Focused on our Lifework - 1 Corinthians 9:24-27 - January 9, 2022

 1 Corinthians 9:24-27 Focused on our Lifework

Good morning! This is not how today was supposed to go, in fact the last two weeks have been a scramble. Nate was supposed to preach last week and I was supposed to lead worship as Joel and family were traveling. The first Sunday of the year is of course National let the Youth Pastor preach Sunday. So everything was supposed to shift a week but as Nate and Becki tested positive for COVID, here we are…

Nate is planning on preaching the next two weeks so please be in extra prayer for him.

I am also starting a new series on the works of Luke but I didn’t want to start that only to take the next two Sundays away from it so the Lord has provided me this opportunity to share something a little different than usual.

We are going to look at 1 Corinthians 9:24-27, page 957 in the pew Bibles, and consider an illustration that the Apostle Paul uses in reference to his lifework. And we’ll talk a little bit about that term, “lifework,” as well.

24 Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one receives the prize? So run that you may obtain it. 25 Every athlete exercises self-control in all things. They do it to receive a perishable wreath, but we an imperishable. 26 So I do not run aimlessly; I do not box as one beating the air. 27 But I discipline my body and keep it under control, lest after preaching to others I myself should be disqualified.

Let’s pray

I wonder when considering our individual philosophies of life, the reality is that our thoughts on the matter resemble the poster with the cat hanging from the branch that says, “Hang in there baby!”

For many of us this is true at least to a degree, that our goal in life is to merely survive it, to simply finish the race.

When I was a younger man most of my thoughts about my purpose in life had to do with what my job was, my vocation. I didn’t see a way to fully serve the Lord unless I was a pastor, after all, what can a machinist really do to serve the Lord?

Hopefully you can see the folly of my thinking. If I was right, we would all have to be pastors and preachers in order to be faithful servants of the Lord. 

So there has to be more to it than that, and that’s where the idea of, “lifework,” comes in.  

When considering our text, what could Paul have possibly meant when he said to run the race in such a way that you might win?

Though Paul is using a metaphor, he clearly thinks that there is a right way and a wrong way to serve the Lord with our lives. He doesn’t instruct us to just finish the race, to just hang in there baby, he says, “run to win!”

So to apply this idea of running the race to win we have to consider what is necessary in order to do that. I’ve never been a competitive runner, in fact, I’ve only ever run in one race, a two mile fun run in Center Harbor maybe fifteen years ago. Two miles was longer than I had ever run before and I thought I was going to die. But I finished.

But running to win races takes preparation, training, determination, and focus. It’s hard work, but that doesn’t mean that it’s bad.

Paul describes, “not running aimlessly, and not boxing as one beating the air.” He understood his lifework, the track that he was to run. He ran with purpose and disciplined himself to avoid distraction.

In looking at the broader context of these four verses in chapter nine, chapters 8-10 of 1 Corinthians, Paul is arguing for the use of biblical freedom in carrying out the progress of the gospel in the wisest way possible, varying his approach based on the needs of the circumstances that he was in. 

All of chapter nine, until we get to the four verses of our text, Paul argues that he has the right to make his living off his work of preaching and teaching but he chooses not to. But stuck in the middle of this are these four verses about running the race to win.

If we take these four verses out of this overall context, which, I think probably happens any time anybody preaches on them, myself included, if we take them out of context we’ll start talking about the race of life in a general sense and try our best to describe how to run that race well.

But if you consider the context where Paul has been talking about his use of freedom in the progress of the gospel, and considering the rest of chapter nine is all about how he personally carries out his personal life’s mission as an apostle, considering that overall context, the race that Paul is talking about is much more specific.

He’s not just talking about life, he’s talking about lifework. Jeff Reed wrote, “The race he is talking about is the race of completing the overall lifework that has been placed before him by Christ. He states two things that are necessary in order to complete it: disciplining his life and taking careful aim as he goes about his lifework.”

25 Every athlete exercises self-control in all things. They do it to receive a perishable wreath, but we an imperishable. 26 So I do not run aimlessly; I do not box as one beating the air. 27 But I discipline my body and keep it under control, lest after preaching to others I myself should be disqualified.

Exercising self-control and discipline, he sought to bring his whole life under a one-purpose discipline. He knew what his lifework was, to preach the gospel to the Gentiles, to establish churches, to train men to shepherd those churches, and entrust those churches to repeat the process. His focus was on this work and he disciplined himself to keep from getting distracted, he took careful aim. 

We live in a world that is loaded with distractions and we love it, we pay through the nose for it, we pay monthly for it.

But for Paul, taking careful aim involved a complete focus on the goal of completing his lifework, he was single-minded in his approach to life. We have a lot to learn about this, at least I do.

One of my favorite verses is Ephesians 2:8-9, but we often skip verse 10.

8 For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, 9 not a result of works, so that no one may boast. 10 For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.

Though we all have different gifts, circumstances, and opportunities, we are all in a similar situation to Paul. 

We all need to follow his example, we all need a single-minded focus on our calling, we all need to use our freedom in Christ to best carry out our lifework, we all need to do the good works which God prepared beforehand for us no matter what our actual vocation is. We need to discipline our lives like athletes that are competing for the prize. 

Our prize is the satisfaction of faithfully completing the lifework to which we have been called by the Father and hearing, “Well done, my good and faithful servant.”

In considering what it takes to develop a single-minded approach to life Robert Banks wrote, “The first step is to become clear about the main path that God requires us to follow. We can be quite sure that whatever God wishes us to devote ourselves to He will grant us time enough in which to do it. Our responsibility is to find out exactly what He wants and hold resolutely to that. One of our greatest problems is that we misunderstand what God asks of us, either by adding all kinds of extra responsibilities or by possessing only a hazy idea of what He wishes. We will gain more time by properly understanding His will for us than by all the time-saving suggestions put together. No amount of reordering and scheduling our affairs, no amount of trimming and delegating our responsibilities, no amount of organizing or managing our time, will achieve the same result. It is a matter of taking Jesus’ words seriously and applying them to this particular issue: ‘Seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things will come to you as well.’ (Matt 6:33). That is, discover what God’s will is for you and all the time you need to fulfill it will come your way.”

Discovering what we are built for, discovering what those good works are that the Lord has prepared for  us to do, that is discovering what God’s will for us means.

We need to evaluate ourselves thoroughly, consider what it is that the Lord requires of us that He requires of every believer, and also consider what it is that He requires of us each individually according to how He built us.

Robert Banks also wrote, “We must draw a distinction between the central and the peripheral in our lives. Like Paul, we need to know where our main responsibilities lie, and we must leave everything else to one side, no matter how worthwhile or legitimate these concerns may be.”

So we are left to consider:

What are some of the things that seem to distract us from giving undivided attention to the call of God on our lives to fulfill our lifework?

How can we live a totally focused life and still enjoy life? What would that even look like?

What would it take to bring our lives under the kind of discipline that Paul models for us?

These aren’t questions that I can answer for you but they are questions worth wrestling with and we can do that together.

24 Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one receives the prize? So run that you may obtain it. 25 Every athlete exercises self-control in all things. They do it to receive a perishable wreath, but we an imperishable. 26 So I do not run aimlessly; I do not box as one beating the air. 27 But I discipline my body and keep it under control, lest after preaching to others I myself should be disqualified.

Amen

Who Do You See in the Manger? John 1:1-18 - December 26, 2021

 John 1:1-18 Who Do You See in the Manger?

Good morning! I’m glad that you were able to wade through the mountains of ripped up wrapping paper and cardboard to find your way here this morning!

I hope that you are not so over Christmas that you can’t stand to hear anymore about it. I’m the kind of person that only has use for Christmas music on Christmas Eve and then I’m pretty much done with it, pack up those old records till next year.

Well, I hope you can stand just one more Christmas sermon. It should be easy since I only just preached on it last week!

Turn with me to John chapter one, page 886 in the pew Bibles. This week I want to focus on just one question: Who do you see in the manger? 

Let’s pray and we’ll dig into that question.

When I think of Christmas there are lots of things that go through my mind, family gatherings, well thought out gifts, twinkle lights and too much to eat… But there are also the elements of Christmas itself, ancient scenes with shepherds and angels, wise men from the east, and jolly old fat men from the north.

And of course we know at the center of it all is the baby in the manger.

Much has been made of the humble scene of Joseph and Mary relegated to the stable because there was no room in the inn, and when Jesus was born He was wrapped in swaddling cloths and laid in the manger, a feed trough for the animals.

And when you think about that scene and in your heart look into that manger who is it that you see? A sweet, innocent, helpless newborn, baby? 

Are your thoughts informed by the old Christmas carols? Do you really believe that the little Lord Jesus didn’t cry? Or that the night really was silent? If the Little Drummer Boy song is true, neither of those other songs can be right!

I’d like to look at the Gospel of John and look at the reality of exactly who it was laying in that manger so we won’t allow our sentimentality to define our perception of reality.

The Apostle John, little brother of James, was referred to as the Disciple whom Jesus loved. He wrote his Gospel account after the other three Gospels, often called the “Synoptic Gospels” which means, “to see together,” as their perspectives parallel each other and are very similar in a lot of ways. John’s Gospel is very different in both style and purpose.

John’s Gospel was also written after all of Paul’s letters and after all of Peter’s letters, it’s one of the last books of the New Testament to be written, and he shares a unique perspective on the ministry of Jesus Christ though he never mentions the manger scene.

Let’s read John’s prologue to his Gospel in John 1:1-18 and look for who it was lying in that manger.

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was in the beginning with God. 3 All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made. 4 In him was life, and the life was the light of men. 5 The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it. 

6 There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. 7He came as a witness, to bear witness about the light, that all might believe through him. 8 He was not the light, but came to bear witness about the light. 

9 The true light, which gives light to everyone, was coming into the world. 10 He was in the world, and the world was made through him, yet the world did not know him. 11 He came to his own, and his own people did not receive him. 12 But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, 13 who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God. 

14 And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth. 15 (John bore witness about him, and cried out, “This was he of whom I said, ‘He who comes after me ranks before me, because he was before me.’ ”) 16 For from his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace. 17 For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. 18 No one has ever seen God; the only God, who is at the Father’s side, he has made him known.

This is a wonderful, deep, and rich description of the one born of a virgin that night in Bethlehem, this is who Jesus really is.

What can we learn about Him from these verses?

In verse one we can see several things. 

Jesus was in the beginning, He is eternal. 

He was not created as some would have us believe, but rather, He is eternally existent, he has always been, and will always be. In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was in the beginning with God.

Jesus is the Word. 

A word, any word, is how thoughts are expressed whether spoken or written. Jesus is the Word in that He is the expression of God. 18 No one has ever seen God; the only God, who is at the Father’s side, he has made him known.

Jesus is God.

Jesus is not a god among many, He and the Father are One. 

The Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are what we call The Trinity, or the Godhead, distinct but three in One. In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

Jesus is the creator. 

Jesus was not only present at creation but, in fact, was the agent of creation. 3 All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made.

Genesis 1:26 says, Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness.

OUR image, OUR likeness… God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit were active in our design and creation, Jesus is our Creator.

Jesus is the life.

It is only through Jesus that we have access to life beyond this life, everlasting life, eternal life. John 3:16 says, “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.” In John 11:25 He called Himself the Resurrection and the Life, He said, “Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live.”

Jesus is the light. 

4 In him was life, and the life was the light of men. 5 The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it. 

Light represented wisdom and knowledge and truth. He is the sum total and source of all truth, knowledge, and wisdom. In contrast, darkness represented the realm and reign of Satan, of evil, of sin and death and hell.

He said Himself in John 8:12, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.”

Jesus was and is the only way out of that realm of darkness.

Jesus, is also the agent of our adoption.

6 There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. 7He came as a witness, to bear witness about the light, that all might believe through him. 8 He was not the light, but came to bear witness about the light. 

9 The true light, which gives light to everyone, was coming into the world. 10 He was in the world, and the world was made through him, yet the world did not know him. 11 He came to his own, and his own people did not receive him. 12 But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, 13 who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God. 

Jesus was rejected by men, He was then and largely is now, but that has never changed His purpose in coming, to give the right to become children of God to all who believe in His Name.

It’s a popular thought that we are all children of God, that just existing makes you a child of God. This though may be popular but it is wrong. No one is born into the family of God naturally, we have to be adopted through faith in Jesus Christ.

Romans 8:15-17 says, …you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, “Abba! Father!” 16 The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, 17 and if children, then heirs—heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ…

And though Jesus is all of these spiritual things, what we celebrate at Christmas time is His incarnation. Though Jesus is fully God, He is also fully man.

14 And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth. 15 (John [the Baptist] bore witness about him, and cried out, “This was he of whom I said, ‘He who comes after me ranks before me, because he was before me.’ ”)

To “incarnate” means to put on flesh, the very words the Apostle uses here. At Christmastime we use the name Emmanuel, which means, “God with us.” That’s what Jesus did in the nativity story, He took on flesh and dwelt among us.

And finally, He is the key to God’s grace.

16 For from his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace. 17 For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.

The Law was given through Moses to show us what sin was and to show that we are sinful. Paul wrote in Romans 7:7, …if it had not been for the law, I would not have known sin. For I would not have known what it is to covet if the law had not said, “You shall not covet.”

We’ve talked about this before that none of us can say that we have never broken the Ten Commandments that were given through Moses. Breaking the Law is what sin is and, as it says in Romans, the wages of sin is death, what we earn by sinning is death.

But grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. Jesus is God’s grace expressed. Through His death, by God’s grace, life is made available to us, we simply need to trust in Him.

In summary, Jesus is eternal, the Word, God Himself, the Creator, He is life, He is light, He is the agent of our adoption, and the key to God’s grace.

When you look into the manger, is that who you see? Because that’s who was there.

Amen.

Advent Themes in Conclusion - 2 Peter 3:14-18 - December 19, 2021

 2 Peter 3:14-18 Advent Themes in Conclusion

Good morning! 

Let’s pray.

We are finishing our work in 2 Peter this morning, so you can turn to 2 Peter 3:14-18, page 1019 in the pew Bibles.

So today  is the fourth Sunday of Advent, the season of preparation for celebrating the birth of Jesus Christ, the incarnation, God putting on flesh and dwelling among us. I’d like to thank the kids who did the Advent readings each week and lighting the candles for us each week. At the Christmas Eve service we will light the last candle, the Christ candle as we remember His humble birth in Bethlehem.

Traditionally, each of the four Sundays of Advent has a particular theme. And I say, “traditionally,” because there is no command in Scripture that tells us the church to focus on these four themes, or even to celebrate Advent or Christmas for that matter. But we do it because it’s helpful, it’s helpful to remember, it’s helpful to focus on these themes.

The four themes of Advent are: hope, peace, joy, and love. 

And their order gets shuffled around sometimes, and sometimes peace gets swapped out for preparation, but like I said, there’s no rules for this so it doesn’t really matter.

Oddly enough, these four themes are present in our final text in 2 Peter, which is a huge relief because Christmas is next Saturday and we’ll all obviously be over it by next Sunday.

Let’s turn to our text and look for these four themes.

14 Therefore, beloved, since you are waiting for these, be diligent to be found by him without spot or blemish, and at peace. 15 And count the patience of our Lord as salvation, just as our beloved brother Paul also wrote to you according to the wisdom given him, 16 as he does in all his letters when he speaks in them of these matters. There are some things in them that are hard to understand, which the ignorant and unstable twist to their own destruction, as they do the other Scriptures. 17 You therefore, beloved, knowing this beforehand, take care that you are not carried away with the error of lawless people and lose your own stability. 18 But grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To him be the glory both now and to the day of eternity. Amen.

So, remembering one of the golden rules of Bible study, we can’t start off with a “therefore,” until we know what it’s there for, and discovering what it’s there for is as easy as thinking back to last week’s text to see what Peter was referring to, and that is the Day of the Lord, the return of Christ, His Second Advent.

So Peter says, “Therefore beloved, since you are waiting for these,” meaning the return of Christ and the coming of the new heaven and new earth where righteousness dwells, since you are waiting, confidently expecting these things to happen, be diligent to be found by Him without spot or blemish…

What is the word that we use for “confidently expecting” something to happen? HOPE.

And hope is the first theme of Advent.

Hope is not a wish, though we often use the word that way, as in, “I hope I get an Xbox for Christmas.”

Hope is confidently expecting God to do what He said He would do. As Peter reminded us back in verse one of this chapter when he wrote, “I am stirring up your sincere mind by way of reminder, that you should remember the predictions of the holy prophets and the commandment of the Lord through your apostles…”

Confidently expecting Jesus to return because the prophets foretold it and Jesus Himself promised it, that’s our hope!

The “people living in great darkness,” as Isaiah wrote, were looking forward in hope for the great light to shine. For them it was the first Advent of Jesus, for us it’s His Second Advent.

The second theme of Advent, and the one I struggle the most with personally, is peace.

Peter wrote in verse 14, be diligent to be found by him without spot or blemish, and at peace.

The Scholars are divided on who it is exactly that we are supposed to have peace with.

Christ’s first Advent made it possible for people to have peace with God, in fact, peace with God is only possible through faith in Jesus Christ.

Romans 5:1-2 says,  …since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. 2 Through him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God.

And certainly to found by Jesus at His return to be without spot or blemish will be evidence of our peace with God, but I’m not sure that is the kind of peace that Peter meant.

John Calvin didn’t either, he wrote,

“The word peace seems to be taken for a quiet state of conscience, founded on hope and patient waiting. For as so few turn their attention to the judgment of Christ, hence it is, that while they are carried headlong by their demanding and persistent lusts, they are at the same time in a state of anxiety. This peace, then, is the quietness of a peaceable soul, which complies with the word of God.”

A quietness of soul… doesn’t that sound good? And also hard to achieve? Maybe even impossible…

Maybe it seems that way because the peace we are after has more to do with our desire to have a pleasant and quiet life than what it is that the Lord says will bring us real peace.

Like Paul said, peace with God comes through faith in Jesus, and peace in our soul, comes from exactly the same thing, faith in Jesus Christ.

Faith in Jesus is not merely believing that He exists, it’s not just agreeing with facts, faith in Jesus is trusting in Jesus personally, trusting that He did what was necessary to pay the penalty for our sin on the cross, but also trusting Him to guide and direct our lives and the affairs of this world.

Peter shows us that the source of this peace is the hope of Christ’s return because He trusted Him to do as He said He would do, and that same peace is available to us.

We may not like our circumstances, we may not be happy about the challenges that we are facing or the losses that we feel, but we can still have peace, we can still have quietness of soul if we will trust the Lord Jesus to do as He said He would, to be with us always even until the end of the age.

The third theme of Advent is joy.

In the first Advent of Christ the joy is found in the incarnation of Christ, God taking on flesh and dwelling among us, the joy was that Messiah had finally come. We often experience joy when what we have been waiting for finally happens, I can only imagine the joy that those folks had who had so longed for Messiah to come, and there he was just as the prophets had foretold.

But the Joy that Peter alludes to is found in something that hasn’t happened yet, we are looking forward to it in hope, we have peace knowing that it is coming, but we find in joy the fact that it hasn’t happened yet. 

Verse 15 says, …count the patience of our Lord as salvation…

Because the Father has yet to send back His Son to earth that means countless people still have the opportunity to be saved, every moment he waits His family grows as people come to faith in Him.

As Peter wrote back in verse nine, The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance.

Every day that the Lord waits means that thousands more people won’t perish but reach repentance and that is cause for Joy, joy based on peace knowing that the Father is in control, and based on hope, confidently expecting to do as He promised.

The fourth theme of Advent is love.

15 And count the patience of our Lord as salvation, just as our beloved brother Paul also wrote to you according to the wisdom given him, 16 as he does in all his letters when he speaks in them of these matters. There are some things in them that are hard to understand, which the ignorant and unstable twist to their own destruction, as they do the other Scriptures. 17 You therefore, beloved, knowing this beforehand, take care that you are not carried away with the error of lawless people and lose your own stability. 18 But grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

Peter loved Paul but recognized that some of the things he wrote were difficult to understand and after preaching through Paul’s letters for like seven years I can resonate with that thought. But Peter’s endorsement of Paul as a beloved brother, or his wisdom, or endorsing Paul’s writings Scripture, is not the love that is found in our Advent theme.

The First Advent showed the Father’s love for mankind, as was read this morning: “For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son that whoever would believe in Him shall not perish but have everlasting life.”

As we look forward in hope to Christ’s Second Advent and experience the peace of knowing that the Lord is in control, He has everything arranged, and knows the day and the hour that He will send the Son back with a new heaven and anew earth, as we experience the joy of seeing many more come to faith in Jesus Christ because the Father patiently waited another day, we can express our love for Him by growing in the grace and knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Jesus said in John 14:15, “If you love me you will keep my commandments.”

The ignorant and unstable twist the Scriptures to their own destruction, says Peter, take care that you are not carried away with the error of lawless people and lose your own stability. 18 But grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

We grow in grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, we stay stable and don’t get carried away into error, when we grow in the knowledge of the way that He has chosen to reveal Himself, when we grow in our knowledge of His Word, the Bible. When we get to know our Bible, we learn what He commanded, and so we express our love for Him.

Eva asked me this week about what to do for Jesus for Christmas, what to get Him for His birthday…

I think it’s this. Hope, Peace, Joy, and Love.

To him be the glory both now and to the day of eternity. Amen.