Philippians 3:7-16
October 26
David A. Davis
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Arthur Link was a professor of American Church history at Princeton University and a member of this congregation when it was known as the First Presbyterian Church of Princeton. In 1967 he edited a volume of the history of First Presbyterian Church that was published in celebration of the congregation’s 200 years. He wrote the first chapter on the earliest history and tells of Presbyterians settling in Princetown, which he described as a “way station on the stage coach line between Philadelphia overshadowed by its larger neighbors of Kingston and Lawrenceville.” Link makes the argument that Presbyterianism in Princeton had a direct correlation to the revivalism of the Great Awakening. “It is entirely possible”, he writes, “that organized Presbyterianism in Princeton was also a child of the Great Awakening.” A movement Link describes as “a revolt against the cold formalism that had begun to ossify the churches and laid great emphasis upon the personal experience of grace.”
A personal experience of grace. A personal experience of grace, perhaps as opposed to a primarily intellectual exercise, dependent upon the clergy and the hierarchy of the church and the monarchy. Interestingly, Link points out that the Presbytery of New Brunswick turned down the request for a congregation in Princeton before 1755 more than once because of the proximity to existing congregations in Kingston and Lawrenceville. The minutes report that whoever was serving at Kingston might “preach a lecture at Princetown if they can.” “Preach a lecture” sounds like a bit of that cold formalism ossifying the church. A personal experience of grace. That might just be a working definition of the introduction of evangelicalism in this land. A personal experience of grace. An experience of faith that is between someone and God with no need of a clergy conduit. A faith that is not just a matter of the mind but is also a matter of the heart.
In the third chapter of the letter to the church at Philippi, the Apostle Paul comes to both the heart of the matter and the matter of the heart. “Yet whatever gains I had, these I have come to regard as loss because of Christ”. Here in ten verses or so, the core of the letter. “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 the faith of Christ” Right here in the reading for this morning, after that great hymn in chapter two, the hymn that proclaims of the self-emptying of Christ on the cross and God’s exaltation of Christ giving him the name that is above every name, after his mention of his co-workers in the faith, Timothy and Epaphroditus, Paul comes to the crux of things. “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.”
After Paul warns the congregation about those who preach what is antithetical to the gospel, after he lists his own stellar credentials, his own CV, his life resume “If anyone else has reason to be confident in the flesh I have more…a Hebrew born of Hebrews…as to the law a Pharisee….as to righteousness under the law, blameless), the apostle then offers to the believers at Philippi, what is for him, the very center of it all, a center etched forever here in the Living Word. “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. ..Forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.”
These few verses of Paul’s letter, where Paul gets all personal, where Paul opens up about his relationship with Christ, where Paul writes about his own encounter with the gospel, his own longing in a relationship with Jesus, it’s like Act III of a Shakespeare play. The act where the play turns. The act is labeled the climax. Paul tells of what he has let go and considers worthless, how he longs for more of Christ and his resurrection, and how he presses on. These familiar and quotable, and memorable verses are the heart of the letter. It’s what drives the plot. The plot here, it’s not of Paul’s life. That plot line would, of course, tell of his conversion on the Damascus Road. No, it is the movement of the letter, in the structure of the letter; here we have the climax. The core, the key, the transformative part of his correspondence is his own witness to the “prize of the heavenly call of God in Christ Jesus.” Losing and gaining. Wanting more. Pressing on. Only this, just this, this one thing, Paul concludes, hold fast. Hold fast to this! Losing, gaining, wanting more, pressing on. Hold fast to your own encounter with the gospel of Christ Jesus. It is the heart of the matter and the matter of the heart.
In the small group I am leading on Wednesdays, I tossed out a question about the group’s earliest memory or understanding of the world “evangelical”. For me, as a young person growing up in a Presbyterian congregation in Pittsburgh, much like this one, I was taught that the term was to be understood much like Arthur Link’s brief portrayal of the Great Awakening. In the preaching that shaped me and my faith, a reference to “evangelical” was not political, not theological. It was a reference to the experience of grace in a relationship to God understood through the love of Jesus Christ. Yes, it was the 70s and television evangelists were “legion,” but they didn’t own the word “evangelical.” Pretty much ever since it has frustrated, to say the least, that the term has been co-opted, twisted, redefined, stomped on, misused, abused, and weaponized. I can remember the last time “evangelical” crossed my lips from this pulpit. It is similar to how I feel about the American flag. It is as if one side of the political spectrum thinks it owns the American flag. Anyone who has listened to a season of my preaching can hear that I believe the gospel of Jesus Christ touches the heart and is a personal experience of grace. I believe it because I have experienced it. A faith that moves me and never just stays above the neck.
Last weekend, I was the keynote speaker for another congregation’s Men’s retreat. 38 men staying in three Airbnbs in Avalon at the Jersey Shore and cramming into one large living room and kitchen area for meals and then for worship and my four sermons. I knew the pastor and one other person. They were all certainly welcoming to me, but they were also enjoying each other’s company. So let’s just say there were multiple times when I found myself alone in that crowded room. It takes a little while for that many people to go through a buffet line. On Saturday morning, as I finished my light breakfast and was waiting for the worship time to begin, I found myself sitting next to a young man who was quiet and not talking to anyone either. Instead, he was leafing through his obviously brand-new, big, annotated bible. I am guessing it was purchased or gifted for the occasion. Since the only instructions on the email thread for the retreat were to bring your own linens and your bible. He was not really reading it, he was leafing through it like he was seeing it for the first time.
I introduced myself and asked him how long he had been at the church. “Not long,” he said. “A bit more than a year. I wasn’t raised with any church background or faith. It’s all new to me. We took our 4-year-old daughter to some of the activities that the church advertised in town. Then we started going to worship. We just love it. This is my first retreat.” The rest of the morning, I couldn’t stop thinking about him, glancing over. It was clear that, like me, he was an introvert. Talking to people he didn’t know wasn’t easy for him. When I was preaching, he was hanging on every word. When we were singing from the little prepared songbook, he didn’t know any of the songs, but he was trying. Then, during those breaks or waiting for the next thing, he had that bible. He was enjoying it more than trying to talk to people.
On the two-hour drive home from Avalon late Saturday night, I was blasting Bruce Springsteen to stay awake and I kept thinking of this young man. I don’t know if it was admiration, jealousy, or nostalgia. The first for him was a whole lot more than that retreat. A whole lot more. Somewhere, along the Atlantic City Expressway, I thought of this verse from the Book of Revelation. “Don’t abandon the love you had at first.” It is from the second chapter, John the Revelator. His letter to the church at Ephesus. In John’s vision, the letters are the words of the Risen Christ. “I know your works , your toil and your patient endurance….I also know that you are enduring patiently and bearing up for the sake of my name, and that you have not grown weary. But I have this against you. That you have abandoned the love you had at first.” One paraphrase puts it this way, “you have forgotten your first love”. They may be able to rob us of the word “evangelical,” but don’t let anyone take away the love you had first when it comes to your journey of faith. Never forget, don’t give up on the matter of the heart and the heart of the matter.
In that letter to the church at Ephesus, John is writing to a congregation about its attempt to remain faithful in a world full of violence, evildoers, false prophets, heretical teaching, and untruth. Sound familiar. Sound eerily relevant? Sound timely? “I know you are enduring and bearing up for the sake of my name.” Don’t forget the first love, the personal experience of grace. When you can’t make sense of the world or what’s going on all around you, when from the neck up it is confusion and discouragement amid a world that seems to be apocalyptically shaking, maybe lead with your heart. Cling to the grace Christ offers. Forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, press on, press on. Reclaim his steadfast love for you as if for the very first time.