Laser Light

Those of us who are regulars at Open House Christian Church recognise that we're in a series of sermons coming to us from the book of Philippians developing a theme of joy which characterises all the things that Paul has to say in this particular letter addressed so many years ago to the church at Philippi. So I've taken the liberty of engaging with the series at this point, whether KJ will preach on it again next week is entirely his call, but I've no doubt that he'll be keen to recognise just what's going on in chapter three. The kind of joy that I think Paul begins with in the opening verses of this particular chapter is going to be a call to have joy as we obey, as we commit to doing God's will. And I'm asking myself the questions I pray you too will, what does that look like? To be children of God, men and women of faith, and then actually delight and receive joy in being obedient to God as our Father in heaven.

Why is it that so often we'll do the right thing and then not feel that joy that should characterise our life and our witness as disciples of Jesus? Why do we diminish our privileged position as children of God, sons and daughters of the most high God by choosing not to obey? And speaking for myself here, I can be very clever at talking myself out of obedience because I'm not necessarily feeling the kind of joy that I think I should be having as a Christian. And I might be thinking, well, everybody else is doing it, so I'll join them. Or if I just do this one thing as a one-off, I'm confident nobody else will notice.

Or how about this, I know that I can always ask for forgiveness later if I'm found out. And sometimes we do that with God as well, don't we? How much do we need the grace of God then to be kept and poured out in our lives to make even the simplest acts of obedience possible? Without that grace, we have to ask the question, how is it possible? How can we move forward?

Press on, says the Apostle Paul. We need that grace and that's what we're going to be thinking about, the grace that offers joy in obedience and I think it's going to be helpful to be thinking of our lives this morning as a kind of a laser beam, a concentrated focused beam of light that receives joy at keeping God's will. Now, let me just explain what I mean by a laser light. Laser light differs from normal light. We're familiar with the kinds of light globes that are around us in this room.

You know, the police in Hong Kong were being had to wear sunglasses during these riots this past week because of people who would point lasers in their faces and sometimes pilots complain about lasers. A laser beam is a focused, very powerful light that can damage our own eyesight were we to look at it directly. It's light that is gathered up and pushed together in a sense in one direction. Regular light operates on a number of frequencies, but laser light is pushed together to operate on one or practically one frequency and what that means is that the energy that's there in light comes into sharp focus. Two things have to happen to create laser light, that is light that is normally diffused is brought together and light is forcefully pushed towards a single point.

That's what makes laser light so powerful. Now, I'm no physicist or scientist and I don't know much about the laws of physics, but I do know something about the properties of light because I do know how to Google and that makes me very wise, or smart at least. And according to one website I visited, a laser light will even cut through a diamond. It can be so fine that it can even separate individual atoms. Now, what Paul's talking about here is about what it means to be a Christian and to live the Christian life and to do that in obedience to God's will and at the same time experience joy.

And if you look at the screen beside me, you can see verses twelve and fourteen and you'll see a word that he uses there. It's the same word in the original used three times and he wants to know us about something of the meaning of this word. The word is press or I press on. And one of the very interesting things is that the very same Greek word that he uses here is used earlier on in verse six. In verse six, he uses the same Greek word but there the same word is translated persecuted.

Paul says, I persecuted the church. Then he uses the same word in Greek in verses twelve and fourteen to translate into press, I press on. And the question that brings in our own minds has to be this, what use of the word or what kind of a word would suit both contexts so that we can properly understand the meaning of it? How could it be that a single word translated persecute in verse six is then translated press in verses twelve and fourteen? Think about that for a moment.

And the word takes on the meaning of to beat, to pound. I pummel and I beat. To get moving, to move ahead, I'll get myself into shape to the point where I'll persecute myself. You see, before Paul was a Christian, he was gathering up the whole church and pounding it towards death. We can say that he was doing that with laser-like precision, but after his conversion, after the Damascus Road experience, Paul is busy gathering up his whole self, pounding and pushing every aspect of his life.

He's doing that intentionally and he's focusing it towards a single point. One thing I do, he says in verse 13, I am after this one thing and one thing only. That's what counts. My life is operating like a laser beam is what he's saying. Paul says, I gather up my whole life and I make it work towards this one goal.

What Paul is saying here is that the Christian life is caused by and results in some serious spiritual pounding. A spiritual laser beam of intense focus that Paul says will cause him to walk the life of a disciple of the Lord Jesus. The Christian faith is like a laser beam that causes your faith and my faith to become focused and cause us to arrive at a goal. Paul goes on to refer to it as a prize no less a little bit later on. I have fond memories of my Sunday school years growing up in the church in Brisbane in Toowong back in the day, and I can still remember our Sunday school teacher teaching us this song.

Don't worry, I won't sing it to you. We used to sing, Jesus wants me for a sunbeam. I'll be a sunbeam for him. Think about those words for a moment as beautiful as they are and think about it this way, Jesus wants me to be a laser beam. To be a laser beam for him.

To become so focused, so intentional about getting the prize that we might refer to ourselves as men and women who operate with a laser-like focus following Jesus. When it comes to even the simplest acts of obedience and then in order to have joy in what we do, that's what it's going to take. Let's consider verse 12. Paul says and he's using that same word laser-like focus there in verse 12. I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me.

I grasp, I press on because I've been grasped. I've been pressed. I've been pounded. So now, I am pressing and I am pounding. But my pressing on is caused by another force, another entity outside of myself.

It is because Christ Jesus has taken hold of me. He's pressing on me. He's pounding me. Jesus, the Lord Jesus took hold of me first. It's not the other way around.

Christ doesn't take hold of me because I decided to take hold of Him. No, I take hold of Him because He first took hold of me. In other words, it's not possible for anyone of us to say that I've become a Christian simply by making myself one. In other religions, you can do that, not Christian, but if you wanna be a good Buddhist for example, then if you follow the eight-fold path, eventually you will get to nirvana and you will be a good Buddhist. And if you want to be a good Muslim, if you then you have to live your life around the five pillars of Islam.

But then only if you try, only if you try hard enough, but it doesn't operate that way in Christianity. The Christian faith says you can't make yourself a Christian and neither can anyone else make you a Christian. When talking about this to His disciples, Jesus says, no one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him or her. And I can think of all the questions that come up. Does this mean that every Christian has to have a dramatic conversion experience, an experience that awakens them to the point where they recognise that now God has taken hold of me and my life?

Well, no. I'm not actually saying that. The Bible and church history are full of personal experiences that tell us that people come to faith in lots and lots of different ways. Some people come to faith through a crisis or through a very turbulent time, a difficult time. Others come to faith gradually, slowly over a lifetime, but what they all have in common is this, a Christian is aware of a power coming from outside of them that is pounding away at them, that operates in them with laser-like focus and it gives them no rest, no peace until they acknowledge that power that is at work within them.

This power is pressing on them with laser-like precision and it will not let them go. They may resist even for a time, but it's of no consequence because that power stays. It can get annoying or it can be a great blessing. It depends on how a person might respond. There is someone after you and after me.

A well-known Christian writer referred to the Holy Spirit as the great hound dog of heaven. He always finds those he's looking for. A lot of people say, I'm a Christian, but you know what? I was raised in the Christian faith. I belong to a Christian family.

I come from a village in a different country where everybody in their town was a Christian. So I've always believed. This is no big deal for me. But let me warn you this morning, you're not a Christian unless you have felt some kind of spiritual power, some kind of aggression even coming from outside of yourself and you've allowed it to work the miracle of God's grace within you. To be a Christian means that you are a man or woman who's been shaken up and something intense is having an impact in your life and it's changing you from day to day, even moment by moment. And so you're becoming focused.

You're being pushed and pounded toward a single goal, a great prize says the apostle Paul and your whole life now has become about this one great thing and as a result, you become a person of enormous passion, of power, and of influence. Let's consider verse 12 again because that's not all Paul mentions. He also talks about the ability of a person to take hold of Christ. I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. I press on to take hold.

So Jesus Christ taking hold of you and me is the causal hold, or the primary hold, but the effect is that you and I are busy taking hold of Him. That's the second take hold if you like, our take hold. There are churches and Christian teachers who say that being a Christian is a passive thing. You know, you can get slayed in the spirit and all you have to do is empty your mind and be somewhat mindless so that the spirit of God can fill you. It used to be true that in reformed circles, Christians were known as the frozen chosen.

They did nothing. Being inactive was a view about the sovereignty of God that allowed God to have His way with you and negated any human responsibility. It was also said that with no good understanding of the doctrine of the perseverance of the saints. So God wants us to respond as Paul responds. This is what Paul's talking about, isn't it?

There's unbelievable energy that God gives a person to take hold, to grasp. That way you know that Christ Jesus has taken hold of you so that you can become this spiritual laser beam yourself. What does that mean? Well, the Christian becomes identified as a man or woman of great focus, of great stability, of real poise, and of real dignity because he or she knows about the prize, knows about their destiny and where they're going that the average Joe person without Jesus does not know. Some people see it as adding knowledge.

Other people say, well, I know what Christianity is all about and one of these days, I will be a Christian. I know it's good to love God. I know it's good to love my neighbour. I know it's good to simply obey. So one of these days, I'm going to obey.

I might even join a small group in my local church and I'll turn up once a fortnight, once a month maybe to help me grow or the appeals gone out for rosters between now and Christmas time and I might sign up for some kind of Christian duty when I clean the church toilets. But that's not what Paul's saying. That's not taking hold of Christ Jesus. Paul says that when you are in Christ, things change, things radically change and there's a desire, a part of your own spirit that wants to reach out and take hold of God and to know God more and more. You've actually got a fight on your hands.

You have to hold tight to Jesus and then forget and let go of those things that you used to hold on to. Things that you once did, things that defined you, things that offered you comfort and joy, things that the world ordinarily preoccupied you with and they become, well, what does Paul call them here in the text? He calls them rubbish in the original excrement or faeces or we might even say, with respect to what I know now about Christ Jesus, they have become crap. Everything has changed for Paul and unless you've experienced that great contrast, you're not able to hold on. Paul says, in the past, before the Damascus Road, when I was a Pharisee, you know why I was obedient?

You know what I was holding on to? I obeyed in order to be my own saviour. I held on to my own righteousness before God. I grabbed and laid hold of those things that made me feel good and offered me real comfort and joy. I kept the rule of obedience and I did that because I was a proud man.

I wanted to be obedient so that I could somehow put God in my debt and that I could keep control of my life and God would kind of owe me if you like, and then at the same time, I would feel superior to other people knowing that I could make demands of God and talk about my rights and privileges and they could not. But now I see that no one can love God enough. No one can love their neighbour as we ought. The only way of salvation is through grace and I can only be saved because Christ Jesus took hold of me. He lived the life I should have lived.

He died the death I should have died and now I'm accepted because of His righteousness alone. Nothing I do can contribute to that. Nothing I do can turn the love of God away from me. You know why? He says that? Paul says, nowadays, I'm obedient for a completely different reason.

I look at obedience differently. You know why I'm obedient? Why I press on to keep God's law? Because I've been taken hold of by God's grace first of all and everything has become different for me. Paul would say, the way I look at honesty for example, the reason I'm prepared to be honest is different.

Being honest now is not a way to be saved. I'm honest now because I'm so grateful and I'm so thankful for Jesus and as Jesus was honest, so I want to be honest. I don't want anything or anyone to rob me of having Him in my life. Question is, how does a Christian, not a Pharisee or a moral decent person, how does a Christian begin to look at other people? Paul was a Pharisee and I can tell you what Paul's, how Paul looked at other people.

When Paul saw other people who were better than him, he was intimidated by them and when he saw people who were lower than him, who didn't have the same religion as him, the same right practices and views as him, well, he despised them. If you are not a Christian, you quickly despise other people and you can never truly be a neighbour to them. In the world, people on the left despise people on the right. Progressives despise conservatives and vice versa. When given the opportunity in the public realm, the Labour and Liberal parties despise each other.

They just don't think the other side is wrong, they feel superior. But when you become a Christian, you become someone who is different and you know what has happened. Those ones who you once thought inferior to you, you recognise they too are men and women who need God's grace in order to be saved and you can't despise them. You know, because you know that you yourself are a sinner saved by grace and those who you once considered better to you than you, well you know that in Christ, you are completely accepted so you're not intimidated by them. Suddenly, there's a whole different attitude towards other people.

Your simple acts of obedience become acts of neighbourly love and you can't despise anybody. You can't feel intimidated by anybody because you know that Jesus is your friend and He walks with you. But you say, I'm a Christian. I know I've been taken hold of, but I struggle with intimidation and I still feel resentment towards others. Well, what begins to happen when we haven't gathered up our whole life and make it work like a laser beam with one focus and one purpose?

That hasn't happened when we still consider stuff in our life that Paul calls rubbish and we are not prepared to forget it. We need to set out to forget what lies behind the way we used to think. We haven't completely become a laser beam yet. We haven't applied the gospel to every aspect of our lives. Our attitude towards other races, our attitude towards those in authority over us, even our own parents, our attitude towards our own business or our employment, our attitude towards sex and relationships, our attitude towards material things, money and sport.

Those things have changed. We need to consider them as rubbish compared to the glories of knowing who Jesus is. Well, you may say, you know pastor, I know a lot of Christians for whom nothing has changed. They haven't responded yet. They haven't begun to gather up their life.

They haven't got a focus. Somebody else might be thinking this morning, well, don't you think this is a little over the top like we're becoming fanatics? Do you know any fanatics? Yes. I do and I think they're obnoxious.

You know what their problem is, don't you? They're not fanatical enough. They've not applied the truth of the gospel to their acts of obedience. They haven't gone far enough because they're not fanatically humble, are they? They're not fanatically peaceful.

They're not fanatically courteous. They're not fanatical about demonstrating the fruit of the spirit in their lives. Problem with the so-called fanatics is that the issue is not that they're too intense, but they're not intense enough. They haven't gathered up all of their life. They haven't taken their energy and redirected it through the gospel.

The gospel completely reorientates everything. And that brings us to the last point this morning, to hold the prize. What does that mean? Do you know the prize? Paul says there's only one thing in his life that is important anymore, just one thing.

It means that you look upon those things that used to consume you, used to zap your energy and all your time, those things that were annoyingly preoccupying, it means to say that those things are not important anymore. They are not all-important. They still may be important, but not all-important. And you start to relax. Think of what happens when a little child comes up to a parent and they might be really upset, you know, bawling their eyes out, absolutely sobbing.

And why? Why are you crying? Well, the little child might say, I had a dollar and I lost it. Okay, and you comfort them and then after a while they continue to cry and you wonder, what's wrong? What's going on here?

Well, if you were an orphan and if this was your life savings, that would be one thing, but hey, I'm your parent. I'm still here. I'm your father or your mother and I can still offer you. I can offer you another dollar and you haven't lost everything. Do you get it? Don't you realise that if you are a Christian with laser beam focus, then everything you can lose is just like a dollar.

What is that when you've got Him? Paul says, everything I thought of as profit, I now consider loss. We sing about it when we use the words of when I survey the wondrous cross. When I survey, I'm thinking of gathering my whole life up, of bringing it into focus and I'll go on to sing the cross on which the Prince of glory died, my riches gain, I count but loss. Now what kind of arithmetic is that?

My richest gain, I count but loss. Can you see that the hymn writer is just echoing the same sentiment here in Philippians three? Those things that we once thought were so important are not important anymore. They are fairly important, but they're not all-important. I've got a peace that transcends all understanding Paul will go on to talk about that in the next chapter, I have peace.

And that's because I've got this intensity in my life. I've got this laser-like focus and it's what the gospel has done to me. It's reorientated me, reshaped me and everything is coming together and I start to see that even the simplest acts of obedience that I do, I serve a greater purpose and ultimately leads to my joy. Everything is new. Everything is being pushed in one direction towards one thing.

Of course, that begs the question, doesn't it? What is that one thing? What is this goal or this prize that Paul has been referring to in so many ways? Well, we've certainly alluded to it this morning, but I haven't come right out and said it. Paul comes right out and says it.

He says, only one thing I'm after and he calls it a prize in verse 14. But what is it? He says it in verse 10. I want to know Christ and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of suffering in His sufferings becoming like Him in His death and so somehow to attain the resurrection from the dead. The prize for Paul, the goal of his life is to know Jesus, to know Him.

It's the call to discipleship, to deny ourselves, pick up our cross, to follow Jesus and then do that in the power of His resurrection. Clearly, this is not just believing in something. It's not just understanding a certain doctrine or a particular truth that you might hear expounded from this pulpit or something you picked up in small group this past week or past month. It's not even about having a certain amount of belief. It's not even about a certain kind of obedience or being obedient consistently.

If it's not that, then what is it? I want to know Christ, says Paul. Sometimes, and these times do happen, sometimes you sense you're not alone. It's Him and you know He is present. Not in an audible voice necessarily, but you know what happens when truth shines out of you and me and all your fears fall away, all your guilt is gone, or sometimes your pride falls away and you become humble.

Sometimes, you feel so touched by the very presence of God in your life that those fruit of the spirit are just there in abundance. And you experience the very presence of God and you get to know Him. Knowing Him, not just knowing about Him, but actually knowing Him, sensing His presence, recognising He's real, that this is fair dinkum. And then speaking about Him, you just sense the truth about Him and you can talk about a relationship with Him. That's not to say it's always a pleasant experience.

Sometimes you're moving along through life at a pace that is all your own and you're keeping pace with the world, you're able to meet the demands placed on you by your wife and your family and your employer, your commitments to study, the expectations your lecturers might have of you at university and in other places, and then suddenly, God disturbs you. He takes hold of you and with laser-like precision, something inside of you stirs and you're restless. You know what that is. It's the process of knowing God. Other times you might be very upset, just able to cope with bad news, really bad news, but then you're strengthened and you recognise you're not alone.

What is that? It's knowing Him. How do you know you've actually had an experience of this kind? We are out there. Most of us are very practical people.

Your faith takes on real substance when you participate in genuine acts of obedience. When you reorientate your life and take hold of Christ Jesus for that which He has taken hold of you. But how do you know if you truly know Him? How do you know if what you have from Him is more than just belief or more than just doctrine or religion? How do you know that you have this experiential knowledge of God that knowing God takes on real substance in your life?

In other words, how do you know you know? Well, look at the text and here's Paul again. You know what Paul says, not that I've already obtained all this or have already been made perfect. I haven't attained all this is what he says. Paul says, I don't know God fully.

I don't follow Jesus as I should, but Paul, Paul, this is a great apostle Paul speaking. He's actually not satisfied with his knowledge of God, with knowing God. He says, I haven't got all this. I want more of it. The way to know that you know God is that you have a consuming passion to want to know more of God.

We talked before, didn't we, about having breakfast and having dinner not even remembering what we've eaten. It's true to say, isn't it, that your stomach at one point can be full, satisfied, satiated. And the same can be said about your thirst. Your thirst can be quenched. You can have a drink and you're not thirsty anymore.

But the heart in love never gets enough of the beloved. The heart in love never gets enough of the beloved. In other words, the heart of a person who's in love with Jesus never gets enough of Jesus. Revelation goes on to echo the same thing. Paul, the apostle John, ageing as he was, living in exile on the Isle of Patmos has this vision.

He sees people coming to the throne of God and what characterises them? They are men and women who are thirsty. Jesus would say, they hunger and thirst for righteousness. Paul says, I haven't got it all yet. I haven't attained all this but I am a laser beam.

I want to gather up my life and press on towards the goal. Do I know any of this? Do you know any of this kind of thinking? Can I challenge you this morning to be gathering up your life, to be pressing on towards the prize? We dare not settle for anything less.

To know God, to know His son, the Lord Jesus, is to really live. Jesus says in John 17, this is eternal life that you might know God and Jesus Christ whom He sent. Do you realise what He's saying? Knowing God is not just the goal of life, it is life. It defines us.

It is who we've become. Jesus was sent for you and for me so that we would have it. Jesus is a laser beam so we could become laser beams for Him. Let's pray. Lord God in heaven, we thank you for giving us an insight into these few verses from your servant, the great apostle Paul.

Thank you for giving us a vision of what it means to be a Christian in today's world, in the communities, the suburbs, the society in which we live. Help us to be humbled by what we have seen in Paul's letter to the Philippians this morning. It seems so high and so lofty, so incredible, it's almost too much for us and yet, the reason that it's possible is because You've taken hold of us. Thank you for Your hold on us. Thank you for Your grip of grace in our lives.

We thank you. We thank you that You've accepted us and received us because of who Jesus is. And now Father, we pray that You'll help us each one to hold on to You. We confess our hold is often so weak and fragile in comparison. So many of us are searching for happiness and yet the secret of happiness is to want to know You more.

Help us not to think of anything but the high price to know Jesus and His death and the power of His resurrection. We pray Lord that that will consume us more and more and we ask for the grace to do it in Jesus name alone when we say together, amen.