A Fellowship of Expectation

      I made a very serious mistake when I was about 13.  I revealed to my parents that I wasn’t really deaf.

      No, I was never deaf – not in a clinical sense.  But I had developed the art of selective hearing to a wonderful degree.  I could hear what I wanted to hear.  But at 13, there was very little I wanted to hear either at home or at school.  Church, of course, was different.  At thirteen I loved paying very close attention to sermons and in youth group.  There’s a model for you kids.  It’s not true but what am I supposed to say?

      The revelation that I could hear came through a series of standardized tests that we took in 8th grade.  A few months after we took the tests, our parents were invited to school to view the results.  My dad took one look at my score in listening skills – 98 out of a hundred – and burst out laughing.  He knew he had me. It was written down in black in white.  It was even plotted on a bar graph.  I could hear and I was expected to hear.

       Expectations can be hard things to live with.  But expectations can also be wonderful and empowering.  I have seen in my sons’ lives the wonderful impact of teachers who wanted something great for them and made them believe they could make it happen.  People can rise in remarkable ways to roles they are called to fulfill.

        Back in 1878, for example, the Republican Party nominated James Garfield for President and Chester Arthur for Vice President.  Arthur was a well-known product of the New York machine politics of Roscoe Conklin.  Unlike Garfield , Arthur was a firm proponent of the spoils system in which the victorious party in an election threw out government employees and replaced them with their own loyalists.  So it seemed like disaster for the nation when Garfield died and Arthur became president.  All his old political cronies came to him expecting to dine lavishly at the public trough.  But Arthur shocked them when he said, “Chet Arthur could do those things but now I’m the President of the United States .  The President can’t do that.”  Arthur set out on a course of personal political integrity that stunned the nation.  His legacy includes the establishment of the Civil Service that ended the spoils system.  When Arthur died in 1885, publisher Alexander McClure wrote:  “No man ever entered the Presidency so profoundly and widely mistrusted and no man ever retired more generally respected.”

       That’s what living up to good expectations can do for you.

       During these Sundays before Easter, in our sermons and small groups, we are looking at the theme, “The Community You’ve Always Wanted.”  We will look at six wonderful aspects of Christian fellowship that Paul models in his Letter to the Philippians.

       Today we are going to look first at what it means for us to be part of a fellowship that expects great things.  I want to talk about the joyful experience of being part of a church community that expects great things for us.  I also want to talk about how we can create that same joy in others by expecting great things for them and living with the reality of what God is going to do in their lives.

        In Philippians 1:3-11, the Apostle Paul talks about expectations.  He writes:

Read Philippians 1:3-11

        This passage in filled with a sense of expecting good for each other.  In fact, verse 6 says this very directly and wonderfully.  Paul writes:  “I am confident of this very thing, that He who began a good work in you will also finish it.” 

       That is a wonderful verse.  It’s a verse each of us should memorize and hold in our hearts.  We should bring it out whenever we’re tempted to give up on ourselves or on other believers.  “He who began a good work in you will also finish it.”   Paul tells us that God has started something in the Philippians and also us. And God is not going to quit before He has finished the job.

        But what is God up to in our lives?  What are you going to look like when you are the finished you – when you bear the imprint of the work of the greatest craftsman in the universe? 

        Well God has much more in store for you than you may imagine.  God wants to do more for and in you than just make you into a more decent human being.   He wants more for you than just to help you lose weight or stop smoking or communicate better with your co-workers or whatever else you think the big issue is. 

         God actually is at work in you to make you like Jesus Christ Himself.  And the promise of Philippians 1:6 is that God will finish that work so that you will actually become what God intends you to be. 

         This goal -- to make you like Jesus Christ -- is not clearly spelled out here in Philippians 1:6.  But it is clearly revealed to us in verses like Romans 8:29.  We all know and love Romans 8:28: “And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love Him, who are the called according to His purpose.”  But do you know the next verse.  It tells us what the purpose is: “For those whom God foreknew He also predestined to be conformed to the likeness of His Son, so that He might be the firstborn among many brothers and sisters.”

       This verse is saying that God is so delighted with Jesus Christ that He calls millions of sinful human beings like us to Himself.  He does this so that Jesus might reproduce Himself in us so that this universe might be populated with millions of Christs.  Now this does not mean that we will become divine.  We will still be creatures.  But we will be like Him.  We will show His character in our own beings.  

       This is the theme of a marvelous sermon by C.S. Lewis called The Weight of Glory.  Lewis said:  “To please God...to be a real ingredient in the divine happiness...to be loved by God, not merely pitied, but delighted in as an artist delights in his work or a father in a son — it seems impossible, a weight or burden of glory which our thoughts can hardly sustain. But so it is.”

       It isn’t just dreaming.  It’s what God’s promises.  It’s what God will finish in each and every person who belongs to Him through faith in His Son.  

       That is also a truth that should have tremendous practical consequences for how we live with each other in the here and now.  We’re talking practical consequences.

        First of all, it should influence how we treat each other.  When you realize that the people you are with right now – in the rows beside you, in front of you and behind you – will one day be like Christ, it should make a difference in how you treat them and what you expect for them.

       As Lewis observed in The Weight of Glory:  “It is a serious thing to live in a society of possible (small g) gods and goddesses, to remember that the dullest and most uninteresting person you talk to may one day be a creature which, if you saw it now, you would be strongly tempted to worship, or else a horror and a corruption such as you now meet, if at all, only in a nightmare. All day long we are, in some degree, helping each other to one or other of these destinations. It is in the light of these overwhelming possibilities, it is with the awe and the circumspection proper to them, that we should conduct all our dealings with one another, all friendships, all loves, all play, all politics.  There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal. Nations, cultures, arts, civilization—these are mortal and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat. But it is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub, and exploit—immortal horrors or everlasting splendors.”

       Do you get Lewis’ point? If you expect people to be like Christ, it changes how you treat them in the here and now. 

      I had an interesting conversation with a mom in our congregation last summer.  Her daughter had just returned from a mission trip. The mom was expressing natural parental concern because her daughter had decided that she wanted to devote her life to some kind of mission service overseas.  I’m sure part of this was wondering what kind of future that would hold.  “Where did she learn that?” the mom asked. 

       It was a rhetorical question but I responded anyway.   I asked, “What did you teach her at home?”  She said, “We told her to discover her passion and follow it – as long as you can make a living.”  I added, “And you also raised her in a church family and youth ministry where she learned to rejoice in serving God and people – so I wonder where she learned that?”    

      That’s the kind of conversation I have with parents who recognize that children aren’t just extensions of themselves – that our children are free moral beings who will one day share eternity with us as equals -- responsible to hear and respond to God’s call on their own lives.  

      When you know that about people, even your kids, it makes a difference in how you treat them. 

      A second practical impact of knowing what God wants for us and plans for us is that we become more realistic about who we are.  As we realize that we can’t perfect ourselves, we become more aware of our rock bottom need for God to bring His good work in us to completion      

       The longer a person is a Christian, the more mature they become in the faith, the more they know their need for God’s grace.  This is kind of a strange result but it is very real.  When we first come to faith in Christ, we may think we aren’t all that bad.  We say to ourselves, “After all, I believe, don’t I.”  That puts me once-up on those who don’t believe.  Sure I have a few rough edges to smooth out but once that’s done, I’ll be pretty close to perfect.”

        But as we get to know God and His character, we become painfully more aware that we don’t measure up.  And we go from saying, “I’m pretty good” to “I’m pretty sinful.”  Eventually we may even echo the Apostle Paul who called Himself the “chief of sinners” in 1 Timothy 1:15 – and that was at the end of his life. 

       Now it’s not that we actually become worse and worse.  In fact, it’s good once in awhile to back off from our immediate situation and look at how far we’ve come.  We may be surprised at the changes we can see when we compare ourselves as we are now with the person we were ten years ago.  And as we look at other Christians we should not only recognize where he or she is now in the Christian life.  We should also see how far he of she has come.  Our criticism of the person’s shortcomings will then often turn to praise for the work God has done in his or her life.

       We don’t actually become worse – at least we shouldn’t become worse if we take God’s grace seriously.  It’s just that we become more aware of the size of the gap between God and us.

       But the good news is that God isn’t focused on the gap between Him and us.  He is focused on the goal.  In fact, God gives us the name Christian or “little Christ” while we are still a long, long way from being Christ-like.  So unlike many companies that trumpet the slogan, “The quality goes in before the name goes on” God says “My name goes on before the quality goes in -- because I guarantee that the quality will go in.”

      Now the fact that it is God and not us who will bring the good work to completion does not mean that there is nothing for us to do in the here and now – “just kick back, grab a beer, and let God do His thing.”  In fact, Paul gives quite a shopping list in this same passage in the form of a prayer for what we should gain and be and do.  We should welcome that.  A Christian life that is satisfied with not producing fruit for God is stunted and pathetic.  It’s just that all of the gaining, being and doing must be done in the confidence that God will finish the work.  So we try and we don’t give up on ourselves when we fail.  We don’t give up on others when they fail and we don’t give up on ourselves when we fail.  We still expect a great future.

       The third practical impact of being part of a community that expects great things is that we also pray for great things.  

       Paul models this in his prayer for his dear friends in Philippi .  He prays that their love will abound with knowledge and discernment. He prays that they will see the difference between the merely good and the truly excellent and that they will run to embrace it.  He prays that they may be sincere and filled to the very top with all the fruit of righteousness. 

       I can’t go into detail today on what each of Paul’s petitions means.  But it is obvious just at a glance that Paul is praying big prayers for those he sees as big people.  It’s not “God help so and so get a better job” but God “help so and so move into a new mind.”  Now it’s okay to pray for daily bread (or better jobs) for ourselves and for others.  Jesus tells us to pray for those things.  But sometimes that’s all we pray for when Jesus also calls us to pray for the coming of God’s Kingdom and the doing of God’s will.   

       Who do you pray for in a big way?  Who prays for you in a big way? 

       We need to pray big because we expect big.  As C.S. Lewis wrote in Mere Christianity that “Our Lord finds our desires, not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.”

       The fourth and final impact of knowing that God promises to finish what He has begun in us is that we learn that trusting that promise is what makes us able to move forward in faith at all.  If we think it’s all up to us we will play it too safe.  And if we try to play it too safe we will fail every time. 

       It’s like the art of working on a utility pole.  Now I’ve never climbed a utility pole in my life and I don’t intend to start now.  But my father-in –law Lyle, who worked for the Edison Company for many years, explained it to me.  

       He said that the secret of working on a line from a pole is to learn to lean back, allowing your weight to rest on the broad leather belt that encircles you and the pole – allowing your spikes to dig into the pole at a broad angle so you can use your hands to work.  It’s not hard to do – as long as you lean back. Of course if you fail to lean back and pull yourself toward the pole, then your spikes will not dig in and you’ll slip.  That’s a bad thing because the pole is covered with splinters that dig into you all the way down.   Lyle said that no one made that mistake twice. But I suspect that I would make it several times – when I found myself high off the ground I would panic, lean in once again, and slip on down. 

       But sooner or later we have to lean out and trust our belt – the grace of God. 

       God wants us to work effectively at the top levels.  That was His purpose in saving us.  He wants us to rise to Christ’s own stature. He doesn’t just want it.  He will insist on it. 

        God wants us to learn to climb by relying on Him and His grace rather than on ourselves and our abilities.  God wants us to learn to lean out and rest our weight on Him.  Because He knows that’s the only way we will make it.

       There will be times when we think we can hold on better by grabbing the pole than by leaning out on the belt and using our spikes.  When we do that, we will slip spiritually and pick up some nasty splinters.  God will let that happen because He knows it’s the only way we will finally learn to trust Him and all the great things He intends for us. 

       And what is more.  He will keep at it.  He will not let us quit.  God began the good work and God will finish what He started. 

       Someday we will be like Christ.  That’s a promise.  So we expect great things for each other.  We expect great things for ourselves.  We are a fellowship of expectation.