Want to go ahead and get started. I'm sure
we'll have some others. I'm sure we'll have
some others join us.
And how many of you did not get a chance to get
the outline from the first session?
This is not an outline of the lecture per se,
but it's an outline of my, you got that, my
study of who else?
Outline? Anyone else need an outline or is that?
I'm trying not to trip over myself here.
You need an outline? Did you get an outline?
I'm going to try to designate someone as the
distributor of the outline.
Greg, do you want to do that? You'll have to
sit down here and put up with me.
The first part of the series or the
presentation, I gave an overview of Philippians.
And just for the newcomers, I'm going to give
you a basic summary of what we've said so far.
I'm not going to go into great detail because
that's not fair to the group that was here
earlier and had to put up with me for 45 minutes.
I started with the observation that there are
two pivotal questions in our, one of which is
in our culture, the larger context of culture.
And the other I think is in the context of our churches.
The first one, the first question, which I
think is a part of our overall or broader
culture is, is Christianity good for people?
Or is it a source of oppression, a hindrance to
human development?
This is a very interesting concern in our culture.
I think people are more now intolerant with
immoral behavior, and that is how ideas
contribute to certain consequences.
And I answered by saying I think Christianity
is good for people.
I think it's a source of power for living
authentically and effectively in the world.
It's not merely a power play, as some in our
culture would say, that Christianity is nothing
but a power play.
It's learning how to usurp authority over
others and manipulate people for some ultimate end.
My argument is that I think Christianity is
good for people.
Now, the second problem or the second question
that I asked and some of you heard was, is
there life after legalism?
I think we've discovered that we're saved by
grace, not by works.
But does that conclusion lead to irresponsible behavior?
And my answer to that was, no, there is life
after legalism.
And I talked briefly about the role of virtue,
character formation, in living the Christian
life as a community.
And if you look at your outline briefly, I set
up what I've said is the kind of the
introduction or the opening section of Philippians
where Paul greets the church.
And then I talked briefly about the
Thanksgiving period, that is, the section where
Paul gives thanks for the Philippians.
But he highlights, if you remember, Paul
highlights some very important themes.
The first theme that I mentioned was that God
is the one who is ultimately working out the
church's life at Philippi.
God is the one that's going to complete the
work that he began in Christ.
And then the second theme was, in verse 9, and
this is my prayer, that your love may overflow
more and more with knowledge and insight.
In other words, Paul wants the church to learn
how to love, but he wants that love to be based
on knowledge and practical wisdom.
And his reason for that is so that the church
will know what is most important.
I think that's one problem that we're
struggling with today in terms of our context,
and that is, what is most important for our situation?
We hear a lot of different things, but how do
we know what is most essential or most crucial
for our churches?
And Paul's prayer is that the church needs to
learn how to love with knowledge and wisdom so
that it can make good decisions.
And then secondly, so that it can prepare
itself for the final coming of Jesus Christ.
And then I talked about the next section, which
is typically called the autobiographical
section of Paul,
where Paul gives a little bit of a brief
summary of his own ministry to show that
basically the Christian life calls us to be
concerned about the welfare of others.
Christianity and selfishness are not equal or related.
Christianity is a radical concern for the
welfare of other people.
And then Paul says, let me give you an example
of that.
I would like to die and be with Christ, but I
know it's best for me to hang around and help
you out, and so that's my choice.
And then we talked briefly about chapter one,
verse 27, and that is Paul exhorts the church
to live lives worthy of the gospel.
And I've designated this notion as praiseworthy dispositions.
That is, the church must have the mindset of
Christ in very real and practical ways.
Now, today in this session, I'd like to talk
about what is typically called the
Christological hymn or the hymn of the Carmen Christi,
the glory or praise of Christ in chapter two,
verses six through 11.
I think this is an example, will be an example,
should be an example of the spirit or the
mindset that Paul is describing in the early
part of Philippians here.
Before I do that, I want to give you a brief
comment about the structure of this letter in
terms of its appeal. OK.
What kind of letter is Philippians?
You know, typically we say it's a love letter, right?
I've heard that.
I think it's a letter of friendship.
Paul, using the Greco-Roman notion of
friendship, communicates to the church at
Philippi the heart of the gospel.
By way of this definition, Paul uses what is
typically called paranesis. It's a technical
term for moral instruction.
It's a Greek rhetoric or form of rhetoric and
moral exhortation.
Paranesis involves moral and religious
instruction, typically, in order to address a
behavioral problem.
So in other words, Paul needs to use something
that will get at the heart of the problem that
he sees in the church at Philippi.
And he uses paranesis, moral instruction, moral exhortation.
Because he wants the church to learn how to
love and for its love to be based on its
knowledge of Christ and its practical wisdom.
Now, practical wisdom, as we know, has to be
cultivated over a period of time.
So my guess is that Paul wants the church to
learn how to mature in Christ.
In chapter two, verses one through four, Paul
begins to invoke what I'm calling the mindset
of Christ,
which is sacrificial concern and service for
others as a way to contrast the spirit of what
I would call selfishness, arrogance, and self-centeredness.
To illustrate the point, Paul begins with
models of virtue such as himself, chapter one,
verses 12-26,
chapter three, verses four through 11.
He uses Jesus, chapter two, verses six through
11, Timothy, chapter two, verses nine through
24, and Epaphroditus, chapter two, verses 25-30.
Paul cites all of these examples, including
himself, not merely to say, hey, isn't it nice
that we have these models
and we can sort of recite them and we can look
at them and we can appeal to them.
But Paul cites these examples to say, here,
herein lies the wisdom of Christ as it is
worked out in very real and practical ways.
Paul was not merely or maybe or virtually in
prison, he was in prison.
And he's saying, here, here is a model for
learning how to deal with a matter or situation
of anxiety, distress, alienation, isolation.
Jesus Christ, who was literally God, gave up
his deity in a sense and suspended that deity
and took on the form of a servant,
emptied himself, died. Epaphroditus merely or
almost died because he was serving the interest
of the church at Philippi.
Paul's point is these are very real models,
models to emulate.
Now, he communicates the models of friendship
or virtue through the language of friendship.
You're thinking it sounds awfully different.
Paul here is appealing to the congregational unity.
That is, he wants the church to learn how to be
united based on a principle of reciprocal friendship.
In the Hellenistic moral tradition, the
ultimate sign of friendship was expressed by
willingness to give up status and share in a
friend's trouble.
And if you're ever interested, I have
documentation to show you examples of letters
that were written by some moral philosophers in
the Greco-Roman tradition
that parallel, in some ways, Paul's ideas here.
In Philippians, Paul uses this concept of
friendship to exhort the church, to exemplify
the mind of Christ, the life of Christ.
Not merely as a figment of our imagination, but
as a real actual proposal for human relationships.
Paul adopts the idea that friends, as he says,
hold all things in common, Koinonia.
That's in chapter two, verse one and following
where he says, have the same mind, have the
same love, be in full accord in of one mind.
That's the true spirit of friendship.
Function as one soul, as he says. Maintain the
same disposition or the same mind.
Have the same mindset.
And as I said earlier, having the same mindset
for Paul, I don't think means, well, we're
going to list all of the ideas and we're going
to agree on every one
and then we're going to be Christians.
Paul wants us to understand that the core of
our unity is in Christ.
It's not in, anything outside of Jesus Christ.
Now, I know that sounds awfully strange for a
Christian to be saying that, but we are
followers of Jesus Christ and not of our own ideas.
Jesus, Timothy, Epaphroditus, and Paul all
serve as powerful examples of true friendship.
That is, they are willing to seek, as Paul
says, the needs and interests of the church,
their friends, and not merely or simply their
own personal agenda.
As a fellow friend and partner in the gospel,
you remember back in chapter one, verses six
and following, Paul says he thanks God because
the church has participated in the fellowship
of the gospel.
You remember that saying?
Well, Paul is inviting the church to continue
that ministry.
Why? Because friendship abolishes the spirit of
division, the spirit of arrogance, the spirit
of self enhancement.
And what it does is it helps us to incorporate
the ideal of friendship within the church as a
community of believers.
Alright, that's the general model of friendship
that I think Paul is following here in Philippians.
Now, I want to talk briefly, not briefly, I
want to talk in some detail about chapter two,
verses six through eleven.
In chapter two, it seems clear to me that Paul
is beginning to comment on what it means to
live a life worthy of the gospel.
And I'm wanting to argue that character
formation is crucial to that.
And I think Paul is using the models of virtue
to say, alright folks, Christianity is not
simply about exchanging one good for another.
In other words, we do a deal with God. We say
for good people, God, you'll give us what we
deserve, a reward.
Unfortunately, I think that's what's happened
in the past in some way.
We sort of bargained with God and we didn't
realize, maybe we did, that God is not into
bargaining with us.
God is extending to us, unconditionally, a life
of freedom, a life of holiness without our consent.
In other words, God sacrificed himself way
before we thought about the sacrifice.
Now, how do we respond to God's offer of love
to humanity?
That's the question. Do we live a life of
virtue out of necessity or a debt?
Or do we live the life of virtue as a way of
gratitude, of thankfulness?
In chapter two, Paul says if there is any
encouragement in Christ, any consolation from
love, any sharing in the Spirit,
any compassion and sympathy, make my joy complete.
He talks about this and he says, be of the same
mind, have the same love, be in full accord.
Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit,
but in humility, regard others as better than yourselves.
By the way, regard others as better than yourselves.
I don't think that means that you should be
overly critical of yourself.
Have you ever met people like that? They're
always trashing.
They're always saying some very unkind things
about themselves.
No sense of self-esteem, no sense of
encouragement. They're just welcome mats.
I don't think that's what Paul is saying here.
Because the substance of considering others
outside of yourself is rooted in Christ, not
low self-esteem.
I think that's important psychologically to
make that distinction.
Sometimes we think low self-esteem equals Christianity.
I don't think that's what Paul is calling for,
to have low self-esteem.
I think what he's saying is to be in Christ
means that we understand that the Gospel is
about a reality outside of ourselves.
It's not only about me. It's not only about
Greg. It's about the world.
And if we're self-consumed, we're not going to
be able to see the world as Christ sees it.
We're only going to be able to see it from our perspective.
So how then does Paul counter the spirit of
individualism or the spirit of self-centeredness?
How does Paul deal with that? How does he bring
the Gospel to bear on real-life struggles?
Now, you know in this church you have the fight
between Iodia and Syntagia in chapter 3.
So there's a little bit of bickering going on
in the church. There's a little bit of a struggle.
And Paul is trying to say to the church, work
out your salvation with fear and trembling.
And as I said in the first lecture, that does
not mean for us to be individuals struggling in
the Dark Closet wondering if we're okay with God.
It means as a church we need to learn how to
get along with one another. Real basic.
And the way to do that is, as Paul says in
chapter 2:5, is to let the mind of Christ be in us.
In 2.5-11, you can, or chapter 2, 6-11, I would
say could be divided into two parts.
The first part deals with typically what we
would call the incarnation.
Not instant breakfast, by the way. That's a dry one.
Paul makes it very clear that Jesus Christ was
God, is God. But he gave that up.
And he says, who though he was in the form of
God did not regard equality with God as
something to be exploited.
Now there are at least five different
interpretations of this.
And mine is that I think Jesus gave up his
divinity. That is, he did not use it for his
own benefit.
He truly became a servant, humbled himself,
emptied himself, and died for our sake.
So here you have Jesus functioning as a servant.
In some ways it's a servant in terms of
humiliation. He is humiliated.
Here he is, the Son of God, and yet he suspends
his deity for the sake of humanity.
The hymn here, by the way, Christians were very
keen and excited about singing this hymn in church.
Because what it did is it reminded them of
their own identity.
Because Jesus, though he was God, thought about
the big picture.
He had what I would call the praiseworthy
disposition of service in the name of God.
And by the way, if you're interested, the
phrase, fear and trembling, and if you're
interested in that,
it's found four times in the New Testament, and
every time that it's expressed it relates to
human relationships.
Not saving your soul as an individual in the
closet wondering if God loves you,
but it's actually learning how to work out your
Christianity in the context of relationships.
I found that interesting when I discovered that
in the New Testament, that it's fascinating.
Okay, so we have what I call the incarnation,
that is, verses 6-8,
where Paul clearly is talking about the
humility and sacrifice of Jesus Christ.
Remember now, Paul starts this letter out in
chapter 1, verse 1, with what?
Paul and Timothy, servants of Jesus Christ. He
doesn't use the word apostle.
I find it interesting here. Typically he does
that, but he doesn't here.
He says, servants of Christ, and I think his
point is if you want to be a part of a
community of character,
that is a Christian community, you must be a servant.
And we sing the song, make me a servant, you
know, I'm not going to sing it.
I'm not a good, no, I won't do that.
But Paul's point here is that to identify with
Christ, to be truly identified with Christ,
one must be willing to condescend and sacrifice
himself or herself for the sake of others.
That's what it means to have the mind of Christ.
Now, in chapter 2, verses 9-11, Paul shifts the
thought and says,
therefore, the word deo, it's an inferential
particle that says,
all right, up to this point I've been saying X,
but now I'm saying Y.
That therefore God, though Jesus was humbled or
volunteered to humble himself, he was exalted.
It is that sacrifice and service leads to glorification.
Now, you're thinking that sounds good for Jesus.
And I have an ethics class that I teach, and I
had 46 undergrads,
and I was fascinated when I said, what's the
moral or what's the rationale for living the
moral life?
And almost to, I'd say 90% of the students
said, well, we can't be like Jesus because he
was God.
In other words, these examples are impossible
of emulation or imitation.
And what we do in saying that about Jesus is we
strip him of his humanity.
We say he wasn't really human. It was easy for
him. He was God.
But Paul was saying here, he gave that up.
He wore skin. He was a person. He was a human being.
He struggled like we do.
The difference is that Jesus was fully obedient
to the Father's will.
And the Father, in light of that, exalts him.
And now, he says, so that every, every person
will glorify Jesus as the exalted one, the
vindicated one.
In other words, sacrifice leads to vindication.
Now, you're thinking, well, again, that's Jesus.
Well, cosmic acknowledgment of Jesus, of his
status as the Lord, does not rule out human responsibility.
God's activity, which culminated in the
subjection of all things under Jesus,
in other words, all will acknowledge the cosmic
significance of Jesus as Lord, as Paul says.
But now, here's where we come into play. That
is the church.
In Christ, the church collectively identifies
both with Christ's suffering and his exaltation.
To share in the suffering of Christ, according
to Paul, leads to glorification.
In other words, if the church is not willing to
die with Christ, then it will not be glorified
with Christ.
You're thinking, eh.
Chapter 3, verse 19, after Paul talks about the
opposition again in this letter, he says,
but our citizenship, verse 20, is in Heaven.
It's interesting.
The same word for citizenship is the same word
that Paul uses to describe the worthy walk of
the gospel.
Live your lives, back in chapter 1, verse 27,
is the same word, same root, basically,
of the word that Paul uses here to describe our citizenship.
So, by living a life worthy of the gospel, we
are already participating in the reality of God
that will be finally revealed to us in the long run.
Let me read on.
But our citizenship is in Heaven, and it is
from there that we are expecting a Savior of
the Lord Jesus Christ.
He will transform the body of our humiliation,
that it may be conformed to the body of His
glory or glorification.
By that, by the power that also enables Him to
make all things subject.
So, Philippians 2:5, or 6-11, in my mind,
functions as a comment on chapter 2, 1-4.
What does Paul mean when he says, complete my
joy, perfect my joy?
He says, have the mind of Christ.
What does that mean?
It means to live a life that is worthy of the
gospel, more specifically,
willingness to sacrifice your situation for the
sake of others.
That is, when you're in a church and everybody
wants a piece of the pie, now I'm talking
gospel here.
I've been in church before, I've been a
minister, and I know when competing parties
come your way,
and they want, the X party wants this, and Y
Party wants that, A party wants this, what's
your response?
To side with the most powerful in the group?
Well, then guess what happens when you do that?
You're opening yourself up to the criticism of
culture that says Christianity is nothing but a
power move.
It's Nietzsche all over again.
The cream rises to the top.
That's what Nietzsche wanted, too.
He didn't want this leveling the playing field.
He wanted an elitist, moral, Pagan, virtue
system, or system of virtue.
So you can't side with the powerful because
Jesus didn't side with the powerful.
He was concerned about all people.
So how does this work out?
Well, the church must learn to think first like Christ.
That's very difficult because guess what happens?
On the other side, you have the kind of
passive-aggressive type, if you've ever been
around that,
where what they'll do is if they don't get
their way, later on they'll say, well, you're
not being Christian.
That's again a power play. It's a way to
manipulate people to get what you want.
Or it's a distortion of Romans 14, you know,
oh, that offends me.
We can't do that.
Well, after a while you begin to serve only the
weak in Christ.
They learn how to play the role, which is no
different than a person who says,
I'm going to use Christianity basically to push
my agenda.
Now, what I'm suggesting here is not easy.
It's not simple, but it's necessary.
It's necessary for us to learn to live like
Jesus as the body of Christ,
not as individuals who agree on things or
disagree on things, but collectively as the
body of Christ.
That's why Paul is always disturbed when one
party fragments the body.
Now, am I suggesting as any of you are Trekking fans,
am I suggesting that we create what I would
call the Borg, a collective consciousness,
and completely rule out individuality and say
that individuals do not matter?
You know, if you can't learn how to get along
with a group,
we'll weed you out or we'll subsume you into
the collective consciousness of a group thing?
No, that's not Christian either because you're
not respecting an individual for whom Jesus died.
At the same time, I'm not suggesting that the
church slices and dices its decisions based on
one segment over against another.
Yes, I'm not being easy.
Paul uses the logic in chapter 3 to correlate
with the logic of chapter 2.
That is, the status of humiliation leads to,
I'm going to use the big word, eschatological glorification.
That is, glorification on the last day when
it's all said and done.
Now, Philippians 2:5 and so on continues Paul's
thought in chapter 1, verse 27,
illustrating the humiliation and the exaltation
of Jesus Christ.
The Philippians must live like him and serve
him, that is Jesus, by considering the needs of others.
Paul explains the same motive for Christian
living in chapter 3, as I've said.
Christian living is, in a sense, a paradox.
Suffering leads to glorification.
As we've seen in chapter 3, verse 27,
As we sing that, there's a part in that verse
that makes me really think twice
about singing it, that I might be conformed to
his suffering.
I mean, how many of us in this room truly want
to be conformed to the suffering of Christ?
But yet, Paul seems to think that that is
somewhat paradigmatic of Christian living.
And I don't think it means we have to be martyrs,
but I do think what it means is that we have to
be willing to give ourselves up for the sake of
a larger common good.
And I think elders in this room can identify
with that when they have to make decisions.
They have to think about what's best.
Remember Paul's point in chapter 1, verse 9?
The church needs to learn how to know what's important.
Well, don't simply think that elders alone have
that task.
The church needs to learn collectively what is
most beneficial for itself and for others in
the surrounding community.
For now, we serve God as clay jars while we
await our final transformation.
Philippians 2 illustrates Paul's persistent
appeal for congregational unity.
He wants the church to nurture what I'm calling
praiseworthy dispositions.
In chapter 4, verses 7 and 8, he lists some of
those things.
He says, you know, it's good to be noble. It's
good to be true.
It's good to be honest.
Why? Because these are Christian qualities or
Christian traits or Christian characteristics.
Paul in the church must enter into a consensual
contract known as a society of friendship.
That is, friends who strive, truly strive to
serve the common interests of their friends,
their fellow brothers and sisters in Christ,
and even their friends who are not a part of
the community, that is, the surrounding community.
I was talking to some of you after, and what
I'm not suggesting is that to be Christian
means that we can't live in the world and that
we can't enjoy culture.
Boy, if that's what Jesus called me to, I'd
have a big struggle,
because there are things that I think are very
good in and of themselves as products of our culture.
But I guess what I'm saying is if our culture
is telling us that self-enhancement, egocentrism,
are values worthy of our consideration as a
Christian community, we must say, no, thank you.
We've been called the radical servants of
Christ for the sake of others.
So I'm not saying, you know, you can't be a
good professor, you can't be a good lawyer, you
can't be a good doctor, you can't be a good,
you know, you name it.
Go down a good accountant or you name it.
But what I am saying is that what distinguishes
us from egocentrism is that we are willing to
serve others because our identity is not found
in hoarding goods.
Our identity is not found in eliminating this
group because they don't fit my paradigm.
Our identity is rooted in the example of Jesus
Christ and that is one of service that leads to glorification.
You know, we say we want to glorify God and
people say, you know, all I want to do is
glorify God.
And what they do in the process sometimes is
they simply eliminate the human aspect.
I can't do anything. It's all God.
Well, you know what? God became a human to show
us how to live, not to escape our humanity.
And so this example here, though Jesus is
divine, is an example, I think, that the church
must constantly emulate, rethink and recontextualize.
It doesn't mean to be a community of character
in the year of 2000.
And that's an open-ended question that I don't
think I can give you all the answers.
But I do think that the church now as a
response to the moral criticism and the
question is, is there a life after legalism,
must answer.
If we don't answer it, what we'll have is what
we're what we're experiencing now, a lot of
finger pointing, a lot of name calling, a lot
of, oh, I'm glad I'm not like you because I
used to be legalistic.
Or I'm glad I'm not like you, you know, you
liberal go to hell.
That's what we say.
I'm sorry, I didn't grow up in the church, so I
don't know if that's appropriate language. You
know, I'm sorry. But but that's been my
experience is that what what happens is we
create these two extremes,
legalism, liberalism. And my question is, is
there a life after legalism?
Can we love God and realize that God ultimately
is the source of our salvation and yet not
renege our responsibility to cultivate habits,
virtues that are fundamentally related to the
source of our salvation?
Can we live the Christian life without feeling
like this is a massive debt that we have to pay
back? But can the Christian life be a form of gratitude?
Can Jesus Christ be the example for our
decision making process?
Or should we find a new model for doing
churches, they say.
I say that Christianity, there is life after
legalism in the fact that our relationship with
God is not predicated on being perfect, but
it's predicated on our willingness to allow God
to work out his goodwill, as Paul says, in our life.
The same text that says work out your salvation
with fear and trembling. The next verse says
for it is God.
Let's just read that text. For it is, Paul
says, it is God who is at work in you, enabling
you both to will and to work for his good pleasure.
So I guess what I'm saying is there seems to be
a combination of God's initiative and our cooperation.
Okay, I want to open it up for some questions,
comments, feedback.
I'm ready.
Don't be afraid. I don't fight.
He became a servant to people, and that was
just like anything that had to be done, he was
willing to do. Right.
Well, that's the, my bias is that's the purpose
of the incarnation.
As I said last time, God became human to show
us the real meaning of human existence, what it
means to be human.
Not to annul or destroy our human nature, but
to really, in many ways, enhance it, to show us
what it means to be created in God's image.
That's why Paul calls Jesus the new Adam, the
second Adam.
Because the gospel is, it's kind of sad,
sometimes the gospel can be exploited.
Sometimes the power of the gospel elicits some
very strong reaction.
I can identify that with that because before I
was a Christian, I didn't really want to be
around you folks.
I wanted to go out and drink and have sex and
do drugs and stuff like that, and I didn't want
to be bothered with Christians because I
thought they were basically pious hypocrites.
And I told my friend that over a six pack of
beer when he invited me to a Church of Christ.
I thought, okay, if this is what being a member
of the Church of Christ is all about, that's
not a commentary on drinking.
It's simply to say that I think people who are
threatened by the gospel are threatened because
they are trying to fill their lives with
something else.
And you're saying that's not enough. That won't
get it at the end of the day.
As I told the student the other day, I said
when you get to the point of having substance,
you'll be able to stand in the presence of
people who agree and disagree with you and look
them in the face and not be threatened.
Why? Because you know who you are. You're a Christian.
And so, you know, I know there may be some
people right now that when they get this tape,
they'll be listening for certain things. And
you know what? I can't prevent that.
I can't prevent Christians from assassinating
Christians, and I can't prevent Christians from
loving Christians or non-Christians.
That's the risk of being a Christian is that we
are saying to the world, this is a radical
message, we're saying to the world, we believe
that Christianity is good for you.
That it can restore human relationships. It can
restore people. It can reconfigure the nature
of creation in the world and destiny.
And people are desperately looking for a sense
of purpose because the world does not make sense.
But what do we do? We squabble. We fight. We
point fingers. We bicker. And Paul says, work
it out, folks. Work it out.
Because you've got people in the world that are
viewing you as either a source of darkness or light.
And I'm going to spend the next 20-25 years of
my life, I've already told my wife this, I've
told my students this, on helping us to go back
and think about some very basic truths of Christianity.
I won't be trendy. I won't be mass marketing it.
But that's not what I want to do.
I want us to learn, go back and learn the
basics of our Christian commitment. Because I
think that's what people want.
They want some basic message that helps them to
make sense of the world and of their own lives
and where they're heading.
And that's what the incarnation does. I think
it gives us a better feel or sense of what we
were called to.
One of the difficulties that I can say, given
the example it's possible for, is how do we
deal with what is in our focus?
What do we do with saying, if you have love in
your heart, you want it in? How do we
communicate that there's a way to have both?
Well, I think character, and I didn't get into
this, but I think character formation
presupposes this.
That one cannot perfect or cultivate the
virtues of Christian life overnight.
And we have to go through a process of
modification, struggle, growing. And what's
happened is we've never been freed up to do that.
Because we've always felt once you make a
mistake, it's over.
Now the other side is to say, hey, send as much
as you want because we're saved by grace.
What I'm saying is, I've had a different
experience. When I came into the Church of
Christ, which was 17 years ago in Alaska,
I remember being around people that were 30
years older than I was, and I remember learning
things from them.
And I remember, even though we quoted Scripture
until we were sick, I remember valuing
Scripture reading,
a sense of respect for people that have
preceded you, and I think we've lost that.
So what happens when you've got 25-year-old
kids that are walking around and saying, I'm saved,
but they're still struggling with the same sin?
We need good models, as Paul says. We need good examples.
Not self-righteous, pompous windbags, but good
models of the Christian life,
people who have lived the Christian life and
can provide sources of wisdom to new Christians.
But we're not listening to the wise now because
the wise in some sense represent our past, and
I think that's unfair.
And what it does is it complicates the struggle
that you're describing, and what happens when
we start realizing internally,
whoa, I've got a habit, I've got an addiction
here. Well, you know, you can say grace, grace,
grace until you're blue in the face,
but it doesn't resolve the problem. And if you
recall in that same text, Jesus says that your righteousness
must surpass that of the scribes and Pharisees.
So Jesus was not calling us to a lower standard.
He was calling us to, in many ways, a higher
standard, but that standard presupposes that in
the process we are going to trip
and fall and we are going to flounder, but we
are going to be reshaped by a presence or a
community of examples.
That's why Paul said, follow me or imitate me
as I imitate Christ, because he saw the value
and the importance of human examples.
Not perfect, but certainly people that are
striving, as he says. I keep striving after the prize.
I keep looking for the final level of
glorification. And in the process, you know, we
are going to make mistakes.
One more thing. I'll try not to get on a
tangent here, but I've had people say, you
know, they're struggling.
I've talked to so many people in this town, for
example, that are struggling with problems all
the way from pornography to jealousy to you can
name it.
And the problem is they have no outlet of grace.
If they say anything in church, what's going to
happen? They're marked.
We're assassinating our own members because the
bottom line is if you know that you can't truly
confess your sins,
then where else do you find comfort? A second chance.
And that's the larger context of how church is
going to nurture people. Yes, help, self-help
groups are good,
but collectively, how will the body of Christ
help people to go through a process of transformation?
I hope I didn't get off into a tangent, but
that's just an observation that I see happening
in our churches.
And I don't know how we're going to resolve
that if we don't come clean, I guess, is what
I'm saying.
And say, hey, folks, we're sinners, but we're
sinners in need of repair and we need models.
We need people that are going to encourage us,
shape us, mentor us rather than abuse us.
Because throwing law at someone over and over
again will destroy a person.
Throwing grace at a person over and over again
will do the same or create the same result
without some level of transformation.
Your hand up back there.
We have a drone. We need to encourage our young men.
Yeah, and I guess I would want to say let's
expand it beyond leadership models.
Let's be inclusive in the sense that we say
we're modeling Christianity for all people and
not for one segment of the church.
Yes, you said that, I didn't.
But we do need models.
I think that's where I would say we're pretty
much all agreed in this room that we need models.
And that's not to say that we haven't had
models, but I've noticed, and maybe I'm wrong,
I'm 36.
But I am irritated by the extent to which the
elderly have been excluded from our society and
our church
and how everything has now centered around a
certain demographic profile, even in terms of
our educational structure of having classes.
What about having classes mixed with people
that are 25 and 55?
You know, I think it's possible. I've learned
from people that are 40 years older than I am.
I've had my instructors at SMU that were all older.
And I think what we're doing is we're
segmenting, and I'm not saying it's bad.
I'm just saying I think when we do that and
when it results in an overdose, what it does is
it cuts off, I think, real dialogue.
I want my son David to be around older people
because I think he needs to sense that life is
larger than his social confinement.
And I think that's what happens when you're
around people that have lived longer than you
and you can sense, you know,
I've learned to shut my mouth on occasions now
because I've watched.
I've watched, you know, for example, Everett
Ferguson in a classroom not say a word, you
know, and I'm thinking he should be saying something.
Well, he's learned through time that sometimes
the best word is silence.
Sometimes it's not.
But we I mean, I guess what I'm saying is if
you're going to cultivate virtue, it has to
happen through a process over time,
and it has to involve some level of modeling, mentoring.
Catechesis is the word that early Christians use.
That is instruction in the faith.
And they people had to go through a long
process of instruction because they realized
they realized the Christians realized that
Christianity calls for a radical moral commitment.
It also requires a context.
Well, Virginia and I worked at Holly as a youth
minister and I grew up in Niagara Falls, New York.
And first thing I was reminded was it's Holly,
not Holly.
But I understood going into that church that I
it was important for me to understand the
context of the church at Holly.
And I appreciated it. I enjoyed it.
But it was different and different for some of
us is scary.
In other words, we want to see the world
through our ethnocentric lens.
We want to see the world through Niagara Falls,
New York or Abilene, Texas.
And I think you're right. There's a need for a context.
But hopefully, hopefully that context will not
be a self-contained product that people will
realize that your lens is broad enough to see
different worlds.
My wife is a Texan. I'm not.
But, you know, 17 years I've been in Texas to
see since 1986.
So I guess I'm a transplant.
And some of you are probably happy about that
and proud.
But bottom line, I think taken to an extreme,
we can really engender a lot of pride and start
coming to the conclusion that life can only be
possible in this situation.
When, in fact, God is the creator of all
nations and is bigger than any one nation, any
one town, any one philosophy. Yeah.