Holding on to the Right Things

October 02, 2011

by John Partridge Scripture: Exodus 17:1-7 Philippians 2:1-13

Have you ever been tempted to hold on to the wrong thing? If you have spent any time at all watching movies on television, you have certainly seen stories that reflect this idea. I tried to find the specific movies that I am remembering without much success, but I recall a pirate movie (perhaps one of the Pirates of the Caribbean movies) where characters insisted on holding onto their gold ever though their rowboat was sinking because of its weight. In another movie, one of the adventurers in an underground tomb is killed by a monster because he goes back to pick up his treasure before escaping. In the one movie that I do remember specifically, in the closing scene of Indiana Jones and the Crystal Skull, as the ancient Mayan temple collapses around them, the character Mac refuses to escape to safety so that he can spend a few more moments with the treasure. It isnt just money that we hold on to. For sentimental reasons, some of us have held on to our cars longer than we should and we have paid more to repair them than we would have spent on buying a new used car instead. When the job market was better, I have seen friends stay at their jobs because it felt safe to do so even though they could have made more money by changing jobs. This principle that we sometimes hold onto the wrong things is found in scripture as well as in the movies and in our modern lives. In Philippians 3:4b-14, the apostle Paul tells us that as a Christian, he has put aside everything that he once considered to be valuable so that he could hold on to the one thing that was truly worthwhile If someone else thinks they have reasons to put confidence in the flesh, I have more: 5 circumcised on the eighth day, of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; in regard to the law, a Pharisee; 6 as for zeal, persecuting the church; as for righteousness based on the law, faultless. But whatever were gains to me I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. 8 What is more, I consider everything a loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them garbage, that I may gain Christ 9 and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christthe righteousness that comes from God on the basis of faith. 10 I want to know Christyes, to know the power of his resurrection and participation in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, 11 and so, somehow, attaining to the resurrection from the dead. Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already arrived at my goal, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. 13 Brothers and sisters, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, 14 I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus. Paul tells us that if anyone had a reason to be proud of who and what he was, Paul had every such reason. Paul was all the right things in Jewish society. His parents did the right things when he was born, he was born from the right kind of a family, you know, good society people, like we have wealthy blue blooded families today. Paul went to the right kind of schools with well-known and respected teachers, he belonged to the Pharisees, who were well regarded and who tried to obey every imaginable law of God and the prophets. Paul had the whole package, good breeding, a family with some wealth, a good education as well being a good or at least persuasive, public speaker. Whatever 1
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there was to be proud of as a good Jew, Paul had it but at the same time, Paul says that he was willing to give it all up for the sake of Jesus Christ. Paul uses the words of the marketplace, loss, as in profit and loss, to say that all that he had, birth, family, money, education is all a loss to him. More than that, Paul declares that he now considers these things that he once valued as garbage. The word garbage in fact is not strong enough. The word that is used in this passage is only used once in all of the New Testament. It is the word used to describe what lay in the valley outside the back gate of the city. This is the place where everyone dumped their garbage, the city sewage system drained out of the back gate into this place, it was full of rotting animal carcasses, burning trash and other disgusting filth. Paul says that all the good things that he once had, he now considers to be this foul garbage. Paul tells us that the only thing that is worth holding on to is the call of Jesus Christ. Similarly, in Matthew 21:33-46 Jesus tells a parable about himself and the Pharisees
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Listen to another parable: There was a landowner who planted a vineyard. He put a wall around it, dug a winepress in it and built a watchtower. Then he rented the vineyard to some farmers and moved to another place. 34 When the harvest time approached, he sent his servants to the tenants to collect his fruit. The tenants seized his servants; they beat one, killed another, and stoned a third. 36 Then he sent other servants to them, more than the first time, and the tenants treated them the same way. 37 Last of all, he sent his son to them. They will respect my son, he said. But when the tenants saw the son, they said to each other, This is the heir. Come, lets kill him and take his inheritance. 39 So they took him and threw him out of the vineyard and killed him.
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Therefore, when the owner of the vineyard comes, what will he do to those tenants?

He will bring those wretches to a wretched end, they replied, and he will rent the vineyard to other tenants, who will give him his share of the crop at harvest time.
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Jesus said to them, Have you never read in the Scriptures:

The stone the builders rejected has become the cornerstone; the Lord has done this, and it is marvelous in our eyes? Therefore I tell you that the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people who will produce its fruit. 44 Anyone who falls on this stone will be broken to pieces; anyone on whom it falls will be crushed. When the chief priests and the Pharisees heard Jesus parables, they knew he was talking about them. 46 They looked for a way to arrest him, but they were afraid of the crowd because the people held that he was a prophet. Here we see that God has left the church until his return but his prophets have often been beaten or killed or stoned. Finally, the King (God) will send his son and Jesus foretells his own death saying that the caretakers of the vineyard will murder the Kings own son in order to keep what they have. The vineyard that the master left behind became a thing to be coveted and maintained at all costs. When the owner of the vineyard sent messengers to retrieve what belonged to him, the very people who had been entrusted to care for his belongings rebelled against him and when he sent his own son, they killed him in hopes that they could possess it for themselves. 2
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Jesus calls us to take a hard look at our hearts and at the things that motivate us. In Exodus 20:1-6 we hear these words
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And God spoke all these words: I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery. You shall have no other gods before me.

For each of us, the gods that we are tempted to worship will be different. For Paul, he had to give up family, and a place in polite society, in the Temple, and other things that he had grown up valuing. The Pharisees were angry because Jesus had them pegged. They knew that the story was about them. The Pharisees, as good, as faithful and as devout as they were, had come to value their position in their church and in their society more than they valued doing the will of God. Every day we must choose to let go of the things that make us proud of ourselves, houses, cars, money, position, power, authority, education, our place in society, our standing in the community or whatever it might be that tempts you to place that thing ahead of your calling to follow Jesus Christ. Instead, we are called to hold tightly to the only thing that we can keep for eternity. We can hold tightly only to the calling to follow Jesus Christ and whatever it is that he has called us to do. We can hold tightly only to the things that Jesus Christ has called us to do. If we hold too tightly to anything else, we will end our lives just like the pirates and thieves in the movies we will be holding onto our gold while the waves slowly close over our heads. We will be holding onto our pitiful treasures while the temple walls crumble around us.

You have been reading a message presented at Barnesville First United Methodist Church on the date noted at the top of the first page. Rev. John Partridge is the pastor of Barnesville First. Duplication of this message is a part of our Media ministry, if you have received a blessing in this way, we would love to hear from you. Letters and donations in support of the Media ministry or any of our other projects may be sent to Barnesville First UMC at 123 W. Church St., Barnesville, OH 43713. These messages are available to any interested persons regardless of membership. You may subscribe to these messages, in print or electronic formats, by writing to the address noted, or by contacting us at subscribe@barnesvillefirst.com. If you have questions, you can ask them in our discussion forum on Facebook (search for Pastor John Online). These messages can also be found online at http://www.scribd.com/Pastor John Partridge. All Scripture references are from the New International Version unless otherwise noted.