Scripture: Philippians 1:27-2:11; Luke 7:36-50
Remember the movie Saving Private Ryan? Spoiler alert if you haven’t seen it: But it is, like, 30 years old now, so c’mon! But if you’ve seen it, you’ll remember the dying words that Captain Miller, Tom Hanks’s character, spoke to Private Ryan, played by Matt Damon. After nearly everyone in the unit dies in order to save Ryan’s life, Miller says to Ryan, “Earn this… Earn it!” Because Ryan has received an incredible gift—the gift of life, paid for by the lives of so many of his fellow soldiers.
And next we see an elderly Ryan, decades later, near the end of his own life, standing beside the grave markers at Normandy beach—asking his children and grandchildren, “Did I earn it?”—in other words, did he live a life worthy of the sacrifices that Miller and his fellow soldiers made for him so long ago? Did he deserve the life that their deaths made possible for him?
I fear that that Captain Miller placed an impossible burden of guilt on Private Ryan. After all, how Ryan ever earn so many men sacrificing their lives for him?
And here we have the apostle Paul, in verse 27 of Philippians 1, saying something that at least risks sounding a little like that: “Only let your manner of life be worthy of the gospel of Christ…”
Is Paul saying to these Philippians the same thing Captain Miller said? Earn this… Earn what God has done to rescue you in Christ.
Therefore, when Paul says, “let your manner of life be worthy of the gospel of Christ,” he can’t mean “earn it.”
Jesus himself makes this point in Luke chapter 7. There, a prominent, well-respected Pharisee named Simon invites Jesus to a dinner party. During this party, a woman came in. She was known around town as a prostitute… But she repented and believed in Jesus. She was forgiven. So she begins kissing Jesus’ feet and anointing them with an expensive alabaster jar of ointment; and also she anoints Jesus’ feet with her own tears—these are tears of joy, mind you, out of gratitude and love for what Christ has done for her.
Simon, meanwhile, is indignant that Jesus is allowing this woman to do this to him. Simon thinks, “If Jesus were really a prophet he would know what kind of woman this is, and wouldn’t let her do this!”[1]
But Jesus knows what Simon is thinking… And he knows what’s in Simon’s heart: Simon is thinking, “This woman is a terrible sinner. Thank God I’m not like her. Whereas she doesn’t deserve to be with Jesus, I do. Because, unlike her, I’m righteous. I’m worthy. I’m valuable.
“I am living a life,” in other words, “in which I’m proving my worth to God; I’m showing God through my righteous actions that, unlike this woman, I deserve to be accepted by God.”
And Jesus tells Simon, in so many words, “Not even close. If you knew the kind of person you are, Simon, you would be showing me the same extravagant love and adoration that this woman is!”
The difference between Simon the Pharisee and this former prostitute was that the former prostitute knew she owed a debtto God because of her sins that she could never hope to repay; Simon didn’t know that… And unless or until he figured this out—unless or until he figured out that he’s a sinner who also owed an unpayable debt to God because of his sins—Simon would be unable to comprehend and receive the gospel…
The late pastor Tim Keller famously said, “The gospel is this: We are more sinful and flawed in ourselves than we ever dared believe, yet at the very same time we are more loved and accepted in Jesus Christ than we ever dared hope.”
And that truth has the power, by the Holy Spirit, to melt our hearts and love Jesus.
Which is precisely Jesus’ point in Luke 7:47, “I tell you, her sins—and they are many—have been forgiven, so she has shown me much love. But a person who is forgiven little shows only little love.”[2]
The key to love, according to Jesus, is knowing and remembering and celebrating the great lengths to which God himself has gone, through his Son Jesus Christ, to forgive us of our sins, to rescue us from our sins, to give us eternal life, to make us part of his family forever. This is precisely why Jesus, elsewhere in the gospels, tells the most outwardly religious people of his day, “Truly, I say to you, the tax collectors and the prostitutes go into the kingdom of God before you.”[3]Because these outwardly religious people are unwilling to accept the first part of the good news of Jesus Christ—which I admit sounds like bad news… that we are helpless sinners in need of God’s grace!
That’s why one theologian of the last century, John Gerstner, said that “what stands between us and God is not so much our sin as our damnable good works.” What stands between us and God, in other words, is our pride that refuses to admit how big a sinner we really are!
All that to say, when Paul says in verse 27 of Philippians 1, “Only let your manner of life be worthy of the gospel of Christ,” he can’t mean that we have to “earn” our salvation, or “deserve” it, or “pay God back for it.” No… to live a life “worthy of the gospel of Christ,” surely means, first of all, that our love for Christ will spill over… from a heart ofgratitude… into loving service to Christ himself… no matter what that “service” looks like… because our number one desire in life is to please our Master alone and to make him look as glorious as he really is!
Maybe it’s like this: When I was a kid, I hated mowing the lawn so much… I would put it off as long as I could… until Mom and Dad would order me to do it, and I’d be like, “Do I have to?” On at least a couple of occasions, my Uncle Nick heard me ask this question. He said, “You don’t have to… You get to!”
And he was onto something! I mean… if I loved my parents more… If I desired to please them more than I desired to please myself… If I looked forward to their delight in making our yard look well-manicured and glorious, then I could say, “I get to cut the grass!”
But I didn’t love my parents enough to say that! So let me love Jesus more than that! May all of us love Jesus enough to share this woman’s attitude in Luke chapter 7!
After all, this woman is literally serving Jesus in the most humiliating way possible—washing his feet—a service that no one other than the lowliest slave would perform in the first century. She’s not letting her pride stand in her way. She’s not letting the opinions of Simon or other “respectable” people at the dinner party prevent her from doing this for Jesus.
In fact, who could stop this woman from doing what she’s doing? Her attitude is such that “wild horses couldn’t drag her away” from serving Jesus in this moment!
She doesn’t have to do this… She gets to!
She is serving Christ… from a heart of gratitude… and she’s doing it with joy… regardless of the costs—financially or to her reputation or pride!
To be “worthy of the gospel of Christ” means serving and even suffering for Christ’s sake—and it means serving and suffering with… joy.
Is that possible?
You better believe it! These Philippians know for sure that it’s possible. Why? Because they’ve seen Paul do it. He has set an example for them!
Look at verses 29 and 30:
For it has been granted to you that for the sake of Christ you should not only believe in him but also suffer for his sake, engaged in the same conflict that you saw I had and now hear that I still have.
These words are key: “the same conflict that you saw I had”…
When did they see Paul “engaged in conflict” and suffering for Christ’s sake? When Paul came to Philippi in Acts chapter 16! You may recall the episode… Paul and Silas had been beaten, stripped, shackled, and placed in prison, until an earthquake miraculously released them. But before that earthquake—before their stocks fell off, before the prison doors opened—something happened to Paul and Silas that was at least as great a miracle as the earthquake itself: Acts chapter 16, verse 25: “About midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the prisoners were listening to them.” Praying and singing hymns.
They weren’t in church. No one was forcing them to have this impromptu worship service. This was completely voluntary. As we probably know from experience, it is very difficult to sing hymns to God—and mean it—when we are depressed, or worried, or stressed out… not to mention in physical pain. Given what Paul and Silas had endured, singingis the last thing they should have wanted to do! Yet they’re doing it!
The only explanation for their behavior is that they knew an abiding joy in the Lord, and that joy was greater than even the humiliation, the pain, and suffering that they had experienced—which was immense.
In our worldly estimation, we don’t think it’s possible. We often think, “We either have joy or we have pain and suffering, but not both. It’s impossible to have both at the same time.”
The Bible says otherwise… I want this miracle in my life! Don’t you…? This miracle of experiencing joy regardless of my circumstances!
The author of Hebrews writes to a church who, like Paul and Silas, has endured great suffering and says, in Hebrews 10:34: “For you had compassion on those in prison, and you joyfully accepted the plundering of your property, since you knew that you yourselves had a better possession and an abiding one.”
Joyfully accepted.
Get the picture? These Christians were having their property forcibly removed on account of their faith. Yet in their case they “accepted it with joy.”
Again… It stands to reason that we could accept anything that happens to us, if by doing so we can experience—at the very same time—joy.
Just give us joy, Lord, and we’ll put up with anything! We’ll endure anything. We’ll suffer anything.
But even our secular culture understands this. Just think about some beloved love songs that we all know…
How about this Top 5 hit from the band Foreigner in 1977? “I would climb any mountain, sail across the stormy sea/ If that’s what it takes me, baby, to show how much you mean to me.”
Or this Top Ten hit from 1985, by Prince: “You/ I would die for you.” From the movie Purple Rain.
Or how about what is perhaps the best-selling hit single of all time… Released in 1991 by Bryan Adams—I’m not going to try to sing this one… but it includes these sappy words:
Search your heart, search your soul
And when you find me there, you’ll search no more
Don’t tell me it’s not worth tryin’ for
You can’t tell me it’s not worth dyin’ for
You know it’s true Everything I do, I do it for you, for you.
Again, we would do anything, we would sacrifice anything, for the one with whom we are in love. It would be our pleasure to do so… It would be our joy to do so… It would hardly be a sacrifice…
Paul and Silas suffered beatings, nakedness, and imprisonment… That woman in Luke 7 not only suffered the harsh judgment of onlookers like Simon the Pharisee, she also spent a small fortune to do so. Because she broke an alabaster jar of ointment! For a woman like her, this would likely have been the most precious and valuable thing she owned!
Again, it was her joy to do so! No one could have stopped her if they tried! It was totally worth it to her! Because she loved Jesus that much!
If you will open your heart to me as your pastor, I promise I will make it my mission to nurture this kind of love within each of us!
I haven’t been here long, as your pastor, as you know… But I know that less than two years ago, this church made a painful—yet faithful and Christ-exalting—decision to disaffiliate from the United Methodist Church—a church that so many of us loved… and poured our lives into… and were part of for so many years or decades.
You made that decision for the best of reasons… because you rightly understood that doctrines matter… Doctrines, in this case, related to the authority and truthfulness of scripture in guiding our Christian faith and practice; doctrines related to sin, repentance, and God’s judgment; and doctrines related to sexual ethics and the definition of marriage… among others.
This church fought and won the battle over doctrines—as did the church that I served in Toccoa, Georgia… That battle, however painful, was important and necessary… Obviously, that battle did not involve physical suffering… But it still hurt. And some of us, I know, have invisible wounds and scars to show for it.
By the way, you know that saying, “Sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me”? That is the dumbest saying ever uttered! The older I get, the more I believe that words are practically the only thing that hurt us… in the long run! And we all have scars and wounds to prove it! And they don’t heal nearly as quickly and nicely as broken bones!
And many of us have scars and wounds from our church’s fight over disaffiliation!
But listen… Our church’s fight is hardly over.
God is now calling our church to fight and win a far more difficult battle…
You say, “I don’t want to fight!” You don’t have a choice! You were enlisted in this same conflict that Paul refers to in verse 29 of Philippians chapter 1 at the moment you said “yes” to Christ’s invitation to be your Savior and Lord—however long ago that was! Paul refers to this conflict in another letter, in Ephesians 6:12: “For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.”
Our fight, ultimately, is with the devil, who very much wants to sidetrack or derail or otherwise prevent us from fulfilling this Great Commission that Christ has given us.
So this fight won’t mostly be against other people… Unless you and I turn on each other… fight each other instead of fighting Satan, our common enemy. Paul is concerned about that… Notice his emphasis here on unity. Verse 27: We are to “stand firm in one spirit, with one mind, striving side by side for the faith of the gospel.” And then he reiterates this need for unity in verses 3 and 4 of chapter 2: “Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others.”
And what is the “number one interest” of others, if not to be in a saving relationship with God through faith in his Son Jesus?
That’s what we’re fighting for at Five Forks Methodist! That’s who we’re fighting for… the souls of men and women and boys and girls who haven’t yet received God’s gift of eternal life in Christ!
It’s got to be! Paul says in verse 5 of Philippians 2, “Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus,” and then the verses that follow are a beautiful poem about God becoming incarnate in Christ. He “emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.”
Why did he do it? Why did God go to the trouble? Why did God, in and through his Son Jesus Christ, suffer so much?
To save us. And Paul says we’re supposed to have that same mind… that same outlook… that same attitude!
Do we?
If so, we’ll keep fighting for lost people in our community who need Christ. Amen?
And the next part of this battle—as most of you know—is to secure our new, permanent church home. We’re going to talk about that in a few moments after the service.
For the time being, I want you to consider this: God has put in front of us a piece of property across from an elementary school—perhaps the most desirable school in the area… a school of about 900 students, not counting teachers, faculty, and staff. When you consider parents dropping off and picking up children at that school every day, how many people will see our church? Twelve or thirteen hundred people every school day… among many others driving by! What great visibility! What great opportunities to welcome and invite and serve this school community in this growing area of our county!
“Do you not say, ‘There are yet four months, then comes the harvest’? Look, I tell you, lift up your eyes, and see that the fields are white for harvest.” John 4:35. To say the least, this field will be “white for harvest”!
Behold our harvest field… if only God’s people at Five Forks Methodist will give…
Remember the former prostitute in Luke 7… What is the equivalent of our “alabaster jar”? What treasure are we willing and able to give to our Lord out of love for him… in order to serve him… in order to experience the joy of giving everything to the One we love…?
In order to secure this “harvest field” that our Lord has made available to us?
I’m inviting you to answer that question in these days ahead…
[1] Luke 7:39
[2] Luke 7:47 NLT
[3] Matthew 21:31b ESV