Good morning, brothers and sisters. Thank you so much for everything that you do. Thank you for what you do for the kingdom of heaven.
Thank you for what you do in your worship of Jesus and the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, one God. You know, I’m going to ask in a few moments from you to pray for me because I need your prayers. Oh, I desperately need your prayers.
And I’ll share with you why in just a moment.
But you know, right now there are some of you who are going through something pretty intense in your life and you’re trying to figure out and navigate these tricky waters and trying to understand what do I do to break free of all of the things that are happening that are unleashing, for lack of a better expression, all kinds of hurts or pains and guilts and shame and embarrassment and the list goes on and on.
In Philippians chapter 3: 13-14, the Apostle Paul gives us a clear idea of how to be thinking about your circumstance, about your trial, about your situation, about your tribulation, about the things that are coming in the future that make you apprehensive or maybe anxious, the things that cause worry and doubt, fear.
I want you to listen closely here to what he says because it might change the way that you are approaching the things happening in your life. It might give you some relief because what I’ve learned over my decades of ministry and talking to thousands of people in our marriage ministry as well as just in general conversations with parishioners over the years, there’s one single truth that rings in my ears and it’s that most of us are held captive by what’s happened to us in the past. We relive the traumas of our childhood or our teenage years or something significant that happened as an adult.
Maybe it’s the scars and the ravages of divorce.
Maybe it’s the pains of losing jobs and losing everything, a bankruptcy or could be anything, right?
We all have traumas, and when something happens in the present, it’s easy to trigger the traumas of the past. But I want you to know that while this might be a normal human experience, it’s not what God created us for.
It shouldn’t be a normal thing in our lives. What the past ought to do is help us to embrace the present so that we can endure and persevere into the future, because Jesus reminded us that those who endure and persevere until the end, are the people who will inherit the kingdom of heaven. And it is encumbered upon you and I that no matter what we come up against, we must endure, we must persevere in our faith, that we don’t wane, we don’t shirk, we don’t go back to the things that used to hold us in bondage, that used to hold us captive in fear, anxiety, and worry.
So what is this thing that the apostle tells us is so important? Well, let me share with you what he says. Leading up to these verses in Philippians chapter 3, he’s talked about who he is as an individual, that he was a zealot for Torah. He followed the law with passion, so much so that he persecuted Christians who he believed deviated, former Jews who deviated from Torah to Jesus. Without fully understanding that Jesus didn’t deviate from anything, he fulfilled it. He didn’t change anything. He is the essence of it.
He is Torah. He is the author of it, in fact.
So what do we see? He talks about how in the flesh he was circumcised according to the law.
He was a Pharisee of Pharisees. He was a righteous man and was found blameless in the law.
But then he says, whatever things were gained to me, those things I have counted as loss for the sake of Christ. I count all things lost in view of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them but rubbish, so that I may gain Christ. The things that you have are meaningless. They’re meaningless in the sense that they hold no eternal value, no eternal weight, except for how you use those things to draw closer to Christ, to know him, and to live with him in joy, and to live with him knowing that there is a reward coming that is so much greater than any earthly reward you could ever attain.
And he talks about being in the fellowship of his suffering so that one day he might attain to the resurrection.
This is where we find our verses in verses 13 and 14. He says, brethren, and by the way, for those of you who have never heard me share this before, when you see St. Paul use the word brethren, this is not an inconsequential word. It’s really, really important, because it connotes something more than just being brothers and sisters in Christ.
Brethren is family. We have a new family. We’ve inherited a family of billions of saints, not just in this world and in our lives right now, but all the saints who have come before us. They are our family in Christ Jesus. Our Heavenly Father has adopted us and made us heirs and co-heirs with Christ.
So brethren, I do not regard myself as having laid hold of it yet, meaning the resurrection. He is not perfected. He is still struggling in his flesh. And he says, here’s one thing that I do, just one thing, and if you get this one thing, it will change your life. Forgetting what lies behind and reaching forward to what lies ahead. I forget what’s behind me.
What’s behind me no longer holds any purpose or weight over me. Yeah, it’s important to understand how I got here, but it’s not important to where I’m going, because what you do today determines what will happen tomorrow. What you do right now and how you pray will determine how your day goes.
Is your mind set on the things of Christ and on the things of above, or is your mind set on temporal things?
You know, it’s Sunday morning. We’re going to be going into worship soon on Sunday morning. Is your mind focused on all the things that you have to do this afternoon, the meal that you might be having with family, the plans that you might have? Is your mind swirling about all the things that are going to happen this week at work, all the things you have to do? Is your mind swirling around the opportunities that are in front of you or maybe the fear of what could happen?
Calm your mind.
Forget about what is behind you that is causing you stress and anxiety and worry, and instead reach forward to what lies ahead.
What lies ahead?
I’ll tell you what lies ahead. That endurance and that perseverance, what lies ahead is the kingdom of heaven.
Focus on that.
In Matthew chapter 6, this is what Jesus says in regards to anxiety. He says, quite literally, to focus on His righteousness and focus on the kingdom of heaven, and all the things that you need will be granted unto you.
Brothers and sisters, forget about the past. Forget it and strive. Reach forward to what lies ahead.
He says in verse 14, I press on towards the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.
So, how can I be praying for you in your upward call?
What is that calling on your life?
It’s the pursuit of Christ. It’s fulfilling your royal priesthood duties on earth, being the person that God created you to be in relationship with him, because your purpose and your goal isn’t just in having a job or being a husband or a wife or being a mom or a dad.
Your ultimate call is in Christ Jesus.
You’ve been given spiritual gifts and talents and abilities. How are you using those to further the kingdom? How are you using those to experience God? How do you mysteriously and mystically experience him in the day-to-day of your life?
You know, we have this little prayer. I got this bookmark here. It’s beautiful. It says, “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.”
And I always seal myself in the cross when I say this prayer. But this prayer, repeated over and over throughout the day, reminds us of Christ. It reminds us that he is God, that he paid the price for our sins, and that he has had mercy on me.
I’m a sinner. I’m imperfect. My mind will always go places it shouldn’t go.
So with that said, I want to pray for you, but I also want to ask you to pray for me. We are now launching in our local community. I live in Bainbridge, Pennsylvania. We have Elizabeth Town, Mount Joy, Middletown, and other areas around us, you know, maybe 100,000 people within a 20-mile circumference of where we live. Pray for me. Pray for me.
Orthodoxy is really unique in this area because there are not a lot of us. We live in a heavily, you know, Amish Mennonite-influenced area, a lot of non-denominational Bible churches, a lot of secularism, a lot of people who have left church who feel that they don’t need it. The work ahead is going to be challenging and difficult.
Please pray for me. Pray for our outreach efforts, these coffees, these potential coffee meetings that that I’m hoping to do in our community just to meet people and to share my heart with them, but more importantly to hear about their experience, why they no longer go to church, what was it about their experience that was lacking that led them to say, I don’t need this anymore, but maybe they know that tug in their hearts real and they they do need it.
Pray for the people that God will send our way, and pray for me to have the wisdom and discernment to be able to listen and to love and to accept and to care for people.
Also, pray for the Bible studies that I’m going to be starting. I think on Monday nights I’m going to do a Bible study. Maybe we’re going to start, I don’t know yet, I haven’t totally landed on the book of Romans or Philippians, but pray for me that this Bible study that I’ll make free, people will be interested and will learn about the deep mysteries of God through the word of God and the scriptures, and that the Holy Spirit will reveal to them the depth, the breadth, the width, and the amount of love that he has for them.
And then finally, pray for our finances. Pray for the church’s finances. We need to find a place to worship. I reached out to some people to see if they would bless us with meetings, using a facility to meet in for our small but growing congregation, and pray. Pray that God will bless us in that way.
So thank you. God bless you, and thank you. If you’re local, and you’re watching this video, and you’re interested in a different worship experience than what you’ve ever been given before, where Christ is at the center of our worship around the Eucharist instead of a stage and a sermon and entertainment, or a boring service that left you thinking about all the things later today that you want to do, let’s have a cup of coffee, and let’s talk.
Love to meet you. Love to share with you, and I’d love to hear your heart, and have the opportunity to share mine with yours.
men.
Father Don
Pastor, Holy Trinity Church
