Inward or Outward?

Philippians 3:1-11                            Luke 2:15-21

Inward or Outward?

At this time of year, many people make vain pronouncements which they call “New Year’s Resolutions”. Usually, these declarations involve something one has not done or something one should have done better during the past year. Then the so-called “new” year begins and for a while renewed effort and delusion work together to convince the person that they are succeeding until the busyness of life gets in the way. Reality heaves resolution overboard and the ship sails on.

Of course, resolutions have been around for centuries, in fact ever since Eve resolved to embrace a life of self-actualisation, deciding that she wanted to be her own god. Of course, failure to meet expectations and the realisation that perhaps the resolution was not such a good idea after all has been around for the same amount of time. 

So, it is interesting to explore the rationale behind making such pronouncements. Aristotle (and here I hasten to insert an apology to Connie and other philosophy majors for my gross oversimplification) maintained that we become what we do and so he resolved to act right so that he might be right. Plato went in the exact opposite direction, perhaps after observing the repeated failure of his teacher. He believed that right action followed from right thinking and so he resolved to think right so that he might act right. 

And then in 1826, in his book “The Physiology of Taste: Or Meditations on Transcendental Gastronomy with Recipes”, the French Lawyer Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin stated: “Tell me what you eat, and I will tell you what you are,” an idea later incorporated into various food ads by Farmer Brown and KFC and shortened to something like “you look so good because you eat so good”. Just testing to see how many of you are still awake since Jurgens unequivocally gave you permission to sleep during my sermons. 

But seriously, while there is some truth to what Aristotle and Plato and perhaps even Brillat-Savarin taught, they skipped over a very important detail…they all missed the essential and foundational fact that no human being appears to be able to act right or think right consistently. Even a cursory glance over the pages of history will confirm this. If we are honest, we will admit that despite our best resolutions we always seem to stumble and fall at some time or other. 

Scripture gives us the reason for this universal dilemma. In Jeremiah 17:9 we are told that the heart (or the core of humankind) is corrupt, deceitful, and desperately wicked…and Proverbs 23:7 tells us that humans are outwardly what they are inwardly – in their heart or in their innermost being. 

So, from the very outset, any unaided reason or resolution is doomed to failure.  This is why Paul declared in Philippians 3:3 that we ought to have no confidence in the flesh. In other words, if we are going to make any kind of decision for change, we must start from a point of moral and ethical bankruptcy, looking for radical inner renovation from a source other than or outside of ourselves.

And, again at the risk of oversimplifying the matter, this is what the Good News is all about. God is in the heart exchange business. The prophet Ezekiel spoke about a time when God would take out the dead heart of stone and replace it with a living heart of flesh…but more than that. He promised to give us a new life – to fill us with his life-giving Holy Spirit…to take up residence within us…to come down upon us as he did on the Tabernacle and the Temple, and to dwell among us and in us – Immanuel – God IS with us…so that his Spirit might cause us to live as we were created to live…to walk in his statues and to keep his commandments to do them.

Biblically, what followers of Jesus do is a result of who we are in him…from what the prior grace of God makes us and allows and assists us to become. Consequently, any resolution we make as believers must be based upon what God has already done for us in Jesus. Any changes we need to make in our lives depend upon the divine aid of the Author and Finisher of our faith. Without him, even our best efforts are as useless as filthy rags. In short, if we are to succeed at life we must live out and practice and embrace what we are in him.

We can see this clearly in the life of Paul. The Apostle lived out what he was in Jesus and accordingly was not derailed by adverse circumstances. 

Paul had been a rising star in Israel…schooled by the best and advancing well beyond his peers in religious fervour. He apparently moved in high circles, rubbing shoulders with the Jerusalem elite. He was so arrogantly sure of himself that he resolved to kill anyone who did not live according to his principles. 

Then, in a single moment, everything he held to be of value was exposed as worthless. On the road to Damascus, Paul met the God he thought he knew, and his life was never the same again. 

But then, once he had his life turned right side up and he wanted to tell the whole wide world about his eye-opening discovery, it seemed the whole wide world was not all that enthusiastic about the message…in fact, they were downright hostile. Suddenly, he found that the hunter had become the hunted and he had to defend himself, flee for his life, deal with rejection, misunderstanding, imprisonment, death threats, and actual attempts on his life. 

Gone were the days amongst the elite…his former friends and colleagues were now his worst enemies. And, if that was not bad enough, he had to constantly deal with the waywardness of various church members.  One of the reasons Paul wrote the letter to the Philippians from prison, was because he had received news that the church was being torn apart by two former female co-workers of his, Euodia and Syntyche…or as someone once renamed them, odious and so touchy. Their interpersonal disagreement was threatening the unity of the church! 

It was in the context of his current imprisonment and this painful division that he took up his quill and wrote: “Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice!” You may well ask, how on earth could he write that given the circumstances? 

I believe the key to Paul’s inner serenity was a radical inner renovation. He could resolve to rejoice because of what the grace of God had made him and was making him. His eyes were firmly fixed on what God intended him to be in Jesus…he considered all other things…even those things he once thought so very important…he considered them totally peripheral…they faded in the light of the glory that was his in Jesus. Circumstances hadn’t changed…if anything, they had got worse…but Paul, the person, had been progressively changing from the inside out since the time he first met Jesus. 

And so, even though life was hard and harsh and even though he was disrupted and disturbed by the consequences of his shortcomings and the shortcomings of others, Paul could rejoice and tell the struggling church to rejoice with him because he knew what God had done and what God was doing…and that nothing in all creation could ever change that or derail that.

For Paul, all the many resolutions and restrictions and rituals from his past counted for nothing in comparison to knowing Jesus and the power of his resurrection. Participation in his sufferings and his death meant that he could rise in and with Jesus to life as it was meant to be. And that was worth more than all the riches this world could afford.

You see external observance means very little when there is an internal contradiction. This was our Lord’s contention with the Pharisees. He called them whitewashed tombs which appeared outwardly beautiful but inwardly filled with death and decay. And Paul had been one of them. In our Epistle reading, he listed his many accomplishments. But even the Old Testament pointed out that circumcision of the flesh without the circumcision of the heart meant nothing (Deuteronomy 30:6; Jeremiah 4:4; cf Romans 2:29). Jacob and Esau demonstrate that fact perfectly.

The outward is really nothing without the inward. You can make as many resolutions as you like this year, but if the Lord has not changed you and, indeed if he is not changing you day by day from the inside out, you might as well write your decisions in water. 

Better to pray and ask God to graciously resolve to change and empower you to do his will…to love him with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength and to love your neighbour as you love yourself. Things might get better, things might get worse, but you can be certain of one thing. Regardless of the circumstances, you will be able to rejoice in the Lord, because your focus will no longer be on yourself…rather your focus will be on the prize for which God has called you heavenward in Jesus. Your focus will be centred on his resolution to conform you to the image of Jesus. Once you make his will and his goal and his purpose more important than yours, you will gain the peace of God which surpasses all understanding. 

If all the things the world strives for become as dung to you in comparison to the surpassing worth of knowing Jesus and the power of his resurrection, then you will be fulfilled, and content come what may.

So, rather than making useless “New Year’s Resolutions” this year, compare the sides of the ledger of your life. Anything and everything you once highly valued on one side…and Jesus and his kingdom on the other side. The choice is simple…but never easy. May God in his grace grant you the inward conviction to choose to live as he would have you live outwardly.

Shall we pray?

© Johannes W H van der Bijl 2023