Profit and Loss

Read Philippians 3

Rejoice!

Have some joy in your life!

Our joy is not dependent upon our circumstances but is in the Lord.  Rain or shine, flood or drought, abundance or famine our joy is in the Lord.

Paul made and would continue to make a point of this many times in many letters.  Our joy is in the Lord.

While Philippi was in the continent of Europe, it was close to Asia and apparently those preaching Christ plus circumcision were trying to have some influence.  While not nearly the discourse that he took with the Galatians; Paul admonished these believers not to place any confidence in the flesh.

That included a sign in the flesh and the accomplishments of the flesh.  These are not the things that bring glory to God.  Those who are led by and live by the Spirit of God do not hedge their bet by the things of the flesh.

Paul used his own life as an example.  In what would have been a great PowerPoint presentation, Paul enumerated his standing according to the world.

·      Born into the people of Israel

·      Tribe of Benjamin

·      Circumcised on the 8^th day

·      Subtotal those three and you get a genuine Hebrew

·      A Pharisee—a doctorate in the law:  A lawyer

·      Enthusiasm—maxed out to the point of persecuting this rebellious church

·      Legalism—faultless

·      Subtotal these three and you get the best of the best, legally speaking.

·      Grand total all these and you have a man born into God’s people and who lived by God’s law to its very letter.

Paul said if there ever was a man to want to stick to the Law of Moses it is me; but everything that I once regarded as important is just rubbish to me now.

We must take Paul’s statements at face value.

Paul considered all of these things that afforded him some standing in the world, especially the Hebrew world, as dung—manure; yet these were valuable things.

When Paul visited a city, he entered the synagogue if there was one available.  He addressed the people.  Why not?  He was Hebrew and in fact he was a highly educated Hebrew who could speak from or to any of the scriptures.

When Paul received Christ as his Lord and Savior, he had incredible knowledge of the very scriptures that not only revealed the coming of the Christ but the grace contained in the heart of God as well.

Paul having come to follow Jesus had access to treasures old and new.

Especially as we come into the season of graduations, understand that these things were not bad.  Paul is not discounting education and training or even enthusiasm for what you do.

He is saying that as far as being right with God is concerned, there is only Jesus.

It’s not:

Accepted Christ, he’s right with God.

Accepted Christ, she’s right with God.

Oh!  Great resume, yeah that will work for being right with God.  Not! 

You can enjoy the fact that you are an Okie.  You can enjoy the fact that you graduated from high school or college or have half a dozen advanced degrees and certifications.  But you know that the only thing that makes you right with God is your relationship with Christ.

All of that other stuff is fantastic if you use it to the glory of God but it won’t bring you into right standing with God.

In that equation, it’s just manure, dung, worthless, rubbish, nothing of value.  These things are not profit.  They are loss when it comes to right standing with God.

Only Christ counts for right standing.

People ask for many things when planning a funeral.  As they sort through a lifetime of photos they also try to remember favorite songs.  One time a few family members asked me if they could play Led Zeppelin’s Stairway to Heaven.

I said, “Sure as long as you all know that’s not how it works.  You cannot buy a stairway to heaven.”  You can’t buy, you can’t earn, and you can’t manipulate right standing with God.

There’s Christ and there is everything else.

So is Paul saying that there is no point to getting an education or working hard at what you do?

No.  He is explicit in saying that those things do not bring you into right standing with God.  They are worth zero points on the righteousness scale; but please remember that you can use all of these things to bring glory to God as you work out—live out your salvation.

The things that we do can’t get us to our salvation, but everything that we do living out our salvation should bring glory to God.

So go ahead and get that diploma, get that degree, get that certification, be the most exuberant employee where you work but do it all not to attain right standing with God but to live out the right standing that he gave you, and bring him glory.

Paul next provides counsel that is for everyone in every age, and I would think especially in this time and place that we know today.

Quit living your lives looking backwards.  Just as our human birthrights and titles don’t bring us into right standing with God; neither does dragging our history around with us bring him glory or bring us joy.

Whether we carry around every mistake we ever made or we keep thinking back to those glory days, we are not fully living unless we are moving forward.  Paul said press on towards the goal, strain forward, take hold of what is before us.

What’s that?

Life!

Real, abundant, and eternal life is before us.

Press on, strain forward, take hold are all very strong action phrases.  They have some strong verbs here.  You can only use this sort of challenging language with people of purpose.

If you are looking to be content in your Christianity, then these words may be offensive to you.

Now Paul does what Paul does and his thing is to explain things in the God’s already done it but I’m still doing it mode.

God has already made us right with him, pure, holy, and blameless in his sight; but we are still moving towards realizing what it is to live that way.

We are citizens of heaven living in these bodies of flesh in a world that does not know God, but it is our citizenship that governs here. 

Paul writes, “Let us live up to what we have already attained.”  God granted us right standing with him through the blood of Jesus Christ.  Now let us live up to that right standing.

Paul understands that not everyone gets this concept:  God has already done it but we are pressing on to live as the people that God has already made us to be.  He simply notes that in time you will understand God’s incredible revelation to us.

In the mean time, quit looking back and lean forward. The author of Hebrews would add, “and keep your eyes fixed on Jesus.”

Paul noted that there were some in his time and we should consider that there are those in our time who seem to be working against us.  We take Christ to the world with eyes fixed on Jesus.  Those fighting against us answer to God.  They are not our burden.

We lean into our salvation and take love to the world.

We press on towards the goal of realizing who we have been made to be.

We strain forward—we grow in grace.

We might learn to be content in our circumstances but we should never be content in our growth.  We are constantly striving to be the people that God made us to be.

He has already done it but we must be on our way there.  We are always growing in God’s grace.

Paul loved this church at Philippi.  He wanted them to know the fullness of their salvation and really be the people that God made them to be.

Paul could have been writing to us.  We love the grace that we know in God and we need the occasional challenge not to become complacent but to press on to being the people that we have already been made to be.

One day we will give up these earthly bodies and get the new and improved version.  We can all look forward to that.  Most of us have some things from our past that keeping reminding us of the race that we have already run.  Some of those things hurt.

Pain—no matter how intense—is temporary.  We will have new life in new bodies—new glorious bodies.  But while we are on this earth in these bodies, we press on towards the goal of becoming the holy and blameless people that God made us to be.

We strain forward to be more like our Master.

We lean into our salvation to bring glory to God in all that we do.

Occasionally we share a story from our past to help someone going through a trial.  Occasionally we meet with old friends and celebrate the glory days of touchdowns, homeruns, medals, trophies, and homecoming queens.

But for the most part, we leave the past in the past and live going forward to the glory of God.  If we are following Jesus we profit from our past experience and grow in grace.

We discount—count as loss—trying to convince God to accept us as the people that we think we need to be and whatever pedigree comes with that.  We accept and embrace the people that God has already made us to be and press on to realizing what it is to live as those people.

So let’s lean into our salvation and press on towards the goal of being the very people that God has already made us to be.

Amen.

To the glory of God the Father!

Read Philippians 2

Read 2 Corinthians 4:1-5

Paul did not know that his letters would later be divided into chapters.  Previously Paul talked about coming to the end of this life and being with Jesus and wanting that very much but that God has purposed him as an apostle with special work to do in this part of the world, and as far as Paul was concerned, he had more work to do.

He told this very special church that they too had work to do and that in so doing it, they might go through some suffering, but he charged them to stand together in whatever they faced.

Without missing a beat Paul begins this second chapter and issues what seem to be conditional statements but are truly indicative affirmations offered with a literary flair.  Consider them in the Good News Version with a little less flair.

 Your life in Christ makes you strong, and his love comforts you. You have fellowship with the Spirit, and you have kindness and compassion for one another.

He tells them that they are so close to making his joy complete—that is a continuation of his first chapter thoughts about these folks and the fact that they really get what it is to follow Jesus—that just sharing the same love and passion that Paul has for Christ with others will put some icing on this cake.

How can they do this?

Set aside all selfish ambition.  That should ring a bell with putting off the old self and putting on the new.  This line of though should sound very familiar.

Don’t give in to that cheap desire to boast in ourselves.  Be humble.

Be humble to the point that we regard others more than ourselves.

Whoa!  Hold your holy horses there Paul.  Regard others more than we regard ourselves?  Consider others better than ourselves?

Loving our neighbor as we love our self is tough enough.  This charge ranks right up there with Jesus telling us to love our enemies.  How can we do that?

Regard others more than we do ourselves makes for good seasoning now and then but as a main course, really, who can do that?

Here and there, maybe, but as a way of life, how can we regard, esteem others more than ourselves?

Really, how can anyone do that?  How can we do this consistently?

Paul answered the question that he knew would be on the minds of his readers.

 In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus:

 Who, being in very nature God,
    did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage;
 rather, he made himself nothing
    by taking the very nature of a servant,
    being made in human likeness.
 And being found in appearance as a man,
    he humbled himself
    by becoming obedient to death—
        even death on a cross!

 Therefore God exalted him to the highest place
    and gave him the name that is above every name,
 that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow,
    in heaven and on earth and under the earth,
 and every tongue acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord,
    to the glory of God the Father.

In most of your Bibles, this passage is probably set apart or italicized or made to stand out in some way, sort of as if were from another scripture.  It is more likely that it is an early Christian hymn or poem or even a believers creed of some sorts.

It is also likely that it was composed by a Jew and not a Gentile as it has a definite chiastic structure.  This form puts the main thought of the poem or the song in the middle.

Note that these verses begin with Jesus in heaven with God, then not considering equality with God something to hold on to.  Next he humbled himself as a servant and as a human.  Next, and this is the center of the poem:  he humbled himself by becoming obedient to death—even death on a cross!

In this single sentence we have the gospel in miniature—God’s love for us poured out at the cross.

Now we see the assent.  He is exalted.  At this name every knee will bow.  At his name every tongue will confess that Jesus is Lord and this will be to the glory of God.

This is a wonderful poem or song or whatever literary form it took in this first century and it contains some of the most abused words in these modern days.

How many times have you heard a Christian retort in some way, “Every knee will bow and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord!”  We use it to retaliate when we think someone is blaspheming the Lord.

We use it to say, “God’s gonna get um.”

“One day, oh one day, you will be on your knees saying Jesus is Lord!”

You had better say it quickly or it is going to hurt and hurt a lot.  God is going to force this confession out of everyone.

Really?

Really?  That’s how it’s all going to manifest itself?

Jesus stepped down out of heaven and became flesh, lived and was tempted as a man, was tortured as a man, and died as a man—an excruciating death on a cross—just so his Father would later inflict so much pain that everyone everywhere would say the words, Jesus is Lord.

Jesus is at the right hand of the Father, he is King of kings and Lord of lords, and Dad still needs to strong-arm his creation to exact such praise?

The God who is not slow in coming but waits with patience so that all may come to salvation will suddenly set aside his everlasting love for a quick fix to hear that his Son is Lord? That might make for a great Shakespearean play, but hardly seems consistent with the God that has been revealed to us.

God will not be mocked.

How then would he arrange for forced confessions?

Why would he desire false gratitude?

Why would he manipulate our lips to say what he longs to hear from our hearts?

Many think, how else will every being everywhere—heaven, earth, and under the earth make such a profession?  Really, many have rejected God and Jesus; how could they utter these words except under duress? 

How could these universal professions be made without the brute force of God imposed on these unbelievers?

Just for a moment, consider the blindness that has taken over the world.  We have eyes to see but the world has been blinded by Satan and the gospel of truth is veiled to them.

But what would happen if this blindness was taken away?

What would happen if every creature in heaven and on earth and under the earth that was blind could suddenly see?

What would happen if the truth was set before everyone and everyone had eyes to see?

Would they not drop to their knees and cry out, “Jesus is Lord!”

Would they not know that God got everything right from start to finish?

Would the love of God not be so overwhelming that all everyone could do would be to profess and confess and proclaim the love of God in these words:  JESUS CHRIST IS LORD!

Now at this point, eternal destinations may have already been settled.  I don’t know and I am not asking you to contemplate the soteriological aspects of this.

What I am asking you to do is to consider these verses in their entirety.  What we often do is leave off the very last part.  All of this—from stepping out of heaven to become a sacrifice for our sins to being at the right hand of the Father and especially at the profession that Jesus is Lord—will be to the glory of God!

Think on these words—to the glory of God—for they very much take us where Paul leads his readers.  Paul says to work out your salvation with fear and trembling.

Work out salvation?

Fear and trembling?

I thought that salvation was a gift and perfect love casts out fear?  And you would be right to think that.

Paul is telling us to live out our salvation—this wonderful gift that only God could give—and do it as the most important thing we will ever do—to give it the gravity that it deserves.  Live out the rest of your life not worried about heaven and hell but focused on bringing glory to God.

For God is now working in us and we are living our God-given purpose.

Do you remember the words holy and blameless or pure and blameless?  They have come up a few times in Paul’s letters.

God made us this way now we are to live this way.  Our very lives are to bring glory to God.  That is in everything that we do.

In this dark world, our lives should stand out like the stars in the sky.  The world constantly complains about anything and everything.  We give thanks in all things and stick out like a sore thumb.

As we live out these days of salvation, many of which we will live here on this earth and in these bodies that we are wearing now, we are to bring glory to God.

How do we do that?  How about let your light shine before others so that others can see God’s glory in the good that you do.

How do we do that?  How about growing closer to God to the point that you live in Jesus and he lives in you so that you may ask anything in his name and it will be given.  I have been crucified with Christ.  Christ lives in me.  Put aside selfish ambition and vain conceit.  Let Christ live in us so we ask for the very things that God so loves to give.  That brings glory to God!

How about, bear some fruit?  Does the fruit that we bear in service to God not also bring him glory?

How about doing the work that we have been given just as Christ finished the work that he was given?  What work?  We don’t have to reach back too far to remember, to live is Christ and to die is gain.  Let’s take Christ to the world for the rest of our lives.

What work?  How about the Great Commission:  Make disciples, baptize, teach—all done with the authority and the accompaniment of God through Jesus and the Spirit.

How about love that abounds in knowledge and insight and discernment so that we know how to live a pure and blameless people and produce the fruit of righteousness?  Yes, that should sound familiar as it came from the previous chapter.

How do we bring glory to God by living out our salvation?  We do it in the very words that we speak.  Peter reminds us to speak as if our every word were that of a prophet.  Speak as if every word matters, because it does.  Our language is considered, prayerful, and godly and it brings glory to God.

Our service is done in God’s strength, not our own.  God works in us and we live out his will through the purpose that he has given us and that brings glory to God.

The very purpose of humankind is to bring glory to God and enjoy him vey much.  We are to live out our salvation bringing glory to God in everything that we do, and we should enjoy this fantastic relationship that we have with God through his Son so, so much.

Paul tells his readers that his life is being poured out.  He is still running his race.  He is still taking Christ everywhere he goes and where he can’t go he sends friends and writes letters.

Paul explains what’s going on with Timothy and Epaphroditus.  Why?  Paul is not just mentor and teacher; he is family to these people that he writes.

We are family.  Theology and living out our salvation are very important but we never forget how connected we are with each other.

We are all running a race of faith and have a very personal relationship with God through Jesus knowing that God’s own Spirit is right here with us in this day and this time and in this crazy, sometimes dark world.  Our relationship with God is very personal, but it also calls us to connect with other believers.

Consider the people with whom you congregate to worship and serve the Lord.  We are connected.  We are commissioned to connect with those blinded by their unbelief.

How do we do this?

Oh how I wish it were through the crafting of words and sentences, properly referenced, grammatically succinct, and phonetically poetic.  Sometimes it is, but mostly what I write and speak is to those who already have eyes to see.

We minister to a blind world with light and truth.  We have eyes to see.  We are not blind.  We already profess that Jesus is Lord!

We know this to be the truth, but so much of the world is blind to this truth.  How do we reach them?

How do we live out our salvation by taking the gospel of light and peace and love and life to them?

By our language and our love and our discernment and by being a light in this very dark world.  We bring glory to God by living as the people that he made us to be—holy and blameless.

We take the model of Christ’s humility—this kenosis of setting aside his divinity to become human and even die for our sins when he could have remained at the side of the Father and simply condemned us in our sin.  We regard others more than ourselves.

We truly cannot do that, at least with any sincerity, unless we are living for God.  We cannot constantly live at this level of humbleness without God living within us and us living for him.  We too must empty ourselves—not of divinity as Christ did—but of selfish ambition and vain conceit.

For God through Christ has placed himself inside of us already.  Now we are to live out, work out, this divine life that we have been given.  Christ indeed lives within us.

We look forward to the day when every knee will bow and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord not desiring retribution upon  the blind, but hoping—knowing it will happen before I see it—that the blindness will be lifted and truth will prevail.

That brings glory to God.

Those confessions and professions that Jesus Christ is Lord bring glory to God!  Everyone will speak them with their lips but they will come willing from every heart.

For those of us who have eyes to see today and know and have professed that Jesus is Lord and God raised him from the dead, let us empty ourselves of everything that makes us feel like we are better than those who are blind. 

If we are to live according to God’s will and act according to his purpose, we must have the attitude of Christ Jesus--

who, though he was in the form of God,
    did not regard equality with God
    as something to be exploited,
 but emptied himself,
    taking the form of a slave,
    being born in human likeness.
And being found in human form,
     he humbled himself
    and became obedient to the point of death—
    even death on a cross.

 Therefore God also highly exalted him
    and gave him the name
    that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus
    every knee should bend,
    in heaven and on earth and under the earth

 and every tongue should confess
    that Jesus Christ is Lord,
    to the glory of God the Father.

To the glory of God the Father.

Amen!

To Live is Christ. To die is gain.

Read Philippians 1

For the most part, politics and pulpits don’t mix.  Not so today, for now is the exact time to bring politics into the middle of everything, Roman politics that is.

Philippi was a Roman Colony.  It was established by Phillip of Macedon in 357 B.C. and Octavian, who you know better as Caesar Augustus, had established the city as Ius Italicum.  That is to say it was as if the city were on Italian soil.  

Roman law prevailed in all courts.  Many taxes placed upon other conquered areas did not apply.

The city was heavily populated with Roman war veterans.  By the second century the main east-west route—the Via Egnatia—would make Philippi quite the crossroads of the empire.

Philippi did not have a Synagogue.  That’s right, there must have been fewer than ten faithful Jews in this massive metropolitan area.

Remember in Acts 16, on the Sabbath, Paul led his team outside of the city to a river where he thought that what Jews there were might gather for prayer.

Paul liked to begin bringing the gospel to the Jews first, however many or few there were.  Then he proceeded to proclaim the good news to the Gentiles.  There were not many Jews in Philippi, but by the time of his letter, there was a church, and evidently it was a thriving church.  It was a church that Paul truly loved and it served the Lord in Rome East.

It was a church that had grown out of a populace that liked being Roman.  In other parts of the empire, the Romans were the force to be tolerated.  You paid your taxes and didn’t stir up trouble and you could enjoy as much of your local lifestyle as the Romans would tolerate.

In Philippi, your lifestyle was the Roman lifestyle and most people liked it.  Yet, out of this comes a church—followers of the Risen Lord.  Philippi was in fact the first church that Paul established in Europe and he had great affection for this body of believers.

We should not envision a handful of believers, but a church that warranted leadership among its people—bishops and deacons and surely many ministry leaders.

Paul writes to Philippi from Rome, probably at the end of a two year bit in prison around A.D. 62 and from the empire’s capital.  Timothy is with him, not likely incarcerated as Paul found himself; though it is unlikely that Paul is treated as a common criminal.  He was a Roman citizen.

Paul begins his letter by thanking God for this group of believers, a special group of believers.  They were a group that knew they were on a journey.  God was working with them and they were confident that God would finish what he started in them:    being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.

These are more than just wonderful words.  This verbiage acknowledges that these believers knew they were on a journey, walking a path, or for the more athletic among them, running a race.  God was working with them in their lives and Paul was thankful that they “got it.”

They got that part.  Paul did not have to dread writing to these folks.  This was a letter than surely he had looked forward to writing at least as the next best thing to visiting.

Paul writes, with a little license here, “I really miss being with you guys.  Well, maybe not the prison stuff, though God did use that for good and surely for his glory.  I just miss being among you.”

Paul wants this group to know more discipleship and fullness in their relationship with God.  He doesn’t remind them that they are holy and blameless before God.  He prays for their discernment that they can live out what they have been made to be.  It seems that in this area, Paul has less explaining to do than he did with the Galatians and Ephesians.

These believers “get it” and Paul prays that they may discern what is best as they live out lives of love.    Where in other letters he counsels to make the most of every opportunity; here he prays that these Philippians will excel in their opportunities.

It is the difference between praying,” I hope the tomatoes make it” and “Look out neighbors, you are getting some tomatoes this year!”

Paul was writing to a church that understood much and now he hoped they would do wonderful things.

Paul next described his own circumstances in what we might call some win-win language.  He was in chains for preaching the gospel and because he was there others were inspired to continue to preach the gospel.

Some inspired by Paul’s dedication and perseverance.  Others were inspired by the fact that they could keep him locked up if they kept preaching this gospel of Jesus.  Paul looked at it as a win-win.  Christ was being preached.

That gets under my skin just a little bit.  Preaching the gospel of Christ from false motives just seems wrong.

Sometimes I hear a preacher somewhere and wonder, does this guy really believe what he is saying?  He or she just does not come across as sincere to me.  Sometime later—sometimes much later—in the course of a seemingly unrelated conversation, I will hear how a message from that same preacher made a big difference in someone’s life.

So I am reminded of what Joseph said to his brothers after their father, Jacob, had died and been buried.

You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives.

Paul goes beyond considering his imprisonment.  He considers his very life.  What if his life was demanded from him?

Good!  I am so ready to be with Christ!  Yes!  If they want my head, they won’t have to drag me to the executioner screaming and kicking.  I am sure that Paul already had a first draft of his letter to Timothy bouncing around in his head:  I have run the good race, fought the good fight…

Paul continued, if I am to live on, it is to bring more to Christ.  Paul was not looking for an earthly retirement plan.  If he lived, he preached.

This is a complicated model here, so I will review it once more:  If Paul was alive, he was preaching.

To live is to preach Christ and bring more to know him.

To die, well that’s a victory celebration all its own.

Paul said, I am living the ultimate win-win.  To live is Christ and to die is gain.

Personally, Paul surely wanted his victor’s crown now, but there was so much more to be done.  Paul had checked off being shipwrecked, snakebit, stoned, and run out of more towns than anyone to date; but there was still a gospel of life and love and peace to be preached.

If he lived, he preached, and Paul would preach for as long as he could, though he did not dread crossing the finish line in this world.

It is amazing the outlook that you have when you know your purpose in life.  It is amazing the things that you will accomplish when you can enjoy the paradox of living this life to the full and eagerly wanting what comes next.

As the NBA regular season wraps up, it is interesting to watch the teams headed to the playoffs.  Some play to continue their rhythm.  Some rest key players.  Some are fighting just to get in and may expend themselves just getting there.

Paul already knew there was victor’s crown in store for him.  He didn’t need to be rested.  He did worry about making the playoffs.  He would play every minute of every game until he died, not for him but so that others may know the life that was in store for him.

To live is Christ.  To die is gain.  Paul lived the ultimate win-win.

Paul returns to the Philippians with counsel:  Stand.  Stand as one.

Paul tells these believers that he loves so much that they will come under attack.  While Paul told the Ephesians to put on the full armor of God; he tells the Philippians to stand as one man.  They are to be one in the Spirit.  They are to live in one accord. 

In this oneness, they will stand and prevail but they will also suffer for Christ.  This suffering is not punishment.  It is privilege.  Recall the excitement of the followers of Jesus who having come before the ruling council were released mainly because of the argument of a godly man named Gamalial, but not before they were whipped.

These men were excited because they were persecuted for the name of Jesus.  When you stand for God so much that you stand out from the world to the point that the world has to do something, that’s something to get excited about.  That’s standing in the company of the prophets.

That’s a good standing to have.

If the world hates you because you look too much like Jesus, then be happy about it.  If the world can’t tell the difference between you and the man living just for himself, take note.  

If you were accused of following Jesus, pray that you are not acquitted.

But stand with your fellow believers as one. 

That’s a good rallying cry.  It might even make a bumper sticker or a Facebook post, but what exactly is it to stand as one? 

We will get a little more from Paul later, but for now, there should be no divisiveness among us.  Remember Paul’s counsel to the Ephesians to submit to one another out of reverence to Christ.

We revere Christ so much that getting our own way is not even a factor.  There are church leaders.  Converse with them.  Share your opinions.  Discuss things to your heart’s content but put aside all personal agendas.   Set aside everything in you that says, “Well, it’s got to be this way.”

If the decision is that the carpet will be bright blue and the dishwashers battleship gray, then get excited about it.  If we are going to sing Holy, Holy, Holy for 19 consecutive Sundays, then put on your Lord God Almighty voice and lift the roof!

For we may be attacked by the world for following Jesus but we will not break ranks.  We stand in one Spirit, in one accord, as one person.

And the world is going to hate us for it.  We may suffer some because we follow Christ and we should thank God that we are not being mistaken for those who follow the ways of the world.

I don’t know that everyone can get to the point where we say to live is Christ and to die is gain, but I hope we are on our way to that point.

I pray that the things of this world matter less and less to us and connecting people with real and eternal life matter more and more each day.

I hope—that is I believe it before I see it—that we will lead many to Christ in whatever days we have left on this planet in these bodies, and that this purpose will be the most satisfying experience that we will know in these days.

I petition God and each of you that we stand as one, putting aside any selfishness and personal agendas, and willingly put forth our gifts and talents to be God’s love in this world.  For when I read Paul’s words to the body of believers in this very Roman city, I hear him speaking to this body of believers in the heartland of America.

I see us moving towards desiring to share Christ more than we long for our heavenly rewards.  I see people with such diversity ready to stand as one in reverence to the Lord.

I am blessed to stand with you as we stand as one in following Jesus.

Amen.