Contrasting Patterns (09/27/24-09/28/24)

Collecting my observations for this study, I find a series of duets are presented for our consideration, or simply pairings.  So, I am more or less organizing my notes around these pairings.  The first pairing I see is that of two contrasting patterns.  The one is more in view in what has come before in this chapter.  There is a pattern being set by those who would insist on adherence to the minutia of Judaic practice.  Their pattern is one of self-discipline, which in and of itself is not a bad thing, but they have made of it a yardstick for righteousness, and worse, made their own effort their real god.  Isaiah saw it even in his day.  Their perception of godliness was effectively, “Order on order, order on order, line on line, line on line” (Isa 28:10-13).  It seems to me that most often, when I hear this passage brought forward, it is as an encouragement to study and apply, to get going on doing the work of becoming righteous.  And yet, Isaiah is not offering praise or encouragement.  He is offering rebuke.  You’ve made God a wearisome taskmaster.  And what does He say?  “Here is rest.  Give rest to the weary.  Here is repose.”  But they would not listen.

This is the problem with works righteousness, as patterned by these Judaizers who troubled the church.  They may have known Christ, even called Him their Savior, but they didn’t really know Him.  They were too caught up in the old wineskins of the perceived prestige of their former ways to properly contain the new wine of faith, of being at peace with God.  He remained to them a power to be appeased, rather than a Father to be adored.  It is really no different for us when we make our religion or our righteousness to be about our deeds, when we present our list of demands to the one who would be deemed of like belief.  Oh!  You must do this, this, and this.  You must never do that, that, or that.  You must, you must, you must!  Order on order.  Add another stone to the load, and another, until you are broken under the weight of the load.  This is exactly what Jesus excoriated the Pharisees about.  And for many of us, the same rebukes are roundly deserved, and fully to be expected if there is no repentance from our attempted self-righteousness.

Paul, therefore, points to a different pattern, the pattern of faith.  Faith works.  This is the reality of the matter.  Paul and James are not at odds, but of one accord.  Faith without works is dead, but then, so too are works without faith.  But something’s shifted.  The pattern has changed.  Paul doesn’t work because his acceptance by God depends on it.  He works from a place of utmost gratitude for what God has already done in him, established for him.  He strives forward to the goal, because the prize is already certain.  There’s no danger of coming up short, of running out of steam halfway there.  God’s got him, and so, he can live out of that gratitude that comes of knowing this.  He can work in peace, and rest in work.  He can seek to live godly, but not from fear of God’s retribution, no!  He seeks to live godly because he has known the Father’s love, and loves the Father.  He has seen the pattern in Christ, and desires the very best thing, which is to walk after that pattern.

This leads him to encourage those he teaches to do likewise.  Walk as you see me walk.  Live in the same way, have the same perspective.  And, as he cannot be in all places at all times, he proceeds to advise that where we do not have him before us as an example, we look to those with us who do follow his pattern of life.

Here is the point of contrast.  You have two examples before you.  This was certainly so in the church at Philippi, as it was in so many, if not all of the early churches.  It remains so for us today.  The specific details of the counter-example might be different, but the fundamental issue remains.  On the one hand are those who come insisting on this or that as evidence of being God’s children.  For such as these, the command we have is to beware, blepete.  Observe them.  Be aware of them.  But do so with understanding, and in that understanding recognize that they are not the godly ones they claim to be.  Here, on the other hand, are those who pursue the faith of the gospel, who regulate their lives according to the pattern we have set them by our own lives, lives lived according to the pattern we have in Christ Jesus.  There are, then two patterns given us to consider, that of the self-righteous, or that of the humble disciple of Christ.  Put it in those terms, and the choice becomes obvious, doesn’t it?  Shall I follow these, and take upon myself the physical mark of the covenant, hoping somehow that will render me acceptable before God?  Or, shall I follow those who are stamped with the image, the mindset, the character of Christ?

Which is more important?  To have some physical marker of kinship, or to have such character as makes kinship clearly evident?  I mean, let it be supposed you went ahead and got yourself circumcised.  As we saw a few studies back, this was hardly a matter unique to the Jews.  Nor is it today.  Most of the nations of that region would have practiced circumcision, but not as a marker of covenant, simply as a matter of practice.  But then, suppose you have the mark.  What?  Do you go around showing everybody?  I think not.  I suppose, given public baths and whatnot, it may have been more common for men to see each other’s nakedness in that era, but still, it seems doubtful.  It’s the sort of thing you might well train yourself not to observe, even should opportunity present itself.

But character?  Character shows.  Character is what you are stamped with, which is something of what this idea of a pattern indicates.  You’ve been struck with that die, and bear its markings.  You’ve been stamped into the pattern of behavior and thought which identifies you with the One who made the marks.  You know, we look at somebody’s baby, and what are the comments we offer?  Oh, he has your eyes, or your ears.  It boils down to, yes, I can see the lineage.  If I look at my daughter, I can see clear evidence of my own face.  I can see somewhat of my wife’s contributions to her being as well.  For better or for worse, she bears the stamp of this family, and it’s more than just physical likeness.  She shares much with both of us in terms of her likes, her interests, her perspectives.  There is much, to be sure, in which she differs, and even, in some ways, alarmingly so.  But that she is our daughter is quite clear.

Here, given that we are concerned with matters of character and spirit, the import of bearing the pattern of Christ in our nature are so much more critical.  And be quite certain, Paul is not looking to make disciples of Paul.  He’s looking to make disciples of Christ.  Follow those who follow the pattern of my life, as I have set the pattern of my life after that which I see in Christ.  However many steps you remove the example, the baseline doesn’t change.  The call is to follow Christ.  But it’s hard for us to model ourselves on one whom we never really see.  It’s all well and good to know that He is with us always, that we have the Spirit speaking to us as He dwells within.  But we don’t see them.  They aren’t the tangible stuff of this life.  For this cause, God in His wisdom provided us with fellowship.  He called us together into the one body of the Church, in order that we might, in fact, have more physical-plane examples to follow.  We can look around our fellow believers and observe those whose examples are worthy of emulation.  We can probably find many of whom we would say no such thing.  But, with eyes of wisdom, I think we can in fact look upon any of our fellow believers and discover in them something worthy of emulating.  The call is not to weigh and assess our brothers, and decide who’s doing best at this, setting ourselves to learn at his feet.  That’s not it.  The call is simply to live in accord with the gospel, to live after the example of our Lord, our Master.

I asked the question, in my preparations, according to our pattern, or according to that pattern?  That is probably a tad obscure as to intent.  Initially, reading through various translations, it seemed as though some of them tilted this ‘observe those who walk according to that pattern’ more towards the erroneous pattern set by these false workers that Paul has been discussing.  But I think the text is sufficiently clear that no, this is discussing the positive pattern of those who have taken sound doctrine and practice to heart, who have truly received the gospel promise and set themselves to live in loving obedience to the One who called them out of their dark ignorance.  But I leave the question, because that really is the message here.  Which pattern are you going to follow?  Which ends are you pursuing?  You can observe these false workers so as to beware of them, or you could observe them as the pattern to follow.  You can observe these true brothers so as to avoid being like them, or you could observe them so as to learn from them and be more like them.  We’re not looking for lockstep, empty-minded adherence to the script.  This is not a faith like unto third-tier helpdesk operations:  Follow the script and do not deviate.  No!  This is life, man.  This is becoming who you are.  It’s not just aping the pattern, it’s life change.

I can’t tell you how many times I hear somebody tell me of this or that thing that was life changing.  Oh!  It was so incredible.  It may have been a sermon, or a video, or a book read, maybe just a visit to some beautiful vista.  I’m sorry.  These things are not life changing.  They may be impactful in some way.  But dollars to donuts, that impact will have faded in a year, a month, a week.  If it were truly life changing, then life would never be the same, now, would it?  And I can think of precisely one event that qualifies.  You have, if you are in fact a believer, been changed.  Your spirit has been reborn of the Spirit.  Now, that is life changing!  And Paul points forward to the second great life change that awaits – and that, whether it comes while we remain afoot, or when we have long since moldered away in our graves.  We shall be resurrected to life, but not in the same sort of body in which we spend our time currently.  It may be that we shall be recognizable as ourselves.  Such hints of this future as we have suggest as much.  But it shall be a body quite unlike the frail, sin-prone framework we have today.  That, gain, is life changing, and to the uttermost.  The perishable has been rendered imperishable.

You know, I keep seeing these predictions of immortality for man in his current form, and those writing or speaking of such things seem ever so excited by the prospect.  And I can’t help but wonder, would you really want such a thing?  Are there really those out there, possessed of the wisdom that comes of experience in this life, who dream of maintaining the status quo forevermore henceforth?  Really?  You enjoy the strife?  You’re just really into all the anger, all the addiction, all the infighting, crime, etc.  What?  You think gaining immortality would put an end to all that?  Aren’t you the same crowd insisting that the earth is already a bit overcrowded?  How is that going to be improved by nobody dying anymore?  And if it’s not improved, what stops the competitive sport of maintaining life from getting meaner?  Talk about your law of unintended consequences!  Immortality without rebirth would be a curse indeed.  I think, when we read of Adam and Eve ejected from Eden, we see it as pure punishment, but perhaps we ought to perceive the great mercy in that decision.  Immortal life in this condition?  Hard pass.  Until there has been reformation, rebirth, true renewal back to the original, intended form, nothing could possibly be worse.  And perhaps, now I think of it, that’s exactly what is on offer for those resurrected to eternal perdition.

End of digression.  Those who come with their list of demands, the long, itemized program of things you must and things you mustn’t, are not in fact aiming you towards godliness.  They are aiming you towards a life spent in misery, pursuing an impossible goal by means never suited to the task.  In point of fact, Paul says, these folks really are ‘enemies of the cross of Christ.’  That’s not hyperbole on his part.  By their insistence on works righteousness, they are rejecting outright the redeeming work of the Savior.  They are pointing to this most ultimate sacrifice and declaring it worthless, pointless, to no avail.  And to the degree that we keep pointing to our own works and achievements as if they were some collection of merit badges, we do the same.  Watch out!

Observe the assessment.  They have set their minds on earthly things.  They talk of godliness, but their god is their appetite.  Now, as one who appreciates a good meal, and for whom hunger is a matter to be dealt with promptly, that comes as a bit of a shot across the bow.  Watch out, Jeff!  There is risk, certainly, of making dining a god.  There is risk of making most anything a god, even this time of study in the morning.  To the degree it becomes rote performance, a master to be obeyed, rather than a pursuit undertaken in loving pursuit of knowing my Savior better, and loving Him more, it has become just that.  And, given my seeming inability to sleep in anymore, lest I find this first hour or so cut short by the needs of the day, perhaps the risk is higher than I like to think.

But it gets worse for these self-righteous ones.  Their glory is in their shame, says Paul.  Does this mean that these poseurs are actually down the street at the brothel half the time, being careful not to be seen going in or coming out?  I don’t think it needs to be taken that far.  Does it mean that they are participating in gross sin, and gladly so?  Well, to the first part, perhaps, but not necessarily by intention, I don’t think.  It’s not the pursuit of clear and obvious sins that are in view here, so far as I can see.  It’s still this question of which way leads to righteousness.  And, to the degree that they are seeking righteousness by material means, doing ‘earthly things,’ ever so diligent to exercise themselves in practices of piety, as they perceive them to be, the fact remains that their end is destruction.  Why?  Because they have despised the cross of Christ, and Christ in turn will, in that day, look upon their proud display of works and say, “Depart from Me.  I never knew you.”

Their deeds, then, for all their supposed piety, are in fact acts leading to shame and dishonor, such shame as arises from awareness of guilt.  After all, what drives one to prove his honor more than being aware of guilt?  And before a perfect God?  It becomes that much more urgent a business.  We must, we must, we must!  We have to demonstrate our holiness, our devotion, lest the weight of our sins outweigh our deeds of righteousness.  But, dear ones, those deeds will never meet the weight of your sins.  Your sins are eternal acts against an eternal God, and as such, bear an eternal penalty.  Your pious acts, being earthly-minded pursuits of the flesh, are temporal, perishable.  Pile them as high as you like, and they still won’t meet the weight of your least sin, let alone the full accounting of them.

And comes the contrast.  “For our citizenship is in heaven.”  From thence comes our true civil governance.  From thence comes the constitution by which our lives are to be regulated.  To some degree, this may be what Paul has in mind to convey.  More, it hits right to the heart of the Philippian problem, such as there was one, which consisted in civic pride.  We are a Roman city, self-governed outpost of the empire.  We have position and standing.  We are not a conquered nation occupied by foreign powers.  We are the power of Rome, projected at full strength.  And Paul invites this proud sense of self to gain fresh perspective.  No, child!  You are the power of God, projected at full strength.  You live amidst these foreign lands as an outpost not of Rome, not of America, not of England, not of any nation or race, but an outpost of the kingdom of God.  It is His to declare the law of the land, and yours to comply.  That holds as true for your leaders as for the least of you, for in the kingdom of God, all truly are equal under the Law – Jew and Gentile alike, man and woman alike, politician and peon alike.

Here, then, is your pattern.  You, as a citizen of the heavenly kingdom, ought even now to live such a life as makes that evident.  You are ambassadors to a foreign land.  Now, unlike some we see in ambassadorial roles, you are not called to live in disregard of local governance, proud citizen of some other power, answering to none as you are on this grand adventure out of sight and out of reach of your own government.  You don’t have ambassadorial immunity.  For one, you are never ought of sight of your King, never beyond His reach.  Nor, for all that, are any of those amidst whom you sojourn.  But you are on a commission, and your commission is to represent.  You are a citizen of heaven.  Live like it.  Act like it.  Let your character, your behavior, your speech reflect this reality.  By all means, honor the local civil authority so long as it does not require of you that which the constitution of heaven strictly forbids.  They may permit that which you rightly find shameful, and that’s as it may be.  It is insufficient as an excuse, for example, to disregard paying your taxes.  But, should they require your participation in such things?  Well, that’s another matter.  Then, you must indeed stand firm on the terms of covenant, on your true citizenship.  And that may be a costly stand indeed.  So be it.  The one urging you to this is himself writing from Rome, where he has been imprisoned for just such cause.  He’s setting the example still.

This is where I want to wrap up this particular head of my study.  “You are no longer strangers and aliens.  You are fellow citizens with the saints.  You are members of God’s household” (Eph 2:19).  That being the case, “Set your mind on the things above, not the things of the earth” (Col 3:2).  That is a message that really resonates of late.  We are so caught up in the anxious considerations of earthly life.  All day long, we are getting input from the surrounding peoples.  We are battered with political winds, practically required to view everything in life through the lens of politics.  And we grow ever more tribal, ever more fractured a humanity.  We are pelted with enticements, be they the cheap sexual thrills of online images, or the offers of various goods for purchase, things perhaps still out of reach for our current finances, but aspirational, and as such, producing a certain dissatisfaction in our spirits.  I deserve better.  Or perhaps we have drifted into a period of our own works righteousness, leaving the place of contentment to prove ourselves to God.  As if!  What would you prove apart from your own total inadequacy?  And He’s already quite aware of that, lad.  That’s been baked into the plan since forever.  No, beloved.  Don’t let this world push you into dismay and dissatisfaction.  You are no longer of this world.  You belong to Him, and He has overcome the world.  So set you mind on the things above.  Set your mind on Christ, in Whom alone is your hope and your assurance, through Whom alone you are found righteous before your Father, and by Whom alone you shall indeed find you have been made like Him.  He began the work.  He is faithful to complete it.  Rejoice and be not dismayed.

I’ll end with this.  “Be still my soul, the hour is hastening on when we shall be forever with the Lord; when disappointment, grief, and fear are gone, sorrow forgot, love’s purest joy restored.  Be still my soul, when change and tears are past, all safe and blessed, we shall meet at last.”  Words to live by, those.  Words to remember, as they echo the assurance given us in Christ, given us by Christ Himself.  “Lo!  I am with you, even to the end of the age.”

Yes, Lord, in You I rest.  If there has been striving in me, if there has been some thought of proving myself, or making myself, or anything of that sort, I repent.  If, on the other hand, I have become too passive in my faith, professing a trust in You but really just making excuses to remain unchanged, I repent of that, as well.  Like David, it seems my sin is ever before me, and I can but cast myself once more upon Your mercy.  And thank You, my Father, for I know Your mercy remains there to catch me.  Catch me, then.  Captivate me once again with Your majesty and Your love, that I may indeed rest in Your goodness, and follow after You with adoration.

Observe and Stand (09/29/24-09/30/24)

Another pair of ideas in this passage can be found in the state of the believer as presented here.  The first is seen in the call to emulate.  We are to emulate those who walk, and we do so by walking.  Now this is quite obviously more than just strolling through the neighborhood.  It’s not a health kick.  It’s a way of life.  Those we are called to observe with an eye toward emulation are those who walk according to the pattern Paul set.  How did he set it?  By walking according to the pattern of Christ.  This brings us to the condition in which we are ourselves walking according to the pattern.  This is really a pretty good summation of what it means to be a disciple.  It’s not just that you follow this person of whom you are a disciple.  It’s that you seek to be like him.  You are studying him; his practices, the way he thinks, how he sees things, how he interacts with others.  And you are putting that study into practice.  It becomes a stative matter.  It becomes who you are. 

Many a cult attempts to achieve this same end, that those who follow shall be like their leader, or at least like he puts himself forth to be.  It may be done in the sincere belief that such an outcome is desirable.  The leader might just be altruistic, even though he is wrong.  Or, as seems more likely, it is a malicious, self-serving scheme, aimed at fleecing the dupes.  So, there is concern, there ought to be concern, as to whom you will follow.  Ultimately, it seems you have but two choices.  You can follow Jesus, or you can follow Adam.  As a Christian, you have been called to follow Jesus, and to do so whatever the cost to yourself.  It will cost you all.  And it’s worth every bit of that price.  That is not to say you will be cut off from all worldly goods and all worldly pleasures, but they must take a back seat to matters of faith, matters of godliness.  Put it this way; it’s not so much what you’re doing, but how you do it.  Every aspect of life comes to have its place under the roof of obedient emulation of our Lord.

As I have been reading it for men’s group this week, this promise from Christ is fresh in mind.  No one who has left house and home, left behind even family for the sake of the kingdom of God will fail to receive back the same many times over in this life.  And add to this the ultimate return on investment:  Eternal life (Lk 18:29-30).  Observe well:  In this life.  Possessions are okay.  Family life is honorable.  But if possessions or family are preventing you from walking the walk, then it’s time to walk away.  Is Jesus advocating divorce here?  Is he saying that in the name of being His disciple you can forego the duties of sonship or parenthood, leave off honoring your parents, leave off raising your children?  By no means!  Far be it from the Lord of Righteousness to preach unrighteousness!  No, but priorities, man.  It is possible, strenuous and painful, but possible, to maintain these relationships in spite of spiritual divide, and continue to walk in righteousness even when the pull of family duty is seeking to drag you off course.  Walk godly.  That is your instruction, whatever your circumstance.  Walk godly and honor your commitments.  Who knows?  As the wife come to a faith her husband does not share is advised, perhaps you will win him over to Christ by your quiet example.  The gospel is the power to save and to change, and the changed life, lived even against the odds, is perhaps the most powerful evidence available that the power of the gospel is very real.

So, we are walking.  But we are also called to be a people waiting.  It’s funny, in that non-coincidental, God ordained sort of way, that I should be reading through the articles of a back issue of Table Talk which focuses in on the subject of Christian waiting as I come to this passage.  There’s been a lot of that going on as I work through Philippians – things read in Table Talk at just the right time, things discussed in our men’s group pursuit of Luke, and before that Acts, things coming up in pastor’s sermons one week to the next.  There’s been a wave of connections it seems.  Example:  Reading those articles last night, and today’s sermon, I know, is focused on Mary and Martha.  One might guess there will be a thread of waiting running through that sermon.  We shall see.  But here in our passage we have a focal point for that waiting.  We are waiting for Jesus, the very one after whose example we walk.  We wait for Him as our Savior, though we already know Him as our Savior.  We wait to be saved, though we are already saved.  And more!  We aren’t just sitting about, wondering what’s keeping Him.  We aren’t checking our watches, or whatever equivalent timepiece every few minutes, wondering if the bus will ever come, or the plane start boarding.  Choose your occasion for impatiently waiting.  That’s not it.  No, this is eager anticipation.  This has all the excitement of Christmas morning and more.  After all, it’s not just a morning of unwrapping gifts.  It’s the ultimate gift.  For when He comes, He comes with power, He comes with the power to subject all things to Himself, which is to say, to achieve the full transformation of all things.  And, from our perspective at least, it may seem that the transformation of our bodies is the biggest part of this deal.  It will certainly be the most personally felt part.

There is a change to come.  This body is not our final form.  It’s a temporary container.  And we shall all be changed, as Paul makes clear in 1Corinthians 15.  I’ll get to that.  He, when He comes, will transform our bodies.  Zhodiates takes pains to note that this is something different than metamorphosis.  The idea seems to be that metamorphosis constitutes a more total change, the inner as well as the outer condition altered.  One reads of the metamorphosis of the caterpillar into a butterfly, for instance.  Inside that cocoon, the solid caterpillar has reduced to something not too far removed from primordial ooze.  The change is total.  The form is changed.  The diet is changed.  The entire structure of the body is changed, to the point that no resemblance is to be found, nor would it even be imagined that there was any connection between the former creature and the latter.  But what Paul gets at here is transformation, which is more about appearances than inner state.  The soul, after all, has already undergone renewal.  The spirit was restructured immediately upon that first call of salvation.  It had to have been, else the call would have gone unanswered.  And so, we have gone through life at war in ourselves, the spirit leading one way, the flesh another, the spirit following Christ unto life, the flesh still keen on sinful pleasures leading to death.  Comes this moment of transformation, though, and finally that war is brought to an end.  Good news!  The spirit wins.  The body has finally taken upon itself the stamp of its original Maker.  We are being transformed into conformity to Christ.  Today, we bear His name.  In that day, we bear His image, and to the degree befitting a human being, His nature.  As John says (and I know I bring it up repeatedly), we know we shall be like Him because we shall see Him as He truly is (1Jn 3:2).  In full.  In all His glory.  That moment to which Paul is drawing our attention is exactly the moment of our seeing Him for the first time, for what shall thereafter be all time – assuming time still has some meaning.

Beloved, your spirit has already been stamped with the pattern of Christ, you who are His by the calling of the Father.  He has set His mark on you, and He is, ever so patiently, ever so skillfully, achieving your transformation, that you shall indeed be like Him, you shall indeed walk after His pattern, because you are made after His pattern.  You bear His pattern upon you.  The inner state is already in process.  This body, though.  Some would say it is beyond repairing, and they may very well be right.  The change we are to undergo seems something far beyond repair, far nearer that restructuring of the caterpillar into butterfly.  Yet, from what scant evidence we have in Christ Himself, it does seem that despite the change in appearance we shall remain recognizably ourselves.  How is that going to work?  I don’t know.  Jesus tells us that in heaven, the relation of man and woman in marriage is no more.  Does that imply that the distinguishing marks of male and female are no more?  I can see how procreation would be done away, given that all who exist at that point will exist henceforth.  Multiplication would become a significant issue eventually, and given eternity, eventually must come about.  So, are those organs of procreation done away?  Perhaps, perhaps not.  I have no answer, for none is really given.  But whatever the case, it does appear that we shall appear in these new bodies in such fashion as will permit former associates to recognize us.

We were looking at the example of Lazarus and Jeeves, in the parable Jesus presents, last week.  There is always some question, it seems, given the assigning of name to Lazarus, whether this was truly a parable or some real event involving real people who would have been known to His listeners at the time.  But for this present discussion, the more interesting aspect is that the rich man, whom we have come to think of as Jeeves for whatever reason, recognized Lazarus in heaven, though he himself was in hell.  Let alone the rather surprising idea that heaven and hell are in sight of each other, even if there is that uncrossable divide between.  They knew one another still, by sight.  So, we may assume another appearance in these new bodies, but not so different as to render us unknown one to another.

Back to our own passage.  Wuest brings out an aspect of this waiting that I don’t see arising in any other translation, and I’m honestly not sure where he’s drawing it from.  But looking at this anticipation, he offers that, “we, with our attention withdrawn from all else, are eagerly waiting.”  I suppose we might say that such eager anticipation as this will tend to have our singular focus.  For some of us, such all else excluded focus is familiar.  Given the means to avoid interruptions, I can get that way at work, when chasing a particular bug or coding some new feature.  When I’m working on a song, the same will generally occur.  It takes time and effort, but when things are flowing, it becomes a very singular focus, and honestly, any intrusion becomes a frustration, even the intrusion of such necessities as eating.  Now, I would not wish to carry such a parallel idea too far in this heavenward application.  Far be it from us to become easily frustrated and annoyed because life interrupts our anticipation of Christ’s return.  Viewed in one light, all of life is an interruption of that anticipated moment.  There’s a reason we’re eagerly waiting, and it’s primarily because the present order is, given its fallen condition, unsatisfying, and yes, frustrating.  We are frustrated with our own bodies, and their propensity for giving entrance to sin.  We are frustrated with our own thought life for the same reason.  We are tired of the fight, and yet, fight we must.  And our souls long for that rest which is our inheritance.  Our spirits long for that day when the battle is fully won, and victory fully enjoyed.

And so, we wait.  And so, we walk.  Indeed, going back to the previous passage, we strain forward towards this goal.  We can’t transform this body.  That is beyond us, and those who seek to do so by human means can only make a mess of things.  We are too beset by unintended consequences, by limited perception and knowledge.  But we seek to walk according to the truth we have.  We seek to maintain the ground we have gained in the battle against sin.  We seek to walk according to the pattern so long as we must wait.  And we wait not in frustration, but in joyful anticipation of certain outcome.  We wait with this in mind:  “Whom God foreknew, He predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son, in order that the Son might be the first-born of many brethren” (Ro 8:29).  Now, I know this business of predestination comes as an offense to many people.  If all is so guaranteed as this suggests, what are we but puppets, playthings of God?  What becomes of free will?  Well, the counter argument as that as one predestined to this final outcome, your will was never freer.  What becomes of free will?  Generally speaking, sin.  Sin is our propensity, for we are sinners.  But comes the new life in the Spirit, and better choices are on offer.  We can choose not to sin.  Before we could not so choose.  Sin was the only visible option.  I won’t say the only available, for righteousness is always available.  It’s just that we are blind to that option, and so, our free will has no basis for choosing it.  It’s along the lines of the axiom, if all you’ve got is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.  If all you’ve got is a sinful nature, then every choice looks like the only choice.

But I digress.  There’s news.  No!  God not only knew you would choose Him.  He ordained it.  God not only knows or hopes that you will stand fast, walk the pattern, reach the goal.  He determined it.  He knows the end from the beginning, and why?  Because He declares it.  He speaks and it is.  How can you escape that understanding?  God does not err.  God does not alter plans because some new information has come in.  He speaks and it is. He has spoken your salvation.  It is.  End of story.  That doesn’t strip you of free will.  It strips you of the anxiety of depending on free will alone to get you to the end.  You will make it.  He has spoken.  It is so certain a future that it is presented in the indicative.  You will.  Period.

But then we have the matter of the flesh.  This flesh is not only unfit to inherit the kingdom, it is incapable.  Try as we might, this body will never be sufficient for eternity.  Paul makes the point plainly and repeatedly in his discussion of our transformation.  “Flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God.  The perishable does not inherit the imperishable” (1Co 15:50).  It will require something new, something quite entirely different.  I would argue it requires something much nearer to metamorphosis than Zhodiates admits.  Indeed, I would say he’s got the case almost inverted.  This transformation is far more to do with the real condition of the body, the inner state, if you will, than with outward appearance.  It won’t just look renewed.  It will be transformed.  It has new features.  The susceptibility to wear and disease is stripped away.  Old injuries may or may not be visible.  It seems that, on at least some occasions, the wounds of the cross were still tangible on Jesus’ body.  But then, on other occasions, such as the encounter on the road to Emmaus, there was apparently no such evidence of His past experience.  And we have those other occasions where He was entirely unrecognizable until the moment He chose to be recognized.  So, perhaps these new bodies are not tied to one specific form.  I don’t know.  I do know that every last trace of the corruption of sin, of the penalty of sin, will have been stripped away, and a new tent, free of all such blemishes, provided.

Well, I have spent a fair amount of time looking at these two states, but the heading of this section speaks of two commands given in our passage, the command to observe and the command to stand.  These twin commands come to us as present imperatives.  The present tense aspect indicates that these are to be repeated, even continuous actions on our part.  Be always observing those who walk godly.  And again, I would stress that this is not with intent to criticize or catch out, but rather, to perceive their ways so as to emulate them ourselves.  In looking at that point, it is clear that there is a third imperative here, and it is also in this same present tense.  Be.  Join those you are observing in being followers of me.  We might take it a step further and say be followers together with me, for Paul is but following Jesus.  But the actual text would seem to make it clear that the call is to follow his example, and to do so by joining with those we see doing so, observing their ways and seeking to do likewise.

Here, I might note, is the purpose of Christian fellowship, the point in us having times of gathered worship.  We observe one another.  Where one may be weak, another may have strengths.  Where one is faltering, another may be able to lend a hand.  Or we may simply see the joyful faith of a brother or sister and find in it an encouragement for our own joyful faith.  Who knows?  Perhaps we can even serve as such an encouragement in our own turn.  But here, the call is to observe and then to be.

Then, at the end of the passage, we have our last commandment:  Stand firm in the Lord.  This, too, is a matter of constant action.  We stand firm in our faith by walking according to the pattern.  We walk in the pattern by observing those who are doing so together with us.  The command, you see, connects to the state.  The pattern demonstrates the state of their walk.  The state of their walk informs us through our observation of their lives, and through our observation we join them in being godly.  Being godly, now we walk.  Others may observe.  Others may take up our example together with us, and begin likewise to walk in the pattern set by our Lord.  It’s a beautiful thing, and it suggests that our association together as a body is intended to extend beyond the hour or two we may spend together of a Sunday.  This is life in community.  Having grown up, at least part of my life, in an old, very small, rural community, the idea is perhaps a bit more familiar.  Everybody knew everybody, for really, what else was there to be doing?  Certainly, those in the immediate vicinity knew whose child was whose, and which parents to speak to should that child be causing trouble.  I can’t speak to city life.  But I can speak to the life we lead in the suburbs, and it seems a somewhat different matter.  We are less familiar with neighbors, beyond a nod and a wave.  We aren’t particularly involved in one another’s lives, really.

Here’s an interesting observation.  In that small town there was effectively one church.  I mean, there were others in the region.  There was the Catholic church in the next town over.  Other towns nearby had their own churches.  So, if you really wanted to press the point and attend a Baptist or a Presbyterian church, you could do so, but it would mean a drive.  And it would mean being somewhat of a foreign element in the church.  Church and community were much more close-coupled in this setting.  To be sure, there were plenty of unchurched folks in the town, but if you were churched, chances are you were of this one church.  You knew each other.  For better or worse.  You dealt with each other daily, perhaps not in depth, but life was shared.  I don’t see that so much here.  Everybody has their own lives, their own pursuits, and really, they simply don’t intersect.  Kids may go to the same school, ride the same bus, much like we did.  But then, that bus passed through more distant points, picked up kids who weren’t really part of our neighborhood or town.  The interactions were more limited.  I think, were we to go back to the period into which this letter was written, we would find that for this community of believers, though they dwelt in the city of Philippi, life had far more in common with that small town I grew up in.  They knew each other.  They shared more of life than the worship service.

Pastor Mathews has certainly been seeking to reestablish this depth of connection among us, and I am pained that my present situation makes this a bit less tenable for me, at least in my mind.  Perhaps I need to rethink that.  God, You know.  If this is something I need to address and correct, make it clear.  Perhaps it is so.  But You also know the conflict I feel within myself.  You spoke of it through this same Paul, how family matters might come into conflict with matters of church life, and we would feel pulled in two directions.  How I know that feeling!  But You know how I should proceed, and You will, as You see fit, make it clear to me.  May I be clear in my perceptions when You answer, and do as You command.

Okay.  Let me look at this commandment to stand.  It, too, comes in relation to a state, the state of eagerly waiting.  We hunger for the denouement, the final resolution of the conflict of our lives.  We hunger for the day when striving ceases, when sin us fully defeated, when this new resurrection body is given us.  And we seek, we really do, to be content in the meantime.  That has been one of the themes of this letter, after all.  And it is that contented confidence in God’s goodness that lets us run this race with joyful, certain hope.  It is that contended confidence that gives strength to our resolve to walk in that contentedness.  It is that contended confidence which supplies the backbone to our steadfast resolve whilst we wait.  We stand firm in the Lord.  We do so in eager anticipation of His return.  And in that eager anticipation, we remain content and at peace, knowing that we know that we know that He will indeed come, will indeed transform this body from its current humble state to His glorious state.  This mortal shall put on immortality.  Knowing this is our end, we can face whatever mess the day may bring.  Knowing this is our end, we can withstand whatever tribulations the world may throw our way.  We can bear the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune.  We can look upon the turmoil of war and politics and general public insanity and be not dismayed.  We sorrow, yes.  We pray that God might so choose as to give sight to the blind around us.  But dismay at their headlong rush to destruction?  No.  A thousand may fall at your side, ten thousand at your right hand.  But it shall not approach you.  You will only look on, and see the recompense of the wicked (Ps 91:7-8).  That’s no call to celebrate their destruction.  God doesn’t.  Why would we?  But even amidst the destruction, we shall glorify God, Whose perfect justice is upheld even in this, precisely by this.  We shall glorify God, Who has, in His mercy, become our refuge.  We shall continue, with all that is in us, to abide by these twin commands to observe and be, and to stand firm in what He has caused us to be.

At the Cross (09/30/24-10/01/24)

I’m going to spend the rest of the time I have for this study looking at two symbols that are present in the passage:  The cross and the crown.  And as I set those two images together, it strikes me that this combined image is one somewhat familiar from the imagery of the church.  It has been, in some cases, the emblem of Christ the King, Who obtained His crown through His obedience even unto death on the cross, as Paul has described here in this epistle.  It has also been taken as symbolic of the reward awaiting the Christian in heaven, obtained by our steadfastly standing firm amidst the trials and temptations of this life, which is to say, by our faith in Christ the King.  That said, the combined symbol also has some rather unfortunate associations with the Christian Scientists, and also with Freemasonry.  However, let us not abandon every symbol coopted by the opposition, but rather, let us consider its true significance, and, if suitable, reclaim it for Christ.

I watch my wife seek to do just this with the symbol of the rainbow.  Of course, apart from clear exposition of intent, those who see the symbol will interpret according to their own thoughts, and that can lead to a certain amount of consternation and dismay on her part.  Oh!  I don’t want to be associated with that!  Well, no.  Of course not.  But you have chosen to take this symbol back, and that in itself is not wrong.  It simply requires something more than a picture on your hat.  Now, how is it that she finds the symbols of Christmas and Easter beyond such reclamation?  If God can redeem the rainbow, certainly, He can redeem these days as well, and has long since done so.  It’s all well and good to point out the error of the Church in seeking to accommodate pagan thought in Christian practice, and that’s a valid point.  But God is in the business of redemption, and to insist that those who observe these days in honoring the Lord of all Creation, Christ Jesus Himself, are in fact worshiping false gods seems a bit of a stretch.  To insist that, to take another example, everyone who puts a pumpkin on the porch is inviting Satan in can only stand if you likewise insist that everyone who wears the rainbow symbol is all in on the gay agenda.  You can’t have it both ways.  Either we abandon every symbol that the devil corrupts, or we redeem them, holding to God’s definition of their meaning.

Sorry.  That’s needed expressing for some time.  But let us come back to the text.  We are presented with the cross, and specifically, those who are enemies of the cross.  I am revisiting this in part because I spent a fair amount of energy looking at this symbol some several years back, decades now, I suppose.  And at the time, I found the modern use of the symbol nigh unto idolatrous.  But, perhaps in keeping with that bit of venting I just did, it is time to reclaim what is ours.  So, let’s look at what this cross is about.  As symbols go, this was a potent one, but also one to divide.  After all, the clear and obvious point of the cross is death, and utmost humiliation.  Cicero, who might have been familiar to those in Philippi, spoke of the cross as something that ought not even to enter the thought of a Roman citizen.  It was too awful to be contemplated.  Consider what such a perspective would say to these proud citizens of Roman Philippi.  Remember.  This was a tool of execution, and an execution reserved for the worst criminals.  I don’t know as it would even have been applied to a Roman citizen proper.  It was more for slaves, for the underclass, though I suppose even a Roman citizen, were he found to be acting against the empire, might be subjected to such an end.  It was heinous; heinous to undergo, heinous to witness, even after the act.  It was meant to deter, and no doubt, it rendered the criminal class at least a great deal more cautious.  The price of being caught was far too high.

Add to this the Jewish perspective, rooted in Scripture, that to hang from a tree is a curse, or, we might say, a clear evidence of God’s having cursed that one who was hung.  And to both of these cultures, God chooses to present the Savior as He who died on the cross, bore its weight willingly upon His own shoulders, in order to save mankind.  It was absurd, unthinkable.  It was embarrassing, really.  Who could look to a God like that?  And yet, it is to this very God that we must look if indeed we would be saved.  Israel, at least, had the type of this very thing in that serpentine emblem Moses had raised up in the desert to end the plague sent against them for their rebellion against God.  Look upon this and be saved.  Look upon your Savior, raised up on that cross, put to utmost shame by your most hated enemies, and know that He is, truly, your King.  He truly is the promised heir of David’s throne, and He has taken occupancy.  Face it.  That was going to be a hard sell.  And to a Roman culture, or any culture conquered by Rome, it wasn’t going to be any more presentable an idea.  And yet, here comes Paul into Corinth, as he had come into other cities, determined to preach only Christ, and Him crucified (1Co 2:2).

It needs bearing in mind just how central this message was to the Church.  And it begins with Jesus’ own preaching.  “Take up your cross and follow Me.”  Take it up daily.  But, what does it mean to take it up?  Were it done in the literal sense, it would mean to take upon yourself the very means of your own destruction, your own end.  Bear your death on your shoulders daily.  But such a perspective must surely leave one despondent, hopeless, and that, most assuredly, is not the intention.  No, it’s not a matter of doom and gloom.  But it is a matter of embracing the humiliation of the cross.  And yes, it is a matter of death, but it’s death to the old man of sin.  The new life of the spirit requires this death, and as such, there is an embracing of the death involved in this cross.  The old man was sinful, a rebel against the kingdom of God.  He was deserving, in the spiritual scope, of exactly so ignominious and humiliating a death as the cross represented to the Roman mind.  He was under precisely the sort of curse that the Jew saw spelled out in being hung up like that.  The fleshward mind must needs be destroyed out of us, for, as Paul writes to the Roman church, the fleshward mind is hostile towards God.  As he proceeds to note, it does not subject itself to the law of God, nor is it even remotely able to do so (Ro 8:7).  This was our problem all along, Jew and Gentile alike.  We were all of us subject to the curse, having long since abandoned the law of God.  Even those Pharisees who thought, by their careful attention to practice, to maintain themselves righteous, the reality had been shown to be that righteousness was far removed from them.  They might look good on the outside, but the inner reality was filled with the corruption of death, the fallout of sin (Mt 23:25-26).

So, we have this call to put to death the sin that is in us, which is the primary point, I think of this taking up of the cross.  Hastings points us to self-sacrifice, and that may be part of it, I suppose.  But self-sacrifice is only of value if in fact it reflects the heart condition.  It is the inner humility that is key.  It is the recognition of one’s own sorry state, and the need for an end to that if we are indeed to be set upon the course of true discipleship.  And this, we learn in due course, is not some hurdle to be met once, but, as Hastings proceeds to describe the state of things, “a permanent and persistent matter of the disciple’s way of life.”  This is it!  The death of the old man, the mortification of sin, as our Puritan forebears speak of it.  And it’s not just putting on a holy visage.  It’s looking to the core of our being, and seeing our own futility.  It’s something that we cannot hope to achieve on our own steam.  It takes the transformative work of Christ, and the great joy of the Christian is the knowledge that indeed, Christ Jesus has undertaken to pursue that transformative work in us.  The Holy Spirit has taken up residence, and is seeing to the process.  The Lord has spoken, and it is.  This is our lifeblood, not that we have gained some new power to walk holy, though in that God’s power is at work in us, we have.  But it’s not our deeds of righteousness that win through.  It’s God winning through that leads to our deeds of righteousness.  Don’t invert the process.  That was, I think, the great error of the Pharisees, and of these Judaizers against whom Paul is setting up the church’s defense.  It is the great error of every legalist in every age.  It puts the credit back on man, and when that is where the credit lies, the credit is worthless.

Hear Mr. Hastings once more.  “It was not the example of Jesus that Paul preached, but Jesus as the crucified Savior.”  That may be a bit hyperbolic, but not by much.  I mean, we do have the opening of this passage, right?  “Follow my example.”  What is my example?  Following the example of Jesus.  So, it’s not that this was absent.  It’s just that it was a matter of result, of outcome, rather than of pursuit.  Even that feels an overstatement, given our setting.  Were we not just discussing the ardent pursuit of winning the race?  Isn’t that works?  Well, yes, and no.  It’s not works as earning.  It’s the work done of gratitude.  It’s pursuing the prize that is already ours.  It’s running with assurance towards that very thing we so eagerly await.  If I may, it’s more the perspective of the father running to meet his prodigal son’s return, than the prodigal son picking up his pace to get home.  The father already saw the prize there in his son’s return.  The son remained in suspense, wondering if he could sufficiently express his remorse so as to obtain welcome.

Okay, so we have this image of our death, and our embrace of that death due the old man in order to have life in the spirit, life worthy of being called life.  But again, it’s not a thing we seek to do as a means to that end.  It’s a thing we seek to do as a response to that end having been attained for us, granted us.  It’s an embrace of what Christ has already done, the death He died, the life He lives, the price He paid to see us made sons and daughters of the Father.  And here, we find another aspect of the symbol of the cross.  Here is the bridging of the divide.  This would hold, particularly, given that the crossbeam was the piece generally given the convict to carry to the site of his execution.  Jesus didn’t bear the upright through town, but the crossbeam.  But a crossbeam, apart from this act of execution, has far more to do with bridging divides, than with destruction.

The crossbeams of the house serve not only to provide platform for the roof, and to contain the outward pressures from the weight of it, but also to tie the walls together, and render the structure more firm.  In our application here, we might recognize as first priority that the cross was the means God chose to close the divide between Himself and man.  It is the sole means.  Embrace the cross, and the Son who died, else that divide remains.  No other road lies open.  I know it’s popular today to suggest that all religions are more or less equal, though it ought to be patently obvious just how wrong that supposition is.  But God speaks otherwise.  No other name is given by which a man must be saved (Ac 4:12).  “There is no other God besides Me, a righteous God and a Savior.  There is none except Me” (Isa 45:21b).  Eventually, all shall have to come to grips with this truth.  Sadly, the vast majority will do so to their dismay, the time for returning having passed before that reality settled in.

There’s another bridging evident in the cross, and that is the bridging of the vast divide between Jew and Gentile.  That divide may have been manmade, but it persists.  It clearly persists even today, as we watch Israel embattled against her enemies.  Even as to sentiment, there is this great divide, as so many discover, or expose, their own deep-seated antipathy against Israel.  Oh.  Let them be wiped out.  Awful people.  Just look what they’re doing to those poor, innocent terrorists.  They’re overreacting.  It’s like people think this is just some lover’s spat, and they really ought to just patch it up and move on.  But I digress yet again.  The divide between Jew and Gentile was very much a thing in the period of the early church, the period in which Paul is writing.  Even for those Jews who had become Christians, the divide remained.  That’s what we’re seeing here, I think.  Or, at the very least, they were still thinking of Christianity as more a subsect of Judaism, and as such, they thought it needful to maintain the full rigors of Jewish religious practice.  They still held much the same perspective, when it came to Gentiles.  Okay, God might be letting them in, but they’re going to have to clean up a lot first.  They’re going to have to start looking a lot more Jewish if they want us to accept them.  And boom!  Right there, Paul plants the image of the cross, of Christ crucified.  No!  That order is remanded!  The division of Jew and Gentile, to the degree it ever truly existed, is done away.  There is one body, one faith, one Way, and it’s not to be found in the pursuit of ceremonial acts and rituals.  It’s a matter of the heart, of the soul.  It’s a matter of recognizing our sinful futility, and seeking the one recourse set before us in the cross of Christ.

So, we find that in the cross, Christ has taken this symbol of death and shame and transformed it, as He has transformed us, into a symbol of life, of righteousness, of hope made certain.  The divide has been overcome.  The wall separating us from God has been torn down, the veil removed.  Nothing stands between us and God any longer.  This being the case, the cross is to be accepted and embraced.  The shame the world seeks to lay upon us for our faith is to be accepted and embrace, not taken as cause to change course.  For so they hated our Master, our Savior.

And then, given our present discussion in this text, there is that significant divide that was causing difficulty in the early church, the divide between believers of Jewish background, and believers of Gentile stock.  How were they to interact?  Did we need two distinct churches at each location, one for Jews and one for Gentiles?  No.  Was there a Jerusalem Christianity distinct from the more general Christianity, a different set of beliefs and practices for Asian believers than for Greek?  No.  There is one Way, one Christ, one means of salvation, one faith, one baptism, one body of doctrine.  And those who come along seeking to add their own recipe to this unified faith, be it in the form of Judaizing, or legalism, or antinomianism, or any other such aberration, though they may appear to ‘walk along the Christian road,’ as the TLB phrases it, ‘are really enemies of the cross of Christ.’  It’s not a matter of opinion.  It’s not a matter of multiple means to the same end.  No.  Those who insist on this alternate righteousness cannot do so except they set aside, trample under foot, the work of Christ, achieved in humble obedience, even to death upon the cross.  Any path to salvation that does not consist in embracing His finished work as the only hope, and a certain hope, has in fact rejected Him, rebelled against His righteous rule, and thus, become a course towards a different outcome.  “Their destiny is destruction,” as the TNIV presents Paul’s conclusion.  Appearances to the contrary notwithstanding, this is the outcome towards which they are hurrying along.  The mind set on earthly things has not taken up the cross, will not take up the cross, finds the very idea utterly offensive.  No!  But we will glory in our shame, we shall satisfy our appetites.

Let us be careful, though, lest we think ourselves immune to such misguided perspectives.  Let us inspect ourselves thoroughly as to our practice and belief, and seek that the Holy Spirit might be so gracious as to make evident to us every last way in which our professed faith has defected from His Truth.  Let us become aware of our own self-seeking, our own self-dependence, that we may truly repent of it and turn from it towards utter, entire dependence on Christ alone.

The Crown of Joy (10/02/24)

The second symbol we have in our passage is that of the crown.  Paul speaks of his fellow believers in Philippi as his joy and his crown.  The crown has some clear and obvious meaning, particularly as a marker of victory.  This is in keeping with the race-running motif of Paul’s previous instruction.  He runs to win, and urges us to run so as to win, and here is the prize, the crown awarded the winner.  This is not some royal diadem marking us out as rulers, but rather the wreath of the victor.  But if we are victors, over what have we won?  We have had this set before us in the context of a race, but such crowning wreaths were also given the victorious general returned from battle.  There has been a victory, and we rejoice with the victor!  In our case, that victory is achieved in the battle we fight against worldliness and fleshliness.  We might even say, it is the battle against death, given that death is where these things lead.  As such, Fausset identifies our crowns as righteousness and life.  These are the awards that await us in our native country of heaven.  These are the things with which we shall be honored upon our victorious arrival.

But observe well that the victory, in our case, is less our doing than His.  These awards are not for merit, then.  They are not rewards as we might generally understand the idea.  They are not payment for services rendered.  They are the prize, but they are the prize He has already won on our behalf.  As we noted in the previous part of this text, we run, but not to gain.  We run for the prize that is already ours.  We run for the goal that we are already absolutely assured of reaching.  Our Lord Himself awaits at the finish line, cheering us on, and our crowns are in His hands, awaiting that moment when we have finished the race.  It is no mere participation trophy, mind.  It is a true marker of a true victory, but a victory achieved in us with our willing involvement, yes, but by the power of God Himself, through the work of the Holy Spirit, sent forth in us in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.

This victory harks back to something Isaiah wrote many long years prior.  “The ransomed of the Lord will return with joyful shouting into Zion, with everlasting joy on their heads.  They shall find gladness and joy, and sorrow and sighing will flee away” (Isa 35:10).  This looks well beyond the return from exile in Babylon.  This is the homecoming of the redeemed!  It is more than a Jewish restoration to the homeland.  It is all God’s children come home to everlasting joy in the true, heavenly Zion, wherein sorrow and sighing are unknown, the pain and sorrow of this life forgotten, every tear wiped away, every illness and pain eliminated.  Here is victory indeed!  He has conquered sin and death!  Is it any wonder, then, that we are met with the image of those twenty-four elders laying their crowns down before the Lamb?  And shall we not do likewise, who find ourselves in the presence of the Lamb through whom we have had this victory over sin and death?  He is the Victor!  To Him be every laurel, every honor!  We have honor enough and more in the very fact of being here.  We have more than ample award as sorrow and sighing flee away.

So, perhaps we are better to see the crown in its other symbolism, as a marker of blessings.  Surely, this eternal life of righteousness is blessing indeed.  And just as clearly, the joy with which we find ourselves fully possessed and fully occupied is blessing beyond measure.  Joy everlasting!  Who can even imagine such a thing?  Even as children, joy was fleeting, and as adults, with all the cares of life and family and work and ministry and this and that, and the news daily beating us down, joy is a rare thing indeed.  We might feel it briefly during a vacation, or for a few fleeting minutes on a particularly lovely day.  But the day ends.  The vacation passes, and it’s back to the grind.  And it’s spoken of as the grind for a reason.  And soon enough, joy has fled the scene, leaving us longing for those happy moments once more.  No more!  In heaven we are met with joy everlasting, if it pleases your sense of things, a vacation that has no termination.

I’m getting to be of an age where thoughts of retirement have more weight to them, and the idea of not being up and at it at work 8-9 hours a day is truly enticing.  And yet.  And yet, I know that the cares do not cease with the end of employment.  They may well increase as one has to be more concerned with where the money is going, given the significant reduction in what shall be coming in.  And for my part, I know great concern as to how I shall fill the time in meaningful pursuits.  I know my propensity for idleness too well, and I know as well the frustration that produces in me.  So, no, this is not joy on the same measure.  This is not eternal vacation, either.  It’s just an exchange of one set of cares for another, near as I can see.

We are looking at something greater.  We are looking at a crown of joy.  I see Paul connect the two thoughts in his description of these believers.  You are my joy and my crown.  Isn’t that something?  Isn’t that something you would hope your pastor could say of you?  What pastor, honestly, would not wish to be able to look upon the work Christ has achieved in his congregation through his efforts with such a perspective?  You are my joy!  I look at how you have grown in Christian faith, and I see that my work among you has not been in vain.  It gives me strength and encouragement to continue in this work of ministry, to persevere in the labor God has assigned me.  It’s worth it.  Just look at you!  And my crown.  When I come to heaven, and see your arrival with me, I will know that much more assurance of hearing that long-desired word from my Savior.  “Well done, good and faithful servant!”

For the present, though, I want to retain this connection of crown and joy, and as such, I have set out this section as regarding the crown of joy.  For I really do think that’s where this goes.  And that crown of joy, while it awaits us in heaven, is already to be our present experience.  It awaits us and yet we already have it.  It is our calling, whether in active ministry or in the simple pursuit of life, to wear this crown of joy.  Joy comes of living godly in the midst of this ungodly world.  That may not feel like your present experience.  We tend to feel the strain rather than the joy.  We are looking at the struggle rather than the outcome, and the struggle can wear upon us, leave us sore, tired, care-worn.  Where is joy?  It’s a question worth asking yourself.  Well, then, sing with the Psalmist!  “Weeping may last for the night, but joy comes in the morning” (Ps 30:5).  The trial is but a moment.  God’s grace is a lifetime supply, and by His supply that lifetime is eternal.  To quote the Robin Mark song, we are a moment.  We are a flowering grass, in bloom one day, seared and brown the next.  That, of course, speaks solely to this physical existence we know at present.  But our souls know eternity.  Our spirits yearn for it.  And it is our reward, our joy, to know that indeed what we know and yearn for shall be our true inheritance.  Rejoice, O soul!  Why so downcast?  Hope in God.  I shall again praise Him for the help of His presence (Ps 42:5).  I shall yet praise Him, the help of my countenance, my God (Ps 42:11).  Yes, and that I shall do forever, in the joy of His presence.

Let that be the joy of my present.  Let that be our focus, as we turn our eyes upon Jesus, upon our heavenly home.  Here is reason enough to remain joyful even in the midst.  Let the strife of this world be what it will.  To be sure, there is turmoil enough to supply despair in full.  If you need reason to fret, it is there to be found.  You can tear your hair out in anxious concern for the election, and for the increasing divisiveness of this country.  You can weep and wail over the wars breaking out all over the world.  You can cower in fear as news comes of this disease, that plague, this assault by world powers and technocrats and other iniquitous villains.  Or, you can look to God, remind yourself whose you are, that He has redeemed you, called you by name, and declared you His own.  And you can recall, with that, that God does not lose sheep.  You are in His hands, and no power on earth, nor in heaven, nor in hell, can pry you out of there.  Rejoice!

Rejoice!  Walk through the strife joy intact.  Don’t grant even that small victory to your opponents.  Wear your crown proudly, for you belong to God, the Victorious Warrior.  You already know how this battle turns out, and honestly, as concerns the earthly manifestations, it doesn’t particularly matter which side wins, what nation is on the ascendant, and which in decline.  Your citizenship is in heaven!  You have one King, and He reigns over all these petty fiefdoms of the earth.  You are His, and surely, this is more than sufficient cause for joy and gladness as we meet the day ahead.  So, let us be about it.  Let us be about the joy of the Lord, not giddy with an air of insanity, but filled with the calm delight of knowing that we are secure in Christ, secure in His hands, and assured of our homecoming, whatever this day, or any other, brings our way.

Lord, I know how readily I can lose this thread, lose this joy.  I pray You would be that much more present to me, even today, that whatever frustrations may come, whatever challenges might be mine to face, whatever petty annoyances might seek to get under my skin, I might instead respond with the joy that is mine in You.  I ask with some trepidation, for I understand, I think, that to gain such steadfastness in joy requires the challenges that come to strengthen my resolve.  And I know from past experience how much more I am inclined to capitulate than to overcome.  So, be Thou my strength in the fight for joy.  I am not stuck with who I am, for You have overcome!  Overcome even my attitudes, my Lord, that I may bear the mark of Your victory in the face of this world and its sorrows.