Pastor’s Message
[Paul writes:] If anyone else has reason to be confident in the flesh, I have more: circumcised on the eighth day, a member of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew born of Hebrews; as to the law, a Pharisee; as to zeal, a persecutor of the church; as to righteousness under the law, blameless. Yet whatever gains I had, these I have come to regard as loss because of Christ. More than that, I regard everything as loss because of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things, and I regard them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law but one that comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God based on faith. I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the sharing of his sufferings by becoming like him in his death, if somehow I may attain the resurrection from the dead. Not that I have already obtained this or have already reached the goal, but I press on to lay hold of that for which Christ has laid hold of me. Brothers and sisters, I do not consider that I have laid hold of it, but one thing I have laid hold of: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal, toward the prize of the heavenly call of God in Christ Jesus.
- Philippians 4-14 (NRSVUE)
We again join Paul in his letter to the church in Philippi. In this part of the letter, he lists all his worldly accomplishments, his heritage, his family lineage, and his personality traits. By the world’s standards, Paul is everything you want to be, and more. However, instead of attributing all these worldly measures to his faith, he says they may be a hindrance to his faith. Paul says that all the power of faith is due to the resurrection of Christ. Faith in the resurrected Christ gives him so many things. It does not give him worldly power, but instead gives him life that is renewed every day. And it is through God’s power, not his own human traits or human actions, that his faith in Christ brings him closer to God.
Dear Lord, we thank you for giving us faith in Christ. We do not count on our human traits, culture, family lineage, or personality. We count on your faithfulness through Jesus Christ. Amen.