Sermon Text: Philippians 3:4b-14
Prayer
Lord Jesus Christ, you came to this world as our Substitute and died on the cross in our place. Help us to understand and believe that, as we open your Holy Word this day. Help us to be willing to follow you on the way of the cross, and to count ourselves fortunate to be able even to suffer with you and share in your death, that we may also share in the eternal life you have won for us. Speak to us today, Lord, and bless us for your holy name’s sake.
Sermon
A big part of growing up is wanting to be like somebody else, right? Like someone you see as an expert. Maybe when you were little you wanted to be just like your dad so you picked up a hammer and pounded dents in the wall. Maybe you wanted to be like your mom so you found her lipstick drew it all over your face. Maybe you wanted to be like Superman so you jumped off the garage roof and broke your arm. A lot of life is lived by watching someone we really admire—someone we see as an expert—and then trying to be like him or her.
Life as a child of God is a little like that. Of course, the one we seek to imitate—the one we see as an expert—is our brother Jesus. He did everything in his life just the right way, just like God wants us to. So there’s no one better for us to learn about and to watch than Jesus, so we can be just like him. That’s what St. Paul tells us his life as a Christian was all about, in our Second Lesson for today. “I consider everything to be a loss because of what is worth far more: knowing Christ Jesus, my Lord.” I want to know Christ, says the Apostle, and be like him. St. Paul wanted to learn everything Jesus did so that he could be just like him in every way.
But before you sign up for that career path, listen carefully to what St. Paul says about being like Jesus. “I do this so that I may know him and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of his sufferings, being conformed to his death…” Being a Christian doesn’t just mean successfully living like Jesus. It also means being willing to suffer with Jesus. And it means joining him in his passion and crucifixion and death. Are you willing to be that much like Jesus? That’s what his people are called to do, spiritually. Let’s look a little more closely at St. Paul’s words in Philippians chapter 3 and realize that living for Jesus Christ means even
Sharing the Death of the Cross
Listen to how important St. Paul felt it was to know that Jesus was his Lord and Savior and to be like him in every way:
But, whatever things were a profit for me, these things I have come to consider a loss because of Christ. But even more than that, I consider everything to be a loss because of what is worth far more: knowing Christ Jesus, my Lord. For his sake, I have lost all things and consider them rubbish, so that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own, which comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness that comes from God by faith.
Paul is saying, Everything I’ve ever done in my life that anybody would ever call “good,” everything that I believe is worth something—I’d give it all up, never once mention it again, in order to have the good things Jesus died to give me. And Paul had a lot to give up. He had done many things in his life he was proud of. As a Jewish Pharisee he was an achiever, a person who made things happen, someone who was at the top of his class and number one in his field. And he was respected by people for his accomplishments in rules-keeping. Yet he says, I’m willing to consider all of that as worthless trash in order to have what Jesus died to give me.
St. Paul knew that we can’t come to God with our little lists of accomplishments, our good deeds—our bags full of brownie points for the good things we’ve done—and expect to buy our way into his family. Membership in the family of God is not something we can buy or earn, at any price. It’s only available as a free gift, and only after we give up all claims to be able to earn it by our achievements. Because even the best we can do isn’t enough to please God. That’s why St. Paul said, “I consider everything I’ve ever done, even the good things, as rubbish, that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ—the righteousness that comes from God by faith.”
Do you and I have that same kind of thirst to receive the forgiveness of our sins and peace with God? Are we ready to count as garbage anything good we feel we have done in our lives, in order to gain Christ and hold on to him? Are we eager to know him and to be like him in every way? And are we willing to be so much like him that we’re willing to share in the kinds of things he went through in our place, to suffer with him, to feel the pains he felt, to die the death he died? Does Jesus’ cross mean that much to us?
In this very special passage from his letter to the Philippians, St. Paul opens up his heart and his deepest personal desires and shares them with us. He has such a strong desire to identify with the Lord who saved him, to be like his hero, his expert Jesus, that he’s willing to go through anything. He’s willing to suffer, even to die, in order to be like Jesus and spend eternity together with him in heaven. Listen to his faith-born desire: “I want to know [Christ] and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of his sufferings, being conformed to his death, in the hope that in some way I may arrive at the resurrection from the dead.”
St. Paul tells us something very important about those whom God calls his children by faith in Jesus. A true child of God is willing to suffer for Jesus’ sake. He is willing even to die in the service of his Savior, because the Christian has already died to sin, in Holy Baptism. The Bible says in Romans chapter 6, “We died to sin. How can we go on living in it any longer? Or do you not know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were therefore buried with him by this baptism into his death, so that just as he was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too would also walk in a new life.” In the waters of Baptism our old sinful self was drowned, never to control us again. We were joined to Jesus’ death through that sacred washing, and so now we are dead to sin. By the power of God’s grace we have put behind us the old way of life lived for self and sin, and we are now concentrating on living for the Savior who has given us full forgiveness as a free gift.
The Bible is very clear about one side effect of having our sins washed away by the blood of the Lamb. As followers of the one who was killed on a cross, the cross and its suffering will be a part of our Christian lives as well. After all, a servant is not above his master. But St. Paul also shows us that the child of God considers it a privilege and a joy to be called upon to share in the death of the cross, since it was through that cross that the gift of life was first given to him.
St. Paul’s words here raise a very basic question for a believer in Jesus Christ: do we really have to share in the sufferings of Jesus? Do we literally have to share the death of the cross with Jesus? Well, not if you mean that somehow, by what we suffer, we have to make up for part of our sins. Not if you mean that we have to pay for our mistakes—at least in some small part—by our suffering in this life. We could never do that, not if we were tortured all day every day for all eternity. Even then we could never pay for a single one of our countless sins against the holy and almighty God. But there’s no need to. Someone already has. When Jesus hung on that cross and said, “It is finished!” he meant it. Finished, period. When Jesus died on the cross the payment for sin—all sin—was complete, paid in full. And it is ours as a free gift, no strings attached.
Because of our faith in the suffering, death and resurrection of Jesus we are called to a new life, a life of Christ-likeness. And as we live the life of Christ we will be called on, from time to time, to share in his sufferings in one way or another. That’s a part of what it means to be his disciple. But rather than thinking of that suffering, whatever it is, as a burden or an evil, we can count it a joy, as Paul did, to be considered worthy to suffer even a little for the name of Jesus. We can count it a privilege and a joy to share in his cross and perhaps even in his death, if that is God’s will for us. It only confirms for us that we are at one with Christ Jesus, one with him in his suffering and death—yes—but also, gloriously, one with him in his resurrection, and one with him in an eternity of joy and happiness and peace.
Is Jesus your hero, your expert? Do you want to be just like him? Are you ready to carry his cross through life, and even, if necessary, to share in his death? May God grant that all of us be found worthy to share in “the fellowship of his sufferings, being conformed to his death, in the hope that in some way we may arrive at the resurrection from the dead.” May we share St. Paul’s perspective that, since we haven’t yet attained that resurrection, our determination is to “press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus also took hold of” us. And let us determine to do what the Apostle did: “Forgetting the things that are behind and straining toward the things that are ahead,” let us “ press on toward the goal,” even being willing to share in the death of Christ’s cross, which is ever before our eyes. Then we may, with St. Paul, win the “prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.” May it be so. Amen.