“A Harvest of Righteousness”

Philippians 1:3-11

Romans 12:1: I appeal to you therefore, brothers and sisters, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.

Philippians 1:9-11 (The Message): So this is my prayer: that your love will flourish and that you will not only love much but well. Learn to love appropriately. You need to use your head and test your feelings so that your love is sincere and intelligent, not sentimental gush. Live a lover’s life, circumspect and exemplary, a life Jesus will be proud of: bountiful in fruits from the soul, making Jesus Christ attractive to all, getting everyone involved in the glory and praise of God.

[prayer]

On this Second Sunday of Advent we continue a spiritual and liturgical journey that will culminate with Christmas, the celebration of our Lord’s birth. Today, like every other day, also brings us one step closer to what Paul referred to in this morning’s text as the Day of Christ. The Day of Christ will be the long-awaited Day of the Lord, that moment when history as we know it will be brought to an end and the Kingdom of God will come in the total fullness of its glory.

We don’t know when that will be. As was said in last week’s sermon, safe in God’s assurances that this Day will come, we have only one question to ask about it. We do not ask when. We do not ask how. We ask, “So now what?” How are we supposed to live out this time between our Lord’s first coming and his second? What is required of us?

In his letter to the Romans Paul exhorted his readers to present their bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God. He further exhorted them not to be conformed to this world, but to be transformed.

In verses 9-11 of today’s text, Paul is praying that his dearly beloved brothers and sisters in Philippi will learn to use their heads to test their feelings so that their love of one another is sincere and intelligent. He goes on about the need for them to live a life of which Jesus will be proud, a life bountiful in its harvest of righteousness; a life that serves to attract others to Christ; a life that brings praise and glory to God.

In his prayer as paraphrased by Eugene Peterson at the beginning of his letter to the Philippians Paul uses words like sincere, intelligent, circumspect, and exemplary. The mutual love that our Lord has commanded us to exercise is to be exercised with care, compassion, and self-sacrifice. This love is a verb not a noun. It is something made real by the things we do. It is not some ooey, gooey, saccharin mess of feelings. Or as the late Al McGuire so well put it, it’s not all seashells and balloons.

And it is to be defined by circumspection, by way of a vigilant attentiveness to how we’re living not only as individuals, but also as a body of believers. We are to live our lives in the world without being of the world, lives that are transformed by the Holy Spirit not conformed to our particular culture. We are to live lives that, in the words of the Apostle Peter, enable us to proclaim with integrity the mighty acts of him who has called us out of the darkness into his marvelous light. Our lives are to be exemplary, commendable and worthy of imitation.

Such lives don’t happen overnight. The act of presenting our bodies as a living sacrifice to God involves a day in and day out process called sanctification. A harvest of righteousness doesn’t spring up overnight. It requires intentional cultivation by way of the spiritual disciplines: prayer, fasting, the study of and meditation on Scripture, worship, and Christian fellowship. It is through such disciplines that the Holy Spirit, as an act of God’s grace, sanctifies us. To use some words lifted from the Westminster Larger Catechism, this sanctification enables us to more and more die unto sin, and rise into the newness of life, to grow up in perfection.

Those Christians in Philippi were far from perfect. Even though he would call them to task later in his letter to them, Paul had a special bond with them. He loved them warts and all. His relationship with them truly was one marked by mutual love, respect, and support. Paul considered those folks to be full partners in his missionary efforts. He was thankful for their prayers, correspondence, and financial support. He loved them with a love that truly was Christ-like in its depth and sincerity. He prayed good things for them, especially the completion of the good work begun in them by the Lord. He wanted them to be ready for the coming Day of Christ.

About thirty years prior to Paul’s letter to the Philippians John the Baptist had stood on the banks of the River Jordan reiterating the words of Isaiah: “Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight.” In other words, “Get ready, the Messiah is on his way. Do what you need to do to remove from your lives whatever it is that will place a barrier between the Lord and your hearts. Get straight with God.”

John the Baptist was preaching repentance. In next week’s sermon we’ll take a closer look those things that give evidence of the repentant life. But repentance is only the beginning. Although accepting Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior is all that’s required for salvation, it’s only the first step we take on our journey with Christ. It’s only the starting point of that good work that God has begun in us and that he will bring to completion on the Day of Christ.

In this holiday season there is a great emphasis on gifts and giving. As someone who once thought he would spend his life selling men’s wear, I am well aware that this is a make or break time for retailers. All that stuff has to be sold. All those presents have to be bought. But more and more in our culture, this season has become an unbridled orgy of consumerism. Although we still give lip service to Christmas’ origins as a celebration of the gift of God coming to us in Jesus Christ, what all too often gets worshiped this time of year is the almighty dollar.

We need to heed Paul’s words in today’s text if we are going to re-ground ourselves in the true meaning of Advent and Christmas. Indeed, if we are to be centered in Christ, we must heed the whole of Scripture, especially the words of the prophets fulfilled in Jesus. Centuries ago the prophet Micah proclaimed as God’s Word to Judah, “… what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?” That in a nutshell is what God has always desired from his people. That is the gift he wants from us: a Christ-like life lived with integrity, honesty, humility, and servanthood; a life of justice, righteousness, and holiness; a life that is marked by an ongoing process of sanctification; a life that reflects a capacity for moral distinctions and ethical decisions; in short, a life that produces a harvest of righteousness. That is the gift our God wants from us this Advent, Christmas, and every other season.

There is in each and every one our futures a coming Day of Christ, a Day when each one of us, whether we are living or have been raised from the dead, must present ourselves to our Lord and King. With this in mind, let’s listen to some of William Barclay’s commentary on today’s lesson from Philippians: “On the day when Christ comes it will be like the coming of a king. On such a day the king’s subjects are bound to present him with gifts to mark their loyalty and to show their love. And the only gift Jesus Christ desires from us is ourselves and our lives. So, then, the supreme task of life is nothing less than to make life fit to take it and offer it to Jesus Christ. Only the grace of God can enable us to do that. From the moment we start out upon the Christian way God’s grace begins to fit us to be the perfect offering to offer to Jesus Christ, and if we continue to allow His grace to work in us, His grace will complete its work, and we ourselves will be a fit offering to offer Him.”

Years ago there was a rather mawkish song made popular by the Carpenters. I try to forget how many times it was sung at weddings back then. Be that as it may, its title is an apt description of our lives in Christ: “We’ve Only Just Begun.” Wherever we might be on our journey with Christ, to one extent or another we have only begun that journey. This journey is to be faithfully traveled until it comes to its end on the Day of Christ. On that Day may it be that we have lived so as to be able to present our King with a harvest of righteousness. Amen.