(Scripture read from Philippians 3:7-11.) Good morning. Happy Easter! He is risen! Amen. Glory. How many of you happened to attend the Easter egg hunt that was here yesterday? It was a great event. I think we had about 70 kids from the community here. It was put on by the Children’s Ministry. As a side note, if you happen to find one of these plastic eggs in the pew that is because the Easter egg hunt was held here in the sanctuary. You can keep the egg, but please send the chocolate forward!
You just heard two resurrection stories. One you are probably familiar with and another story that you might not be too familiar with. One story points to the actual events of the resurrection. The other story really points to a person named Paul who not only saw the resurrection as an event to remember but really as a reality to embrace. The Easter story is quite familiar to all of you, but just in case you missed it the facts are pretty basic. We know that the resurrection really began on Good Friday with the crucifixion. Following the crucifixion, the body of Christ was taken down and placed in a tomb that was owned by this guy named Joseph of Arimathea. As the story goes, there were some women that went out to the tomb to anoint the body of Jesus with spices. When they went out there, they discovered that the stone that had covered the entrance to the tomb had rolled away. Out of curiosity, or possibly even out of fear, they went into the tomb and saw that indeed the body of Jesus Christ was gone. As they stood there wondering what was going on, the passage says that suddenly two men appeared and stood by them and they were said to be wearing clothes that glimmered like lightning. Of course the women were quite frightened. They actually fell down on their faces. One of the angels asked them a good question, “Why do you look for the living among the dead?” They went on to say “He is not here; he has risen!” At that point, they reminded them that while Jesus was indeed alive and walking around, he had told all the disciples that he would be arrested by sinful men and that he would be crucified, but after three days he would rise from the grave. Apparently, the women run back to tell the rest of the disciples who thought that they were crazy. They thought it was nonsense. Except for Peter who made a beeline to the tomb and went inside and all he saw were the strips of linen that were used for his burial laying there. As today’s story closed, he too was standing there quite bewildered.
As you know, that story is told in all four gospels with a little bit of variation on each story, but they all end with the same ending. He is not here. He is risen. I would suspect that a lot of people here believe that story and believe it as much as they believe other significant events in history. Maybe there are people here that are old enough to actually remember the bombing of Pearl Harbor or the assignation of JFK or, obviously, 9/11. Those were all significant events that we can all recall. But the resurrection is something different. Christians are not called to simply to remember the resurrection. They are called to see it as one of the most, if not the most, significant event in all of history. Consequently, they shouldn’t just see it as an event on a calendar but again a reality to embrace and to be part of their lives much like it was to the very first Christians.
That is what brings us to the second story of resurrection that comes out of the book of Philippians. A story about a man named Paul. I imagine that most of you know Jesus and most of you have probably also heard of Paul because he was probably one of the most popular characters in the Bible next to Jesus. But it wasn’t always that way. People didn’t always see Paul as someone in a very positive light. Paul, as we know, was a Jewish man. He was a teacher of the law. He was very strict in the law. He was very good at it. When this thing called Christianity began to take momentum following the resurrection that made him a little nervous because it began to become a threat to his entire worldview and his entire identity. So Paul did everything he could within his power to try and shut this new religion down. The first place that we encounter Paul is in the book of Acts about chapter 7. He is standing there actually holding the cloaks of the people who are actually executing the first martyr, Stephen, by stoning him to death. Then we see him a couple chapters later and he is probably a little bit older in chapter 9 where he is gathering up letters that he can bring to the city of Damascus that will give him authority to persecute the Christians in that city. As the story goes on, he is going to the city of Damascus and suddenly, out of the blue, a bright light appears and a voice who many suspect was Jesus, says to him “Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?” Actually, at that time, he was called Saul, so Jesus is saying “Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?” From that moment on, after that experience with the risen Christ, Paul became a changed man. Completely turned around. Became someone who was once the biggest persecutor of Christians to becoming someone who was one of the biggest defenders of Christ and Christianity. So much so that he began a mission to plant churches all throughout the Mediterranean, including the church in Philippi.
If you have been here for a while, you know that we have been going through a series on the book of Philippians. To be honest, when I was approaching Easter, I decided I need to take a break from the letter to the Philippians. Then I began to read ahead in Philippians and realized that the very next passage actually fit Easter very well because it really spoke of the resurrection at least from Paul’s terms. I decided that is a good passage for Easter. It gave me the opportunity to combine the Easter sermon and the Philippians passage together. More than that, it gives me the opportunity to give you a picture of a person who doesn’t simply view the resurrection as an event that occurred but really a reality to embrace. That is a big thing for Paul. Earlier in the book Paul lays out his credentials. He says that he is from the elite tribe of Benjamin. He would be considered a Hebrew of Hebrews. He is a Pharisee. He is someone that strictly adheres to the law. He was someone who zealously persecuted the church. But then in today’s reading it goes on to say “But what I once considered profit, I now consider loss.” Then he goes on to say “What is more, I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Jesus Christ my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish, that I may gain Christ and be found I him.” This is an interesting passage. Paul did have a lot of credentials. He was a scholar. He was a very learned man. He was very high up with the religious elite but yet he considered all those credentials as really garbage. The underlying word here actually is more closely associated with the word dung. That is how he saw it. He compared all his credentials to garbage or dung compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ as Lord. I know that some of you are here that maybe have been Christians for a number of years. You might feel the same way about some of the things you pursued in the past. Many of us, including myself, we are after careers and after fame and after money, all these different things. Then we encountered the living Christ and things began to change. Compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ, really all those accomplishments were nothing. They paled in comparison to knowing the risen Christ. In fact, there is a song that I think we might have sung before. I think the chorus goes “Turn your eyes upon Jesus. Look full into his wonderful face and the things of earth grow greatly dim in the light of his glorious grace.” Things of the earth and of the world become very pale compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ.
That is what Paul wanted to do. He wanted to know Christ. And he really wanted to know him not just a head knowledge but more of an experiential knowledge. He goes on to say in verse 10 “I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings.” This is a very strange passage and a hard passage to interpret and to figure out exactly what he means here. We don’t know exactly what he is talking about but one thing we do know is the word “know” is actually used here not in an intellectual, cognitive, or informational way. It is used in an experiential way. Paul didn’t want to have more head knowledge about Jesus and all the other facts that went with Jesus. He wanted to know Jesus in a very experiential, personal way. We know that he did know Jesus probably in a more experiential way than any of us would ever because of that encounter on the road to Damascus. Not only that. You get the sense by reading his letters that the guy just had an ongoing, intimate fellowship with Jesus Christ. So much so that he would refer to himself and other Christians as being in Christ. He wanted that close intimacy. He was never satisfied with where he was in his relationship. There was always more to know and experience about Christ. That can be expected. Remember, Jesus was the second person of the trinity. The one that John the gospel writer said “The one that in the beginning was the word and the word was with God and the word was God.” He was the co-creator of the universe. The one, the word who became flesh and walked around this earth for 33 years. While he walked around he performed all sorts of miracles. He calmed the storm. He healed the sick. He gave sight to the blind. He raised the dead. He spoke the most profound words that have ever been spoken in mankind. That was basically again the Jesus that Paul wanted to know. He didn’t just want to know him. He went on to say “I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection.” That is a very difficult passage to unpack and figure out what he is talking about here. I imagine if we gave it some thought, we would realize that it probably took a whole lot of power and some sort of energy to raise a guy from the grave who had been dead for three days. That would take a phenomenal amount of energy. But we don’t think that Paul was talking about that sort of power. He was talking about the power that was unleashed really through the resurrection.
In a few months, we are going to be celebrating the feast called Pentecost. That is the opening day of the church. When we looked at the book of Acts, remember the opening day of the church occurred when Jesus told the disciples to go to a house and just wait. Wait for the Spirit to arrive. When the Holy Spirit arrived, it arrived with power. An amazing amount of power was unleashed in that room where the spirit of God came through like the sound of a mighty rushing wind, filled all the believers with the spirit of God so much so that tongues of fire rested on their heads and they began to speak in other voices. Then they spilled out onto the street. It was there that the man Peter, the one who had previously been known as a coward, the one that wouldn’t claim Christ as Lord, now is speaking with boldness so much so that he gives the sermon of his lifetime and 3,000 people are converted right in the place. Then what we see is that Spirit continues to flow out into church after church after church and really right down every single century into every single believer that has ever lived. That is the power that we received through the resurrection. It is the power, as we saw with Paul, to change lives. To turn people completely around. To turn people away from addictive behavior, crime, or sin and to turn them back towards Christ. It is the power to take someone that might have been incredibly selfish their whole life and all of a sudden give their time, talent, and treasure to the church or to ministry or that sort of thing. Basically, it is the power to turn a sinner into a saint. It is the power to deal with suffering really with a smile, almost a sense of joy. That is what Paul goes on to speak of. He makes this weird connection between the power of the resurrection and the suffering. He says “I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings.” That is a very strange phrase. I think a lot of us like the idea of receiving the power of God in us somehow. We seek out that power. We want that power but we just as soon would probably leave the sufferings alone. We really don’t want to mess with suffering but Paul says he doesn’t want to experience suffering. He wants to experience the fellowship of suffering. Fellowship is a word that we use around here kind of loosely. It is what we use to describe what we do at the end of the service when we go in that room over there and eat cookies and chips and exchange small talk. That is our view of fellowship. Really the underlying word here is a word called koinonia, which speaks of a deep participation in the life of somebody else. What some suspect here is Paul wants to have a deep participation in the sufferings of Jesus Christ so much so that some would suggest what he is saying here is he wants to experience the pain of the nails that went into his hands. He wants to feel the pain of the nails that went into Christ’s feet. He wants to feel the agony that Christ suffered when his lungs collapsed because of his body weight. That is what some suspect Paul wanted.
Although we know that Paul would have probably considered it a real privilege to experience that, really most people don’t believe that is what he is talking about here. What he is talking about is probably just the normal amount of suffering that comes by just simply being a Christian. We know by our earlier reading in Philippians that Paul suffered quite a bit in prison under the hands of guards and that sort of thing. A modern example would be the Egyptians that suffered because of ISIS. Or more recently the 150 Kenyan students that were killed because they dare say they were Christian. But those are extreme examples. More common examples would be the suffering that we all experience simply by being part of a fallen and broken world. The suffering we experience because of mismanagement of finances or a broken marriage or the suffering we experience with a health problem or just the suffering that we call on ourselves simply because we made bad choices in life. You have to keep in mind that Paul is really not trying to attach some sort of value or some sort of degree on certain types of suffering. What he is trying to do here is give us the right perspective to suffering. Basically what he is saying is when you experience any form of suffering, you in some sense are sharing in the suffering of Christ. So rather than being depressed about it, in some sense you should feel joy because you are experiencing the sufferings of Christ and, not only that, as a Christian that means that you can anticipate that somehow there is going to be a resurrection to follow. A powerful resurrection to follow. In the Christian life, you can almost guarantee that every sort of death may be followed by a resurrection. Whether it is death of finances. Whether it is death of possibly a marriage. Whether it is obviously physical death. The Christian can be sure that there is going to be some sort of powerful resurrection to follow. I know some of you know that. I know some of you have experienced that. Maybe you have experienced being bed ridden or going through chemotherapy and just being in misery. All of a sudden you get through it and the sun is shining again and you are feeling good and you know that it was only the power of God that you were able to get through that. Anybody ever feel that kind of stuff? Or that you are experiencing the loss of finances and you are really thinking you are never going to make it out of a financial hole. Then all of a sudden out of the blue you get a windfall of money or you get a new job and pretty soon you realize that something new has been created in your life. A new job, a new career, whatever it is. That is the power of the resurrection. Or you have been involved in a broken relationship that you saw that was pretty much hopeless and you experienced forgiveness. That is the power of the resurrection that is happening in your life. You just have to open your eyes and begin to see it. In some cases, maybe you have experienced a death of a loved one, but you still have the hope that this person will be raised. Because of the resurrection of Jesus Christ, he or she too would also be raised. That is the power of the resurrection that you have been given and that has been handed down all the centuries to you.
So Paul is not saying go out and seek suffering. There is plenty that is going to come your way just by living in this fallen, broken world. But he is saying when you experience suffering, maybe take a new spin on it. Maybe you realize that in some minute sense when you suffer, you are sharing in the suffering of Christ and consequently you can anticipate the power of the resurrection that is coming on down the line. That is what Paul wanted to know. He wanted to know Christ, know the power of the resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in the sufferings. Really it is the thing that he wanted all the Philippians to know. And he wanted all the other churches that he planted to know. He wanted us to know. In fact, in Ephesians, another letter that he wrote to a church, he says “I pray also that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints.” Then he goes on to say “and his incomparably great power for us who believe. That power is like the working of his mighty strength which he exerted in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly realms.” That is resurrection power. That is what he is talking about right there. He says that is available to every believer. Do you believe it? You should. I want to keep this sermon short because it is Easter and I know you all have things to do. But my main point is that Paul was someone who didn’t just look at the resurrection as some sort of event that he would celebrate once a year and eat a lot of ham and deviled eggs and chocolate bunnies. He saw it as a reality to embrace. Something to hold on to that would continue to shape him his entire life.
As we wind this down, I know there are people here that are Christians and have believed in the resurrection and continue to believe in the resurrection, but for some reason you no longer feel the power maybe that you felt when you first believed. Maybe you are feeling stuck in your faith. Maybe a series of circumstances have just knocked you down. Maybe you need to feel that fresh power. Maybe you are going through a financial crisis or a health crisis or a marriage crisis or something like that or a crisis with your children. You are going through those types of things and you need to feel that fresh power. If you would find yourself there, what I would suggest is that during this time of prayer, come forward, swallow your pride, get on your knees, and allow somebody to pray for you. Because that power comes to you through other people. God gives others the power. They are walking power packs ready to anoint you with God’s power. Do not allow something like pride to get in your way. Easter is the best opportunity to allow the presence of the resurrection power to be real in your life again. So as we get into the time of prayer, come forward. Or if you are a believe and you know that someone is going through some crisis, which you all know somebody who is, I would say get up out of your seat and go and pray for that person. Pray the power of Jesus Christ over that person and then anticipate there is going to be a resurrection down the road. When you see that resurrection occur, you are going to be able to point back to this day and you are going to be able to celebrate it.
Finally, we know there are people here that maybe have been coming to church here on Easter for a number of years. Maybe you really have never believed in the resurrection beyond the fact that it is a nice story. Maybe you have heard the story so many times that you are able to actually tell it yourself, but you have never ever experienced that power. You want some of that power, but the only way you know you are going to get it is to have that personal relationship with Jesus Christ. That personal, experiential, ongoing relationship with Christ. Easter is the best time to do something like that. So I invite you to invite Christ into your life and to do it during the time of prayer. You say that is kind of complicated and kind of weird. It is really not. I like the way somebody said it. It is really as simple as A-B-C. A is accept that you are a sinner. Really accept that we are all sinners. You don’t wait until you get perfect to come and accept Christ. You come to Christ just as you are. You acknowledge the fact that you are a sinner. B is basically you have to believe. You have to believe you are a sinner and you have to believe that Christ died on the cross for your sins. That is what Good Friday is all about but more than that you have to believe that he was raised from the dead. Because he was raised from the grave, you too will someday be raised from the grave and you can actually experience that power right now. Finally, C is just confess. What are you confessing? You are confessing that he is now Lord of your life. The ABCs, at least two parts of it, can be summed up in the passage Romans 10:9 that says “If you confess with your mouth Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.” You have to believe. When he is talking about believe in your heart, what we are talking about is moving that event that happened 2,000 years ago into your heart. When you believe that from your heart, something begins to happen because it is in your heart where all the defilement is. Not the organ of the heart but the inner person more attune to the soul. That is where the defilement occurs and that is where you believe. When you believe, you begin to be cleansed by God in a very real way. Then if that really has happened, evidence of the fact that that happened is that you would confess it. You would tell somebody about it. We believe around here that you should do it publicly and you should do it in the context of Christian baptism by immersion. It is not proof, but it is a pretty good sign that you have made that confession and have believed in your heart. If you are someone like that, I would invite you to come forward and allow somebody else to come alongside you and maybe walk you through the ABCs or whatever it takes. But if for some reason you are someone who is gun-shy about that, do it in the quietness of your own heart. Do it in the pew. But don’t stop there. Make sure that you go and confess it and tell somebody that you did it and then again you follow it up with Christian baptism. As we think about the resurrection story, as Christians the resurrection is not simply a story to be remembered but a reality to be lived. Let us pray.
