The Joyful Life We Gain Through Christ
For Meditation (Brooke Wright)
This Sunday, we will continue our journey through Philippians by reflecting on Paul’s charge to “Rejoice in the Lord.” Paul commends the church at Philippi to consider the ledger of their lives. What have they built their lives on? What are they counting on? As Paul himself has faced a tearing down of the life he built as a zealous Pharisee, he has faced so much loss. After encountering the Risen Lord, Paul’s whole life’s orientation toward building a righteous and secure life in God was disrupted. Years later he finds himself imprisoned, with rivals speaking out against him and everything he has stood for in his ministry, and with the churches he planted in crisis. Paul’s reaction to the life he has is odd.
Everything, he says, has been gained in losing all things for the sake of Christ. How could a life with Jesus, in knowing the power of His resurrection, and –even more mysteriously–participating in Christ’s sufferings, lead Paul to state this so plainly? How does what has been taken away equal gaining everything in Paul’s calculations?
As we gather for worship this week, come prepared to consider what you have built your own life on. What have you lost for the sake of Christ, and what has been gained as you have learned to follow Jesus–not just in our promised future, but right now? Together, let’s gaze upon the King who is worthy of the excitement of our souls. Let’s enjoy Him and look to Him to reshape how we calculate the ledgers of our own lives. And receive and practice His joy, which is not a balloon that lifts us but an anchor that holds us fast.
Questions for Reflection and Discussion:
Can you think of a time when you changed your mind about something that you were previously deeply held? How did this reorient your behavior or your life?
Can you remember a time when you received a wonderful or unexpected gift? How did it feel to receive it?
Last week, Corey named Paul’s resilient joy as a deep sense of “okayness.” What do you look to for this sense of security in your own life?
Is there a place in your present life where you deeply long to experience a sense of resurrection? What might that look like? Have you talked with the Lord or another person about it?
Philippians 3:1–11
Further, my brothers and sisters, rejoice in the Lord! It is no trouble for me to write the same things to you again, and it is a safeguard for you. Watch out for those dogs, those evildoers, those mutilators of the flesh. For it is we who are the circumcision, we who serve God by his Spirit, who boast in Christ Jesus, and who put no confidence in the flesh— though I myself have reasons for such confidence.
If someone else thinks they have reasons to put confidence in the flesh, I have more: circumcised on the eighth day, of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; in regard to the law, a Pharisee; as for zeal, persecuting the church; as for righteousness based on the law, faultless.
But whatever were gains to me I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. What is more, I consider everything a loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them garbage, 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 is through faith in Christ—the righteousness that comes from God on the basis of faith. I want to know Christ—yes, to know the power of his resurrection and participation in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, and so, somehow, attaining to the resurrection from the dead.