Christian, Accept Your Life-long Call to Serve!

18th Sunday after Pentecost, 10/4/20 Philippians 1:18b-27 Christian, Accept Your Life-long Call to Serve! I. Living a Christian life II. Dying a Christian death III. Contending for the Christian faith Although I’ve never seen one, I’ve been told that some Christian churches have a sign posted on the back wall of their church, just above the doorway. That sign reads, “You are now leaving your church and entering your mission field.” The people who post such signs are trying to impress their members with the fact that their Christianity is not a one hour per week pastime. It’s a 24 hours per day, 7 days per week, 365 days per year way of life. And I trust that you know that. I would never accuse you of leaving your Christianity here with the intention of picking it up next Sunday. I don’t think any of us will enter our vehicles after this service and exclaim, “There. It’s done. I’ve done my Christian thing for the week.” In fact, I hope that one of the reasons you’re here this morning is to get your spiritual battery recharged so that you can deal with the week ahead in a Christian way. You know how tough life is. You’re here to be fed on God’s word so that you can live this week in the way that a Christian should. And that’s precisely the encouragement that lies behind St. Paul’s description of his own Christian life as we hear it this morning from his letter to the Philippians. Paul lays before us what he views as his goal in life. He doesn’t do so in order that we stand back and exclaim, “What a great Christian Paul was!” He does it as a way of calling us to live our entire lives in loving service to our Savior, Jesus Christ. Are you ready to accept that calling? I hope and pray so! Christian, accept your life-long call to serve! Let’s see what Paul means by that this morning. Part I. In his Letter to the Philippians Paul often shares with us his own personal thoughts and emotions. It becomes clear to those who read this letter that Paul’s goal in life is to glorify Jesus in every situation of life. That was relatively easy to do as Paul had the opportunity to preach about Jesus to groups of people and to teach individuals about Jesus. Perhaps you recall that Paul took no less than three extended mission trips in which he established Christian congregations and then later revisited them to strengthen those congregations. This congregation in the city of Philippi was one of them. Paul glorified Jesus with his life by preaching to these people. But as Paul wrote these words of our text, he was no longer free to preach. This Letter to the Philippians was written while Paul was in prison for preaching about Jesus as the Savior from sin. Can you imagine that? It must have been quite depressing. But it didn’t stop Paul. He continued to glorify his Savior even while imprisoned. He writes, “I eagerly expect and hope that I will in no way be ashamed, but will have sufficient courage so that now as always Christ will be exalted in my body.” We know that Paul shared his faith while he was in prison. The jailer in this city of Philippi was a Christian due to Paul’s previous efforts at sharing his faith. This letter is evidence of the fact that Paul used his time while in prison to correspond with the congregations he had established. He shared God’s written word with them. Even more, Paul intended to use his upcoming trial as an opportunity to witness to his faith. He alludes to this when he claims that he is confident of the help that the Holy Spirit will give him to do so. He knew that, as he stood before the Roman court officials, the Holy Spirit would supply him with the courage and the words to speak. Those words would be a clear testimony of Jesus Christ as the world’s Savior. Whether in prison or free, whether speaking or writing, Paul lived to the glory of his Savior. And that’s your calling as well. Paul wrote in another letter, “So whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God” (1 Cor. 10:31). Which situation do you find yourself in? Student? Teacher? Child? Parent? Grandparent? Employer? Employee? Neighbor? Friend? Co-worker? Do you have plenty or are you in need? Speaking? Writing? Performing? Working hard or playing hard? No matter what it is, you have been called to do it in service to your Lord. Your life-long call is to live the Christian life. So, how are you doing? How well are you living your life for Christ? By the standards of many, the fact that you’re sitting here in church this morning means you’re doing quite well. It’s more than most do in any given week. But our God isn’t impressed with the world’s standard. He measures us with his own. It’s called his law. And an honest evaluation of ourselves on the basis of that law reveals that all too often we’re living for our own glory, and not for our Savior’s. We’re more concerned about what we want than what our God wants. We detach our lives from our faith whenever it suits us. And that’s just what we confessed at the beginning of our service today. We admitted our failings at living for him. And he announced his forgiveness to us. And, on the basis of that forgiveness, we now stand ready and equipped once again to live for him. That’s our life-long call—to serve him by living the Christian life. Part II. I’ve been told that an old Farmer’s Almanac states in archaic English, “Feared of dying? Were you feared of being born?” The truth is, we do fear death. For any number of reasons, we’re not too fond of the idea of our death. But those fears are unfounded. First, we have no reason to fear death because of the work that Jesus has already completed for us. He came to suffer and die as the punishment for our sins. We’re not going to face punishment for them when we die. It’s all been taken care of by Christ. But we still worry about those left behind. That’s unfounded, too. The God who called us home to himself in heaven is also the God who will take care of all our loved ones whom we leave on earth. Paul was confident of both of those truths. That’s why he proclaimed, “For me, to live is Christ and to die is gain. I desire to depart and be with Christ, which is better by far.” What a glorious statement for a Christian to make! What a beautiful profession of the Christian faith! Paul lived from day-to-day in the powerful truth of what our modern hymn proclaims, “I’m but a stranger here; heaven in my home!” That was the goal of Paul’s life—to depart and be with Christ. That wasn’t some morbid obsession with death. It wasn’t a coward’s way of dealing with a difficult life. Paul wasn’t shirking his responsibilities here. He was simply living in the Christian truth that he desired to live in the perfection of heaven as soon as possible, as soon as God willed it. And that’s part of our life-long calling to serve. It’s holding up before others what we consider the ultimate life to be. Would you like to do something eternally powerful for someone else? Then display your desire to enter heaven to be with your Savior. Don’t give the impression that you’re going for all the gusto in this life, that you’re living for the moment, or for all the things this life has to offer. Recognize with Paul that living here is nice, but living with your Savior is better by far. That life is yours because Jesus won it for you with his perfect life and with his innocent death on the cross. May we all die the Christian death! It’s part of our life-long call to serve. Part III. According to God’s plan, none of us are at that point right now. We’re still living and breathing. And while we do, the Lord has a specific calling that he wants us to fulfill. Paul states it like this, “Conduct yourselves in a manner worthy of the gospel…contending as one man for the faith of the gospel.” Part of your life-long call to serve is contending for the Christian faith. And, in my humble opinion, that’s never been more important to do. We live in a world of religious pluralism. Modern people insist that they will determine their own spiritual truths and live by them only as it suits them. One of the best ways we can serve other people is by stating without reservation that the only way we can come to know the truth about the only true God is through his holy word. Eternal spiritual truth is not hatched in the minds of great thinkers; it is revealed in the simple words of the Bible. Contending for our faith means holding to the truth. It also means battling any denial of that truth. If we only know Jesus through his word and if this word is the word of Jesus himself, then any denial of this word is a denial of Jesus. His word is truth and his word is clear. And he is glorified when we defend that truth. Paul calls for us to be united in contending for that truth. Our unity is based on the truth. As we study God’s word together, as we grow in that truth together, God equips us to defend it at all costs. And that’s the job he gives to every one of us. Part of our life-long call is to state without hesitation, “Thus says the Lord.” I’m speaking from experience when I say, “That’s not an easy task.” Oh, it’s not so difficult when I have an agreeable audience such as yourselves. It’s one of the joys of my ministry that you look to me in every worship service and in every Bible class to share that truth with you. The difficult part is proclaiming that truth to those who want no part of it. The solution is not to cave in and say, “Oh, who can be sure of the truth?” The solution isn’t to seek unity by agreeing to disagree. The solution, according to your Savior as he speaks through St. Paul, is to contend as one man for the faith. You have a long-long call to serve. Accept it! Amen.