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February 28, 2010
“Do You Know Jesus?”
Matthew 5: 1 – 11/Philippians 3: 10 - 14
Sunday, February 28, 2010
I can stand before you this morning and say I know pigs. I know what a pig looks like and what pigs taste like when cooked properly. But there is a gentleman sitting to my right who conducts research of pigs and he could probably make a pretty strong case that I really don’t know pigs.
I could also tell you that I know cattle. I know what they look like and what they taste like when properly cooked and I can even distinguish a few breeds of cattle. But there is a lady sitting in our congregation who has studied and done research on cattle and she could very easily demonstrate that I know virtually nothing about Cattle.
I could also tell you that I know electricity. I know how to wire a lamp and I recently rewired and installed a ceiling lamp in my home and miracle of miracles, when I left home this morning it was still working and still hanging. But there is a gentleman in our choir loft who is a retired professor of electrical engineering at Purdue and he could very authoritatively inform you that I do not know electricity.
We all know that there are various levels of knowledge in all subjects and with that realization in mind, I would like us to think about what it means to know Jesus.
What do you mean when you say you know or believe in Jesus. Does it mean that you know or believe that he is the incarnate and eternal son of God? That, of course does not imply any more than a knowledge of Christian doctrines. But to know who he is does not imply that we know him. I know who Barak Obama is. I would probably recognize him if I saw him (unless he was cleverly disguised by the Secret Service). But I do not know Barak Obama. I have never met him. I have never heard his voice without the help of digital electronic equipment via television. I know who he is and I know some things about him, but I do not know him.
The same can be true of Jesus. We can read about him in the New Testament and believe certain things about him, but at what point can we say that we know him? In order to figure that out, I want to look at what I consider to be one of the most difficult passages in the New Testament, Philippians 3: 10-14.
In the first half of the 10th verse we find that Paul wrote, “I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection”. That could be a stated goal of all of us. We want to know Christ, to understand him and his teachings and to know or experience the power of his resurrection.
I don’t know about you, but I have a lot riding on the power of Christ’s resurrection. I am counting on it to bring me through to the other side of death. It is my ticket to eternity and a blessed and glorious eternal existence.
It is also my route to reunion with my friends and loved ones who believed in Jesus and have died. It occurred to me not too long ago, that even with a new generation of births in my family, I am approaching the point where I have personally known more family members who are deceased than those who are still alive. That does not make me sad. I consider it a privilege and a blessing to have known those who have departed. And I have the hope of the Gospel that I shall be with many of them again.
So many if not all of us might agree with the Apostle Paul when he said “I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection”.
But one of the things we might find troubling about that phrase penned by the Apostle is that it was penned by the apostle. This is the man who wrote the largest portion of our New Testament. This is the one who formed the theology of the early Christian Church. He was the great missionary who brought people to Christ and gathered them into congregations. He was the one who preached with certainty the salvation that came from the death and resurrection of God’s only natural son, Jesus.
It was this great leader of the church, this great missionary and apostle, who had done so much for God and gone so far in his faith who wrote that he wanted to know Christ and the power of his resurrection. And I want to say, “What do you mean you want to know? We believed what you preached and wrote. We have counted on your knowledge of Jesus and you still want to know Jesus?” Did he not know Jesus, and was he not certain that resurrected Jesus would raise Paul to eternal life?
Yes he was, you might remember that he wrote words to that effect in I Thessalonians 4 and Romans 8.
But he was not writing about that kind of knowledge of or about Jesus that would bring him through into eternity. He was writing about his desire to experience a fellowship and knowledge of Jesus by experience in this life. In other words, he wanted to become like Jesus in this life. The eternal Son of God had become like Paul in becoming a human being and now Paul wanted to become like Jesus in this life.
With this thought in mind the entire sentence of verses 10&11 makes more sense than it might otherwise have. Paul was writing about his attempt to live a resurrected or holy life now, before the resurrection. The entire sentence reads “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 of the dead”
Paul was not in the least unsure of attaining the resurrection of the dead after his death. We have already established that. But what he was unsure of and attempting to do was to live the live of Christ, the resurrected holy life of the Christian in this life. He wanted to live his life on earth and if necessary suffer as Christ lived and suffered on earth and become a partner with Jesus. He wanted to know the life of Jesus by experience or his existence in this life.
In the 12th verse, Paul wrote: “Not that I have already obtained this or have already reached the goal; but I press on to make it my own because Christ Jesus has made me his own.” Paul had of course obtained assurance of his resurrection and eternal life. He had not yet accomplished his goal of living as a redeemed and holy person in this life as Jesus had demonstrated by living a sinless life. Yet he was attempting to do so every day.
In verses 13&14 he wrote “Beloved, I do not consider that I have made it my own; but his one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the heavenly call of God in Christ Jesus.”
Sometime during the winter games I watched one of the ski jumping events. You have to wonder who was the first person to think that it might be a good idea to put on skis and hurtle down a ramp that would propel you up and out into the air so you could land as far away from the ramp as possible.
As I watched those ski-jumpers it occurred to me that they were modeling what Paul wrote in this passage. He may have been thinking of long distance runners when he wrote this and other passages but ski jumping provides a good image for us. The goal for the jumper is not what he can see from the top of the ramp. The goal is not the end of the ramp.
The goal is some unseen point further down the mountain. And to reach that goal, as soon as the skier reaches the end of the ramp, he or she leans as far forward as he can to get as much distance as possible as he falls through the air. Or, using Paul’s language, he “strains forward to what lies ahead”. He has forgotten the details of his trip down the ramp, he has forgotten what was said to him while he was waiting in the gate. He is straining ahead to reach his goal.
That is the way we are to be living our lives until Jesus returns or until we go through death to be with him. We are to be focused on living our lives as Jesus lived his, we are to be trying to imitate the perfect life of Christ as we live this life.
You probably noticed that I selected the Beatitudes from the Sermon on the mount in the gospel of Matthew as our first reading this morning. I had two reasons in doing so. The first was to remind you that the Sunday Evening bible Study group is meeting tonight and that we are studying the sermon on the mount.
The second reason for selecting that text is that the sermon on the mount and the beatitudes is Jesus description of what a Christian life looks like. This is who we are supposed to be. The words of Paul that we have looked at this morning tell us how we come to look like that. We are to be setting the life of Jesus as our goal as we live our lives on this earth.
But let me tell you a cautionary tale. About 14 years ago Diane and I sent our oldest son to college. He and I both drove the 250 miles to the campus and I helped him unload both cars and drove back home. I did not see him until Thanksgiving. He arrived home and knocked on the front door, which I thought was strange because he had a key.
I opened the door and looked up at him (I have to look up at him because he is 6’2” and I am 5’ whatever. There he was with beautiful long hair and a gorgeous full beard. I looked at him and smiled and said, “You look good son, but I think you may have misunderstood me. When I said I wanted you to be like Jesus I didn’t mean that I wanted you to look like Jesus. I meant that I wanted you to behave like Jesus.”
Some of you gentlemen have handsome beards. That does not satisfy your need to know Jesus. Some of you men and women wear crosses. That is fine, but it does not satisfy your need to know Jesus.
Most of us would claim that Jesus is our Lord and Savior. Well, I am sure about the savior part, but He is only your Lord if you seek to know him by imitating him as you live your life.
Do you Know Jesus? Are you going to try to know Him? Are you trying to imitate his perfect life as you live on this earth, waiting for the final resurrection?
Pastor David Horner
Faith Presbyterian Church
West Lafayette, IN 47906
Posted by faithpres at February 28, 2010 03:23 PM