“If anyone else has reason to be confident in the flesh, I have more: 5 circumcised on the eighth day, a member of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew born of Hebrews; as to the law, a Pharisee; 6 as to zeal, a persecutor of the church; as to righteousness under the law, blameless.

7 Yet whatever gains I had, these I have come to regard as loss because of Christ. 8 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 9 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.”

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October 14, 2012
Philippians 3:4b-15, The Power of Purpose and Passion
Doug Scalise, Brewster Baptist Church

The Power of Purpose and Passion from BBC Staff on Vimeo.

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[powerpress]
Haven’t we all had times when we have been frustrated by life, when things just weren’t going the way we wanted or hoped they would?  The sources of frustration are endless and many of them we won’t mention in polite, mixed company in church. We get frustrated with our families and relationships–with behaviors that are irritating and never seem to improve but in fact get worse as people get more set in their ways. We get tired of coping with the strains of single parenthood, the pain of divorce, the depressing decline of a family member’s health that goes on and on. Families and relationships require tremendous perseverance to overcome our frustration.

School can be frustrating. The hours are long, the people are often difficult and try your patience, there is teasing behind your back, and more is asked of you than is reasonably possible and you struggle with feeling different from those around you yet wanting to fit in…and that’s just how the teachers and staff feel.  Maybe students have more in common with their teachers than they realize.

Work can be a source of frustration – first if we cannot find and keep meaningful employment. The longer that goes on the more frustrating it becomes. If the job we have, “pays the bills” but bankrupts our spirit, we may feel frustrated or trapped. We may take out our frustration on co-workers or on strangers on our commute. Even church can be frustrating. One Sunday morning a man got up and told his wife, “I’m not going to worship today. I’m tired, I don’t think anyone will care if I don’t show up, no one really pays attention to me when I’m there anyway.” His wife replied, “I don’t care how you feel, you’re going, you’re the pastor.”

When I’m tempted to feel frustrated, reading the Bible is helpful to remind me what people endured, accomplished, overcame, and achieved when they could easily and understandably given in to frustration. The Apostle Paul persevered in his life and ministry through afflictions, hardships, calamities, beatings, imprisonments, riots, labors, sleepless nights, and hunger. The frustrations most of us face are far less stressful and threatening than those so perhaps we can learn from Paul how to overcome frustration through the power of purpose and passion.  Paul writes in Philippians 3:10-15,

“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 upward call of God in Christ Jesus.  Let those of us who are mature be of the same mind.”

The German philosopher Georg Hegel observed, “Life has value only when it has something of value as its object.” Paul put behind him all that he valued in his heritage and his past, for the “surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus.”  Sometimes when describing how they became a Christian sincere people will talk about how awful their life was before they began following Jesus. It some cases this is true, but not in every case, and we need to remember that. Paul’s testimony is not that he gave up a bunch of awful things or that he was a terrible person, rather, he describes all the things in his life of which he is most proud, that he still values tremendously, and he says it is these good things that he gladly puts behind him. What Paul is saying is “Christ surpasses everything of worth to me.”

As the chorus says, “all he once held dear and built his life upon” he walked away from because his heart had been captured by a greater passion, his mind by a higher purpose, his will by a higher calling. He wanted to know Christ and to become like Christ and that purpose; that desire, fueled him and drove him for the rest of his life. Thomas Chalmers was a Scottish minister, professor of theology, political economist, and a leader of the Free Church of Scotland in the early 19^th century. Perhaps his best known sermon was titled, The Expulsive Power of a New Affection, and while the language is different than we might use today, the powerful point he makes is that A New Affection is More Successful in Replacing an Old Affection than Simply Trying to End it Without Supplanting it With Something Better. In other words, simply telling ourselves or someone else to “Stop something” is not nearly as effective as having our heart captured by the love of God and that greater affection trumping anything else in our life.

The power of purpose and passion increases willpower and changes lives. Steadfastness of spirit and the worthiness of our purpose overcome frustration.  It is hard for any of us to sacrifice, suffer, and persevere for something of little value. We’re always going to experience frustrations.  We need a worthy purpose so the frustrations of life don’t inhibit the purpose of life. 

Are you an on purpose person or a “whatever.”  What is your life’s purpose?

Who and what are you living for?  Who do you want to be? When we can answer those questions clearly and briefly as Paul could, we know our purpose, and our purpose can fuel our passion. Purpose without passion lacks energy and fire. Passion without purpose lacks focus and direction. Passion is the energy of our soul. Passion is, “Intense emotion compelling action.  A strong devotion to some object, activity, or concept.” 

People lack passion for a variety of reasons, such as, familiarity – we allow something precious to become familiar and we take it for granted, like the people around us.  Apathy may increase with age; zeal can diminish, as we get older. Our society can lend itself to passivity– we live in a voyeuristic culture where many people live vicariously through others rather than pursuing their own lives. Perhaps most especially, people lack passion because they have no purpose beyond themselves. People who live for themselves are in a small business.

In church life, a Gallup poll revealed that the #1 factor for credibility in the church is the passion of the pastor, which puts pressure on people like Patti, Mary, and myself, doesn’t it? How can we all become more passionate in following Jesus?

1. Believe that passion is the deciding difference in your life. 

Soren Kierkegaard warned of the danger of the church losing its passion for the gospel, treating it instead like “a piece of information.”  Passion is replaced with descriptions of passion. The result for the church, he said, could be compared with reading a cookbook to a person who is hungry. Weak desires bring weak results. Athens was about the only place Paul visited that he didn’t plant a church because he was greeted by a greater foe than open opposition – indifference.

2. Realize that God desires passionate Christians.

Titus 2:14 says, “God who gave himself for us that he might redeem us from all iniquity and purify for himself a people of his own who are zealous for good deeds.”  Paul writes in Romans 12:11, “Do not lag in zeal, be ardent in spirit, serve the Lord.”

3. Pray for passion.

An old country preacher prayed before the sermon, “Oh, Lord, give thy servant this mornin’ the eyes of the eagle and the wisdom of the owl, illuminate my brow with the Sun of Heaven, possess my mind with love for the people, turpentine my imagination, grease my lips, electrify my brain with the lightnin’ of the Word, fill me plumb full of the dynamite of Thy glory, anoint me all over with the kerosene of salvation, and set me on fire. Amen.” 

4. Return to Your First Love.

Apathy isn’t a state of mind; it’s a state of the heart.  It means without passion, no love. Apathy won’t get you anywhere in life…but then, who cares?

In Revelation 2:1-6, Jesus warns the church in Ephesus about their lack of passion. He acknowledges their accomplishments, hard work, and doctrinal purity but says in effect, “You’re doing all this stuff in my name, but I don’t think you love me anymore.”

5. Use Your Spiritual Gifts

Paul writes to Timothy, “Do not neglect the gift that is in you…put these things into practice, devote yourself to them, so that all may see your progress.”

6. Place our Passion with our Purpose

We want to be passionate about God and eternal issues: about our family and our significant relationships; about the calling God has given us to fulfill; about the next generation and the lost. We want to be passionate about what truly matters most.

Paul says twice that he is pressing on; he is keeping his eyes on the prize, and always moving forward. At the end of Luke 9 Jesus set his face to go to Jerusalem and the destiny that awaited him on the cross. His purpose is clear and he is resolute about pressing on. As Jesus and the disciples are going along the road, two different individuals claim they will follow Jesus “but first let me go bury my father,” says one. Another asks, “Let me first say farewell to those at my home.” Reasonable requests, we might say. However, the call of God on our lives is often unreasonable and God like every lover is not enthusiastic about divided loyalties and passions.  Jesus says as he keeps moving on down the road, “No one who puts a hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God.”  Whether we are proud of our past, ashamed, or a mix of both, Jesus calls us onward to make the most of our days, for God’s sake.

BBC member Ernie Henert spoke at our men’s breakfast yesterday, along with two of the men involved in the organization he serves, Friends of Prisoners. They are doing good work. We need to remember the Biblical word to visit and care for those in prison. In his book, A Dangerous Grace, Chuck Colson tells of visiting Mississippi’s Parchman Prison. He wrote, “Most of the death row inmates were in their bunks wrapped in blankets, staring blankly at little black-&-white TV screens, killing time. But in one cell a man was sitting on his bunk, reading.  As I approached, he looked up and showed me his book – an instruction manual on Episcopal liturgy.  (Not exactly what you would expect).

John Irving, on death row for more than 15 years, was studying for the priesthood. John told me he was allowed out of his cell one hour each day. The rest of the time he studies. Seeing that John had nothing in his cell but a few books, I thought, God’s blessed me so much; the least I can do is provide something for this brother. “Would you like a TV if I could arrange it?” I asked.

John smiled gratefully, “Thanks,” he said, “but no thanks.  You can waste an awful lot of time with those things.” For the 15 years since a judge placed a number on his days, John had determined not to waste the one commodity he had to give to the Lord – his time.”

Those of us who aren’t in solitary confinement on death row have so much more we can offer the Lord than our time. If we don’t first offer the Lord our passion dedicated to God’s purpose, we won’t offer our time. And there is a sense in which we are all on death row, only with better accommodations. None of us knows the length of our days so forgetting what lies behind, Paul and all of us are exhorted to press on. It is not that events in our past are deleted from our brain like a file from a computer; our brain doesn’t work that way. It’s that things in our past no longer have to dictate who we are or how we act in the present or future. In Christ, we do not need to be prisoners of our past, but partners with God in shaping our future. Because one of the central acts of our faith is remembering, “Do this is in remembrance of me,” one could say that what we choose to remember and dwell on is vitally important. It’s more important to remember what God has done for us than what any person has done to us. Empowered by the Spirit of God may we pursue the upward call of God in Christ Jesus with passion and purpose in headlong pursuit of our desire to know Christ as Christ has known us.