A Man with a Dream

      Back in 1982, a California truck driver fulfilled a life-long ambition. He'd always wanted to go up in a balloon.

      Now there’s nothing strange about that.  In fact, the place you are seated right now used to be landing site for the hot air balloons that flew over Moorpark in the ‘80s.

       But Larry’s approach was different. He collected 42 weather balloons, filled them with helium, and tied them to his silver garden chair. He got some friends to cut the rope that held his chair to the ground. 

       He went up!  In fact Larry reached 16,000 feet. He   was reported by airline pilots who saw his stunt from their planes. 

      Larry had never expected to get that high. He issued a mayday call over the radio he'd taken up with him and instituted his strategy for return to earth. Larry wasn’t stupid.  He had a plan for getting up into the sky. He also had a plan for getting down - a pellet gun. He shot out balloons until he started to descend. He eventually made it back to earth -- or at least to a set of power lines where he dangled five feet off the ground and created a black out in Long Beach. 

       When asked about his adventure Larry said "Since I was 13 years old, I've dreamed of going up into the sky in a weather balloon. By the grace of God, I fulfilled my dream. But I wouldn't do this again for anything."

       Was he scared? "Yes"

       Why'd he do it? "Well you just can't sit there!"

       That’s very true.  You can’t just sit there.  You have to get up and do something.  You have to make your mark on life. 

       The question is, “what?”   What are you counting on to give you life meaning? What will you leave as a legacy?  What is your dream?   

       Have you ever sat down and made an honest evaluation of your life? Have you ever really tried this? Just sit down this afternoon, and list your assets, the things that are important to you, things you think you could not do without.   What are your assets, your background, your name, your family standing, your money, your fame, your marvelous physique, (obviously I'm listing other people’s assets), your personality, your education, your training?  Write down the factors to which you look for respect, for advancement and acceptance in the eyes of the world.

       Then think about your goals.  What do you want more than anything?   Money?  Fame?  Influence?  Power? Thrills and excitement? 

       Now if you watch Oprah or Dr. Phil, you know that those aren’t good answers.  So you’re way ahead of me on this.  You know the right answers are a happy life, a good marriage, a satisfying career and genuine service to the community. 

        But I want to call you to something greater.  I want to call you to the source of all true joy and lasting happiness -- one that can lead to a happy life, a good marriage, a satisfying career and genuine service to the community. 

       Now some of you are thinking, “I’m still way ahead of you on this.”  The only thing on my dream sheet is “I want to do great things for God!”

        But even that misses the mark!  

        What did Paul want?  What did he pray others would have?  Paul says the goal is “to know Christ!”  For without this relationship, without knowing the power of the resurrection of Jesus in our own lives, we will never have true joy – and we will certainly never accomplish anything of lasting value.  Even the great things we may do for God will come from wrong motives. 

       During the Sundays coming up to this celebration of Easter, in our sermons and small groups, we have looked at the theme, “The Community You’ve Always Wanted.”  We’ve looked at six wonderful aspects of Christian fellowship that Paul models in his Letter to the Philippians.

       This Easter morning we are looking at what it mans for the church to be a Fellowship of Resurrection.  Resurrection is the great Easter message.

       However, the way Paul writes about resurrection in Philippians 3 is very different than the way we usually look at it on Easter Sunday morning – that the resurrection of Jesus is the guarantee of eternal life for all those who put their faith in Him. 

       Now without eternal life, we literally have no future.  But Paul says we need to be infused with more than future hope.  We also need present power!   So when Paul writes about the resurrection in Philippians 3, he writes about something that isn’t reserved only for the future.  He writes about an experience of Easter that we can have right here and right now!   He writes about having God’s power flowing through our lives and personalities and relationships – not “someday” but today.    

       I realize that today I am preaching a different Easter sermon than any you might have heard. It may sound to you that Paul is writing and I am talking in a foreign language. Paul is talking in Philippians 3 about being totally sold out for Christ and some find it hard to even make it to church one or twice a year.  But I encourage you to learn the language and make it you own.  Move beyond paying God your respects and come follow Jesus.    It will change your life. It will give you what you’re looking for. 

      Paul shares the goal in Philippians 3:10-11.  Listen to these words.  “I want to know Christ and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings, becoming like Him in His death, and so, somehow, to attain to the resurrection from the dead.”

      Let’s start – with the last statement.  Those last words, “somehow, to attain to the resurrection from the dead” sound like Paul is saying, “Easter isn’t real for me yet.  I haven’t tried hard enough.  I haven’t done enough stuff to make God want me in heaven.”

      And if that’s what Paul means, then his words are real discouraging to me.  Because I haven’t tried nearly as hard as Paul.  I haven’t done a small percentage of what he did.  My sufferings for Christ don’t come anywhere close to his.  So if Paul can’t make it, what hope is there for me – or you?   It sounds like the resurrection is reserved for spiritual superstars and that even Paul isn’t sure he has what it takes to crack the elite group.

       When Carol and I first drove in England – the day we picked up our first rental car in Dover – I had a hard time adjusting to driving on the left side of the road.    It was hard to gauge where my car was in relationship to things on the left side when I was so used to working on the right.  I stayed over in the left land, the slow lane, and tried to get used to it.  But then we can up behind a very slow moving truck.  When I eased out to go around the truck I came closer than I should have with my left mirror.  Carol told me, “You’re not right lane worthy.”  I wasn’t.

       Is that what Paul is saying about the Easter – that we aren’t among the resurrection worthy?

       No. Paul knows and teaches that we are all saved by God’s grace through faith and not by our own efforts.  He knows that “if you confess with your lips Jesus Christ as Lord and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved.”  I mean, Paul wrote those words.

       It’s just that Paul isn’t content with what will happen someday after death. He wants to experience the power of Easter in his here and now – even as he lies in a prison cell is Rome waiting for trial. 

       Paul doesn’t just want to know about Christ.  That desire could be satisfied by taking a course in Christology at some seminary.  Paul wants to know Christ personally.  He doesn’t just want a casual once-in-a-while contact with Jesus. You don't get to know your friends that way. The friends you know best are the ones you have spent most time with, or at least you have gone with through deep experiences. 

       The Christian walk isn’t a complicated skill to master but a beautiful relationship to be enjoyed.  The relationship comes when you and Jesus live your lives together, moment-by-moment and share experiences. It comes by gazing on the face of Jesus Christ as He appears in the pages of scripture. It comes by allowing every circumstance to make you lean back on His strength.  It means hiding nothing from his eyes, by bringing every loyalty for His approval.

       We have to go beyond collecting facts about Jesus.  We must learn to walk with Him.  I could preach a lot of sermons just on this topic but today let me quickly suggest three steps. 

       The first step is putting your faith in Him-- believing that the event we celebrate today, the resurrection, really did take place. 

       That’s the first step – knowing that Jesus really lives in the most literal sense of that word.  There’s nothing symbolic about Easter.  It’s very physical. 

       That’s essential.  If Christ is not raised from the dead, if his bones are buried somewhere in Judea , then we cannot know Him. We might read about him, we might revere him, but we cannot know him.  And if He is not raised from the dead, then He has no power today. He is dead. His words might have some influence - but He himself has no power to forgive sins or do anything else. That is why the resurrection is so central to Christians.  Christianity is not a religion based on abstract principles or rule-keeping. Christianity is a relationship with a living Savior. 

       A second step is spending time in prayer. Pray alone, and with others. In prayer, you can share all your joys, frustrations, and sorrows with the God of the universe, the God who cares. Talking to God builds your relationship with him.

       The third step is to follow. Let God make you into a new person.  Listen as you pray and read the Bible. Obey His voice. When you do this — when you step out in faith -- He will be there to support you. 

       He will even change the way you talk.  You will stop saying the things some Christians say about their experiences. For one thing, when someone suggests you ought to forgive someone, you won't say, "Well I can't. It's simply against human nature."

       Because that’s the point.  That's what Christ came for, to set us free from the enslaving bondage of human nature.  He wants make us a new creation.

       So one of the things Paul wants to know of Jesus is “the power of His resurrection.” 

       Paul is convinced that Jesus is alive.  He writes in 1 Corinthians 15 about how he’s checked it out. He’s done the research.  He knows the resurrection happened.

       Paul is so sure of the resurrection that he can throw himself even into the painful present with rejoicing and thanksgiving.  That rejoicing even extends to suffering and death. 

       When Paul writes, “I want to know the fellowship of His suffering,” Paul is saying the same things brides and grooms say at their wedding. They stand before the minister and say that they want to identify with each other in sickness and in health, for better or for worse, richer or poorer.  Now they aren’t saying, “We are in for a miserable life together.”  They are saying, “We want to be together in this thing called life.  We want to deeply identify with one another’s hurts and one another’s joys.”

        To be with Jesus in this thing called life means that we share the way He walked.  We share the cross He bore.  We share the death He died.  Finally we share the life He lives both here and forever.

       Paul wants that deep, intimate knowledge of it all.  He’s not there yet.  He writes in Romans 8 about how we “groan inside ourselves” waiting for the fulfillment of all that God has promised us.  But Paul knows where he wants to go and he knows how to get there.

       Paul writes: “It is not that I have already obtained this or am already perfect, but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me His own. I do not consider that I have made it my own. But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.”

      Paul uses an image here from track and field.  There are two kinds of incentives that motivate team athletes. The one is the pressure on an athlete who is trying to win a place on the team. The other incentive is the pressure to excel that comes to a player because he or she is already on the team.  It’s the joy on the face of UCLA’s Kevin Love after he makes the shot to take the lead against Texas A and M. 

       Paul describes that second motivation. We don’t run the race in an attempt to somehow make God’s team.  We run because we are already on the team.  We aren’t motivated by fear of what God will do to us we don’t follow.  And we aren’t motivated by guilt or pride. Ours is the motivation of enthusiastic belonging. "I belong in this race; I was made for this event: is my moment.”  Paul presses on to make full identification with Christ his own because, he says,  "Christ Jesus has made me his own."

        Some years ago world-class athletes gathered to run the 440.  The athletes were bunched together as they came to the first bend, and one of them was pushed over and fell right off the track. Quick as a flash he was back on his feet, and, as though electrically charged by the incident, caught the other runners with a few paces to go and overtook them to win on the line. It was a famous victory, which features now in the movie Chariots of Fire.

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      What would you have done? Most of us, I suspect, would have accepted from the moment we fell over that we were out of the race, with no hope left. We might have been angry. But there would be nothing we could do about it. What had in fact just happened would keep us enslaved with no hope of going on to what might have happened.

       With Eric Liddell it was just the opposite. Liddell very consciously raced in the power of Christ – all out, all the time.  It was as though he had been reading this passage from Paul: “I forget what's behind, strain every nerve to go after what's ahead, and chase on towards the finishing line.” I belong in this race. I was made for this event. This is my moment.

       What about you? Is your ambition to win the approval of your culture?  Or is you ambition to know Christ and to lay hold of the reason He has laid hold of you?

       I’m going to ask you to bow your heads. While we’re bowed, I’m going to ask you five questions.  I’m not speaking to your head now.  I’m speaking to your heart.  So if the questions become blurred, just let the Spirit of God ask you whatever questions He will. But here are the questions:  “What do you value most in life?  What preoccupies your time and effort?  What is driving you?  Where does your security come from?  Whose approval are you really seeking?”

      There are a lot of good answers to those questions. They might even keep you going for thirty or more years.   But there is only one great answer and that is to give our all for the God who has given us His all.    

       “Two roads diverged in a yellow wood, and I, I took the road less traveled by, and that has made all the difference.  Would to God it will be true for all of us, including myself, this Easter morning.  Amen.