October 6, 2002—9:00 Worship
Sermon preached by the Rev. Donald Ng at the First Chinese Baptist Church in San Francisco.
When David, the Psalmist, wrote, “By you I can crush a troop; and by my God I can leap over a wall “ (18:29), he could not have imagined what mechanical engineers and chemists are working on today at MIT.
They have developed a synthetic material with properties that mimic human muscles unlike anything seen before. They believe that their innovative muscle material will be perfect for anti-gravitational suits. This “g-suit” is a thin, black ribbon that looks like electrical tape but it’s 100 times stronger than natural muscle.
With the possibility of war looming over us, the developers of this material are thinking about a “superman suit.” Such a suit could enable soldiers to run, jump, and lift to a nearly super human strength. Imagine what psychological damage this would do to the enemy if we had entire troops able to leap over 20-foot walls, said one scientist.
Wouldn’t we all love to have this kind of strength? Not just physically, but emotionally, morally, and spiritually? One of the most discouraging parts of day to day life is our ever-present human weakness. We hit that snooze button in the morning time and time again until our parents are yelling at us. The tons of homework the teachers put on us gives us glassy-eyed exhaustion. When hit with a difficult dilemma, we break down emotionally filled with severe stress. And on top of this, we sometimes find ourselves tempted by the world’s values instead of showing moral strength and righteous resolve.
We need a g-suit! None of us is a Superman…or a Superwoman. We’re human. We wobble and wear out. We fall down and screw up. One of those g-suits would be great!
Paul’s Strengths
When we think about the apostle Paul, we think he’s a spiritual super hero. But even he had serious limits to his spiritual strength. In today’s lesson from Philippians, Paul looks back over his life and boasts,
If anyone else has reason to be confident in the flesh, I have more: 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; to zeal, a persecutor of the
church; as to righteousness under the law, blameless” (3:4b-6)
Before Paul met Christ, he had all the strength of a spiritual super hero already—
his g-suit was 100 times stronger than anyone else’s.
But as a Christian, Paul admits that “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” (3:7-9).
Paul is ready to throw out his old sources of strength that came from following rigid laws and traditions. He was circumcised on the eighth day. He carried a membership card in the Benjamin tribe. He had a birth certificate saying that he’s a Hebrew. He kept the law as a Pharisee. He carried out his orders to persecute the church. And if there was any one who followed the law as carefully as Paul did, let him show his face because Paul was blameless. Everyone could see that Paul fulfilled his Jewish obligations.
What qualified Paul to have strength in the past, he now admits are worthless and calls them rubbish. The original Greek word used by Paul is skybala which literally means “excrement.” All the things Paul used to take pride in, he now says ain’t worth dung. He wants to flush them all away.
Faith in Christ
In place of these old characteristics that Paul acquired by following rigid laws and traditions, he craves for a righteousness that comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God based on faith. “I want to know Christ and the power of the resurrection and the sharing of his sufferings by becoming like him in his death,” Paul says (v. 10). Paul is seeking an inside transformation that happens when he can know Christ in faith—sharing in his suffering and hopefully sharing in Christ’s resurrection.
Having faith in Christ does not come from putting on one of these anti-gravitational suits. No synthetic, artificial super strength material that we can put on the outside can give us the inner strength we are seeking in our lives. We may be able to fend off threats and attackers, and leap over 20-foot walls, but to know Christ and receive the power of the resurrection comes from the inside out. We can’t get faith by putting something synthetic just on the outside.
If we are to put on anything, Paul said, “Clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience” (Colossians 3:12). These are inside characteristics.
We will never be 100 percent protected by this g-suit, made of a thin, black synthetic muscle that feels like electrical tape. The g-suit we need is a God Suit—the whole armor of God: the belt of truth, the breastplate of righteousness, the shield of faith, the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit (Ephesians 6:13-17)
Go Out in Faith
Todd Beamer said, “Jesus help me. I don’t think we’re going to get out of this thing. I’m going to have to go out on faith.” It was the voice of the passenger who said “Let’s roll” as he led the charge against the terrorists who had hijacked United Flight 93 that crashed in the Pennsylvania countryside.
Beamer’s bravery was based on his faith in Jesus Christ. He and other fellow passengers wrestled with the hijackers and forced the plane to crash into the ground, killing themselves but foiling a possible attack on the Capitol or the White House.
As Christians, we believe that God can bring good out of evil even when the events are way beyond our human ability to understand. In Todd Beamer, the world witnessed a faith that held up in the extremity of fear. The deep faith in Christ was the strength that Todd Beamer had in his acts of bravery. Although we can imagine how Todd Beamer and all the other passengers could have used these anti-gravitational g-suits, Beamer didn’t need a synthetic g-suit to remain faithful to God.
Press On
Most of the time in our day to day lives, we complain about our ever-present human weaknesses. We become paralyzed and stuck hoping that if we can just have a little bit more strength or just some more time, we would be ready. When it comes to our faith, we think that way too. Some of you have said that you’re not ready to take that next step in faith. Some of you are still searching for that anti-gravitational suit to reassure yourself that you have 100 percent proof that Jesus is the Christ.
Listen to what the apostle Paul has to say about having the faith to know Christ and sharing in his sufferings by becoming like Christ. Paul said,
“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” (3:12).
We will never get to that point in our thinking that we have accumulated enough strength, knowledge, and even Sunday school, Friday night gatherings, and Youth Camp experiences to say that you are now ready to accept Christ.
Like Paul, we press on by making decisions to take that next step to become a Christian because Christ Jesus has made us his own. Christ has already claimed you as his own. It’s up to you to accept Jesus into your life.
Paul didn’t get to where he was by his own efforts. It was Jesus Christ who changed his inside so much that he called everything that he had achieved before as rubbish compared to his love for Christ. He didn’t make it by himself or through his own strength. But there’s one thing that he’s convinced about—forgetting what lies behind, straining forward to what lies ahead, he is pressing forward toward the goal for the prize of the heavenly call of God in Christ Jesus.
Paul presses on as a spiritual super hero with his God suit on, determined to live out everything that Christ has called him to do: to spread the truth, to fight for justice, to liberate the oppressed, to share the gospel and to anticipate—through it all—the heavenly prize that is waiting for him at the end of his earthly mission.
The same is true for us, ordinary people who have been given extraordinary powers. We are wearing inside of us the righteousness of Christ so that we are called to press on toward the goal that lies before us, challenged to do the work of our Savior in the world.
Who knows? When we slip into God’s suit, our strength in Jesus Christ will enable us to overcome our human weaknesses. And like the Psalmist shouted, “By my God have I leaped over a wall.”
Let us pray.
Dear Lord, help us to see that our human weaknesses can become transformed when we press forward toward that prize of knowing you in our lives. We’ll never get to that point when we feel we have achieved or arrived on our efforts. Only when we trust our lives in your hands, like Paul did, will we be able to know the power of the resurrection and to share in the sufferings of discipleship. Amen.