{"id":2035,"date":"2011-10-02T14:26:16","date_gmt":"2011-10-02T20:26:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/revtucher.com\/?p=2035"},"modified":"2011-10-02T14:26:16","modified_gmt":"2011-10-02T20:26:16","slug":"sixteenth-sunday-after-pentecosteverything-and-nothing-philippians-34b-14","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/revtucher.com\/?p=2035","title":{"rendered":"Sixteenth Sunday after Pentecost\u2013\u201cEverything and Nothing\u201d (Philippians 3:4b-14)"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"A-80<\/a>Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Father, and from our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, amen. The text for the sermon this morning is the Epistle, which was read earlier. <\/p>\n

How much is nothing worth? It\u2019s a silly question, I know, because nothing is worth nothing. How much is everything worth? Again, a silly question, because everything is worth everything, or so it would seem. Zeroes are worth nothing, but we would never give up those \u201cnothings\u201d when they appear on our $20 or even $100 dollar bill. Since God\u2019s ways are not our ways, nor His thoughts our thoughts, nothing is not always worth nothing, nor is everything really worth everything. In fact, God wants to give you the nothing that is everything. In Christ, God replaces the nothingness of self with the everything of Himself \u2013 the very righteousness of Christ and all its benefits. <\/p>\n

We strive to \u201chave it all\u201d, everything under the sun. But when we focus on \u201chaving it all,\u201d it focuses on the self. It focuses on one\u2019s life, one\u2019s possessions, one\u2019s experiences and accomplishments, giving little thought to one\u2019s relationship with God, because in the end, it\u2019s all about you anyways, right? It\u2019s all about your happiness, your feelings, your worth, etc. But as we see in Philippi, having it all wasn\u2019t all it was cracked up to be. <\/p>\n

There were those in Philippi who took great confidence in the flesh, that is, in their own achievements under the law. For them, they had it all. They could look at themselves and see how great they were, how holy they were, how much better they were over everyone else. As far as they were concerned, they had everything. There was no one else better than they were and they let everyone know it. But if you were to take a step back and really look at them, you would uncover their errors. <\/p>\n

For the Judaizers, those people who \u201chad it all,\u201d they compared themselves to others by the keeping of the Law, that is the Law of Moses and their own invented laws. They were the ones who were truly righteous because they were able to keep the Law in all its entirety. That fact alone made them better than everyone else. But in the end, they had nothing. They might have had the worldly possessions, the wealth, the power, the prestige, but there was one thing that they truly lacked: that was God. They had taken themselves to God by their own actions rather than allowing God to come to them through Jesus Christ. <\/p>\n

Still, there others of Paul\u2019s day who were more consciously \u201creligious.\u201d For them, it meant they were accountable to \u201cLaw\u201d in general, whether it be God\u2019s Law or the invented laws of religious man. To them, \u201chaving it all\u201d focused not so much on material possessions, but on one\u2019s relationship with God. That is where they differed from the Judaizers. However, it was presumed that if you were \u201cright with God,\u201d then material blessings would follow. <\/p>\n

How much different is today\u2019s society from that of Paul\u2019s day? Aren\u2019t we consumed as a culture of \u201cwanting and having it all?\u201d We focus on gratifying ourselves through materialism and experience. It\u2019s all about how much you have \u2013 money, power, wealth, stuff. Money can buy you whatever you want, whatever you need. If you have enough of it, you can buy whatever you want, even happiness, or so we tell ourselves. <\/p>\n

Whether it be Paul\u2019s world or ours, \u201chaving it all\u201d is never enough. In terms of worldly possessions or experiences, \u201chaving it all\u201d is never enough \u2013 which means that \u201call\u201d is not everything. <\/p>\n

Think about when you were growing up. How many toys did you have? How many did you \u201chave to have?\u201d When we get older, the need for toys hasn\u2019t changed; it\u2019s just that our toys are a lot more expensive and more high tech than they were when we were kids. We think that we need the new car, the new house, the new whatever to make our lives complete, that if we just had this item, then we would have everything; that is, until the next thing that we \u201cneed\u201d<\/u> catches our eyes. Eventually, we learn, sometimes very quickly and very painfully, that what we had set our hearts and minds on are things not capable of delivering lasting contentment. <\/p>\n

Paul realized that. He says, \u201cBut whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ. Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord.\u201d<\/font><\/i> What bold words Paul spoke! Everything he had formally put his confidence in\u2014his heritage, his zealous keeping of the law, his persecution of the church\u2014Paul now considered as nothing more than rubbish. Not only were they not for his profit, they stood to cost him everything; they were a loss. Jesus Christ and the righteousness that comes through faith in His life, His cross and His empty grave were far superior and the only thing worth keeping. That was the real profit. That was where his salvation would come from. <\/p>\n

It is important to realize that some of the things that we often regard as a real advantage and to our \u201cprofit\u201d can actually be to our disadvantage if we regard them as a meritorious work, that is, something we do to earn favor in God\u2019s eyes. Boasting over the fact that one has been baptized and confirmed, that one has received a Christian education through a Lutheran elementary or high school, taking pride in one\u2019s church attendance and \u201c\ufeffall that I\u2019ve done\ufeff\u201d for the church\u2014this stands in the way of relying on Jesus Christ alone for salvation. The sad thing is: it\u2019s very easy to do. It\u2019s so easy, most of the time, we don\u2019t even think about it. By our thoughtless actions like that, we distort what Christianity is. We take the focus off of what Christ did for us and put the focus on what it is that we did for ourselves. That was exactly what Paul was trying to end: \u201cnot having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith.\u201d<\/font><\/i> <\/p>\n

The \u201cstuff\u201d that we have, \u201chaving it all\u201d means absolutely nothing if we do not have Jesus. I don\u2019t mean the Jesus who rewards us with \u201cstuff\u201d when we ask or who blesses us with our great material possessions. I mean the Jesus who went to the cross and suffered hell for our sins to give us a gift greater than all the \u201cstuff\u201d that we have or could ever hope to possess. We need the Jesus who gave His life in exchange for our life. We need the Jesus who willingly shed His blood as a sacrifice to win for us the forgiveness of sins. <\/p>\n

At the end of the day, all the \u201cstuff\u201d that we have is just stuff. You can \u201chave it all\u201d and still have nothing at all. But through the work of Jesus Christ, through His life, death, and resurrection, we have received everything. In Jesus\u2019 name, amen. Now the peace of God that passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds through faith in Christ Jesus, amen.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Father, and from our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, amen. The text for the sermon this morning is the Epistle, which was read earlier. How much is nothing worth? It\u2019s a silly question, I know, because nothing is worth nothing. How much is everything worth? Again, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9016],"tags":[75975335,18137],"class_list":["post-2035","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sermons","tag-pentecost","tag-sermon"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/revtucher.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2035","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/revtucher.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/revtucher.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/revtucher.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/revtucher.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2035"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/revtucher.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2035\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/revtucher.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2035"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/revtucher.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2035"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/revtucher.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2035"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}