“A God-Driven Life”

A sermon based upon  Philippians 1: 21; 3: 4-15

Preached by Dr. Charles J. Tomlin, 

Flat Rock-Zion Baptist Partnership

Christ the King Sunday, Nov 26th,    (Series:  THE MISSIONARY CHURCH)

Last week, I spoke about what it means to be a ‘missional church’.  I shared how the early church was not just a church supporting missions but it was the kind of culture that made the church a ‘mission outpost’ for the world.  

Today I want to get personal.   While many churches teach about missions, support missionaries, or have members who have gone on mission trips, we really don’t understand what the word ‘mission’ means until we hear God asking us personally, like he did Isaiah: “Whom shall I send, or Who will go for us?   We don’t really have a clue what being Missional means, until in some intimate way we can sense the spirit of Jesus saying to us, as he did to his disciples: “As the Father sent me, so send I you!”  When these kinds of words stir and penetrate our hearts, then we are moving toward a life of purpose and mission, which could be called ‘a God-driven life’.

Several years ago now, Pastor Rick Warren wrote a book that sold over 30 million copies.  That is almost unheard of for a Christian book.   The subject for Pastor Warren’s book was “The Purpose Driven Life.” He said that everyone is driven by something.   We may be driven by responsibility, guilt, anger, fear, materialism, need for approval, or even just plain ole ‘survival’.   Since we are all some kind of ‘driven’ people, every one of us swimming against the currents of life and death, we need to have some kind of defining purpose for our lives.   Only when we discover God’s purpose, Warren suggested, can we say we are living lives full of meaning and great purpose.

Many people could say they have found a ‘purpose’ in their lives, without ever reading Rick Warren’s book or even without ever going on a mission trip, or even being Christian.   Some even think it possible to find your own life’s purpose, without even ever actually thinking about it? 

Perhaps you can find a purpose for your life all alone, but I don’t think you can have any lasting, ultimate, or meaningful hope in the purposes you find for your life, until you also reflect upon some of the things the apostle Paul is thinking about in our text today.   While he was in prison, awaiting trial in Rome, Paul had a lot of time to think about his own life.  And no words better words express the ‘mission statement’ of Paul’s life these words from Philippians, which read: “For me to live is Christ, and to die is gain (1:21).”  

Did you catch the last part of Paul’s strange idea: ‘to die is gain’?   How could someone find meaning or purpose in sacrificing or giving up their own life, rather than having life just for or about themselves?   Doesn’t this go against most everything we think about, when we think about having joy, meaning, or purpose for our lives?   What Paul says is contrary to what most of us assume.  He says that whether he lives or dies, God’s purpose remains active in him. ahead of him, and alive in him, because it goes beyond him and bigger than him.   By tapping into God’s purposes, Paul has found life’s greatest purpose.  It is the purpose which remains true for him,  whether his life is full or empty, rich or poor, great or small, long or short.  Since Paul has aligned his own life with the purposes of God, even his own ‘sufferings’, which are now ‘in Christ’,  have purpose and hope because they are full of the power of ‘Christ’s resurrection’.   It is “In Christ’ living or dying, bound or free, that Paul has discovered life’s greatest ‘joy’ (Phil 2:17). 

What might it mean for us to have a life driven by God; driven by God’s purposes, not only our own?  Paul continues to elaborates on what it means from him to both live and die in Christ.   Maybe his own understanding of God’s purpose for him can enlighten in finding a joy that can transcend life itself.

WHATEVER GAINS I HAD… (7)

In Philippians 3:7, Paul speaks about what he used to put in the ‘plus’ column of his life.  He has gone through the things he’s done, the things he thought were of great value. He adds it all up to figure and count what matters most. 

To consider such a ‘spiritual’ exercise, wouldn’t be a bad idea for us too.   Think about what you might put in the ‘plus’ column of your life.   What has made, or still makes your life worth living?  What is it that brings true value, meaning, the deepest joy?  A lot of people pursue happiness, but later they come to find how difficult happiness is to ‘catch’ even when you diligently pursue it.  Happiness proves to more to be a byproduct of living your life for good, right, and lofty reasons, and isn’t s a commodity one finds, achieves, or creates.    

Still, we all have our own lists of what we think gives us purpose and bring us happiness, don’t we?  Money?  Family?  Friends?  Education?  Status?  All these things, in their own way, or in the right way, can be good things and can attribute to much comfort and joy.  There is nothing wrong with having enough money, having a good family, having friends, having a good education, or being born in a good place or at good time.  Paul would not make light of any of these things.   They can all give you advantages, and bring possibilities that may result in joy and purpose. 

Paul’s own ‘fleshly’ advantages brought him meaning and joy too.  Paul said he had many reasons to have ‘confidence in the flesh’.   He was a Jew.  He was from good stock.  He was a well-trained.  He was a religious leader.  He was righteous.   People respected him.  There was nothing wrong with how he lived or what he did. 

Even when Paul was a ‘persecutor of the church’, he was doing something he then perceived it to be ‘right’.  Just like everything else Paul was doing with his life, Paul thought it was the best he could do, was all good, and all right, because he was doing what he believed he should have been doing with his life.   What more would you want out of your life than doing what you believe is good and right?  Wouldn’t this bring you joy and fulfillment too?  What could ever be wrong with doing what is right?

Isn’t this how all good, respectable and responsible people live their lives?  What else could you ever want from your life than measuring up to your own best opinion of yourself?

But as Paul counts his own gains and losses in life, Paul’s view of everything has been challenged.  His way of valuing what is good and right has been changed by his encounter with the resurrected Christ.  There are no other words to explain the radical change in Paul’s life than revolutionary and remarkable.  He even had to change his name from Saul to Paul.  Meeting Jesus, while on the Damascus Road going to kill more Christians, had literally opened his eyes to a whole new understanding of what was right, good, and important.

You, nor I should ever expect to have a conversion experience like the apostle Paul.   The radical type of transformation that happened to Paul is seldom and unique.  But when we follow Jesus, we should know what is like to have our values, beliefs, and perceptions challenged and changed on some level.  During the recent Ken Burns Documentary on The Vietnam War, a solider told how he had one view of war going into his deployment, but gaining a whole different way of seeing things once on the battlefield in actual combat.   That lieutenant, I think he was, told how he and his regiment were ambushed.  His men were dropping like flies.  Then there was in that moment a strange stillness.  He started praying: “God, please take me. Don’t let another of my men die.”  Then, suddenly the gun fire started up again.  He quickly changed his prayer: “God, I take my prayer back!  I don’t want to die!”   After that honest prayer, he said not one more of his men went down.  You could tell by the seriousness of his voice, his life was never the same after that.

This is not unlike the life changing event Paul experienced that changed his way of valuing everything.  In the Vietnam Documentary, solider after solider told of how their view of war, the world, and even the American government changed forever from the things they experienced in Vietnam.  “It was the first time I killed a man.”    I never killed anyone else. I will never get over what happened.   War makes you see everything differently.

There are events in our lives that can challenge and change even our best, most honest and cherished, even most sacred ideas of what is right and what is wrong.  Serving in Vietnam did that to people.  War still does that to people.  Paul said that even as a zealous, righteous ‘Pharisee of the Pharisees’ and ‘Hebrew of the Hebrews’, his own life, and his own views of what was right, were completely and totally changed when he encountered the ‘surpassing knowledge of Christ Jesus’ his lord.    For Him, that is for Christ, he ‘suffered the loss of all things’, and now he counts all those things that used to be in the ‘plus’ column of his life, now he counts them as dung, rubbish, and trash, placing all those things he once valued in the minus column.  No longer does he go after his own view of what is ‘righteous’, but he has found the ‘righteousness which is of God by faith….” (9).

The other day I visited one of my former deacons in Shelby, North Carolina.  Last year, at 60 years of age, he answered the call to go into the Gospel Ministry.   He told me that when I was his pastor 20 some odd years ago, he knew he was supposed to do this, but now he finally has surrendered to answer God’s call and purpose for his life.   He has acreage, a farm, 6 chicken houses, his children are all grown.   He has a wonderful wife, and a comfortable life.   But, he said, this comfort is no longer what he wants.  I’m ready to get someone else to look after these chickens for me, for now, my joy is in the Lord.   I can only find my joy in serving the Lord all the time.

My friend is currently serving as pastor of a small congregation.  He is attending Bible School at Fruitland.   But the most important thing happening in his life right now is what he feels within his heart.   He has lost all his joy for everything he once did.  All those things he thought were gains to him, are now put in the loss column of his life.  He counts ‘all things but loss for the surpassing knowledge of serving Jesus Christ. ‘ For my friend, like Paul, all the values of his life have been turned upside down.

I WANT TO KNOW CHRIST (10)

What caused all of Paul’s values to change?  Paul tells us in verse 10, that his values have all changed because his desires have changed.  Paul wants to ‘win’ and ‘know’ Christ.  ‘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 of the dead (10-11).  Knowing Christ and the ‘power of his resurrection’ goes in two different directions.     It not only means knowing that he has hope of life after death, but it means that Paul has the power and purpose to live in Christ now, even by ‘sharing’ his his sufferings or ‘being like him in his death’ (10).  

How can understand what Paul is talking about when most of our lives are spent going after what we want?  Who in the world has any kind of ‘desire’ or ‘determination’ to suffer for what is right, let alone focus on hope for a world beyond this one?  Isn’t this why most people don’t want to know much about “Christ” is our day, except to celebrate what they have, go after what they want, or keep what they have?  Isn’t this text just too ‘otherworldly’ to be heard, appreciated or appropriated?   Who wants to suffer for anything?  Who wants to ‘be like him in his death’?   Who wants to find this kind of Christ, or this kind of purpose of life, which can only be known in pain, suffering, or giving up what you want?  Is it any wonder that biblical Christianity is doomed in a world like ours, filled, even with Christians who want only what they want?  How could anyone, in their right mind, desire to be arrested, imprisoned, alone, even facing his own execution and death?  Is Paul out of his mind?  Has he lost it?  What kind of ‘righteousness from God’ is this, to want to become like (Jesus) in his death?

Again, I want to repeat, we don’t have to have a conversion experience as dramatic as Paul’s to follow Christ.   Surely, all the deaths of those he murdered must have been on his mind as he thought about his own approaching execution.  Perhaps Paul still had the dying of face of Stephen in his mind, whose stoning he had ordered.   Perhaps he was ready to reconcile his past with his ‘desire’ to die with Christ.  Who knows?   Perhaps Paul is like that lieutenant in Vietnam, ready to give up his own life. 

What I want you to know, is that we don‘t have to be like Paul in his intensity of his desire, but we do need to be like Paul in the sincerity of his heart’s desire.   Paul’s values, and now all his desires are to ‘know Christ,’ ‘to be found in him,’ and to know this ‘righteousness from God’ which will gives him no only the ‘power’ to live fully now, but that also gives him the hope of attaining Christ’s resurrection in the life to come.   What is important for us to grasp, is Paul’s desire to ‘know Christ’.   Whether he lives, or he dies, his desire to know Christ, to share in Christ, and even to suffer with Christ, gives Paul the ‘power’ and purpose, not just to live now, but gives him hope that what he does and what he desires, and even what he wants, will outlive his own life.  

Bruce Wilkinson once told of the late Howard Hughes.  If there was one word that would describe Hughes’ ambition, Wilkinson said, it was the word ‘more’. “He wanted more money, so he invested his enormous inheritance and increased it in just a few years to a billion dollars.  He wanted more fame, so he went to Hollywood and became a filmmaker and a star. He wanted more sensual pleasure, so he used his fabulous wealth to buy women and any form of sensual pleasure he desired. He wanted to experience more excitement, so he designed, built, and piloted the fastest aircraft of his time.

“Hughes could dream of anything money could buy and get it. He firmly believed that more would make him happy.” But, of course, it did not.  In Wilkinson’s words, Hughes confused the pleasure of having more for oneself for the greater joy of giving oneself to something bigger than oneself. “His Dream,” says Bruce Wilkinson, “was not significant enough to bring meaning to his life.”

And so, in his old age, Hughes became withdrawn. News reports portray him at the end of his life as drug addicted, emaciated and unkempt with decaying teeth and long, twisted fingernails. “But until his death he held onto his destructive dream that more possessions would bring more fulfillment.” His misguided quest for more made him one of the most pitiable men on earth. (From Bruce and Darlene Marie Wilkinson, The Dream Giver For Parents (Sisters, OR: Multonomah, 2004), pp. 45-46, as quoted by King Duncan).

THIS ONE THING I DO…. (13)

The apostle Paul wanted more too.   But it is one thing to want ‘more’ the things that pass away.  It is quite another to go after the ‘one thing’ everyone should value and desire.   Paul says, toward the end of this great text: “This one thing I do, is to forget what lies behind, and to strain forward to what lies ahead…(to) press toward the goal for the prize of the heavenly calling of God in Christ Jesus… (14).  

The image Paul uses is right out of the ancient Olympics.   Paul finally imagines his life, as a runner approaching the finishing line, pushing his body forward to leap beyond everyone else and win the prize.  Paul is not saying that he alone will win the prize, but he means that anyone, like him, who runs the race of life with Jesus, will win the prize of finding the kind of lasting, fulfilling, and meaningful purpose we all need in our lives.   But we can’t find this kind of ‘purpose’ or ‘meaning’ until we have a change of perspective, a change of desire and a new focus of determination. 

Like Paul, if we want to find our focus, as a church, or as a Christian, we too must determine to focus upon ‘this one thing’ which is our ‘heavenly calling of God in Christ Jesus.’   But staying focused is not easy in a distracting world like ours.    Comedian Jay Leno went into a McDonald's one day and said, "I'd like some fries." He declares that the girl at the counter asked, "Would you like some fries with that?"  Audiologist David Levy recalls a frantic client who lost her hearing aid.  She had been eating a bowl of cashews while talking on the phone.  Her tiny hearing aid was sitting on the table next to her. Yes, in the midst of her conversation, she mistook the hearing aid for a cashew and ate it.

Actor James Cagney, who acted in movies of the early 20th century, remembered that in his day, acting was not as a glamorous a profession as it is now.  Actors then were paid only slightly more than the average American.  There were no labor laws to protect actors from long hours or hazardous working conditions. Cagney remembers that in one of his early movies, The Public Enemy, his character had to run away from an enemy who was shooting at him with a machine gun. There were few special effects back then, so the actor used a real machine gun with real bullets. Because Cagney often played characters that were on the wrong side of the law, he was often in movies where he was shot at with real guns and real bullets. One wrong move and he would have been dead. I doubt that Cagney had much difficulty staying focused when he did these scenes.  He knew that each moment was a matter of life and death?

Do you realize that this life is the only life you will ever get to live in this world?  Do you know how to make it count?  Do you know what counts, what to value, what are the best desires, and what kind of focus and determination you should have?  Do you know what is the ‘call of God in Christ Jesus’ for your life?  

While it can be about many things, it still must always come back to focus on ‘one thing’.   Our focus as a Christian, and as a Church, is to go after the ‘prize’ of what it means to ‘know Christ’ and ‘share’ in God’s purposes which have been fully revealed in the suffering, crucified, saving Christ.   Can you and I still see the ‘surpassing knowledge of Christ’ as the ‘one thing’ we need?   Can we see what Alexander Solzhenitsyn, the great Russian novelist, saw, as he lay on a bed of straw in a prison camp in Siberia?   While contemplating all that he had seen in the prison camp, he finally came to see that "the line separating good and evil passes not through states, nor between classes, nor between political parties either, but right through every human heart."  

Only when Solzhenitsyn saw that evil was not just a communist problem or capitalist problem but that evil was also his problem—the problem of in every human heart, it was only then that he realized his need of a Savior.   Only then, after he understood what the real problem was, could he now discover what right purpose should be.  Until you come to know you need Christ, more than anything else, will you find the only purpose of living and dying, that ever makes sense; to know Christ.   Only when you know him, will you discover the value, desire, and determination of living a ‘God-driven’ life.  Amen.