Creekside Church Sermon of March 29, 1998 "On Being Put In Your Place" Philippians 3:4b-14	Rev. David Bibbee
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Bill Clinton, Mr. Microsoft, Bill Gates, and Ralph Nader died and stood before the throne of God Almighty. God said, "Before you are granted admittance into heaven, you must each give a statement of belief. You are first Mr. Nader. What do you believe?" "I believe the internal combustion engine is a scourge on our planet. The accumulation of carbon monoxide emissions along with fluorocarbons is creating the Greenhouse Effect which is progressively poisoning the planet." "I'll accept that answer," God said. "Please take the seat to my left." "Mr. Clinton, what do you believe?" "I believe in giving power to the people. Though government plays an important role, people must have the power of self-determination. Furthermore, the mark of a good leader is the willingness to feel the people's pain." "That's a fine answer. You can have the seat to my right." "And now, Mr. Gates, what about you? What do you believe?" "I believe you are in my seat..."

An important task of life is balancing the ego. We all need a healthy measure of confidence and self-assurance, but we must avoid the extremes of devaluing ourselves on one hand, and being so fascinated with ourselves that we overlook others on the opposite end. Most of us have a tendency to boast about something now and then, but the question is, "What is the cause for boasting?" Where do we place our confidence...in ourselves, our power and influence, on some external standard we follow?

The apostle Paul was a confident man. He had a strong ego. By his own admission in II Corinthians 11: 16, he liked to boast a little. In our passage Paul takes on his critics who insisted that a person had to go through Jewish steps to become a Christian. Paul insisted that becoming a Christian wasn't dependent upon following externals like circumcision, but was an inward relationship between the believer and Christ.

"But what do you know about being a Jew?" they asked. Paul answered, "You're in my seat. Do you boast of your Jewishness? I can boast more. I was circumcised on the eighth day according to the law. I swim in an Israelite gene pool. I trace my lineage back to Jacob. I speak the Hebrew tongue. I am a descendant from the tribe of Benjamin from which Saul, our first king came, and I was named after him. There is no demand of the law I have not fulfilled. I am a Hebrew's Hebrew-a Pharisee's Pharisee, so full of zeal for God that I was the chief persecutor of the followers of Jesus and was determined to wipe them out. Can you top that?" Paul's ledger sheet was full of credits. All the defining marks for having it made were in his favor. He was right in the eyes of the world and God.

"How's the hubby?" I asked. "Things are going well in the business, but not to hear him tell it. He's not happy and he won't be happy as long as his goal is to drive a Jaguar," she said. Things were going his way. He had all the marks of "making it", but things were not well. All the externals were in order for Paul. But he took all the credits and put them in the losses column. Compared to knowing Christ, it was all rubbish, garbage, no better than dung which is the meaning of the Greek word he used. Paul learned that all his credits and achievements were no cause for boasting, compared to knowing Christ.

Paul wanted to be righteous-to be in right relationship with God, but following the rules was not the path to relationship. After Paul met Jesus, he realized that the relationship he longed for was a gift given, not earned; a gift accepted in trust and not won by works. What we long for most we do not achieve, we receive. Sounds too simple, doesn't it? We've heard it before, but practically speaking, we have been molded more by what society says.

We've been taught in ways both subtle and seductive that our significance is tied to our status and station in life. What's your education? What do you do? What do you make? What are your credentials? How are you doing compared to the next person? What distinguishes you from everyone else? Does all this define us or deceive and distract us from our greatest gain?

In C. S. Lewis's book, The Screwtape Letters, there is a correspondence between Screwtape, one of Satan's head tempters, and his nephew, an apprentice tempter named Wormword. Screwtape is upset because Wormword's first patient has become a Christian, but the damage was fixable if handled carefully. Screwtape advises: "Work hard on the disappointment or anticlimax which is certain to come during the patient's first weeks as a churchman. The Enemy (God), always allows this disappointment to occur on the threshold of every human endeavor. It occurs when lovers have gotten married and begin the real task of learning to live together."

Lewis was highlighting our tendency to get hung up with wrappings and not relationship. We see it in business when turning a profit means more than providing a service; in education when making the grade means more than acquiring knowledge; in government when the lust for power means more than serving the public good, and we see it in church when religious wrappings and trappings mean more than knowing Jesus Christ. "Whatever gain I had, I counted as a loss for the sake of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord." At one time all the credits meant something. Paul had cause to boast, then he met Jesus.

To get caught up in rules and forms, and making our mark by performance is to get caught up in ourselves and not in the adventure of Christ's love. Come the end of life are we going to regret not having spent more time working to make money or a name for ourselves, or will we wish we had spent more time with others and the "Other"?

If knowing Christ is to be more than a slogan, it means our relationship will be characterized by an intimate experience with him. It is knowing that His resurrection not only means we can trust eternity to him. His resurrection tells us that our lives have meaning and are sacred and we therefore can trust the way of life he offers us NOW.

Paul Leget worked in an African leper colony. If you asked people to share their memories of him they would say, "Mr. Paul lived with us for years and loved us as we are." They wouldn't have mentioned what they did not know. Paul Leget gave up the primacy of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Montreal of his own choice to serve in Africa. When asked why he went from a position of power and pride to one of sacrifice and service, he answered, "Only those who love, understand me." Those who know Christ know why. In Jesus Christ we understand losses and gains in a new way.

Knowing Christ is knowing the meaning his resurrection brings us now. Paul also said that knowing Christ means sharing in his sufferings. We do not identify with the Christian martyrs, but we can enter the sufferings of others. Reaching out to the pain of others means that little by little we die for others. Bit by bit we lose ourselves and we gain something greater.

Nina Hermann has one of life's most difficult jobs...she is a chaplain in a children's hospital. Like any sensitive person in that position, she struggled balancing the sufferings of children and the belief in a loving God. She stuffed the question into a compartment in her mind as she daily offered care and compassion to the suffering children and their families. But when the day was spent and she was at home, every night was Theology 101 and the question loomed large, "Where is God in all of this?"

One frigid night she was reading a book by a cozy fire, her mind drifting from the book to the hard question. Then the phone rang. The mother of a former patient had just readmitted her daughter, and insisted that Nina come at once. She had gone through this with the family before and there had been many false alarms. She didn't want to go, but said "Yes." She felt ambivalent as she walked to the hospital, feeling responsible, but also wondering about God's goodness.

It was another false alarm. When she arrived the child was okay, but she decided to stay and sit with the mother anyway. Then it hit home...the cross and Christ's suffering made sense, not just for Nina, but through their conversation, the mother also received courage and hope for the ordeal. Nina wrote:

In the past weeks and months you have shown me your desire to know Christ by sharing His sufferings. You have shown it by entering the pain which Sarah and Bill experienced. It wasn't easy, often it was painful, but they and you gained something in the process...you gained more of Jesus, His grace and righteousness which helped you put things better perspective, and even more, put you in your place.

Unless we subject our egos to Someone greater, they will never be satisfied. There will always be a need for more attention, more things, more status. Someone noted the problem through this restroom graffiti quote: "At the feast of the ego, everyone leaves hungry." Let me leave you with a picture to go with this insight...a picture of heaven and hell.

In a large, luxuriously appointed room, many people are seated around a candlelit table filled with rich, sumptuous foods. It looks heavenly, but it is hell. They cannot eat the food because the eating utensils are four feet long. They try repeatedly to feed themselves but are frustrated and hungry because they can't get the food to their mouths. Now the scene shifts to heaven. You stand in a banquet room identical to the other. The people seated at the table also have four foot utensils, but their faces are bright and they are enjoying the fine foods because they are not trying to feed themselves. They reach across the table to feed each other.

When we are in Christ Jesus, we are in our proper place. We have everything we need. The things we once thought important-the status of which we boasted, we count as loss. It has been surpassed by knowing Him personally, sharing in His suffering with others, and knowing the meaning His resurrection brings to our lives now and always. Amen.

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