Living for Jesus
Philippians 1:21-30[1]
No matter how far along the path of the
Christian life we may find ourselves, I think we always face the challenge of
dealing with our own self-interest. Try as we may, it seems to dog our steps
all our days. There aren’t many of us who can truly get past concerns of our
well-being, our safety, our health, or our financial security. These are
matters that are basic to our experience of what it means to be human. We need
love, shelter, health, safety, and the means to provide for our basic needs.
I’m not sure what it would look like to be able to completely set our
self-interest aside.
And yet, the New Testament consistently points
to Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross for our sakes and calls us to follow his
example. In the words of Jesus, we’re to deny ourselves, take up our crosses,
and follow him (Mark 8:34). Dietrich Bonhoeffer famously interpreted this
statement by saying, “Whenever Christ calls us, his call leads us to death.”[2] By that “death” he was referring to the
self-denial that “means knowing only Christ, no longer knowing oneself.”[3] While Bonhoeffer was speaking of the ideal, I
think it gets more complicated when it comes to the push and pull of the
demands life in the real world makes.
I think that both Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Paul
the Apostle knew how difficult it is to put into practice the call to follow
Jesus. In our lesson from the letter to the church at Philippi for today, St.
Paul writes as a man contemplating the end of his life. He was very likely in
Rome, under house arrest, awaiting his day in court with Caesar. Whether the
outcome of that trial would be life or death he did not know, but he considered
the possibility that he might very well lose his life for the sake of his
service to Christ. No one, not even Jesus, could face that prospect without
some kind of struggle.
And yet, by the time Paul writes this letter
to his dear friends in the church at Philippi, it seems he has already come to
some kind of resolution of the crisis. In fact, the situation had created an
internal conflict within him. As he relates to his friends, he was torn between
the options of “departing and being with Christ” which he considered “far
better” and “remaining in the flesh,” or continuing with his life of service,
which he knew was “more necessary” for them (Phil. 1:23-24). Between the two,
Paul reassures his friends that he is convinced that he will get through the
crisis and continue to serve on their behalf.
At the beginning of all this, Paul makes a
statement that may seem strange to us. He says, “For me, living is Christ”
(Phil. 1:21). If we understand that purely from a theoretical standpoint, we
might be able to grasp what he’s saying. One translation says it this way: “To
me the only important thing about living is Christ.”[4] Another renders it this way, “For me, life
finds all of its meaning in Christ.”[5] I think we can understand that Paul was so
dedicated to the cause of Christ that it had become the sole purpose of his
life. He found fulfillment by living for Jesus.
If that were as far as it went, I think we
could all admire St. Paul for his sacrifice, his dedication, and his
single-minded devotion to serving others for the sake of Jesus Christ. But I’m
not so sure that’s all there is to it. For one thing, it makes it too easy for
us to let ourselves off the hook for not being the kind of “super-Christian”
that St. Paul was. More importantly, Paul makes it clear elsewhere that he meant
for all of us to follow his example in serving others for the sake of Jesus
with the same kind of devotion and sacrifice that he did. In fact, in another
of his letters Paul says that Christ died for us “so that those who live might
live no longer for themselves, but for him who died and was raised for them” (2
Cor. 5:15).
We, too, are to find the meaning of our lives in Christ. I think that’s why St. Paul
said what he did: “For me, living is Christ.” To say that living is Christ goes beyond finding our highest fulfillment in living
for Jesus. If we define our commitment to Jesus by saying “For me, living is
Christ,” it means completely redefining all the ties we have relied on for
meaning in life. To say, “For me, living is Christ” means leaving behind all
that we might call our “old selves” in order to find new life in Christ. Living
for Jesus in this sense means no more and no less than finding our life in
Jesus Christ himself, and in him alone![6]
In the push and pull of our daily lives, this
may seem like an impossible ideal. Reality has a way of thwarting all our best
intentions and diverting us from this kind of single-minded devotion to living
for Jesus. But Christ’s call demands an answer: will we take up our cross and
follow him or will we try to excuse ourselves due to the “conflicts” in our
lives? If we want to say “For me to live is Christ,” I think it means that we
renounce our ideas of self-sufficiency and find our true lives—and our true
relationship with every facet of our lives—through the lens of our commitment
to Christ. I’m not saying that it will be easy. It’s a perspective we must
continually seek to learn. But I do believe that’s what it means to be the kind
of people who are living for Jesus.
[1]
©2017 Alan Brehm. A sermon
delivered by Rev. Dr. Alan Brehm on 9/24/2017.
[2]
Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Discipleship,
87.
[3]
Bonhoeffer, Discipleship, 86.
[4]
Philippians 1:21, New Century Version
[5]
Philippians 1:21, New International
Reader’s Version
[6]
Bonhoeffer, Discipleship, 62, 65, 74.
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