Ridiculous Joy #4 - In Consistency
Message Description
Dr. Kurt Bjorklund continues the 'Ridiculous Joy' series looking at Philippians 1:27-30 teaching about the presence of joy resulting from consistently living in accordance with God's plan.
Message Transcript
Let's pray together. Father, I thank you for bringing people from different places to gather at Orchard Hill today in the Strip District, Butler, Wexford, Chapel, and online. And God, I pray that you would speak to each of us. I ask that my words would reflect your word in content, tone, and emphasis. We pray this in Jesus' name. Amen.
Years ago, I started a tradition with my sons. I have four boys and it was an unintentional tradition that I started to take each of my boys on a man trip each summer. And as they aged, it would increase to when they graduated from high school, it would be like this big trip that they chose. And I say it was unintentional because I didn't realize that at some points, I would have four trips in a summer and be running all over the place trying to take kids on these trips. And this last week, my son, one of my sons graduated from high school. And so, we went on his last man trip, and the trip was his choice, so he chose to bike from Pittsburgh to Washington, D.C., except we did it from D.C. to Pittsburgh because that was what he wanted to do.
So, the way it works is generally I will take the time to make the initial plan. And then they make all the decisions about the trip. And so, we drove to Washington, D.C., last Sunday, after lunch, after church was done. And as my wife was driving us there, I had this moment where I started to think, "This is a lot of miles, and I'm getting old." If you've ever driven from Pittsburgh to Washington, D.C., you start down to Washington, D.C. and I'm starting to think, "This is uphill. This is not really going to be fun." And so, I'm just thinking, and I had done the trip once before, and when I had done it before, I had actually prepared by biking several times, and this spring, I just didn't have a lot of time.
I had taken one ride of 25 miles and that had been it other than my normal workout kind of stuff. And so, as we're driving into Washington, D.C. I'm thinking, "This is a really bad idea." We get on our bikes, and we start the first day and we ride, and it's hot. And then we ride the second day and it rained and it was a muddy mess. And when it rains on the C&O Towpath Trail, it gets muddy, so you don't glide at all. You have to paddle the entire time. And then we rode the third day in mud and then the fourth day and the fifth day. And here's what my experience was and that is when I thought about the entire trip before we did it, it seemed daunting and overwhelming. But when I broke it down to, "I can do the next five miles. I can ride tomorrow. I can do the next hour." I was able to keep going and we completed the trip.
Now here's why I tell you this. You know in your life that there are things that are worthwhile that you have pursued, but you didn't achieve them all at once. You didn't say, "Oh, I want to graduate from college or grad school, and boom I'm there." It took showing up, doing little things day after day, after day, week after week, and month after month, to get where you wanted to go. If you built a business, you know how this works. If you built a successful relationship, you know how this works. If you've tried to get in shape, you know how this works. You have a vision of where you want to go, but it's the little decisions day after day that get us there.
But I've noticed something about people of faith and then that is that often when it comes to our faith journey, what many of us want is we want to believe in Jesus and then magically get to the end and not have any hard moments where we say, "I have to take some hard steps right now." We just want to fast forward to the end, the picture at the point, which we did get that where we say, "There, I did it and it was worth it." We don't want the hard moments. And as a result, what some of us do is when it gets difficult when it gets challenging is we start to say, "Is this worth it? Is God good? Is Christianity true? Should I continue on this path?"
Well, we started a series a couple of weeks ago that we've called Ridiculous Joy. And we're looking at the New Testament book of Philippians. And the reason we've called it Ridiculous Joy is that Paul, the Apostle Paul, wrote this book from prison and yet the book is saturated with joy. It seems to be one of his themes. And the reason that this is significant is when you're in prison, things are not going the way you want them to go. You don't have the perfect picture and yet, he's able to write about this with joy. And in chapter one, verses 27 through 30, which is what we're looking at here today. What he does is he says, "Whatever happens." That's how he starts it in the NIV, the original languages only.
And what he's saying in essence here is, "I want you to understand that if I end up in prison, getting out of prison, if you have a hard time, maybe you'll be in prison for faith. Maybe you'll go through something difficult. I want you to do this." And I think what he was doing at least in part was saying, "I want you to take the next mile and I want you to do what's hard because there will be joy if you continue to do what seems hard in the moment."
When I was preparing and studying about this a few months ago because I usually study passages a few months before I talk about them here. And one of the commentators that I read put it this way. And this was a guy who wrote probably 100 years ago now. He said, "Paul rarely uses a sustained metaphor. He prefers to string things together in a variety of metaphors with a single point. Here to the Philippians, he tells them to conduct themselves like good citizens to stand firm like good soldiers striving side-by-side like good athletes in the stadium. These three images together drive home the need for concerted action."
And the reason that I read this to you here is that when I read it, I said, "Is he talking about the same passage that I just read, Philippians 1:27?" Because when you read it here, you don't hear the idea of a good citizen, a good soldier, and a good athlete. Here's what verse 27 says, "Whatever happens, conduct yourselves in a manner worthy of the gospel. Then whether I come and see you or only hear about you in my absence, I will know that you stand firm in one spirit striving together as one for the faith of the gospel."
And so, I had to go back, and I had to look at what he was saying, and I looked at the original language, and what I realized was he was spot on in what he was saying. Because these words that show up here in our English translation have a shade of meaning that gives us three different metaphors that Paul is using to speak about the Christian experience and talking about us as good soldiers, good citizens, and good athletes. Here's where it is in this text, and we'll look at this in time.
But then when it says, "Whatever happens, conduct yourselves in a manner worthy of the gospel." There's the idea of the good citizen and I'll show you that a little more in just a moment. Then when it says stand firm, he's using the image of a soldier. And when he says striving together for one faith, the faith of the gospel, he's talking about the good athlete. Now, the reason that this is significant is that in all of those endeavors, you do little things that seem unpleasant at the time that led to something that later you say, "I'm so glad I did what was unpleasant."
So, his spiritual analogy here is to say, "I want you to make a concentrated effort toward an end that at the time may not seem reasonable to you." Okay? Here's the first kind of metaphor and this is the metaphor of the citizen. And this I'm going to say is that there's something to demonstrate. And the Greek word here for the citizen is politeuomai, and it's a word that we get city or a citizen of a city. And people in that culture were very concerned about their citizenship, both in a national sense and even in a city. Because when you lived in a city, to live in a city was to engage together with other people in a way that ensured your protection, but also your thriving.
It was much easier to live together with other people in a community than it was to live on your own. And so, to live and to be a citizen of a city was considered this duty, this honor to say, "I work with others toward a common end." What the Apostle Paul does is he takes this word, and he says, "I want you to live as a good citizen translated in a manner worthy of the gospel." He says, "I want you to live as citizens, good citizens of the gospel."
And if you've been here, you've seen this word several times in Philippians, the gospel, the announcement of good news. Christianity is not God rewards the behavior of good people. Its God forgives bad people. That God takes and does what we can't do through Jesus Christ and brings victory, and the gospel is the announcement of that victory. So, he says, "I want you to live as good citizens of the gospel." That's what I want you to do. And in Matthew chapter five, Jesus uses the word city, which Paul picks up on here when Jesus says in Matthew 5:14 to His followers, He says, "I want you to realize that you are a city on a hill." The same Greek word, polis. That now is used as a citizen of a city, politeuomai. I want you to live as a citizen of the city.
Paul picks up Jesus' image and basically says, "Here is how I want you to live." And so, to live as a citizen of the gospel means that you have good news to share and to talk about. But so often a lot of people of faith live with bad news. And by bad news, they are constantly talking about what isn't good, what's wrong with the world, how everything isn't working so well, rather than talking about the victory that Jesus has brought into their lives.
Have you ever been around some Christian people who are always talking about what's wrong with everything in the world? Now, I'm not suggesting that there aren’t some things that are worth pointing out what's wrong. We'll come to that in just a moment. But what I'm saying is to live as a citizen of the gospel is not to live proclaiming bad news, but to talk about this idea of victory and the announcement of what Jesus Christ has done. Have you ever been in a public space where somebody is doing street evangelism, they get up on a little box, and they preach at the passersby?
I don't know if you've seen this and while I applaud the passion and courage and sometimes even the theology of those who do it, what I also sometimes think is I wish you'd go spend this time loving somebody and earning the right to tell them something that's important to you rather than passing strangers by telling them what's wrong and how they're destined to hell.
You see, it is bad news, but sometimes instead of bad news or good news what happens is to live as a citizen becomes, I have no news. We just hire a person a nondescript person. We have nothing unique that we talk about to anybody. And that's not being as Paul talks about here, a citizen, a good citizen of the gospel, worthy of the gospel. I mentioned that I was on this bike trip and our last day, we were about 20 miles from the point in Pittsburgh. So, we've ridden at this point 310 miles plus whatever we've had to ride to go off the trail to get to our hotel. We're at this point now where we're close, and I got a flat tire.
And when I got the flat tire, I had two different bikes that I had borrowed from friends. And I had brought a tube to fix the flat tire, but I brought the tube for one bike thinking it would fit both bikes. It didn't fit both bikes. So, I didn't have the right tube. And so, my bike had a flat tire. My son had a bike that was good. And we tried to fix it, figure it out and we were like, "We got nothing." And so, I said to him, "Why don't you go ahead, finish this so that you can say you're done. And just ride ahead, and your mom will pick you up at the point, come get me wherever I am. I'll send you a pen."
And I started to walk with my bike trying to find a place. And I just did this. And I'm not saying that this is something to always do, but I just said, "God, it would be great if you could send a biking, good Samaritan my way right now." And all of a sudden there's a guy who showed up and he said, "Do you have a problem?" I said, "Well, I have a flat tire. I don't have the right thing." He's like, "Ah, let me see if I can find a bike shop." And he went riding off. He ended up coming back and trying to help, but he didn't have what I needed.
A little while later, another lady went by and she said, "Hey, do you have what you need?" I said, "I actually need a tube." And she said, "Oh, what size?” I told her and she threw the tube off and kept riding. So now I had a tube, but when I sent my son ahead with the bike, he had the pump. So now I have a tube, but no pump. And then these three guys come by, and they said, "Do you need anything? And I say, "Yes, I need a pump." And so, they stopped to help me pump the tire. In hindsight, I should have said, "God, could you send a good Samaritan with a brisket sandwich?"
But anyway, they stop, and they helped me pump up the tire, and I get it all ready to go. And as we were kind of talking for a few moments once they said, "We're Jehovah's witnesses." I said, "Great." Here's what they said. They said, "We're really glad we could help you. Next time a Jehovah's witness comes to your door, would you let them in and talk with them?" I said, "I will talk with them. I enjoy talking about spiritual things. I will talk with them." Now, if you are unfamiliar, Jehovah's witnesses generally believe that you do certain things that earn your way with God. In other words, that's something that I don't believe the Bible teaches, but here's my point.
Those guys by stopping and helping me fix my tire were living as good citizens of a false way, but they made a positive impression on me. And my question for you is if you are a follower of Jesus, are you a good citizen of the gospel? Somebody whose life and words point others to say, "I want to be a part of what it is that you're a part of." And we live in an age in which a lot of people say, "Well, I want to do something great." And so, what they do is they say, "I'm going to do something extraordinary," but I want you to notice the ordinariness of this idea of life as a good citizen, live in a worthy way.
What some people do is they say, "If I'm going to do anything that matters, I have to do something huge. I have to start my own 501(c)(3). I need to be somebody who solves like the water problem for the third world." And those are good things. We need people to do that, but you know there are so many nonprofits that are already doing good work, and most of the time we don't need another nonprofit. What we need is more people saying, "I'm a good citizen who's participating in the good things that are already happening all around us." And there's a beauty in the ordinariness of saying, "I will be a good citizen of what Jesus Christ has called me to do."
And so that is something that isn't achieved just in one moment, but as achieved in little choices day after day in our neighborhoods, in our schools, in our dorm rooms in our places of work where you say, "I am somebody who is pointing to the good news of Jesus Christ." So that's the first metaphor.
Here's the second and this is of the good soldier. And I'm going to say that there's something we must oppose. And this is in this phrase where he says, "Then whether I come and see you or only hear about you in my absence, I will know that you stand firm in the one Spirit." And this word, stand firm, in the original language, is the word stucco, which had a military image to it. And so, it was an image of people standing in some kind of a battalion saying we're resisting or moving forward as a military group.
And sometimes what happens especially in a church is people say, "I don't like military imagery. I don't like the idea of a culture war." Part of what I don't like about faith, this is how some people think, is this idea that I'm called to be against things. But make no mistake when an army forms, part of what they do is they stand against what is evil, against somebody trying to come into their nation and take away their rights, take away their freedom, or if they are moving forward because they feel the need to take some aggressive action.
Now, obviously, human armies are sometimes flawed in what they do, but what this image is connoting here for the Apostle Paul is he's saying, "Here's what I want you to do. I want you to consider yourself as a good soldier as somebody who's part of a movement to say we resist, or we oppose what is wrong in our world." And again, sometimes this makes some of us uncomfortable. Because what we'll do is we'll say in essence, "I don't want to be against anything I just want to be for things." But here's the issue and that is if you're never against anything, you can't oppose evil.
And think about it this way. The church historically was complicit in slavery for a season, an extended season, but it was also the church that became instrumental in the ending of slavery. It was the church that became instrumental in the civil rights movement where black people and white people came together and said, "This is an evil in our nation that must change." And it brought about change in our world.
And it's easy in some ways to look back now and say, "Oh, that was great, but that took incredible courage." And I know some would say that battle is still raging and there are some issues of it, but there are other things that it is imperative if you are a follower of Jesus that you say, "I am willing to say I will stand against this." Now, let me give you an example of something because my guess is some of us as soon as we hear that we go to, "Okay, here's what this means, and I need to be politically active." And there is a time to be politically active. There are causes, but I think it's a misnomer to assume that anything you believe needs a political action.
And here's why I say this. If you are a follower of Jesus Christ, if you believe in the Bible, okay, that means you accept the 10 commandments on some level, okay? Everyone with me? Do you get what I'm saying? So, in the 10 commandments, there's a commandment that says you shall not take the Lord's name in vain. Pretty simple, straightforward commandment. What that means is if you or I use God's name flippantly, irreverently, disrespectfully in any way that its sin. Okay, a pretty simple concept. And so, here's what I'm guessing very few of you have done in your life. Okay? This is just a guess. And that is if you're at a job site or a workplace and somebody breaks out an irreverent, flippant use of God's name, my guess is very few of you are like, "Whoa, stop it. Bad, bad. You're bad. I'm working to make that illegal."
No. What do you do? You say, "You know what? As I've come to understand who God is, I've come to say that I want to use his name in a way that is honoring and reverential and full of awe and not in a way that's flippant and disrespectful." But what you do is you say somebody who doesn't believe what I believe may not understand that and I can wait until they understand the goodness of the gospel of Jesus Christ before I insist that they believe or live and behave the way that I live and behave.
Now again, I'm not saying that there's never a time to say as a Christian community we need to stand against evil. I just gave you an example of when we do, but what I'm saying is sometimes it's easy to think that if we pick one or two issues that somehow were virtuous, rather than to say, "No, what I'm called to do is to point to the beauty of who Jesus is and oppose what is evil in the sense of being able to distinguish in our world." And so, to use the Lord's name as an example, simply if you are a person in your environment who doesn't use the Lord's name in a way that's flippantly used in a way that's dishonoring to who God is, you will stand out in most cases because it'll be different, it'll be unique.
And people say, "There's something about you that makes me a little uncomfortable," but that is why he says stand firm in what, the one spirit. It's the spirit of God. Now Jesus at one point was trying to teach something to His disciples and this is in Matthew chapter 16. He was at a place that's called Caesarea Philippi and Caesarea Philippi was this area outside of Jerusalem way farther north in Israel that was known to be the home of the worship of all kinds of gods. And there was a huge rock and people would come there from all over and sacrifice to their gods in a way to try to appease their gods.
And Jesus when He came to the spot with His disciples said this. "Who do people say that the Son of Man is?" This is Matthew chapter 16, verse 13 and following. They replied, "Some say, John the Baptist, others say Elijah, still others say Jeremiah or one of the prophets. 'But what about you?' He asked. 'Who do you say that I am?' Simon Peter answered. You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.'"
And Jesus goes on in that moment and He says you've answered correctly. And then He says on this rock, "I will build my church." And some people have thought that He was referring to Peter because Peter's name in the original language is Petra, and Petrus and Petra are rocks. And so, they thought that this is like the first pope or something, but probably what Jesus was doing was He was saying, "This rock behind me, I'm going to build my church in a way that supersedes and shows you what is true." In other words, what you have here is you have all the world's system and all of the difficulty of the world. And He said, "But my kingdom will be built" and then He says, "And the gates of hell will not defend against it."
Now, what's true about gates? Gates are a defensive image. You lock gates to keep people out. And so, His image here is that His people, His followers, would be people who would move forward together. And when Paul picks up the image of the soldier, what I think he's picturing is not Christians huddled away together saying, "We don't have anything that matters." But people saying, "Together we move forward into a society that doesn't necessarily believe what we believe and won't validate what we think is right, but we will move forward with courage because together in one spirit we can do what's difficult but know that there's something that's coming on the other side that's good."
C.S. Lewis in his book The Screwtape Letters and I'm not going to explain the exact book, but in it, he gives what he thinks is the strategy to derail people of faith. And one of the points that he makes is he says that one of the ways you can derail somebody who's either coming to faith or deepen faith is to get them to feel very virtuous about themselves for some minor point. What he's talking about is this idea of somebody saying, "Well, I oppose evil. I'm against this. I'm a good person. Therefore, I don't need anything else."
And if you look at social media today and how many people will be outraged about something and virtue like things. What that is it's saying, "I'm a good person because I oppose something." I believe what Paul is talking about here is not virtue-like things, not feeling good about yourself because you oppose certain things but saying I'm part of a group that is willing to take an unpopular stand if needed to oppose evil. I would say if you were never at odds with your culture then you're not being biblical in the way that you're living.
And here's part of why I say this. We've had a longstanding relationship with a church in Haiti and some orphanages there and have done different things over the years. And every time that I've gone to Haiti, one of the things that strike me is how different their culture is and how different some of the things that they have to be radically countercultural about are different than some of the things you and I have to be radically countercultural about. Every culture has something that if you're going to be a follower of Jesus you will be at odds with your culture. There's something to oppose.
So, we have the image of the good citizen that there's something to demonstrate. We have the image of the good soldier, there's something to oppose. And then we have the image of the athlete and I'm just going to say, there's something to pursue. And here's where this is. This is in this phrase that says, "Striving together as one for the faith of the gospel." Striving together is the Greek word synathleo, which had the athletic image of people striving toward a goal as a team. And if you've ever trained for something, be part of something, you know that if you are part of a group where there is mutual training, there's encouragement, you have people pushing you, cheering you on, celebrating your victories because you are moving towards something it's easier than when you do it alone.
You understand that. And so, Paul takes this imagery, and he says, "If you are a follower of Jesus when you are in a race, you're acting as an athlete. There's something to pursue together." And notice what he says for the faith of what? Again, the gospel. And this is in the original language a genitive and without getting too technical, there are all kinds of ways to interpret a genitive. But it probably in this instance means that this is the faith that comes from the gospel. So, he says, "I want you to strive together to keep going somewhere together so that your faith, that originates in the good news, the message of Jesus Christ, that God doesn't just reward good people, but He forgives bad people that you then will experience something good together in terms of this race.
I remember years ago there was a family that used to attend Orchard Hill, they've moved out of state, and they would give a financial gift every year and they would give it so that I got it directly. And it was for the church, a substantial gift. Every gift, by the way, is substantial. But it was one of those things that you're like, "Oh, okay, sure. I'll kind of talk to you about this and everything." And the husband would call me, and he'd say, "Listen, I'm going to come and drop off the check. Can you just tell me again how God is working through the church?"
He said, "My accountant thinks I'm crazy. My business partners think I'm crazy. Everybody around me thinks that this kind of giving is crazy. Just tell me how God's working." Now here's when I say every gift is substantial, here's what I know and that is it isn't just financial giving. But anything that you do that's striving forward where you're saying I'm part of what God is doing. Whether that's being in a group consistently, whether it's serving, whether it's just showing up week after week, whether it's reading your Bible, whether it's praying, or whether it's striving for purity.
When you have people around you who are saying, "It's not crazy, it's not crazy for you when everybody else in your environment says, 'Hey, you don't need to worry about that. Go in this direction. Believe this.'" It's not crazy to say I am going to move forward, but it helps when you have people around you who are cheering for you, encouraging you, and going in the same direction. It makes it easier. I believe that what Paul is ultimately doing with these images is he saying to the Philippians and by extension to you, to me, that there is something good that happens when you take little steps day after day, week after week, year after year, and one day you can look back and say, "Look at what God has done in our lives."
And then he says this. "Without being frightened," verse 28. "In any way, by those who oppose you." And he uses here an image of a horse being frightened. That's what this phrase means being startled. He says, "Don't be startled by opposition. This is a sign by those who oppose you. This is a sign to them that they will be destroyed, but that you will be saved in that by God." So, he says, "Don't be frightened on this journey, understand that this is a sign and God is at work." And then he says, this verse 29. "For it's been granted to you on behalf of Christ not only to believe in Him, but also to suffer for Him."
This won't be an easy journey. There'll be times when you'll say, "I don't want to be a citizen. I don't want to be part of an army. I don't want to be an athlete pursuing something." And then he says this. "Since you are going through the same struggle you saw I had and now hear that I still have." And all of these words, these images that I used are plural. They're pointing to the importance of doing your Christian life in community with other people so that you are not just simply saying, "I'm doing this alone." You can't be a citizen alone. You can't be an army of one. You can't be an athlete in the way that Paul uses the word by yourself.
Here's my guess and that is that some of us are here today and we're saying, "Yes, I want to live like this because I see what Jesus Christ has done for me and so this is something for me." But others of us are saying, "You know what? I'm not sure that it's worth it." And what Paul is simply doing is he's saying, "I want you to know that anything you put into this, one day you'll look back and say, "I'm glad I stuck with it."
And I would also guess that some are saying, "One of the reasons that I struggle with faith, with Christianity, is because I've known Christians who weren't very good citizens. I didn't like the way that they opposed anything. I didn't care much for the way they tried to strive together. It didn't feel like encouragement, it felt like beration or something like that." But here's what I know is true about you and that is if you like a group, a musical group and you go to see them in concert, and when you get to the concert, you're in a place where somebody around you is not great to be around. Maybe they're rude. Maybe they're disrespectful. Maybe they're inconsiderate in some way.
Here's what I can almost guarantee you don't do. You don't say, "Well, now that I had that experience, I hate that band." What do you do? You say, "You know what? I still love the band, but I had a bad co-concert goer sitting next to me." And so, what you do is you say, "But the band is still really good." And sometimes what happens is people say, "It's the Christians that bother me." And although this is a call to say be the kind of a person of faith who lives in such a way that other people see your faith, see your life, and say, "There's something beautiful here." When that's been failed, either around us or by us, and then what we have to do is say, "Let me look to Jesus Himself because Jesus suffered. He went to the cross so that you, so that me, could have, we could have, standing before God that we cannot ourselves serve." And that is our motivation to say, "I want to live as a good citizen, a good soldier, and a good athlete" in terms of these images that all drive the same point home.
Father, I ask today that you would just reveal to me and to each of us where maybe we've gotten weary, lax, and we're not striving forward, moving ahead. And help us to be re-motivated to pursue what is best. Knowing that even when it doesn't feel like it's worth it today, that one day we'll look back and be able to say that that made a big difference in the way that you've worked.
God, as we look around at what you've already done over the years through Orchard Hill, it's amazing to see. And God, there's so much that we don't see. People's lives who've been impacted who grew up here and live in other cities, other parts of the world that you're working in and through. And God, it's the routine faithfulness of people showing up caring, loving, being part of something that has made that possible. And I thank you that we've been able to be a part of that.
And God, we pray that you would continue just to change the spiritual temperature of this region because of the lives of people who say we're committed together to pursue what you've called us to do. And we pray this in Jesus' name. Amen. Thanks for being here. Have a great week.
