The Price of Admission

 

[The following is a manuscript of my message delivered at Pilgrim Reformed Church on Sunday morning, the 18th of October, 2026.  If all went well, a recording of the service may be available on our YouTube streaming channel: 

https://www.youtube.com/@pilgrimreformedchurch1992/streams for the older services or https://www.youtube.com/@pilgrimreformedchurch3115/streams for later services.]

You don’t have to answer out loud, but have you ever said, “Why me, God!?”  “Why did this happen to me?”  “I’m not perfect by any stretch, but I’ve been pretty good, haven’t I?”  “So why me???”

If you can honestly say nothing like this has ever crossed your mind, then we need to nominate you for sainthood.  I mean, it just seems natural to me - human – to question the God we worship and adore when everything seems to be going against us.  Even atheists ask these questions, although I’m not sure who or what they’re asking them of.

But suffering is part of being human.  Jesus suffered when He was in human form, and He assured us we would suffer, too, even though we follow Him.  Or maybe because we follow Him.

If there is anyone in our Bible who suffered because of their faith and witness, it was Paul.  Perhaps it was life paying him back for so greatly persecuting the church before his conversion.  More likely, though, it was so that he could show the glory of God, so that the people could see that even as he suffered greatly, his faith and belief held strong.  When Paul prayed that Jesus would remove a personal hardship from him, the Lord responded, “My grace is all you need. My power works best in weakness.”  Jesus certainly worked great things through Paul.

Please listen and follow along as the Apostle Luke recounts an incident experienced by the Apostles Paul and Barnabas during one of their missionary travels.  This is found in verses 8 through 28 of the 14th chapter of Luke’s Book of the Acts of the Apostles, and I’ll be reading from the New Living Translation of our Holy Bible this morning…

8 While they were at Lystra, Paul and Barnabas came upon a man with crippled feet. He had been that way from birth, so he had never walked. He was sitting 9 and listening as Paul preached. Looking straight at him, Paul realized he had faith to be healed. 10 So Paul called to him in a loud voice, “Stand up!” And the man jumped to his feet and started walking.

11 When the crowd saw what Paul had done, they shouted in their local dialect, “These men are gods in human form!” 12 They decided that Barnabas was the Greek god Zeus and that Paul was Hermes, since he was the chief speaker. 13 Now the temple of Zeus was located just outside the town. So the priest of the temple and the crowd brought bulls and wreaths of flowers to the town gates, and they prepared to offer sacrifices to the apostles.

14 But when the apostles Barnabas and Paul heard what was happening, they tore their clothing in dismay and ran out among the people, shouting, 15 “Friends, why are you doing this? We are merely human beings — just like you! We have come to bring you the Good News that you should turn from these worthless things and turn to the living God, who made heaven and earth, the sea, and everything in them. 16 In the past He permitted all the nations to go their own ways, 17 but He never left them without evidence of Himself and His goodness. For instance, He sends you rain and good crops and gives you food and joyful hearts.” 18 But even with these words, Paul and Barnabas could scarcely restrain the people from sacrificing to them.

19 Then some Jews arrived from Antioch and Iconium and won the crowds to their side. They stoned Paul and dragged him out of town, thinking he was dead. 20 But as the believers gathered around him, he got up and went back into the town. The next day he left with Barnabas for Derbe.

21 After preaching the Good News in Derbe and making many disciples, Paul and Barnabas returned to Lystra, Iconium, and Antioch of Pisidia, 22 where they strengthened the believers. They encouraged them to continue in the faith, reminding them that we must suffer many hardships to enter the Kingdom of God. 23 Paul and Barnabas also appointed elders in every church. With prayer and fasting, they turned the elders over to the care of the Lord, in whom they had put their trust. 24 Then they traveled back through Pisidia to Pamphylia. 25 They preached the word in Perga, then went down to Attalia.

26 Finally, they returned by ship to Antioch of Syria, where their journey had begun. The believers there had entrusted them to the grace of God to do the work they had now completed. 27 Upon arriving in Antioch, they called the church together and reported everything God had done through them and how He had opened the door of faith to the Gentiles, too. 28 And they stayed there with the believers for a long time.

--Acts 14:8-28 (NLT)

Let us pray…  Father God, may the words of my mouth and the meditations of each of our hearts be acceptable in Your sight, O Lord, our Strength and our Redeemer.  And now, Father, please open our hearts to receive Your message this morning.  Touch each of us with Your most Holy Spirit that we might more patiently await the joy of our Lord Christ Jesus, and the glory You will reveal to us.  In the precious name of Jesus we pray.  Amen.

Someone once asked C.S. Lewis, "Why do the righteous suffer?"  "Why not?", he replied.  "They're the only ones who can take it." 

The little Our Daily Bread periodical once posted this interesting account:

Parnell Bailey visited an orange grove where an irrigation pump had broken down.  The season was unusually dry and some of the trees were beginning to die for lack of water.  The man giving the tour then took Bailey to his own orchard where irrigation was used sparingly.  "These trees could go without rain for another 2 weeks," he said.  "You see, when they were young, I frequently kept water from them.  This hardship caused them to send their roots deeper into the soil in search of moisture.  Now mine are the deepest-rooted trees in the area.  While others are being scorched by the sun, these are finding moisture at a greater depth."

How deep do our spiritual roots run?  How much hardship and suffering can we endure before our faith weakens and wanes?  How much can we take from the world’s assaults before we begin to have doubts, like Thomas?  Family, we’ve got to let God’s Holy Spirit fully take root and dig ever deeper into our hearts, so that we can find comfort at a greater depth when a spiritual drought hits.

So Paul and Barnabas are preaching to a crowd in Lystra when Paul spots a crippled man listening intently to what Paul is saying.  Paul, through his Jesus-given insight, could tell the man had the faith to be healed, so the Apostle simply shouted to him, “Stand up!”  And the man immediately jumped to his feet and walked around.  I bet he did a little dance with the walking.

When the crowd saw this, they declared Paul and Barnabas to be gods – lower-case “G” gods – and chief among the Greek gods at that.  They decided to go to the temple of Zeus to offer animal sacrifices to these gods among them, but Paul and Barnabas stopped them, declaring themselves to just be humans, like everyone else there.

Now while they did not suffer physically at this point, I can’t help but feel that they suffered spiritually, emotionally.  They were there doing their best to tell the people about the one true God and His Son Jesus, when those same people started calling them gods.  Were they not listening?  Did they not hear anything Paul said?  Only the formerly crippled man seemed to have paid attention to the Apostle’s words.  That had to have hurt, thinking that nothing he had said had made any difference.

But our passage continues and then the physical suffering comes in.  Some Jews came to Lystra from Antioch and Iconium and turned the people against Paul and Barnabas.  The crowd gathered again, this time to stone Paul.  They dragged his battered body out of town and left him for dead.

Of course, he wasn’t dead and he went on and continued his mission trip, making new converts and strengthening the believers, encouraging them to remain strong in their faith.  And then he reminds them, and us, that we must suffer many hardships to enter the Kingdom of God.  Suffering is our price of admission to heaven.  Our faith is the key.  Our acceptance of Jesus as our Lord opens the door.  But suffering is the price we pay to be forever saved.

We don’t suffer alone, though, do we.  Jesus suffered, Paul suffered, you and I suffer.  My arthritis reminds me of its presence every time I stand up after sitting for a while.  We suffer, but we can’t let the suffering break us.

In verses 14 through 25 of the 8th chapter of his letter to the church in Rome, Paul encourages us to be patience - yet confident - as we suffer in and through this life...

14 All who are led by the Spirit of God are children of God.

15 So you have not received a spirit that makes you fearful slaves. Instead, you received God’s Spirit when He adopted you as His own children. Now we call Him, “Abba, Father.” 16 For His Spirit joins with our spirit to affirm that we are God’s children. 17 And since we are His children, we are His heirs. In fact, together with Christ we are heirs of God’s glory. But if we are to share His glory, we must also share His suffering.

18 Yet what we suffer now is nothing compared to the glory He will reveal to us later. 19 For all creation is waiting eagerly for that future day when God will reveal who His children really are. 20 Against its will, all creation was subjected to God’s curse. But with eager hope, 21 the creation looks forward to the day when it will join God’s children in glorious freedom from death and decay. 22 For we know that all creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. 23 And we believers also groan, even though we have the Holy Spirit within us as a foretaste of future glory, for we long for our bodies to be released from sin and suffering. We, too, wait with eager hope for the day when God will give us our full rights as His adopted children, including the new bodies He has promised us. 24 We were given this hope when we were saved. (If we already have something, we don’t need to hope for it. 25 But if we look forward to something we don’t yet have, we must wait patiently and confidently.)

--Romans 8:14-25 (NLT)

What we suffer now, in this life, is nothing – nothing – compared to the glory that will be revealed to us when we go home to heaven.  As we look forward to that glory, we must wait patiently, and confidently – confident in God’s promises, confident in our salvation through Jesus.  As adopted children of God, we are brothers and sisters of Christ Jesus.  To share in His glory, we must also share in His suffering.  This is the price of admission.  But it is a small price to pay considering the rewards to be received.

Family, no matter how much we might suffer in this life, whether physically or emotionally or spiritually, we must continue in our faith, for this is the true price of admission into heaven.  It's not the suffering.  It’s the faith.

In the blessed name of Christ Jesus our Lord, the Son of the one true God.  Amen.

Let us pray…  Almighty God, thank You for reminding us that suffering hardship is a part of human life.  Even though we follow Your Son Jesus and try to live in a way that pleases You, we know that we are not immune to suffering and pain.  Please help us remain strong when we are hurting, steadfast in our faith through our trials.  Help us accept hardship with courage and grace, as did Jesus and Paul.

Please hear us now, Father, as we pause for just a moment so that each of us can speak to You through Your Spirit within us, promising to be more obedient to You and our Lord Jesus, and seeking Your help to do so…

Lord Jesus, thank You for warning us that we will still suffer hurts and hardships in this life, even though we have accepted You as our Lord and Master.  And thank You most of all for loving us even when our faith fades a little due to our hurting.  Lord, please forgive us when we question why we suffer, rather than accepting it and going on, like You did.  Please help us remain strong and faithful even in our worst days.  Stand with us in our trials.  Let us feel Your presence in the darkness of suffering and the red haze of pain.  But nonetheless, even during our own hardships, help us show Your love through our love.  And in showing Your love, help us seek the lost and lead them to You.

Holy Spirit, please shield our minds and our hearts from Satan’s lies and the world’s empty promises.  Guide us around all the devil’s traps and snares.  Help us see though his temptations.  Help us keep our focus on the things of heaven and the needs of others rather than on anything this world might offer.  All this we pray in the blessed name of Christ Jesus our Lord.  Amen.

One in the Lord

 

[The following is a manuscript of my message delivered at Pilgrim Reformed Church on Sunday morning, the 11th of October, 2026.  If all went well, a recording of the service may be available on our YouTube streaming channel: 

https://www.youtube.com/@pilgrimreformedchurch1992/streams for the older services or https://www.youtube.com/@pilgrimreformedchurch3115/streams for later services.]

You’ve probably noticed that prayer is pretty important to me.  And not just for me, but for all of us.  As I’ve said before, prayer is simply our talking with God.  Our heavenly Father loves to hear from His children, and prayer gives us the chance to tell Him how things are going.  And it’s not that He doesn’t know already, He just wants us to spend time with Him.

Jesus understood this concept, and He spent a lot of time talking with His Father.  And it was Jesus who gave us probably the most well-known and most often spoken prayer.  What we call the Lord's Prayer is actually the model Jesus gave us to use in forming our own prayer.  It is not necessarily a prayer He Himself spoke, at least it wasn’t recorded as such in the Gospel accounts.

But one of the longest prayers recorded in our Bible is when our Lord prayed to His Father God.  This is the one we should call the Lord’s Prayer.  In it, Jesus prayed for Himself, for His disciples, and for all who believe and will come to believe.

We believers are His disciples, so we are some of the ones He prayed for.  Think about that…  Jesus, in the flesh, nearly 2000 years ago, prayed for you and me.  Please listen and follow along as our Lord Jesus prays to His Father God in heaven, as recorded by the Apostle John in verses 6 through 23 of the 17th chapter of his Gospel account, and I’ll be reading from the New Life Version of our Holy Bible this morning…

6 “I have made Your name known to the people You have given Me from the world. They were Yours but You gave them to Me. They have obeyed Your Word. 7 Now they know that everything You have given Me came from You. 8 I gave them the Word which You gave Me. They received it. They know I came from You and they believe You sent Me.

9 “I pray for them. I do not pray for the world. I pray for those You gave Me. They are Yours. 10 All that is Mine is Yours. All that is Yours is Mine. I have been honored through them. 11 I am no longer in the world. I am coming to You. But these are still in the world. Holy Father, keep those You have given to Me in the power of Your name. Then they will be one, even as We are One. 12 While I have been with them in the world, I have kept them in the power of Your name. I have kept watch over those You gave Me. Not one of them has been lost except the one who is going to be destroyed, which is the son of death. The Holy Writings said it would happen.  13 But now I come to You, Father. I say these things while I am in the world. In this way, My followers may have My joy in their hearts.

14 “I have given Your Word to My followers. The world hated them because they do not belong to the world, even as I do not belong to the world. 15 I do not ask You to take them out of the world. I ask You to keep them from the devil. 16 My followers do not belong to the world just as I do not belong to the world. 17 Make them holy for Yourself by the truth. Your Word is truth.

18 “As You sent Me into the world so I have sent them into the world also. 19 I set Myself apart to be holy for them. Then they may be made holy by the truth.

20 “I do not pray for these followers only. I pray for those who will put their trust in Me through the teaching they have heard. 21 May they all be as one, Father, as You are in Me and I am in You. May they belong to Us. Then the world will believe that You sent Me. 22 I gave them the honor You gave Me that they may be one as We are One. 23 I am in them and You are in Me so they may be one and be made perfect. Then the world may know that You sent Me and that You love them as You love Me.” 

--John 17:6-23 (NLV)

Let us pray…  Father God, may the words of my mouth and the meditations of each of our hearts be acceptable in Your sight, O Lord, our Strength and our Redeemer.  And now, Father, please open our hearts to receive Your message this morning.  Touch each of us with Your most Holy Spirit that we might be more in one accord in our love of our Lord Christ Jesus, and our love for each other.  In the precious name of Jesus we pray.  Amen.

In one of Charles Schultz's Peanuts cartoons, Lucy demanded that Linus change TV channels, threatening him with her fist if he didn't. "What makes you think you can walk right in here and take over?" asks Linus. 

"These five fingers," says Lucy. "Individually they're nothing but when I curl them together like this into a single unit, they form a weapon that is terrible to behold."

"Which channel do you want?" asks Linus. Turning away, he looks at his fingers and says, "Why can't you guys get organized like that?"

Why can’t we Christians get organized like that?  Individually, we can accomplish a little, but when we get together, act in unison, work toward a common goal, we can become a force to be reckoned with.

Too many people, especially in our culture, see the church as fractured, segmented, disagreeing on many doctrinal issues, suffering many of the same divides as does our general society.  This is not what Jesus had in mind for His body left on earth.  We are not supposed to look – and act – like the rest of the world.  We’re supposed to be different, to be more united, to be one in the Lord.  We need to pay more attention to the Holy Spirit and less to the influencers of the world.

Jesus starts out by acknowledging that God gave Him believers, pulled from the world.  We Pilgrims are among those believers.  And Jesus prayed for us, but not for the world from whence we came.  We belong to God, and we belong to Jesus.  And He prays for us, that we may have His joy in our hearts.

And there at the end, Jesus prays to God that we may be one with them, just as Jesus and God are One.  “I am in them and You are in Me”, Jesus says.  Why?  So that we may be one and be made perfect.  Then the world may finally know that Jesus came from heaven, sent by God, showing God’s love for the world.

So what happened?  Why are we believers split into so many denominations, with differing polities and practices?  Why do we argue among ourselves over the silliest things?  Why we do get so upset with each other and just fed up with it all and leave, go looking for another church family to join?  Why can’t we love each other, like Jesus told us to do?

In verses 3 through 6 of the 4th chapter of his letter to the church in Ephesus, the Apostle Paul encourages us to get along with each other...

3 Work hard to live together as one by the help of the Holy Spirit. Then there will be peace. 4 There is one body and one Spirit. There is one hope in which you were called. 5 There is one Lord and one faith and one baptism. 6 There is one God. He is the Father of us all. He is over us all. He is the One working through us all. He is the One living in us all.

--Ephesians 4:3-6 (NLV)

We must work hard to live together as one, with help from the Holy Spirit.  There is one God, the Father of us all, over us all, working through us all, living in us all.  And He created us all in His own image.  No one of us is any better than any other of us, not in God’s eyes.  Paul makes this quite clear.  Writing regarding our relationships in the church family, in the 12th chapter of his letter to the Romans, verses 3 through 5, Paul reminds us of our position in the church...

3 God has given me His loving-favor. This helps me write these things to you. I ask each one of you not to think more of himself than he should think. Instead, think in the right way toward yourself by the faith God has given you. 4 Our bodies are made up of many parts. None of these parts have the same use. 5 There are many people who belong to Christ. And yet, we are one body which is Christ’s. We are all different but we depend on each other.

--Romans 12:3-5 (NLV)

We are one body, the body of Christ that He left on earth to continue His mission.  We may all be different, in many ways, but we have to depend on each other to accomplish our goal.  And in the 2nd verse of the 4th chapter of his letter to the Philippians, Paul pleads with us to agree with each other so that we can work together...

2 I ask Euodias and Syntyche to agree as Christians should.

--Philippians 4:2 (NLV)

Euodias and Syntyche were two prominent Christian women, active church leaders in Philippi, who had a bitter personal disagreement with each other.  By this letter, Paul publicly pleads with them to agree with each other in the Lord, as Christians should.  An entire sermon could be written based on this one verse alone, but I’ll save that for another time.

Sadly, even though we, as a church family, may always agree on Jesus, we still manage to bicker over minute details, over little things, over wrongs long forgotten.  This is our failure.  This disappoints both Jesus and God.

We can do better.  We must do better.  Let us dig deep within ourselves and resolve to work more closely together, to agree more readily with each other, to depend more on each other so as to better accomplish the job Jesus gave us.

In the blessed name of Christ Jesus our Lord, the Son of the one true God.  Amen.

Let us pray…  Almighty God, thank You for loving us all  and for giving us the gift of faith to believe in Jesus as Your Son and accept Him as our Lord.  Through Him, we are reconciled to You, adopted into Your family, made one with You.  Please help us work together better so we can more closely come to being one with each other.  Help us live our days as Christians should, in ways pleasing in Your sight, and not as the world lives.

Please hear us now, Father, as we pause for just a moment so that each of us can speak to You through Your Spirit within us, promising to be more obedient to You and our Lord Jesus, and seeking Your help to do so…

Lord Jesus, thank You for giving us a model that we can form our own prayers around.  And thank You most of all for praying for us.  Lord, we do want Your joy to be ours every day, all year long.  But sadly we just can’t always get along like we know we should.  Please help us nourish our relationships with each other as we grow closer to You.  Help us truly love each other as we love ourselves.  Help us show Your love through our love.  And in showing Your love, help us seek the lost and lead them to You.

Holy Spirit, please shield our minds and our hearts from Satan’s lies and the world’s empty promises.  Guide us around all the devil’s traps and snares.  Help us see though his temptations.  Help us keep our focus on the things of heaven and the needs of others rather than on anything this world might offer.  All this we pray in the blessed name of Christ Jesus our Lord.  Amen.

Of Infinite Value

 

[The following is a manuscript of my message delivered at Pilgrim Reformed Church on Sunday morning, the 4th of October, 2026.  Today's service also included observance of Holy Communion with our Lord.  If all went well, a recording of the service may be available on our YouTube streaming channel: 

https://www.youtube.com/@pilgrimreformedchurch1992/streams for the older services or https://www.youtube.com/@pilgrimreformedchurch3115/streams for later services.]

Family, think of what is most important to you.  Sadly, in our current society, “things” have taken on the most importance for many people.  The best name-brand clothes, the newest cars, the largest houses – these are what matter to them.  Even life itself pales in importance to things for some.  We’ve all heard the horror stories of folks being killed for their possessions, even just for their sneakers.

These people have no thought of tomorrow, only of today.  They don’t care about anything other than themselves, about what they can get, about what someone else can do for them.  Self-serving, self-loving, maybe even self-idolizing.  When Jesus commanded us to love others, He meant other people, not other things.

There once lived a Pharisee named Saul.  He was a good Pharisee, a devout Jew, faithful to God’s law and Jewish custom.  And while he never personally saw or knew that heretic blasphemer, that rogue preacher from Nazareth, he was dead set on putting an end to the new movement this Man started, this New Way they called it.

At that point in his life, this was the most important thing to him - this mission, this goal.  But then he met Jesus while on a dusty road to Damascus, and everything changed.  Please listen and follow along to what that meeting meant to Paul, as he recorded in the first 14 verses of the 3rd chapter of his letter to the Philippians, and I’ll be reading from the New Living Translation of our Holy Bible this morning…

1 Whatever happens, my dear brothers and sisters, rejoice in the Lord. I never get tired of telling you these things, and I do it to safeguard your faith.

2 Watch out for those dogs, those people who do evil, those mutilators who say you must be circumcised to be saved. 3 For we who worship by the Spirit of God are the ones who are truly circumcised. We rely on what Christ Jesus has done for us. We put no confidence in human effort, 4 though I could have confidence in my own effort if anyone could. Indeed, if others have reason for confidence in their own efforts, I have even more!

5 I was circumcised when I was eight days old. I am a pure-blooded citizen of Israel and a member of the tribe of Benjamin — a real Hebrew if there ever was one! I was a member of the Pharisees, who demand the strictest obedience to the Jewish law. 6 I was so zealous that I harshly persecuted the church. And as for righteousness, I obeyed the law without fault.

7 I once thought these things were valuable, but now I consider them worthless because of what Christ has done. 8 Yes, everything else is worthless when compared with the infinite value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For His sake I have discarded everything else, counting it all as garbage, so that I could gain Christ 9 and become one with Him. I no longer count on my own righteousness through obeying the law; rather, I become righteous through faith in Christ. For God’s way of making us right with Himself depends on faith. 10 I want to know Christ and experience the mighty power that raised Him from the dead. I want to suffer with Him, sharing in His death, 11 so that one way or another I will experience the resurrection from the dead!

12 I don’t mean to say that I have already achieved these things or that I have already reached perfection. But I press on to possess that perfection for which Christ Jesus first possessed me. 13 No, dear brothers and sisters, I have not yet achieved it, but I focus on this one thing: Forgetting the past and looking forward to what lies ahead, 14 I press on to reach the end of the race and receive the heavenly prize for which God, through Christ Jesus, is calling us. 

--Philippians 3:1-14 (NLT)

Let us pray…  Father God, may the words of my mouth and the meditations of each of our hearts be acceptable in Your sight, O Lord, our Strength and our Redeemer.  And now, Father, please open our hearts to receive Your message this morning.  Touch each of us with Your most Holy Spirit that we might be moved to value the gift of our Lord Christ Jesus above anything this life has to offer.  In the precious name of Jesus we pray.  Amen.

The little Our Daily Bread periodical once published this short article:

A story is told of a man who loved old books.  He met an acquaintance who had just thrown away a Bible that had been stored in the attic of his ancestral home for generations.  "I couldn't read it," the friend explained.  "Somebody named Guten-something had printed it."  "Not Gutenberg!", the book lover exclaimed in horror.  "That Bible was one of the first books ever printed.  Why, a copy just sold for over two million dollars!"  His friend was unimpressed.  "Mine wouldn't have brought a dollar.  Some fellow named Martin Luther had scribbled all over it in German."

Ahhhh…  one man’s trash…  Some folks simply can't see the true value in things, in ideas or concepts, or even in other people.  And sadly, too many people can’t see the infinite value in knowing Jesus.  That’s where we come in, that’s why Jesus gave us the mission to tell others all about that value.  Jesus is our treasure, and can be theirs, too.

To say that Paul was profoundly affected by that encounter with Jesus would be an understatement.  In the common vernacular, he did a complete 180.  One day he was mightily persecuting the church, and all in the name of God, and then three days later he was the church’s greatest supporter.

In those three days of blindness and total dependency on others, Jesus spoke to him, giving him all the knowledge and information needed to spread the Gospel everywhere he went, and now all in the name of Jesus.  He learned the truth, and the full value of that truth.  And he set about sharing that truth to safeguard our faith.

That truth also led him to realize that he, and we, can put no confidence in human effort, in human constructs, in the things we make, no matter how accomplished or talented the maker might be.  We can rely only on Jesus.

Then Paul lists some of his credentials that put him in high standing in the Jewish community.  He was a pure-blooded child of Israel, haling from the house of Benjamin – Jacob’s youngest – a real Hebrew.  He was an obedient Pharisee, strictly adhering to the Jewish customs and laws, zealously persecuting the church, righteously obeying the Law of God.  All this would have held him in high esteem, much like a good, well-paying career, a big lovely house, a nice new car, a loving wife and family, and service to the community would hold a person in high esteem in today’s society.

At one time, this was precious to him.  A good name and reputation, good standing in the community, and an important mission to accomplish, were all of great value to him.  But now Paul had come to realize all this was worthless, when compared to what Jesus had done for him.  “Yes,”, Paul exclaims, “everything else is worthless when compared with the infinite value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord.”

Everything else is worthless.  All our cars, all our jewelry, all our houses and money and tools and appliances and all our things are worthless when comparing to simply knowing Jesus.

Knowing Christ is of infinite value.  But how do we know that we know Him?  The Apostle John, in his 1st letter to the early church, tells us how…

1 My dear children, I am writing this to you so that you will not sin. But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate who pleads our case before the Father. He is Jesus Christ, the One who is truly righteous. 2 He himself is the sacrifice that atones for our sins — and not only our sins but the sins of all the world.

3 And we can be sure that we know Him if we obey His commandments. 4 If someone claims, “I know God,” but doesn’t obey God’s commandments, that person is a liar and is not living in the truth. 5 But those who obey God’s word truly show how completely they love Him. That is how we know we are living in Him. 6 Those who say they live in God should live their lives as Jesus did.

--1 John 2:1-6 (NLT)

How can we be sure that we really know Jesus?  How can we make that great value ours?  To truly know Jesus and gain that infinite value, we must follow Him and obey His commands.  We must live our lives as Jesus did.  We must love others, without conditions, without expectations of reward or even of being loved in return, ever willing to give and to forgive.

Family, we have been given such a great gift in the faith to follow Jesus as our Lord.  And when we strive to live as Jesus lived, obeying His commands, we will realize and understand the infinite value just in knowing Him, as Paul realized and understood.

So let’s get out there and follow the most basic commands Jesus gave us, the mission He set before us, to spread the Gospel and make more disciples.  In this we will be showing the love of Jesus through our love, that fewer will be left behind when He returns.  In the blessed name of Christ Jesus our Lord, the treasure of infinite value.  Amen.

Let us pray…  Almighty God, thank You for filling the Apostle Paul with Your Holy Spirit, with so much fire and strength and determination that he spread the Gospel throughout the known world, making disciples of Gentiles when rejected by his own people.  His work and dedication are an example for us all.  Please help us follow Paul’s lead in carrying out the mission Your Son Jesus gave us.  Help us live our days in a way that is more pleasing in Your sight.

Please hear us now, Father, as we pause for just a moment so that each of us can speak to You through Your Spirit within us, promising to be more obedient to You and our Lord Jesus, and seeking Your help to do so…

Lord Jesus, thank You for allowing us to know You.  By Your words and Your deeds, recorded for us by the faithful Gospel writers, and by our prayers and service, we grow ever closer to You.  Please help us follow more closely the example You set.  Help us live more closely as You lived, so that we can share in the infinite value of Your glory.  Help us show Your love through our love.  And in showing Your love, help us seek the lost and lead them to You.

Holy Spirit, please shield our minds and our hearts from Satan’s lies and the world’s empty promises.  Guide us around all the devil’s traps and snares.  Help us see though his temptations.  Help us keep our focus on the things of heaven and the needs of others rather than on anything this world might offer.  All this we pray in the blessed name of Christ Jesus our Lord.  Amen.