Reflection :: Gospel Community
Philippians 1.3-11

I thank my God in all my remembrance of you, always in every prayer of mine for you all making my prayer with joy, because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now. And I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ.

It is right for me to feel this way about you all, because I hold you in my heart, for you are all partakers with me of grace, both in my imprisonment and in the defense and confirmation of the gospel. For God is my witness, how I yearn for you all with the affection of Christ Jesus.

And it is my prayer that your love may abound more and more, with knowledge and all discernment, so that you may approve what is excellent, and so be pure and blameless for the day of Christ, filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ, to the glory and praise of God.

Prayer of Thanksgiving
from an undated and anonymous papyrus

On you we call, Lord God, all-wise, all-surveying, holy, the only true Sovereign. Your will is that all should be saved and come to knowledge of the truth.

With one voice we offer you praise and thanksgiving; full-hearted, full-throated we sing you the hymn you have right to at this hour. In your mercy you called us (holy the calling!), taught us and trained us, gave understanding, wisdom, and truth to us—gave us life eternal.

You brought us back with the pure and precious blood of your only Son, freed us from lies and error, from bitter enslavement, released us from the Devil’s clutches and gave us the glory of freedom. We were dead and you renewed the life of our souls and bodies in the Spirit.

Give us the strength of your support. Give us encouragement, give the light that goes with it. Make us live by the faith preached by your holy apostles and the high teachings of the gospels of our Savior, Jesus Christ. May we not be content only to hear and speak of them, but behave and act as they bid us.

Teach us to look upwards, to seek out and search the heavenly, not the earthly. If that is our attitude and if you act in us, what glory for your power, all-holy, omnipotent, worthy of all praise; glory through Jesus Christ, your beloved, with the Holy Spirit, now and through the ages.

Amen.

*Prayer abridged and adapted from an undated and anonymous papyrus, on display in Berlin, published in Patrologia Orientalis (18:442), 1907.

Today’s Reading
Jonah 3 (Listen – 1:31)
Luke 8 (Listen – 8:09)

[Jesus said,] “A certain moneylender had two debtors. One owed five hundred denarii, and the other fifty. When they could not pay, he cancelled the debt of both. Now which of them will love him more?” — Luke 7.41-42

The most intellectually offensive part of Christianity is not its insistence on miracles—including the incarnation and resurrection—but its foundational teaching that each person is deeply marked with the pride and brokenness of sin. The modern mind, like the Pharisaical mind, is convinced it just needs a little forgiveness.

The core philosophy of internal goodness helps us hold the power and fullness of God at bay. If we are really not all that bad, we don’t really need all of Christianity—a touch of its ethic on top of our otherwise good hearts will suffice. And, if we do not require that much forgiveness, we are not all that indebted to God. Our relationship with him can function ad hoc—waxing and waning as we perceive need.

In Mere Christianity C.S. Lewis writes:

I think all Christians would agree with me if I said that though Christianity seems at first to be all about morality, all about duties and rules and guilt and virtue, yet it leads you on, out of all that, into something beyond. One has a glimpse of a country where they do not talk of those things, except perhaps as a joke.

Everyone there is filled full with what we should call goodness as a mirror is filled with light. But they do not call it goodness. They do not call it anything. They are not thinking of it. They are too busy looking at the source from which it comes. But this is near the stage where the road passes over the rim of our world. No one’s eyes can see very far beyond that: lots of people’s eyes can see further than mine.

While the central message of Christianity assumes our brokenness, it is not predicated on it. In this way, Christianity is surprisingly focused on a relationship between God and man—with pride and brokenness on display as the key barrier to that relationship.

Jesus draws attention to the forgiven debt not as the foundation of his relationship with the generous woman in Luke 7, but as the context for her gratitude. She discovered something the prideful religious leaders had not: the joy of pursuing something of ultimate worth and joy.

Today’s Reading
Jonah 2 (Listen – 1:20)
Luke 7 (Listen – 7:14)

Everyone who comes to me and hears my words and does them, I will show you what he is like: he is like a man building a house, who dug deep and laid the foundation on the rock. — Luke 6.47-48

Jesus presented his followers with a question: are you willing to build your house on a foundation that will cost you more, take you longer, and require more energy to build? Building a house on sand is quick and simple—the supports sink down easily, the shelter rises more quickly, and stasis is established more readily. Such is the way of legalism.

Humans are surprisingly resilient and wonderfully strong. We can overcome adversity and will ourselves into whatever we perceive as best. Yet external change without internal transformation is sinking sand.

In Dr. Martin Lloyd-Jones’ Spiritual Depression: Its Causes and Its Cure, the pastor warns:

To make it quite practical I have a very simple test. After I have explained the way of Christ to somebody I say “Now, are you ready to say that you are a Christian?” And they hesitate. And then I say, “What’s the matter? Why are you hesitating?” And so often people say, “I don’t feel like I’m good enough yet. I don’t think I’m ready to say I’m a Christian now.” And at once I know that I have been wasting my breath. They are still thinking in terms of themselves….

It sounds very modest to say, “Well, I don’t think I’m good enough,” but it’s a very denial of the faith. The very essence of the Christian faith is to say that He is good enough and I am in Him.

As long as you go on thinking about yourself like that and saying, “I’m not good enough; Oh, I’m not good enough,” you are denying God—you are denying the gospel—you are denying the very essence of the faith and you will never be happy. [You’ll] think you’re better at times, and then again you will find you are not as good at other times… You will be up and down forever.

“Therefore,” the author of Hebrews writes, “let us be grateful for receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken.” For though community is costly, though meditation, reflection and prayer take time, though it takes energy to live an examined life, it builds our future on an unshakable foundation.

Today’s Reading
Jonah 1 (Listen – 2:29)
Luke 6 (Listen – 6:46)