makes him drop whatever he is doing to get to the curb in time to help unload a resident’s car after a weekend away he responds, “That’s my job” or “They needed help.”  Why does he remember the name of every child?  “Because they live here,” he says.  When once asked why he works so hard at every part of his job he answered this way, “I don’t know…it’s just what I need to be able to look at myself in the mirror in the morning.  I couldn’t live with myself if I didn’t try my best every day.”

Keller points out that most of the people Mike serves are professionals or businesspeople who are probably glad not to be a doorman, or might even feel the work would be demeaning if they had to do it.  Mike’s attitude, however, shows that he has come to recognize the inherent dignity of the work he is doing and in this he brings out the goodness and worth, the sacredness, of that work.[6]

I don’t know whether or not Mike is a Christian.  Even if he’s not, he still understands the divinely-intended nature of work better than many Christians I know.  He is an example of how character and dignity and love are shaped and formed as we do the good work God has given to us.  He is a model of how even one person who approaches even the most menial of tasks with the right heart can be a blessing to so many and help move the world one step closer to the way God intends it.

The great reformer Martin Luther once wrote that all human work was “the work of our Lord God himself under a mask, as it were, beneath which he himself alone effects and accomplishes what we desire.”[7]  What a beautiful idea.  Our work is a mask for God’s work.   If we believed this to be true would it not transform everything about our work?

I’ll ask you once more, do you believe it?  Whatever the work you have to do this week, whether that be at your job, as a parent, as a student, even as a volunteer, are you able to see God behind the mask of that work and recognize that as you do the work God has given you to do you become the means or agent of grace through which God serves others and builds his kingdom on this earth?  Do you believe it?

Let me end with this image.  The Bible presents us two versions of paradise, one at the beginning in Genesis and one at the end in Revelation.  In the beginning, paradise is pictured as a garden.  When God creates the earth in Genesis the paradise he creates is natural and pristine.  This is the sort of image I have of the world at that time – lush, green, untouched.  And for years I imagined that God’s goal at the end of time was to restore the earth to this natural and unmolested state.  When you go camping they tell you to leave everything just as you found it.  That’s what I pictured God was saying to us.  In heaven one day there will be a paradise just the way people once found it when the earth began.

It took me some years to learn that’s actually not how the Bible describes it.  In fact, the Bible doesn’t speak about the paradise to come as a garden but instead speaks about it as a city.  In the very final pages of scripture, Revelation 21:1 reads, “I saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more.  And I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.”

I have come to believe that while this image of creation is beautiful to God, so is this.  God loves nature.  God also loves cities, and culture, and civilization, and architecture, and art, and politics, and business, and technology.  When shaped in ways that serve other people and bring honor to him, God loves all of these things just as much as he loves trees, and mountains, and meadows and sunsets.

Cities which God loves, however, don’t just happen.  Cities, as you know, must be built.  Cities take work, a lot of work by a lot of people doing a lot of different things.  Should we expect that God’s city, the New Jerusalem, will be any different?  Each one of us here today is called to different work, but the work all of us are called to is sacred, no matter what it is.  Your work in this world is meant to be the mask for God’s work in this world.  As you come to believe this is true, Monday mornings are going to begin to look a whole lot different for you.

Amen.

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The Next Step

A resource for Life Groups and/or personal application

Read Genesis 2:4-9,15.  What stands out to you from this text?

The first thing God has people do after creation is work.  Why?

Jeff pointed out that since God is a worker, when we work we then reflect the image of God in us.  Ulrich Zwingli said, “There is nothing in the universe so like God as the worker.”  What do you think about this?  When you work are you doing what God does?

Think about a time in your life when you did work which you found to be deeply meaningful and satisfying?  How about a time when you couldn’t find any good work and you were discouraged and empty?

If you were given the chance to live the rest of your life in complete leisure, never having to work another day, would you take it?  Why or why not?

What is the work you are doing now?  Do you feel like your work is sacred work?  Why or why not?  What makes work sacred?

Read the Lester DeKoster quote above?  What do you think he is saying?  Do you agree?

What is one thing you could do which would help you see your work differently?

Suggested Scriptures for the Week: Taken from the Seeking God’s Face resource our church is using daily.

Monday:               Psalm 142 ~ Ephesians 2:1-10

Tuesday:               Psalm 143:1-2, 7, 11-12 ~ Eph. 3:14-21

Wednesday:         Psalm 144:1-4, 9-10 ~ Eph. 4:1-6

Thursday:             Psalm 145:1-7 ~ Ephesians 4:17, 25—5:2

Friday:   Psalm 146:1-5 ~ Ephesians 5:8-20

Saturday:              Psalm 147:1-7 ~ Ephesians 6:10-18

Sunday:                 Psalm 148:1-4, 13-14 ~ Hebrews 1:1-4

Fresh winds are blowing today that are bringing new insights into Paul’s vision for the People of God in the Roman empire. His vision was not just about theological terms like justification and sanctification. His vision was about a radical new experiment: the experiment of bringing Jews and Gentiles to the table together without requiring that the be alike. So Paul dreamed of the day when the People of God would be both a unity and filled with the vibrancy of diversity. Everything about what Paul teaches about the Christian life was created for this radical social experiment called the church. The problem with Paul today is not that he was not like Jesus enough; the problem with Paul for us today is that his challenge is more than we have tried.

Scot McKnight, our speaker, is a recognized authority on the New Testament, early Christianity, and the historical Jesus. McKnight, author of more than thirty books, is the Professor of New Testament at Northern Seminary in Lombard, IL. Dr. McKnight has given interviews on radios across the nation, has appeared on television, and is regularly speaks at local churches, conferences, colleges, and seminaries in the USA and abroad.

Some of the books Scot has written include: The Jesus Creed: Loving God, Loving Others, (which won the Christianity Today book of the year for Christian Living), Embracing Grace: A Gospel for All of Us, and The Blue Parakeet: Rethinking How You Read the Bible. Most recently, McKnight wrote a commentary on James, and a book on discipleship called One. Life: Jesus Calls, We Follow.

He and his wife, Kristen, live in Libertyville, Illinois. They enjoy traveling, long walks, gardening, and cooking. They have two adult children, Laura (married to Mark Barringer) and Lukas (married to Annika Nelson), and two grandchildren: Aksel and Finley.

In addition to our presenter, special programs will be planned for youth, children, and infants, this is an event for the whole family! Please plan on making this event part of your fall activities, every year is full of joyful surprises and wonderful times of growth and fellowship!

Please save the date and plan on enjoying the joy of community, the encouragement of teaching, and the beauty of Lake Tahoe this fall! Further details will be available and registration will open soon!

I’m not much of a runner.  For me there is no intrinsic sense of enjoyment that comes from the act of running.  It’s hard work and even though I know exercise is healthy, my body seems to be saying the opposite when I run.  Ouch, this hurts!  Even though it’s good for me and after a run I normally feel less tense, running is not my first choice when it comes to exercise.  However, there are two things that in my mind make running better: a goal and company.

A few years ago, Kim Char organized a group of us to run the California International Marathon to raise money for our church’s World Vision partnership with Abaya, Ethiopia.  I think Kim may have been the only one to do the whole race by herself, but there were a few relay teams from Faith.  Training for my leg of the relay wasn’t all that fun, but the fact that we had a goal made it easier.  Somehow the training was more worthwhile knowing that it might help dig a well or build a school.  Training may not have been enjoyable but the race was; surprisingly running was enjoyable because it was in community.  Running with a team and with thousands of others toward a single finish line, with people cheering us on and bands playing was energizing; it was fun.  For me running is better when I have a goal and company along the way.

Paul uses two metaphors in this passage from Philippians he compares himself and his life of faith to a runner straining with every fiber of his being toward the goal that lies ahead.  Then he uses the image of citizenship to talk about the Philippians and his relationship to God.  This morning I want to spend some time thinking about these two metaphors and what they mean for our walk of faith.  Or, maybe more appropriately our race of faith.

Running for Paul has a goal.  He doesn’t specifically speak of running but the image is clear.  Listen to verses 12-14 again and picture Paul as a runner in the race of faith.

“Not that I have already obtained this or have already reached the goal; but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own. Beloved,  I do not consider that I have made it my own; but this one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the heavenly call of God in Christ Jesus.”

Twice he uses the phrase “I press on” in combination with “forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what likes ahead.”  I think of marathon runners in their last few miles in the Olympics straining with every fiber of their being , leaning forward toward the finish line, not focused on where they have been but wholly committed to the goal of finishing the race strong.  Running to win the prize.  It’s a great image for our walk of faith.

Paul, was a pharisee before he became a follower of Jesus.  He was an enemy of the church.  And, as a pharisee he put %100 of his effort into obeying God’s commands perfectly and growing in knowledge of the LORD.  He was a legalist and scholar who boasted in his own religious achievements and his Jewish birthright.

Do you know what Paul thinks of all this, his impressive religious pedigree and resume after having his life turned upside down by the risen Jesus?  A few verses earlier, he calls it all garbage, literally a heaping pile of dung.  All his gains in the religious life, his studying, Jewish pedigree, and perfection in following the law of God is rubbish.  This is why Paul says he strains forward forgetting what lies behind.  Because what lies behind is of no importance anymore.  Why?

Because the only thing of value in this life and the next is to know Christ.  Paul through his own experience is showing the Philippians that if you lose everything but gain Christ then you have all that you need.  Since his conversion on the Damascus road, Paul has put all his efforts into straining towards the goal of knowing Christ.  Paul is running to know Christ.  And he is telling the Philippians and us clearly that there is no other goal worth running toward but to gain and know Christ.

You can hear the depth of his desire when he writes, “I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the sharing of his sufferings by becoming like him in his death, if somehow I may attain the resurrection from the dead.”  His one aim, the finish line, is to know Christ and ultimately to be raised like Christ that is to be with Christ in perfect relationship through the resurrection for eternity.  This is the goal Paul speaks of when he says, “I press on toward the goal for the prize of the heavenly call of God in Christ Jesus.”  But notice that the goal is characterized or qualified by the prize of the heavenly call of God in Christ Jesus.  The goal is the prize and the prize is the call.

How can Paul’s heavenly calling be a prize?  We often think of calling as vocation, as a task or maybe even a job.  Calling often is spoken of in the church in terms of doing something or serving in a particular role.  Calling in one sense is related to what you do, and it is a way of living into God’s will and purpose for your life.  But, Paul has a wider and deeper understanding of calling.  It isn’t just about what you do or how you live, but calling defines who you are and encompasses the whole of your life with God.  It’s not so much about what you are doing but who you are being.  Calling characterizes the goal toward which we run, because it is what empowers us to be able to run in the first place.  Calling isn’t so much about what you are doing but who you are becoming in Christ.

This is why Paul says that somewhat confusing and seemingly contradictory disclaimer before the race metaphor, “but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own.  Beloved, I do not consider that I have made it my own. . .” (Phil. 3:12-13).  Huh?  Do you make it your own or don’t you?  How can you press on to make it your own and then say I do not consider that I have made it my own?  Because, Paul recognizes and wants us to see as well that our running, our growth in faith, isn’t done on our own.  The race began when Christ Jesus made Paul his own, when Christ Jesus made me his own.  Your race of faith began when Christ Jesus made you his own.  And ever since that day all of Paul’s running, my running, your running has been running fueled by resurrection power.  The power that overcame the forces of sin and death and makes it possible for us to achieve the goal of knowing Jesus Christ fully and completely.

Calling isn’t just something we do, it is who we are.  Calling begins when Jesus Christ claims you as his own and it finds it’s prize in the promise of our own resurrection when we will see Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior, face to face.  The goal of knowing Jesus Christ in totality begins with our calling in Jesus Christ.  We can only take hold of Christ because he first has taken hold of us.

So how are we to run this race toward knowing Christ?  We are to live cruciform lives.  Lives that reveal the cross of Christ.  This is why Paul says, “I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the sharing of his sufferings by becoming like him in his death” (Phil. 3:10).  Paul knows that running the race and being obedient to the call of Christ means that his life will be marked by the cross, which means it will be marked with suffering.  To be claimed by Christ means your life will begin to look like his, because as his possession you are, we are, his body in the world.  As medieval nun Theresa of Avila said, “Christ has no body on earth but yours.  Yours are the eyes through which Christ’s compassion is to look out to the world.  Yours are the feet with which he is to go about doing good.  Yours are the hands with which he is to bless us now.”

When we are filled with the compassion of Christ, our feet and hands will find themselves sharing in the suffering of others.  Our hearts will break as God’s heart breaks, our soul will cry out for justice and righteousness as God cries out, our lives will find themselves at odds with the powers of sin and death in our world as Christ was.

You may ask, is this a bit of masochism, seeking suffering for enjoyment?  By no means.  Paul desires to experience Christ’s sufferings because of the power of the resurrection that guarantees his own resurrection.  Resurrection gave Paul and gives us a new perspective on suffering and death.  It is not something to be avoided, which is the tendency of our culture.  In fact Americans spend millions of dollars a year to fend off suffering and death.  As people called by Christ, who share in the power of his resurrection, like Paul, we live with a holy abandon in the present.

No matter what age you are, you know ultimately death and suffering cannot be avoided.  Suffering finds us no matter where we are, whether it is on a personal, community, national or international level.  Death lurks and waits for all of us.  So we can either run the race in fear, seeking to save our own behind, and in the end lose our life.  Or, we quit running on our own power and begin running on resurrection power.  Because when we run on resurrection power we can see the goal, we can taste the prize, we find ourselves in the company of other runners who like us are suffering, who like us are tired, who like us doubt that we can make it, but who ultimately like us have one who has come to our side in Jesus Christ.  He entered into our suffering, into our race and ran it for us completely so we too might finish like him in glory.

Paul makes this clear in the second metaphor of citizenship.  Citizenship bears with it both a privilege and responsibility.  Our privilege is knowing Christ.  Our privilege is as verse 21 puts it to have our body of humiliation, that is our sinful, broken, decaying bodies, transformed into bodies that are conformed to Jesus’ body of glory, that is his glorious, perfect, eternal resurrection body.  The privilege, the prize of our running, is to know Christ so completely that we share in his glory.  What is glory?  Why is that so good?  Glory is God’s very being.  It is the full weight of his goodness and love, and we one day by the power of Christ resurrection share in that glory, in God’s goodness and love.  We will share in and be one with the divine relationship of Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

It is this privilege that both empowers and gives perspective to the responsibility of heavenly citizenship.  For just as being a citizen of the United States of America brings with it certain duties and responsibilities that require obedience.  For example, taxes.  So does our citizenship in heaven call forth certain responsibilities and obedience.

We are citizens of heaven first.  Paul’s writing as a Roman citizen to a Roman colony in Philippi.  Roman citizenship was a prized status, and Paul is making clear here that like his many religious achievements Roman citizenship is rubbish as well.  He reminds the Philippians their citizenship is in heaven and it is from there that they are expecting a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ instead of Caesar who was called both savior and lord for Roman citizens.  This is a good reminder for us as well, that our citizenship is a heavenly one.  Our loyalties and allegiances are to Jesus Christ first and above all.  Just like the U.S. requires you to forfeit your American citizenship if you apply for citizenship elsewhere, as citizens of heaven we cannot hold dual citizenship.  We are instead to see ourselves as a heavenly colony, an outpost of the Kingdom of God.

The main responsibility that comes with this citizenship is to live lives worthy of our calling.  Omillionsur responsibility as citizens of heaven is to know Christ in his fullness, which includes his suffering.  Our responsibility is to live cross shaped lives because it is in suffering that we intimately encounter Christ and more deeply know him.  You know this if you’ve ever been on one of the summer mission trips, if you’ve sat and prayed with someone as they are dying, if you’ve comforted someone in loss, or cried out to God in your addiction or hopelessness.  When we are confronted with suffering, sin and death face to face we quickly realize we are helpless, and it is in our helplessness that the power of the resurrection most often is revealed.  And when resurrection power flows through us we both know Christ more intimately and we make him known.  When resurrection power flows through us, we truly are an outpost of the Kingdom, a colony of Christ.

Before I wrap up there is one last thing to notice about this passage.  Paul loves the Philippians.  Just listen to verse 4:1 again, “Therefore, my brothers and sisters,whom I love and long for, my joy and crown, stand firm in the Lord in this way, my beloved.”  Running is always better together.  Citizenship is always communal.  Knowing Christ draws us into community.  We cannot know the power of the resurrection solely as an individual.

Thank you for running with me and for being fellow citizens of heaven.  Following Christ has not always been easy.  It was not easy to come here, but Quinn and I are so grateful that we strained forward instead of going backwards.  We have had the privilege and honor of suffering and rejoicing with you, loving and being loved, serving and being served and ultimately to grow in the knowledge of Jesus Christ with you.  My desire has been to know Christ (v.10-11) amongst you.  When I have done this well it is because of Christ who has taken hold of me.  All glory and honor must go to the King.  Anything I have accomplished here that is good and true has been because of the power of the resurrection at work in me.  So much joy has come in following God’s heavenly call to serve you as a pastor.  Thank you for calling to do so.

I’d like to leave you with these final words from Paul to his beloved in Philippi: take heart and stand firm.

Take heart because our citizenship is in heaven.  It’s not in Oakland or Sacramento, Faith Presbyterian or ChristChurch, PC(USA) or EPC, our citizenship is in heaven so although we will be apart we remain together in Christ who is our one Lord and Savior.  Let us run he race together as outposts of the Kingdom of God wherever we find ourselves.

So stand firm.  Stand firm in the Lord, persevere and press on toward the goal for the prize of our one heavenly call in Christ Jesus.  Look forward to where Christ is calling you to more and more live as his resurrection people, empowered to live lives marked by the cross.  Look ahead to how Christ is calling you individually and as Faith Presbyterian to proclaim God’s grace and mercy, justice and righteousness, love and peace.  Rejoice in God’s faithfulness, in the ways that God has worked through our ministry together.  Hold fast to the growth we have attained in Christ over the past 7 years, but let us never make an idol of it.  May it never be grounds for complacency.  Rather, above all strain ahead and seek to know Christ and the power of his resurrection so that on that glorious day of His return we might stand together at the finish line face to face with Him in glory.  When we do, that will be our prize and the running will have been well worth it.  Amen.

Next Step Questions:

1. What do you think the goal of the Christian life is?

2. Read Philippians 3:7-11.  Do you think Paul is being too extreme by calling all his past achievements rubbish?  Do you, like Paul, believe that any righteousness you have comes from Christ alone?  (If yes, this means you can do nothing to establish or maintain right relationship with God on your own)

3. You may or may not have a specific conversion moment, but when was a time that you have experienced God calling you (making you his own Phil. 3:12)?  How did that change your life?

4. How have people played a role in your race of faith?  What difference does it make having fellow citizens of heaven?

5. Medieval nun Theresa of Avila said, “Christ has no body on earth but yours.  Yours are the eyes through which Christ’s compassion is to look out to the world.  Yours are the feet with which he is to go about doing good.  Yours are the hands with which he is to bless us now.”  Who or where is one place that you can be Christ’s body this week?  Or as Paul puts it, How might you share in Christ’s sufferings this week by sharing in the suffering of others?

6. Honestly, is there anything you desire more right now than to know Christ?  When we recognize that we desire something more than Christ, we are identifying an idol or false god.  How might you put whatever that is in it’s right place?  (In some cases it may be casting it out in others it may be just making it secondary to Christ rather than vice versa)

Before we read our passage today, let me set the context.  In the previous passage we learn that Jesus has been ushered into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday to the shouts and praises of adoring crowds.  People are starting to believe that he might just be the one who has come to deliver them.  This, of course, is not sitting well with the religious leaders who are seeing their authority and influence quickly slip away.  Tensions are high, fueled by the fact that the city is packed for the upcoming Passover celebration.  Something is going to have to give and everybody knows it.

In the midst of all the excitement, some Greek pilgrims who have come to Jerusalem for the festivities are exposed, maybe for the first time, to this explosive rabbi from Nazareth.  The things that Jesus is saying and doing intrigue them and they want to know more and their curiosity, as you’ll see in a moment, opens an opportunity for Jesus to clarify exactly how all this is going to end up.

Let’s listen now to God’s Word.

20Now among those who went up to worship at the festival were some Greeks.  21They came to Philip, who was from Bethsaida in Galilee, and said to him, “Sir, we wish to see Jesus.”  22Philip went and told Andrew; then Andrew and Philip went and told Jesus. 23Jesus answered them, “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified.  24Very truly, I tell you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains just a single grain; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.  25Those who love their life lose it, and those who hate their life in this world will keep it for eternal life. 26Whoever serves me must follow me, and where I am, there will my servant be also.  Whoever serves me, the Father will honor.” (John 12:20-26, NRSV)

Though he was Jewish, Philip had a Greek name.  This was likely because he was from Galilee, a heavily Gentile area of Palestine.  That made him the natural person for these Greeks to approach in their effort to gain an audience with Jesus.

Their hunch was right.  Philip is receptive, receptive enough at least to go get Andrew and then, together, go and get Jesus.  It’s speculation, but I imagine that Philip was not only receptive but enthusiastic.  As one Jesus’ disciples, he was well aware of the building momentum and tension around his master and the inevitable impending showdown.  Why then wouldn’t he be excited about the possibility of new converts to strengthen their numbers.  And not only converts, but Gentile converts!  Just think about the possibilities if this movement spread to the Gentiles.  There would be no stopping it!

How confused Philip must have then been when he learned that Jesus did not share his enthusiasm.  Instead of agreeing to sit down and talk religion with these prospective converts, Jesus launches into a mini sermon about seeds, and death, and losing your life.  He begins with these peculiar words, “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified.”

What is Jesus saying?  He is simply saying what he has been saying all along.  He’s pointing his disciples to the cross and to his impending death upon it.  In doing so he is not rejecting these Greeks who are seeking after God but is actually trying to help us see that the cross is the only way these Greeks, or anybody else for that matter, will ever be able to come to God.  Later on in this chapter in verse 32 Jesus declares, “When I am lifted up from the earth, I will then draw all people to myself.”[1]

You see, Jesus actually does share Philip’s desire to see these Greeks added to this movement of God’s kingdom.  Jesus knows, however, that all the talk in the world is never going to get that accomplished.  That is not the way forward.  There was a time for talk, a time for teaching, a time for miraculous signs.  That time is now over, however.  The hour has come.  Now it is time for the cross.  Now is the time for glory.  That is the way forward, the only way forward for these Greek seekers and for the whole world.

It’s interesting that Jesus speaks about his death on the cross as an occasion for him, the Son of Man, to be glorified.  Bleeding and suffering on a cross while a crowd cheers your imminent death is a strange definition of glory, don’t you think?   But think for a moment about what glory means.  In a literal sense, the word “glory” is used to describe that moment when we see the best that something, or someone, has to offer and we, in response, offer praise and honor.

Think about a bride on her wedding day.  No expense or effort has been spared in making this young woman the most beautiful she can possibly be in that moment.  In fact, in all her life she has never before been as beautiful as she is when she walks down the aisle to the front of the church.  In that moment she is in her glory and the whole crowd knows it and, appropriately, lavishes her with praise.

Think now about Jesus, the Son of God.  What is the best of Jesus?  What would be Jesus in his glory?  Well, there are certainly many attributes and qualities of Christ we can praise.  Jesus is a powerful miracle worker.  Jesus is a brilliant teacher.  Jesus is commanding in his authority and unrivaled in his influence.  Jesus is righteous and holy in every aspect of life.  And yet, none of these qualities point to the best of Jesus, the best of God.  So what then is the best of Jesus?  The best of Jesus is, of course, love.  Right?  If there is one thing that defines Christ at his most praiseworthy, one attribute that shows him at his best, it is love.

When Jesus goes willingly to the cross to suffer and die for the sins of the world we see Jesus in all his glory because we see Jesus’ love, God’s love, displayed as brilliantly as it ever has been or ever will again be displayed.  Think for a moment about the love of God we see displayed on the cross.  Not only does Jesus love the world enough to die for the world but Jesus loves the world enough to die for the world which is, in fact, putting him to death.  When Jesus dies on the cross we see the best of Jesus, a love which seeks the good of even his enemies.  That is the hour when the Son of Man is glorified and this hour, Jesus makes clear, has arrived.

At this point Jesus wants to make sure he has our attention.  “Very truly,” he says in verse 24.  These are words a teacher in those days would speak when he wanted his students to, “Listen up.  Pay attention.  Get out your highlighter.  I’m about to say something that is very, very important.”

Are you ready to pay attention?  If so, I believe Jesus has something extraordinarily significant to tell you this morning.

“Very truly, I tell you,” he goes on, “unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains just a single grain; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.”  All at once, with the simplest of images, Jesus makes clear why the way of the cross is the way forward and the only way forward, both for him and for those who would come after him.

British theologian and author N.T. Wright tells about a time when he was a boy growing up in England and he and his friends would collect horse chestnuts when they fell off the tree every autumn.  The prickly, green outer shell of these seeds would often split.  If not, Wright and his friends would slice them open to get inside at the dark brown chestnut which was chunky and shiny and often over an inch in diameter.

In those days kids called these chestnuts ‘conkers’ and because they were smooth to hold and good to look at they would collect them, almost as treasures.  The bigger the conker the better because the boys’ favorite use for them was to pierce a hole in the middle of the seed, thread through a piece of knotted string, and go to battle with one another, using them as miniature weapons as they swung them around and tried to conk each other on the head.  Now you see why the bigger the conker the better the conker.  It seems like a crazy idea to me now but I have to admit that 35 years ago I would have thought it was brilliant.

Wright explains that there was only one time in his entire childhood when he actually took a conker and did what nature had intended it for.  One day he took one of his best ones, a large, shiny, splendid horse chestnut, and instead of taking it to school and into battle where because of its size it certainly would have been a formidable weapon, he planted it.  As he tells it, it seemed to him a shame at the time, to waste such a fine opportunity.  His disappointment was lessened the next spring, however, when sure enough, a tiny shoot appeared above the ground where he had buried his treasure months before.  The year after there was the beginning of a small sapling.  And though he hasn’t been back in years, Wright imagines that unless somebody dug it up, there ought to be by now a substantial horse chestnut tree in that spot producing hundreds of beautiful conkers for a whole new generation of neighborhood boys to collect and wield in battle.[2]

I trust you see the point.  A seed that is held on to and never released will never produce anything of lasting value.  Eventually, in fact, that seed will deteriorate and turn to dust.  It is only when you bury a seed in the ground, never to see it again, that it can then produce something of lasting value.  It’s counterintuitive really, because we tend to always think of death as defeat, as the end of life.  In the natural world, however, there are instances where death is actually the necessary precondition for life.  Jesus is simply trying to teach us here that what is, at times, true naturally is also, at times, true supernaturally.

If these Greeks, or anybody for that matter, are ever going to taste the fruit of God’s kingdom, ever to know God’s eternal blessing and favor, Jesus is the seed that is going to have to first die and be buried into the ground.  It is, in fact, only through His death that life, lasting and abundant life, will spring forth.  There is no resurrection without the crucifixion, no way to life for Jesus that does not lead first through death.

To take this a step further, the way of life through death is not only for Jesus.  As he makes clear in the next verse, and at many places elsewhere in his teaching[3], this is the way that all who follow Jesus must also go.  “Those of you who love your life will lose it,” he says, “and those of you who hate your life in this world will keep it for eternal life.”  Not only do we need to accept that the way to life for Jesus is through death, we also need to accept that the same is true for us.

Think about it this way.  Your life on this earth is like a seed.  That’s what Jesus is saying.  All aspects of your earthly life are this seed.  Your body and your health.  Your mind and your knowledge.  Your worldly standing and status.  Your family and your friends.  Your work and your energy.  Your material possessions and your money.  All of these things which capture so much of your attention and energy are simply a seed that you hold in your hand.  Granted, it’s not a perfect seed but, in many ways it’s a good seed, a beautiful seed, maybe even a big, bright shiny conker.  If you hold on to it, however, and never let it go, your life will never amount to anything.  Instead of realizing the potential within it, your life never released will eventually deteriorate and turn to dust.

Said another way, there is no value in the seed of your life in and of itself.  That’s what Jesus is teaching us here and this is something that is very hard for us to accept because our earthly lives, and all that they encompass, are what we have right in front of us and so we easily come to believe them to be our ultimate sources of joy, and security, and purpose.  The problem is, of course, that nothing of this earthly life will ultimately last.  My days of good health are numbered.  So are yours.  The human mind will eventually dim.  Our status in this world is fickle – today’s hero is tomorrow’s goat.  Our loved ones die and leave us, or we die and leave them.  Material wealth only provides false security for those foolish enough to think it lasts.

Hear Jesus again.  He says that if you hold on to your life in this world you will, in the end, lose your life.  It is only the person who lets go of his or her life in this world who, in the end, receives it back and receives it back many times over.  In essence, this is a call from Jesus to follow him, to hold lightly to the things of this world and cling desperately, instead, to the things of God.  It is a call to recklessly go after Jesus, dying to any hope that any of these things of this world provide any lasting security and joy.  It is a call to bet your whole life on Christ, to make him your only source for hope, joy and security.

Now, when Jesus puts it this way the choice ought to be easy.  Do you want one seed in your hand which will eventually turn to dust or do you want a mighty tree which produces, season after season, fruit and seeds which, in turn, produce more trees and more fruit and more seeds and more trees and on and on?  Which do you want?  The choice should be easy and Jesus is trying to show us that the real bargain in life is not living for yourself but is actually denying yourself, surrendering your will, releasing your dreams, in favor of a life committed to following after Christ and his cause in this world.  As has been said before, if you think the cost of following Jesus is too high maybe you have never yet considered the cost of not following Jesus.[4]

I’m reminded of the story of Esau in the Old Testament.  Remember Esau, son of Isaac and brother to Jacob.  Though they were twins, Esau was the older of the two and so he was the one who was to inherit the birthright from his father.  In the ancient world, this meant something very significant.  For one thing, it meant that Esau as the oldest son would receive twice the inheritance from his father.  It also entitled him to his father’s blessing, which was a sign of material abundance, status among family and nations, and divine protection.  The birthright was a thing of great and lasting value.

In Genesis 25 we read how Esau came in from the fields one day after a long hard day of work.  His brother Jacob was in the kitchen cooking up a stew.  Famished, Esau says to Jacob, “Let me have some of your stew because I’m starving to death.”  Jacob, ever the schemer, sees an opportunity and so he says in return, “Okay, I’ll give you a bowl of my stew as long as in exchange you give me your birthright.”  Esau, believe it or not, agrees to the deal.  His momentary hunger so captivated him that he exchanges a lifetime of blessing for a momentarily full belly.[5]

What makes the story of Esau most tragic is that his choice is repeated time and time again in human history right up to today.  God, in Christ, has extended to us a genuine birthright to become his sons and daughters, heirs of goodness, and sufficiency, and power, and life for all eternity, and we are tempted to trade it all for the hot bowl of soup in front of us which can bring us only momentary satisfaction.  When Jesus calls us to die to ourselves in this world he is not seeking to deny us personal fulfillment but instead showing us the only true way to find it.  When he tells us to let go of the seed it’s only because he wants it to grow into a tree.

You’d think such a choice would be easy.  Sadly, it’s not.  Most people, in fact, choose to cling to the seed of their life instead of letting it die with Christ so that it can be raised with Christ.  I John 2:16 speaks about “the lust of the flesh, the desire of the eyes, and the pride of riches” which lure countless men and women away from the true treasure Christ has to offer.  Jesus affirmed this tendency human tendency when he declared in the Sermon on the Mount that “the gate is wide and the road is easy that leads to destruction, and there are many who take it.  But the gate is narrow and the road is hard that leads to life, and there are only a few who find it.”[6]

George Müller was a Christian evangelist and missionary who lived in England in the 19th century.  His faith in Christ led him to give his life away to serving the children who were the poorest of the poor, mostly orphans.  He established the Ashley Down orphanage in Bristol where, by the end of his life, he had cared for over 10,000 orphans.  He was particularly committed to the education of these children, so much so that some people actually accused him of raising the poor too far above their natural station in life.

Towards the end of his life, George Müller was asked about the secret of his effective service and about the impact God had had through his life.  This is how he responded: “There was a day when I died – died to George Müller, his opinions, preferences, tastes and will; died to the world, its approval or censure; died to the approval or blame of my brethren or friends; and since then I have studied only to show myself approved unto God.”[7]

Before I finish I dare not miss the opportunity to ask you the obvious question.  Have you come to that point?  Don’t be fooled, just because we’re all sitting in a church on a Sunday morning doesn’t necessarily mean that we all have.  After all, Jesus isn’t calling us to give our Sunday mornings away.  He’s calling us to give our whole lives away.  This is what is involved in the Christian life, nothing less, dying to this life that in the end we will gain it back again.

To choose this way means that you will have to die to your own dreams in favor of a whole new set of dreams that God has for you.  To choose this way means that you may have to stand with Jesus in ways which often leave you on the unpopular side of culture and public opinion.  To choose this way means that you may have to make career choices which lead you towards fulfillment of God’s purposes for your life and away from the fulfillment of the American dream.  To choose this way means that you may have to accept difficult ethical boundaries God puts on your life but you do so because you trust God enough to believe that true freedom lies within, and not beyond, his boundaries.  To choose this way means that you will have to stop pretending that you have any chance whatsoever of ever making yourself a good enough person to merit God’s favor and instead rest in the good news that it is only by the grace of Jesus Christ that you are found favored in God’s sight.  For some Christians, choosing this way even means putting their very lives in danger because they live in parts of our world where a public declaration of faith in Christ opens them up to violent persecution and even death.

If you are honest, some of you here know that to this point in your life you have clung too tightly to the seed of your earthly life and have refused to waste it on Jesus.  The question for you – and this is always the question – is a question of trust.  Do you trust Jesus?  Do you take him at his word?  He says to you today, “Trust me.  Do not love your life.  Lose your life.  Lose it for my sake.  Waste it on me.  Let it die.  Let it die and see what I will do with it.”

“Whoever serves me must follow me,” Jesus says in verse 26.  “And where I am, there will my servant be also.  Whoever serves me, the Father will honor.”  This is the way forward after Jesus and it is the only way worth going.  It is way to life and to the honor and favor of our Father in Heaven, but it is a way of life that goes first through death.

Let me close by citing a prayer from our Book of Common Worship which we often use at funerals.  If you’ve been to memorial service here in this church, there’s a good chance you’ve heard this prayer.  It is, I think, particularly relevant to this message today.  It goes like this: “Help us to live as those who are prepared to die.  And when our days here are ended, enable us to die as those who go forth to live, so that living or dying, our life may be in Jesus Christ our risen Lord.”

Amen.

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The Next Step

A resource for Life Groups and/or personal application

Read John 12:20-26.  What stands out to you here?

Jesus says suggests here that his death on the cross was his moment of glory.  What does he mean by this?

What do you think Jesus is trying to teach us with his illustration of the seed of wheat?

Jesus says that we must “lose our life.”  What does that mean to you?

To what area of your life today is God calling you to die?  What makes it so hard to give up this area of your life?

Dallas Willard once wrote, “Those who are not genuinely convinced that the only real bargain in life is surrendering ourselves to Jesus and his cause, abandoning all that we love to him, cannot learn the other lessons Jesus has to teach us.”  What is he saying?  Do you agree?

Consider the response by George Müller when asked how God had been able to have such an impact through is life: “There was a day when I died – died to George Müller, his opinions, preferences, tastes and will; died to the world, its approval or censure; died to the approval or blame of my brethren or friends; and since then I have studied only to show myself approved unto God.”  Has there been a day when you died in this way?

Suggested Scriptures for the Week: Taken from the Seeking God’s Face resource our church is using daily.

Monday:                               Psalm 121 ~ Acts 8:1-8

Tuesday:                               Psalm 122 ~ Acts 9:1-6, 17-19

Wednesday:                         Psalm 123 ~ Acts 10:9-16

Thursday:                             Psalm 124 ~ Acts 10:19-24, 34-35, 44-46

Friday:                                   Psalm 125 ~ Acts 15:1-2, 6-11

Saturday:                              Psalm 126 ~ Acts 17:16-17, 22-31

Sunday:                                 Psalm 127 ~ Romans 1:16-23

Rev. Jeff Chapman ~ Faith Presbyterian Church

Because this is Ordination Sunday, the day when we ordain and install men and women God has called to serve here at Faith as elders and deacons, I want us to look together at a text from Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians which has a great deal to say to us about the nature of leadership in the church.

As you may know, Paul is writing to a church in Corinth which is deeply divided.  This is, of course, not a unique problem.  How many of you have ever heard of or been in a church that was divided?  Some of us know first hand how painfully destructive division in the church can be.  Frankly, it’s unnatural.  As Paul writes later in this letter, the church is meant to be like a body that is knit together by the Holy Spirit.  That means that when one part of the church is divided from another part of the church, it’s as if an arm or a leg has been torn off a body.  It’s not natural and it’s horribly painful.

Nonetheless, division has happened at First Presbyterian Church of Corinth and one of the issues which has divided the church is the issue of leadership.  Specifically, one segment of the church is partial to following Paul, the apostle who first founded the church, while another segment is partial to following Apollos, a leader who had gained great notoriety and influence in the church because he was a tremendous communicator.  Essentially, people were fighting over who was their favorite pastor.  We want to follow Senior Pastor Paul because he’s the one in authority.  Well, we want to follow Associate Pastor Apollos because he’s such a dynamic preacher.  If things don’t get resolved, there are going to be fireworks at the next church potluck!

With all this in mind, listen carefully now to what Paul writes in response to this growing division within the church.

1And so, brothers and sisters, I could not speak to you as spiritual people, but rather as people of the flesh, as infants in Christ. 2I fed you with milk, not solid food, for you were not ready for solid food. Even now you are still not ready, 3for you are still of the flesh. For as long as there is jealousy and quarrelling among you, are you not of the flesh, and behaving according to human inclinations? 4For when one says, ‘I belong to Paul’, and another, ‘I belong to Apollos’, are you not merely human?

5What then is Apollos? What is Paul? Servants through whom you came to believe, as the Lord assigned to each. 6I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth. 7So neither the one who plants nor the one who waters is anything, but only God who gives the growth. 8The one who plants and the one who waters have a common purpose, and each will receive wages according to the labor of each. 9For we are God’s servants, working together; you are God’s field, God’s building.

10According to the grace of God given to me, like a skilled master builder I laid a foundation, and someone else is building on it. Each builder must choose with care how to build on it. 11For no one can lay any foundation other than the one that has been laid; that foundation is Jesus Christ. (I Corinthians 3:1-11, NRSV)

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Over the years has anybody ever told you to act your age?  You’re ten years old and you kick and scream in the grocery store because your mom won’t buy you your favorite breakfast cereal.  You’re sixteen years old and your dad still has to remind you every day to do your chores.  You’re a 46-year-old man with a wife and kids and a full-time job and, okay every once in a while you throw a fit after you’ve had a long, hard day because somebody selfishly ate the last piece of apple pie that you were hoping to enjoy when you got home last Tuesday night.  These are, of course, all hypotheticals.

In the first verses of this passage, Paul is scolding the Corinthian church by telling them, essentially, “Act your age!”  As Christians, these people have been saved by the grace of Christ and filled with the Holy Spirit, a Spirit which is in them and among them to shape them, and guide them, and unite them, a Spirit which is there to help them transcend the petty thinking and divisiveness of this world.  And yet they are refusing to be guided by the Spirit and instead allowing the ways of the world to infect their community as they pit one leader in the church against another leader.

Paul is saying, “Knock it off.  Act your age.  Grow up.  You’re acting like babies.  You know better than this.  You are better than this.  As long as you fight and quarrel about these sorts of things you are demonstrating that you are following your own human inclinations rather than following the Holy Spirit.”

In verse 4 Paul gets specific.  “When one says, ‘I belong to Paul’, and another, ‘I belong to Apollos’, are you not merely human?”  Then Paul asks, “What then is Apollos?  What is Paul?”  It’s a brilliant question, designed to show just how radically misguided these people are when it comes to the nature of leadership in the church.

What is Paul?  What is Apollos?  Paul answers his own question.  Servants.  That’s what Apollos and Paul are, servants.  Nothing more.  Nothing less.

The Greek word for “servant” which Paul uses here is the word diakonos.  If it sounds familiar it’s because this is where we get our English word deacon.  In those days, diakonos referred literally to people who waited on tables.  Read Acts 6:1-7 where the early church was trying to figure out how food was to be properly distributed to those who were hungry and you see how those chosen for this task, chosen to serve those in need, were first called “deacons” or, literally, “table waiters.”  Paul is saying, therefore, “You know what I am?  You know what Apollos is?  We’re simply table waiters.  That’s it.  We’re just the ones assigned to bring you your dinner.”

Let’s run with this analogy for a moment.  Think about your favorite restaurant in Sacramento.  Why is that your favorite restaurant?  It’s the food, right?  The setting may be wonderful; maybe it’s right on the river, or the artwork and décor inside has been tastefully chosen.  Maybe the service is wonderful; the waiters are patient, and friendly and attentive.  All these things certainly add to the dining experience, but if a restaurant has all this but the food is lousy, you’re not going back.  Right?

Nobody ever says, “Listen, you have just got to try that new place down in mid-town.  The food is horrible but the service is to die for.”  Nobody ever says that.  On the contrary, I have heard it said before, “You’ve got to try this place.  The service is not great but you can put up with it because the food is out of this world.”  There are, in fact, restaurants where the food is so good that they actually pride themselves on their lousy service.  They know the food is so good that place will be packed no matter what.  Some of you remember Seinfeld’s Soup Nazi!

Now, when you enjoy a terrific meal in a restaurant, what is it that you say afterwards?  You say to the waiter, “My compliments to the chef.”  You do not go back into the kitchen to say to the chef, “My compliments to the waiter.”  Again, while ambiance and good service can certainly enhance a meal, the main reason you go to a restaurant is to eat good food.  And the person most responsible for the food being good is the chef.

Let me show then you how this applies to the church.

Like all leaders in this church, I believe I have been given some gifts from God and a calling to use those gifts here at Faith.  There are certainly many gifts I do not have, but I do believe that I have been gifted and called to preach and teach.   And while I don’t want to diminish those gifts, or the gifts other leaders here have been given in any way because they are valuable and important to the life of this church, at the same time those gifts do need to be kept in perspective.

You see, the purpose of preaching and teaching in the church is to provide spiritual food to the people of the church.  The Word of God, when it is faithfully proclaimed, nourishes our faith and our spirits.  My role in this spiritual banquet, however, is simply that of a table waiter.  God is the chef, the one who has prepared the meal for our souls, the one who makes it nourishing, the one who uses his Word to make us grow.  That means that my job is simply to get the food from the chef’s kitchen to the table without dropping too much of it on the floor along the way.

A pastor named John Piper puts it this way, “[Pastors and teachers in the church] are not saviors.  They are not the gospel.  They are not the Holy Spirit. They are not the source of power.  They are not God.  They are table-waiters.  And the faith that happens when the food of God’s word is served, happens [merely] through them, like a canal, not from them like a spring.  So don’t think of them as originators.  They don’t originate.  They deliver.  They serve.”[1]  That’s it.

Again, this is not to diminish the role of the preacher and the gifts and calling given to him or her.  Even a waiter has an important role in the overall dining experience and a skilled waiter can greatly enhance a meal.  At the same time, when a diner is nourished with good food, the real credit always goes to the chef.  In the same way, if anything good and soul-nourishing comes out of this pulpit, let us never give the preacher, no matter who it is, too much credit.  Ultimately, it must be credited to God who works through the scriptures, through the preacher, through our minds and hearts, to reveal grace and truth to us which help us grow in faith as disciples.

In the same way that it’s helpful to picture myself and the others pastors in aprons and not chef’s hats, it’s also helpful to picture our other leaders in the same way.  When elders lead the church with wisdom and courage and faith, we can certainly celebrate the gifts they have been given but ultimately we must give glory to God as the one who leads through these men and women.   When deacons come alongside the church with compassion and mercy, bringing encouragement and comfort, it is right that we are grateful for the gifts God has given them to do so but also right that we recognize it is ultimately the Holy Spirit working through them which makes the real difference.  Pastor, elders, deacons, all who are called to lead and serve, are merely table waiters.  The apron is our uniform, not the chef’s hat.

Here is where the Corinthians made a crucial mistake.  Some of them were saying, essentially, “Well, we really prefer the way Paul brings the food to the table.  He’s the head waiter, after all, the one with the most experience.  We want him to serve us.”  At the same time others were saying, “No way, Apollos serves with such flair!  Who cares if Paul has more experience, we like Apollos’ style and we want him to bring us dinner.”  The church is being divided by preferences over different table waiters who are serving the exact same food.  He and Apollos are merely servants, Paul says, “though whom you came to believe, as the Lord assigned to each.”

In verse 6 Paul then uses his own analogy to drive home this truth.  “I planted,” Paul says,” Apollos watered, but God gave the growth.  So neither the one who plants nor the one who waters is anything, but only God who gives the growth.”

The goal of a garden is to produce healthy plants, especially plants that provide fruit and vegetables.  To that end, while lots of things are important in a garden like sunshine, fertilizer, water, and weeding, nothing is nearly as important as growth.  If a person plants, waters and fertilizes a garden but nothing ultimately grows that garden can hardly be called a success.  Those of you who have tried to have gardens at home know that you can do a lot of things to promote growth in your tomato plants but you cannot make tomatoes grow.  As William Barclay once wrote, “Humans can do many things but they have never yet created life.”[2]  When it comes to both physical and spiritual growth, God is the only one who can really make things happen.

Remember, there are lots of things that people can do in a church apart from God.  We can raise money, build buildings, use technology, communicate in captivating ways, even fill the pews with people and the calendar with programs.  The thing is, lots of organizations besides churches do these things without even any belief in God and so, on their own these things are merely planting and watering.  Ultimately, it’s the things that really matter in a lasting way which only God can do in the church.  Only God can save.  Only God can forgive.  Only God can enlighten a mind that has been darkened.  Only God can soften a human heart that has grown hard.  Only God can release people from the prison of shame and guilt.  Only God can create love between enemies.  Only God can transform the human soul.  Only God can raise dead people to life.  As His servants, we may get to have a hand in delivering these things to people, but God alone is the chef in the kitchen cooking all these things up.

If you don’t see them already, let me show you a couple of reasons why all this is extraordinarily good news, good news both for leaders in this church and for this church as a whole.

First for leaders.  Those of you who are called to be leaders in this church, even those who are being ordained and installed today, recognize that Paul here is lifting a tremendous weight off our shoulders.  Ultimately, it is not up to us to make things happen in the church.  We cannot make people believe.  We cannot make people forgive, or trust, or love.  We cannot make people follow Jesus.  We cannot heal people, in their bodies or in their spirits.

There are lots of things we can do, of course.  We can pray, we can teach, we can lead, we can encourage, we can challenge, we can love.  But in the end, spiritual growth in the human heart and spiritual transformation in the human life are not ultimately our responsibility.  We are simply called to do our best, and then to leave God with the rest.

All this is to say that if you step into a leadership role here at Faith, or any ministry role for that matter, and don’t feel worthy to the task, that’s not such a bad thing.  After all, you’re not worthy.  That’s the point.  You have been given gifts and have been called, that’s true.  You have a job, an important job, to plant and water.  Still, it’s good to remember that on your own you can’t make a single thing grow.  That’s God’s job, which sort of makes it seem like prayer might just be the most important thing we do around here.

Second, there is good news here not just for leaders but for the whole church, good news and a challenge.  The health and life of this congregation is dependent on one person and one person alone and that person is never the pastor or any other person here at Faith.  That person is Christ.  It all depends on Christ.  That means, among other things, that the human leadership here at Faith can change without the true and real leadership ever needing to change.  Pastors and other leaders come and go but all the while, Christ remains.

Now, that doesn’t mean, of course, that we just put anybody into positions of leadership.  We don’t.  Again, we ought to have high regard for the specific gifts given by God to certain individuals called to lead.  At the same time, the real foundation of the church is not our leaders, gifted and called as they may be.  The real foundation is always Christ, and Christ alone.

Imagine that you find out that there was a staff change at your favorite restaurant.  What would be your first concern?  You might be disappointed if your favorite waiter was let go, but you’d be much more disappointed if your favorite chef was let go.  Restaurants rarely go under when a waiter leaves.  The business can be devastated, however, when the popular chef quits.

Again, the human leaders in this church will come and go.  New elders and deacons are elected every three years.  New people are called into teaching positions all the time.  Even pastors are eventually called away, just like is happening with Patrick and Quinn in a few weeks.  Ten years from now, as God will have it, much of the leadership of this church will likely be different then it is now, just like it is different now than it was ten years ago.  And yet, as long as Jesus remains the foundation, people will still be fed and grow in this place no matter who the leaders are.  If the chef remains in the kitchen, the table waiters can come and go and the people will still be served great food!

Tragically, people too often miss this truth and that can cause undue damage to churches when they go through leadership transitions.  Some years ago when I was called to a church in Omaha, there were people who immediately left the church because they loved and preferred the pastor before me and if Troy wasn’t going to be their pastor any more they just couldn’t see staying at the church.  When it was my turn to leave eight years later, I was saddened to hear that the same thing happened as a number of people left without sticking around to see how Christ was going to continue to work through the pastor who followed me.  This phenomenon is so common in churches today that I meet people all the time who are leaving a church for the simple reason that their favorite pastor is no longer there.  I hope you can just how misguided that really is.

Here’s another game that I watched people play in my last church.  Whenever I would preach, which was about every two months or so, there would be some people who would literally skip church that day because the Senior Pastor wasn’t preaching and other people who would come only on those Sundays because they preferred the style that I had in the pulpit.  Sadly, these people came based on who was waiting tables that particular day and had simply forgotten that the same chef was in the kitchen every Sunday cooking up the same marvelous food regardless of who was bringing it to the table.

Now, I don’t think these things happen regularly here at Faith and I pray they never do, because when they happen Christians demonstrate just how misguided they really are by tying their devotion to one or another particular leader in the church.  Again, who is Paul, really?  Who is Apollos?  Who is Jeff?  Who is Jim?  Who is Patrick?  Who is this elder or that elder, this deacon or that deacon?  That church leader you wish were still leading, who is he?  Who is she?

Who is Peter?  Who is James?  Who is Martin Luther or John Calvin?  Who is Dietrich Bonhoeffer?  Who is Billy Graham?  Who is Pope Francis?  Who is _______________ (fill in the blank with the name of a Christian leader who has influenced your life)?  Who is he?  Who is she?  Ordinary servants, every single one of them, mere table waiters simply trying to bring food from the chef’s kitchen to your table without spilling too much of it along the way.

I love how this passage ends.  It’s a good place for us to end.  Using yet another analogy, that of a building, Paul brings it all into focus when he writes, in verses 10-11, “According to the grace of God given to me, like a skilled master builder I laid a foundation, and someone else is building on it.  Each builder must choose with care how to build on it.  For no one can lay any foundation other than the one that has been laid; that foundation is Jesus Christ.”[3]

The church is God’s church.  This church is God’s church. Christ is the foundation, the source, the leader, the life, the head.  This church is 100% God’s church and all aspects of this church – our buildings, finances, our attitudes, our processes, our decisions, our nature of ministry, all of it! – should flow out of this singular realization.

Christ is the foundation.  Our leaders are a gift, just as all of us are a gift, but Christ is the one who makes things happen and this reality brings us great humility and, at the same time, great freedom.

Amen.

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The Next Step

A resource for Life Groups and/or personal application

Read I Corinthians 3:1-11.  What stands out to you?

What is Paul saying when he writes that “neither the one who plants nor the one who waters is anything but only God who gives the growth”?

What do you think about the Bible’s comparison to church leaders as “table waiters”?  How is this helpful for you when you think about your own ministry?

Have you ever been tempted to leave a church because your favorite leader or pastor left?  What did you do?

Should it matter who is preaching on Sunday morning as long as God’s Word is being faithfully proclaimed?

What can we do at Faith to make sure our devotion is rooted in Christ alone as our leader and not in one human leader or another?

Do you think that you would ever be called by God to be a leader in the church?  Why or why not?  What sorts of people are called to be leaders?

What does it mean to you when Paul says that Jesus Christ is the “foundation” of the church?

Suggested Scriptures for the Week: Taken from the Seeking God’s Face resource our church is using daily.

Monday:              Psalm 108 ~ John 17:20-24

Tuesday:               Psalm 109 ~ I John 5:9-13

Wednesday:         Psalm 110 ~ Hebrews 9:11-14

Thursday:             Psalm 111 ~ Hebrews 9:24-28

Friday:                   Psalm 112 ~ Hebrews 12:18-24

Saturday:              Psalm 113 ~ Joel 2:28-32

Sunday:                  Psalm 114 ~ Acts 2:1-12