Sermon - 2019-03-17

When I was growing up, I had posters of baseball players because for years, I wanted to play baseball for the rest of my life.  I mean think about it. You get to hang out with your friends, play baseball and just have fun. That sounded like a great life to live.  Now I loved the Chicago Cubs, I know remember I was young. So when I determined that I wanted to be a baseball player, I would imitate what they did.  If they chewed Bubble gum, I wanted to chew bubblegum. They had a cool glove, I needed a cool glove. They wore high socks, I wore high socks. They ran drills, I wasn’t there yet.  

Now looking back on it now as an adult, I realize how foolish it is.  But at the same time, I believed that I could do it. If I imitated that life style, I could be that.  For many of us, as we grow up, our dreams and lifestyle are challenged. We realize we will not be able to play for the major league baseball league,  we realize we will not play in the NBA, NFL, NHL, or any other professional league. We give up because we think that it is unobtainable. We regard it as child like dreams and so we get into this real world.  

However, even adults follow and imitate someone.  We imitate someone who is a mentor, someone who we want to be like, and yes even our parents.  Now the same problem for us of being in the NBA, NFL, NHL and other dreams is that something gets in our way.  A barrier, one that we can not over come because we are striving to live a life that is not our own.

Today, we hear of Paul writing to the Philippians about fulfilling their call to be disciples.  However, many of them feel that everything is working against them. Their own shortcomings of not being big enough, rich enough, strong enough, pure enough, or faithful enough means that they are unworthy and should just give up all together.  But Paul says, something that gets them to look at things in a new way and see things not as the world sees them but as God sees them. For when we feel not big enough, it is to show the world that great things can come in small packages. When we feel we are not rich enough, God shows even us that it is not the wealth in your bank account but the generous nature and trust that God will provide.  That we are not strong enough, yes, it is our weakness that shows God’s strength in the world. We are never pure or faithful enough but that is precisely the point that we have a Savior and Lord. That is why we have the gift that is Jesus Christ in our life.

Paul is reminding the Christians in Philippi that faith is not about what we have accomplished, it is about what God has accomplished and setting us free to live a life that God calls us to be a part of.  Now that may not include making a living on the baseball diamond. You may not have all the riches because truly there is never enough. Your life may not include the parts and dreams that you were hoping for but God will ensure that you will be enough.  God will ensure that with all of your weaknesses and shortcoming, God’s strength and abilities will shown to the world.

Now we hear this message in the Lenten season but this is a message that we need to hear over and over again. For there are many times that I talk to people even today and they wrestle with this very idea. They talk about it in their own life, not in the same words but in the same idea.  They talk about it about this church. They talk about it and over and over again, it is something that hides what God is truly doing here, through you and for you.

“Oh there is no way that people would want us to do this…..”  You are right, people may not, but God does. Paul writes to the Christians and reminds them that it is not what they achieve but what God achieves.  That is not always what we want to be the world to look like but rather what God wants the world to be. Now is that saying that the world is perfect already?  Heavens NO!! But when we see that, that is where God is calling us to start to do the work. That we would be instruments of peace, love, and grace in the world.  That we would continue even when the world tells us we shouldn’t, even when we falter, but that we would continue into the calling that God has in place for you and for me.