Psalm 6
1 O Lord, rebuke me not in thine indignation: neither chasten me in thy displeasure.
2 Have mercy upon me, O Lord, for I am weak: O Lord, heal me, for my bones are vexed.
3 My soul also is sore troubled: but, Lord, how long wilt thou punish me?
4 Turn thee, O Lord, and deliver my soul: O save me for thy mercys sake.
5 For in death no man remembereth thee: and who will give thee thanks in the pit?
6 I am weary of my groaning; every night wash I my bed: and water my couch with my tears.
7 My beauty is gone for very trouble: and worn away because of all mine enemies.
8 Away from me, all ye that work vanity: for the Lord hath heard the voice of my weeping.
9 The Lord hath heard my petition: the Lord will receive my prayer.
10 All mine enemies shall be confounded, and sore vexed: they shall be turned back, and put to shame suddenly.
Glory be to the Father, and to the Son: and to the Holy Ghost; as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be: world without end. Amen.
Numbers 20 2-13
Now there was no water for the congregation; so they gathered together against Moses and against Aaron. The people quarreled with Moses and said, "Would that we had died when our kindred died before the Lord! Why have you brought the assembly of the Lord into this wilderness for us and our livestock to die here? Why have you brought us up out of Egypt, to bring us to this wretched place? It is no place for grain, or figs, or vines, or pomegranates; and there is no water to drink." Then Moses and Aaron went away from the assembly to the entrance of the tent of meeting; they fell on their faces, and the glory of the Lord appeared to them. The Lord spoke to Moses, saying: Take the staff, and assemble the congregation, you and your brother Aaron, and command the rock before their eyes to yield its water. Thus you shall bring water out of the rock for them; thus you shall provide drink for the congregation and their livestock. So Moses took the staff from before the Lord, as he had commanded him. Moses and Aaron gathered the assembly together before the rock, and he said to them, "Listen, you rebels, shall we bring water for you out of this rock?" Then Moses lifted up his hand and struck the rock twice with his staff; water came out abundantly, and the congregation and their livestock drank. But the Lord said to Moses and Aaron, "Because you did not trust in me, to show my holiness before the eyes of the Israelites, therefore you shall not bring this assembly into the land that I have given them." These are the waters of Meribah, where the people of Israel quarrelled with the Lord, and by which he showed his holiness.
Philippians 3.7-end
Yet whatever gains I had, these I have come to regard as loss because of Christ. More than that, I regard everything as loss because of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things, and I regard them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but one that comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God based on faith. I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the sharing of his sufferings by becoming like him in his death, if somehow I may attain the resurrection from the dead. Not that I have already obtained this or have already reached the goal; but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own. Beloved, I do not consider that I have made it my own; but this 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 heavenly call of God in Christ Jesus.
Let those of us then who are mature be of the same mind; and if you think differently about anything, this too God will reveal to you. Only let us hold fast to what we have attained.
Brothers and sisters, join in imitating me, and observe those who live according to the example you have in us. For many live as enemies of the cross of Christ; I have often told you of them, and now I tell you even with tears. Their end is destruction; their god is the belly; and their glory is in their shame; their minds are set on earthly things. But our citizenship is in heaven, and it is from there that we are expecting a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. He will transform the body of our humiliation that it may be conformed to the body of his glory, by the power that also enables him to make all things subject to himself.
One of the things that people sometimes misunderstand about religion and religious people and especially of Christianity is that we have all the answers, that we have fixed it that we’ve signed up and therefore we’re “ok”.
This is an error that not only people outside the church can make. It is also a common error among Christians themselves. Sometimes we ourselves can fall into the trap of thinking that because we are Christians we’ve got it sorted.
The reading from the Hebrew Scriptures warns of the danger of not trusting in God. The Israelites had been in the desert for a long time without water so Moses asked God for water. God tells him:
“Take the staff, and assemble the congregation, you and your brother Aaron, and command the rock before their eyes to yield its water.”
Yet Moses presumes to strike the rock to produce water and so God says:
"Because you did not trust in me, to show my holiness before the eyes of the Israelites, therefore you shall not bring this assembly into the land that I have given them."
The Israelites are people who lived with their minds focussed on the past:
"Would that we had died when our kindred died before the Lord! Why have you brought the assembly of the Lord into this wilderness for us and our livestock to die here? Why have you brought us up out of Egypt, to bring us to this wretched place? It is no place for grain, or figs, or vines, or pomegranates; and there is no water to drink."
They complain about their current situation even in spite of all the incredible things God has done for them and the offer of the promised land which is set out before them. The land they are promised might well be flowing with milk and honey but they long instead not for the future promises but for the fondly remembered foods of the past. They focus not on what God offers them but what they are currently enduring.
Paul speaks of such people in the epistle we heard:
"For many live as enemies of the cross of Christ; I have often told you of them, and now I tell you even with tears. Their end is destruction; their god is the belly; and their glory is in their shame; their minds are set on earthly things. "
However, although Paul is able to point out how people oughtnot to live, in his letter to the Christians at Philippi he reminds us that being a Christian isn’t about having found the final solution it is about being on a journey:
Beloved, I do not consider that I have made it my own; but this 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 heavenly call of God in Christ Jesus.
Like the Israelites before us we sometimes feel that because we have followed God it should be easy. The Israelites had really moaned:
"Would that we had died when our kindred died before the Lord! Why have you brought the assembly of the Lord into this wilderness for us and our livestock to die here? …."
Of course, because we have Paul’s letter, we know that we shouldn’t complain about such things, don’t we?
Well I think the difference is that in Paul’s view we should be focussing not on the past joys or the present troubles but on the future glory.
Paul’s point is that our following Jesus is not an end in itself. Yes to make that turning point, that decision that believing in God means living out the WAY that Jesus set forth is a significant moment. Paul describes everything else before it, everything else in life as RUBBISH in comparison. This concept reminds me of Jesus’ kingdom parables of the man who found the most beautiful pearl and sold everything else in order buy that one pearl or the man who found treasure in a field and sold all he had to purchase the field.
Yet the treasure, the great pearl that Paul found and that each of us finds is not an end here and now. No it is a journey towards a goal.
Yes the finding of Christ is a great prize, it is THE great prize but we must not miss what else Paul says:
“For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things, and I regard them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but one that comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God based on faith.”
“I have suffered the loss of all things” including a “righteousness of his which comes from the law” Paul’s discovery was that he was no longer of value because of what he did, or what commandments he followed but simply because he had faith in Christ.
Indeed the discovery we all face when we follow Christ is that we are of no value more or less than anyone else.
The difficulty for us as human beings is that, naturally, we are rather selfish creatures. We somehow think that we SHOULD be of value for our own sake; that what we do should be appreciated, that life should not always feel like a race, a rush.
Yet our Gospel is that we are on a journey and it’s not leisure cruise.
Jesus told us,
“Whoever wishes to follow me must deny themselves, take up their cross and follow me”We are following THE WAY and we are STRIVING towards it. Not strolling but striving.
Yes of course it is good when we help others in our service to God but as soon as that service is done it is in the past and Paul reminds us not to look to those things in the past but to strive on towards the future.
That is a tough call for any of us. It is not easy. As the rich young man learnt, merely following all the commandments and being justified by the LAW is not enough. If we turn to Jesus and say, I follow you, I obey your commandments then Jesus may well turn round to us with an equally tough challenge as “sell all that you have and give it to the poor.”
Although this way of looking at what being a Christian is like sounds tough, in fact, when you look at it in some ways it makes it easier. To understand that Paul too felt that he was constantly striving, constantly putting things behind him and moving on, then I think for each of us endeavouring to live Christian lives now can find a kind of freedom in the knowledge that it IS difficult. For in remembering the difficulty we acknowledge it as normal and not as some especial torture sent just for us. We are reminded that it is not about what we ACHIEVE but about our striving to be like God. Thank God that we do not have to work our way towards heaven by good deeds as the Pelagian heretics thought we did. I doubt many of us would get anything like close enough to even catch a glimpse. No we press on toward the goal but it is God who gives the prize.
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