Monday, Apr 28, 2008

Sermon, April 27, 2008

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Sermon entitled: "Christ's Passion; Our Participation"
Philippians 1:27-30; 3:1-14


Here's the newsletter article referenced in the sermon
Many of us grew up in a religious tradition that focused on “getting saved.” Getting saved meant making a public decision to follow Jesus Christ usually followed by baptism. Over the years, I have become convinced that the Christian life isn’t as much about “getting saved” as it is “following after.” The Bible uses different words for that way of life. This past Sunday, we looked at one—following the example of Christ. Another way of describing this way of life is “bearing the cross” of Christ.
The death of Jesus Christ is for Paul as for the rest of the writers of the New Testament, a model for how we are to respond to life. This is a challenge for Christians to embrace as we generally think of Christ’s death as something he did for us. Living life according to the cross means many things: embracing sinners rather than judging them, humble obedience, trusting in God to redeem on the other side of the grave. For Paul, we share in Christ’s suffering in the following ways:

• Martyrdom/Persecution/Suffering abuse for doing what is right Philippians 1:29-30; 1 Peter 2:20-25—As we saw on Sunday, whenever Christians have been persecuted for their faith, the martyrs who gave their life have been viewed as experiencing the greatest similarity with Christ. Celebration of the martyrs is not without its problems. Among them, Christians can sometimes work themselves to death trying to measure up to the heroes of the faith. That’s not healthy. When I think of martyrs today, I think of young people who choose to follow Christ on college campuses and in public schools where being Christian can get you excluded from certain social circles. It’s not death but it is a sacrifice.
• Living a life of righteousness (putting to death the old self)—Romans 6:1-14. Bearing Christ’s cross can also be seen as a putting to death a sinful past.
• Sacraments--Communion 10:16-17; Baptism: Romans 6:1-5. Both Baptism and Communion symbolically re-present the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Participating in the sacraments is a way of participating in Christ’s passion.
• Loving service to one another--2 Corinthians 1:3-7; John 4:7-12. Whenever we love another person and give of ourselves, we are giving a part of our life. Greater love has no one than this than to lay down his life for his friends. Literally dying, is not the only way to lay down one’s life. Laying down our life for friends happens every time we burn our fingers making a covered dish for someone else’s family; prick our fingers making dolls for Cook’s Children Medical; smash our finger with the hammer making a household repair for someone else.

Bearing our cross for Christ can take many forms. May you find your form today and follow after Christ.

Posted by Andy Mangum at 10:44 AM |  MAKE A COMMENT  

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