7/13/58

Scripture: Philippians 3: 1-16

We have seen a number of ways suggested for meeting life’s problems that sound good for a while. Sometime ago a story was written of a little girl who lightened the whole world around her because she was always "glad." Pollyanna would find something to be glad about in the toughest situation. It is a good idea, but it is hardly a whole way of life, as many have discovered.

There was a time when the name of the French doctor, Coue’, was on many lips because of the popularity of his approach to the matter of health. He, and his patients, were to say repeatedly (and endeavor to mean it) "Every day, in every way, I am getting better and better."

One of the religious movements that grew up after originating in this country has stressed the control of mind over body to the extent that many of its adherents have tried to deny the existence of disease, or the need for a doctor.

In our particular time, a kind of new, or renewed, gospel popularly called "The Power of Positive Thinking" has caught the imagination of hosts of people. And its idea is good --- as one idea.

One religious writer, whose lines appear in a Sunday newspaper supplement, has offered this advice:

Each day renew the mental image of the kind of person you want to become. Actually picture yourself in radiant health, operating successfully in your chosen work, speaking comfortably and persuasively with your business acquaintances and friends. This picture will root itself in your unconscious mind and go to work for you. It will file away your chains and make your dreams come true.

Then, in a later paragraph, he writes:

In breaking the shackles of circumstance and habit, it is also wise to give yourself to a higher Power. When you let God into your life, He begins to work with you to break those chains.

There is some truth here. But is it enough? Does it answer all of the questions that need to be raised? Is this the Christian viewpoint, or is there more substance than that to the Christian faith?

For instance, is "the kind of person you want to become" the kind of person you should become? Are the dreams that will come true the dreams that should come true? Is all of this concerned with my will and desires, or is it concerned with God’s good will for me and His purposes for me and for the world?

These questions need to be asked. For Christianity is not concerned primarily with what the world calls "success", but with truth.

While he was president of the National Council of Churches, Dr. Eugene Carson Blake wrote: "The concern of the Churches is that there appears to be a growing interest in what religion can do for a man, without an accompanying moral concern about what a religious man ought to be and do. ---- Many people with a new religious interest are attempting to turn that interest into magic; to use God for their own purposes, rather than to serve God and find His purposes."

People who have heard James E. Pike at Green Lake or at neighboring college convocations or elsewhere, have found him very thought-provoking. James Pike summarizes the danger of our incompleteness in "positive thinking" this way:

In the realm of personal religion, there is a tendency to seek to use God as one of a number of resources to enable us to get what we want and enjoy life as we would. True religion puts God first and us second; its true prayer is ‘Thy will be done with our help;’ not ‘my will be done with Thy help.’

Because it appears that some of those who are devoted to the "Power of positive thinking" are too one-sided about it, there are those who now advocate the "power of negative thinking" as a suitable balance.

There is a good deal of truth in the observation that great leaders of the Old Testament, for example, were in certain sharp ways, negative thinkers. This is especially true of the prophets. They were people who were in basic conflict with the common ways and dreams of people and in conflict with their standards of success. They were disturbers. They were concerned with the shortsightedness, the false desires and the sin of people. They were sure that people had to be changed by the grace of God; must turn to God’s ways; and in that turning find life.

We see much of the same in the New Testament. Jesus began his ministry preaching repentance. One of his beatitudes is: "Blessed are they that hunger and thirst after righteousness, for they shall be filled." [Matthew 5: 6]. He did speak of finding "rest unto your souls" but he also spoke of self-denial and taking up crosses and following him.

If we look at some of the disciples of Christ who came after New Testament times -- people like Calvin, Luther, Jane Adams, Washington Gladden, -- we find that they were also negative thinkers, disturbers, in sharp ways. They were dissatisfied with much of the world, and with their part in it. They wanted things changed! And they worked for change!

A present-day seminary professor makes this comment: "My need, and that of all men, is to be delivered from my idolatrous self-centeredness."

But the power of negative thinking does not point out a whole truth. Both negative thinking and what is called positive thinking are partial and incomplete. We look for something greater, which includes both. The church must be primarily concerned with what is Christian thinking!

When Paul wrote to the Philippians, he was concerned with Christian thinking. He had been speaking of knowing Christ as Lord, of righteousness from God depending on faith. He had spoken of Christ and the power of his resurrection. And then he said: "Brethren, I do not consider that I have made it my own; but one thing I do, forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus."

Paul begins with this state of mind that is basic in Christian thinking: he knows that he has "not arrived" as a disciple of Christ. And so he is concerned to advance in his discipleship. In this all-consuming desire of his, the thoughts of personal success and advancement are lost and forgotten. Paul knows that he has a never-satisfied need for a better grasp and hold on his faith; more wisdom, more grace in teaching others, and in leading them. He knows the tremendous pull to conform to the world, and he knows the need to be transformed. He is constantly agitated by a divine discontent. "Not that I am already perfect, but I press on."

Of course there is a sense in which contentment is a virtue. And Paul knew that, too. Paul commends a kind of contentment, and says that he himself possesses it: "I have learned in whatsoever state I am to be content."

But it must not be contentment with the quality of ourselves as we are, or with the common outlook of life that surrounds us. It must be that kind of contentment that is commitment to better goals --- goals on which one’s mind and heart are set and toward which we strive to advance. It is the exercise of trust, even in adversity.

There is a sense in which it is necessary that we accept ourselves for what we are. But this does not mean tying ourselves to little ideas or small ideals.

One of the great cynics of the past generation remarked (with much truth in the observation) that there are a few people who are thoroughly religious and a few who are thoroughly irreligious; but that the great mass of folk are in a lukewarm area between the two.

Paul lived in no lukewarm mid-world. His faith was absolutely first with him. In that state, there was no place for comfortable spiritual contentment. A great Japanese Christian could be fairly serene about being put in prison by a jingoistic government. Indeed, like Paul, he could write and meditate with great effect while incarcerated by the police. At the same time, he was so unhappy about the fact that his country was, about that time, waging war upon the Chinese, that he wept for half a day over his helplessness to prevent the tragedy.

The faith of Paul did not permit him to accept himself just as he was, and be concerned with furthering his own success. His concern was about his discipleship. And in that, he was sure he had a long way to go!

The knowledge of his shortcomings and of not having arrived, kept him humble. It kept alive his sense of need. It kept him trying and aspiring. It kept him climbing. And some such state of mind is basic in Christian thinking.

There is something deadly about the observation that ---"well, after all, I’m a fairly good guy. I pay my debts and try to be fair with my neighbors. Even if I do occasionally go to excess in some personal indulgence, I won’t go to hell, will I? After all, if everybody lived as well on this earth as I do, it would be a pretty good place! The Golden Rule, you know" --- and so on. What chance is there left for the high and perfectly holy God to speak through such a wall of self-satisfaction!! Paul had had to be almost literally knocked down on the road to Damascus, before he heard the word of his Lord speaking to his Pharisee soul! Then he became a different man!

There is another element in Paul’s Christian thinking which is commended to all of us as disciples. Paul says: "forgetting what lies behind, and straining forward to what lies ahead" --- Paul did not forget his prideful and sorry past. But neither did he live in it! He had persecuted Christians and the church vehemently. He had not only consented to the death of Christians, he had planned it. He called himself the least of the apostles, and the chief of sinners. But he did not brood over it nor let it prey on his mind. He had repented and had felt forgiven of his past sins and could look forward, vigorously, to the future. There was so much to do for Christ’s Church and the gospel that he even had little time to live in the present! He pushed toward the future!

One of the great paralyzers of spiritual energy, putting the brakes on human power, is dwelling needlessly on past wrongs or failures. A sense of guilt over wrongs committed, and evil attitudes harbored, is the lot of any spiritually sensitive soul. But no one should live with these unresolved! The guilt must be resolved in confession before God, and in the assurance of forgiveness. Then it must be left behind. Inner restoration begins as one then looks forward to the good that is the will of God. The well-springs of the heart open, and the flow of energy is unstopped.

These things were true for Paul. He had encountered the Lord on the road to Damascus. He had been forgiven, released from his past, restored, made whole, set toward the future.

And he worked hard for what the future should bring, not to himself, but to everyone who would hear, and receive, the gospel. His is a strong statement: "forgetting what lies behind, and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on." It kept him energetic and always at work. He had no "peace of mind" in the easy, or popular sense. There was too much need in the world, too many people lacking the light of faith, and life-changing power of the gospel. There was a stewardship laid upon him to make the gospel known to others at all cost.

George Buttrick has commented that we ought to pray for "tension of mind," so that God may trouble us until we have thrown our weight against the evils of our day and generation. He says that the only peace of mind worth the words, is that which is under God’s judgment and control.

The Christian’s attitude is that which is suggested in what the poet, Robert Frost, called his "lover’s quarrel" with the world!

There is so much that desperately needs to come about in the peoples of the world that the Christian, who takes his Master seriously, must press forward! And the church must press forward.

One thing more is underlined by Paul in his letter to the Christians at Philippi. Overarching the whole of Christian thinking is the incentive, the goal. "I press on," he says, "toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus." Christianity is no common, undistinguished, or mundane business. If it is well understood, it is glorious business in which to be engaged. It has the enduring dimensions of permanence; of eternity.

The promise of the gospel is sweeping. From the birth to the death and resurrection of Jesus, through the length and breadth and height of his ministry, there is an eternity so vast that one who is his disciple can never be satisfied to spend his time on his own limited self. The goal of life is not seen in a mirror, but with a skylight through which one looks toward God!

"We are fellow-workers for God," said Paul to the Colossians [4: 11]. There is a goal in that occupation. It is not so much reward for ourselves as it is the enthronement of the Lord of all life.

Robert McAfee Brown sums up the critical truth by saying, "Total commitment to God is the obligation of the Christian. To have this commitment is to become a citizen of the Kingdom of God." To enter that Kingdom is more important than anything else. That is the goal for here and hereafter.

Paul met this test of critical understanding of life, of refusal to live in the past, and of pressing forward to the goal. Are, we disciples of 1958, doing the same?

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Dates and places delivered:

Wisconsin Rapids, July 13, 1958 (Union Service)

Wisconsin Rapids, June 16, 1963.