Philippians 2:19-24 Timothy: An Approved Servant of Christ
Have you ever applied for a job and then were told you weren’t qualified for that position? Maybe you tried out to make the school team, and you didn’t make it. Or maybe you did make the team, and you were in the game and then you did something that disqualified you, and you were kicked out of the game. Sometimes we try and follow the rules and yet we can still end up in the situation where you’re asked to sit out. When I was in high school I was quite a good trombonist; not bragging, just giving contextual background information. I made the district band, district orchestra, area band and area orchestra. But I never made it to the states. That was just beyond my ability. I never qualified for that elite group of talented musicians. Sometimes you reach your limit. In 7th grade I played linebacker for the school team. Then in 8th grade everyone grew a foot and 30 lbs and all of a sudden I was not qualified to make the team. Sometimes we are qualified, sometimes not, and sometimes we are disqualified. This is life. This also is true for spiritual life. Wouldn’t we all want to be qualified to go to heaven and not hell? But how do you qualify? And is it really something you can do on your own effort? Desire alone does not qualify you. We just remembered the anniversary of 9/11. There were many in that tragedy who desired to live, desired to escape, and yet perished. There’s more to qualifying for eternal life than mere desire. And there’s more to it than mere profession. Jesus was teaching and someone asked him, “And someone said to him, “Lord, will those who are saved be few?” And he said to them, “Strive to enter through the narrow door. For many, I tell you, will seek to enter and will not be able.(DESIRE) When once the master of the house has risen and shut the door, and you begin to stand outside and to knock at the door, saying, ‘Lord, open to us,’ then he will answer you, ‘I do not know where you come from.’ (CLAIMED TO KNOW HIM, CALLED HIM LORD) Then you will begin to say, ‘We ate and drank in your presence, and you taught in our streets.’ (WE EVEN HUNG OUT WHERE YOU WERE, WE ATE AND DRANK IN YOUR PRESENCE, WE WENT TO CHURCH FROM TIME TO TIME) But he will say, ‘I tell you, I do not know where you come from. Depart from me, all you workers of evil!’” (Luke 13:23–27) You see they were disqualified, they were sinners, workers of iniquity, of sin. So it’s not desire, it’s not professing or proclaiming to be a Christian, and it’s not even doing things, Christian things. Jesus taught that many, MANY, would try to claim they did sufficient good deeds to get into heaven. “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?’ And then will I declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.’” (Matt. 7:21–23) Even though they claimed to be doing God’s work, prophesying in the name of Jesus, casting out demons and lots of other powerful things, like feeding the poor, digging wells, volunteering in the soup kitchen, dropping some money into the red kettle, saying merry Christmas instead of happy holidays, all are good things, but none make you a Christian, none qualify you for the heavenly reward of eternal life and spending eternity with Jesus. You and I cannot qualify ourselves. And this can be unnerving, unsettling. Because if you think your life has been really good til now, you’ve been mostly a good person, mostly doing good instead of bad, then you might be lulled into thinking you are safe with the Big Man upstairs, when in reality you could be dangerously close to your final breath, being disqualified and spending an eternity in hell. If being qualified for the reward of eternal life is your aim, let’s get into the text and hear from God together this morning.
When I mention the word offerings, what’s the first thing that comes to your mind? Maybe you get a mental picture of your billfold, your purse, or checkbook. Maybe the image of an offering plate circulating around comes to mind. But I wonder if a different image comes to mind when I add the word “sacrifice.” A sacrificial offering. Maybe now the idea of animal sacrifice surfaces. We are, after all, undertaking the study of the Old Testament, and much is said on the topic of sacrifice. As we think about sacrificial offering the concepts of value and cost begin to emerge. There is a cost associated with offering and sacrifice. Ultimately sacrificial offering finds its fulfillment in the greatest and most perfect offering and sacrifice of the Lamb of God, the life of Jesus Christ. And as glorious as his sacrifice is, are we done with topics of offerings and sacrifice? Is there anything more for us to think about for the New Testament church, living under the New Covenant? When we take the Lord’s Supper together we are proclaiming the death of the Lord Jesus and He has charged us to do it in remembrance of Him. So I think the biblical understanding of sacrifice and offerings continue to be important. It is relevant for our lives today, and it is especially relevant for our worship. We do not want to worship in ignorance. As Jesus explained to the woman at the well. “You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews. But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father is seeking such people to worship him. God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.” (John 4:22–24) It is absolutely necessary that we get both aspects of this right for us to worship God. And recall that it didn’t take the new nation of Israel very long to mess up in worshiping a false god, going so far in fact to create the golden calf. Someone might think, “Yeah that was a pretty stupid idea.” But yet, how easily do we become distracted, giving other things in our lives more priority in our hearts, essentially worshiping some other thing, or idol, in our lives? We were created to worship. More accurately, we were created to worship our Creator! We will worship someone or something. We will adore the world, ourselves, or we can worship God and do so rightly, as He has prescribed. God chose the Levites to help his people worship properly. God created us, and He created us to worship him. He gets to say how that worship is to be conducted. And the key we must remember, is that worship does not begin with us. It is not about our felt needs, or otherwise. Worship begins with God. Once we understand our place, (He is God, we are not, He is the Creator, we are the creatures) then we will understand that we are fallen creatures and we are of unclean lips as Isaiah said. He is Holy, Holy, Holy and we are not. Worship is to be focused on God, not on man. If you come away from worship thinking what a great time you had, how funny the sermon was, how entertaining it was, then you’ve got it wrong. If you come away from worship service, with a greater appreciation for how glorious, how magnificent, how wonderful our God is, how Holy He is, then your worship has its proper focus. And if you are a child of God, then you need to pay attention to lest you worship in ignorance, and not in spirit and truth.