C, Lent 5 - Philippians 3:4b-14 "God Believes in You"
With his deep American country music voice, Don Williams sings the following lines…
I don't believe in superstars, Organic food and foreign cars. I don't believe the price of gold; The certainty of growing old. That right is right and left is wrong, That north and south can't get along. That east is east and west is west. And being first is always best.
But I believe in love. I believe in babies. I believe in Mom and Dad. And I believe in you.
Don tells us what he believes and doesn’t believe. What do you believe, and what don’t you believe?
I once believed if I was a good boy Santa would come, and Easter eggs would appear! So was I good? Not often! But gifts still came, and the eggs were eaten! When I rode my bike, I believed every magpie was out to get me! I also believe they haven’t got me yet!
I believed being successful was having lots of stuff and a big bank balance. But now success doesn’t mean much to me at all.
I also believed to be a complete person, I had to find a wife to make me happy, but in these days I realise true happiness is not what I find but is a gift from God.
Mum and Dad were the greatest people in the world, they were invincible, but now I believe they struggle with the exact same things as do I.
I believed when babies came, so did the perfect family. Now I know that to be complete foolishness.
I always had to have the biggest piece, because that was the best piece. Now the biggest piece makes me feel too full.
And I believed to be a Pukallus, was to be who I was meant to be. That, to be a Pukallus, was just as close to perfection as I needed to be. If I tried hard enough, that was good enough! My life motto was: I could be successful if I was true to myself — if I could be the best I could be.
I also believed I had to keep up this facade of perfection, so I wasn’t seen for who I really was… a failure perhaps. If I could just hide the garbage, then I believed I would be ok. And I also believe this is a complete smokescreen and lie!
And what was even better for me than being a Pukallus… I am Australian, an Aussie bloke, even better… a Queenslander. Not a Pom, not a Yank, not a Kiwi, but a genuine dinky-die Aussie. Why would you want to be anything else, lest you were a whinger, obnoxious, or a freeloader? Now I believe, I can not only be the most appalling of Aussie blokes, but I have the potential to be the most horrendous of all humans. In fact I know this, when I look into myself.
And then there is the church. I believed to be Christian was to be Lutheran. The others were ok but we were better! I was baptised in infancy, Sunday schooled, and confirmed. Then I believed we were the worst, and the others were the best, especially the churches dripping with sensual young girls. I believed I had to speak in tongues, go down the front, I had to work to be better than who I was when I looked at myself. I believe I made a decision three times to do just this. I also believe I now can’t remember what I actually decided to do! So what was required of me I did it all and more. Yet, I still believed I hadn’t done enough. I now believe, every person in every Christian denomination struggles with the same sin and needs a Saviour! And I believe here is where God calls me to be!
I believed my career as cameraman, was the best work I could ever do. I believed if I didn’t give huge tithes I might lose the job too. I ran the youth group, my prayers “from the heart” were getting bigger and better, I was made an elder at the same time I became chief cameraman at work, even though I was still so young. I wore good clothes, others liked me, I was popular! It was hard to be humble in those days! I believed these things were all to my benefit, as long as I kept my “other life” hidden. Surely, God was pleased with me! Oh, and yes God, I also believe in you “too”!
So why then do I still get sick? Why will I die? Why does life seem to really suck at times? What’s this horrendous pain in me when I cry at the death of someone I love? Why then if God has blessed me, do bad things still happen to me? Why do I know this will happen again? I’m a good person, God is a god of love, so why the suffering and pain? Have I not done enough? In my quest to be all that I could be, was it still not enough?
These days, I find myself tempted in unbelief, that I a poor miserable sinner could be used to do God’s work. A minister of religion… surely not! I’m tempted to disbelieve because of my horrendous human nature… that God loves me… that, in fact, he came to me while I was a sinner, and he continues to come to me even though I sin. Still, temptation is there to believe I need to do more; that God only provides a percentage of salvation and I must supply the difference… perhaps a righteousness of my own is required.
However, in God’s word, God tells me to believe these evil, sinful thoughts are, in fact, a very big lie. In Paul’s letter to the Christians in
4b If anyone else thinks he has reasons to put confidence in the flesh, I have more: 5 circumcised on the eighth day, of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; in regard to the law, a Pharisee; 6 as for zeal, persecuting the church; as for legalistic righteousness, faultless.
7 But whatever was to my profit I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. 8 What is more, I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish, that I may gain Christ 9 and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ—the righteousness that comes from God and is by faith. 10 I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, 11 and so, somehow, to attain to the resurrection from the dead. (Philippians 3:4b-11)
I consider them rubbish, that I may gain Christ. In fact, in the NIV bible and other English bibles RUBBISH has been sanitised so it’s less offensive. But in the Greek, the word is vulgar in tone. The word is human excrement, poo, or shit! And with it is carried all the offensiveness that comes with true toilet odours, and the desire to cast it out as shameful waste. My efforts, either proud or slavish, are piles of dung that must be flung!
This dung is being flung; not by us though, but by Christ Jesus. What we need, is to be made clean and perfect in the grace of the cross, the righteous work of Christ on the cross, and the faith worked by the Holy Spirit which leads us to grace.
So continually having the dead poo wiped from our lives, by Christ who was excreted onto the cross as filth, we might be raised in his resurrection, after death has also discarded us to the sewer of the cemetery.
Regarding our cleansing and perfecting,
We no longer have a need to carry our unwanted waste efforts, or feel guilty about how we may have dirtied ourselves in the past. Christ carries all our indiscretions on the cross. We place our faith in nothing but the cross. Just like I know I will poop again, so too, sin will strain out of me as I press forward. But like a parent, Christ wipes me clean, even though I try not to make a mess of myself.
I don’t believe I “must” read the bible, confess my sin, go to church, or pray, or do extraordinary things to be a better Christian every day. That would be turning Christianity into just another rigorous religion with requirements for righteousness. But, hearing and believing God’s word, and going to church, God — the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit — comes to us in a very powerful way — Jesus’ way!
Because God lives in us, and believes in you, we’re led to pray and confess our sin to the one true God who died for us. Lord Jesus Christ, Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world, we believe in you! Amen.
