The following sermon was delivered by the Reverend John W. Howe in Truro Episcopal Church, Fairfax, Virginia, on March 23, 1980. The sermon is entitled, To Know Him is to Become Like Him. And the scripture references are Luke 20, verses 9 to 19, and Philippians 3, verses 8 to 14. 

Jesus told a parable and it became a little bit too close for comfort to his hearers they recognized very clearly that he was accusing and indicting them as being the ones to whom God had entrusted his vineyard his kingdom if you will the work that he was doing here on earth and that they in turn had proved faithless had broken covenant, had compromised, were ignoring the purpose for which it had been entrusted to them. Jesus' word was very sobering. God is going to take it away from you, give it to somebody else.

That's how we Gentiles got in on the good things that God began amongst the Jews. But as they saw where this parable was leading, they began to be very angry about it. He was indicting them and he was calling himself the son of the owner.

and predicting that they in turn would reject him as well. He summed up the parable by changing the imagery altogether and by quoting from one of the Psalms in the Old Testament. He said, the very stone which the builders rejected has become the head of the corner.

What he's saying is God intended to build a marvelous, glorious edifice to his own praise, a temple to his glory. And the people that were supposed to put it together, lay one stone upon another, utterly rejected the cornerstone. If you can picture trying to build a building without laying it on the cornerstone, without building it on the right foundation.

But the scripture goes on to say, in spite of the fact that they rejected that stone, God's purposes were not thwarted. The stone which the builders rejected has in fact become just exactly what God intended it to be, the rock bed foundation on which the whole edifice is built. Jesus is saying clearly, I am that stone.

I have come not only as the son of the vineyard owner, I've come as the foundation stone on which God is going to build his temple, a living temple, a temple of praise to himself. and the builders are going to reject me. They're going to turn aside and ignore me.

They're going to try to do without me. God is going to go right ahead and build his temple anyway. God is going to build the edifice on the foundation of Christ.

But he goes on and adds this sobering word to it. He says that same stone will become, for those who reject it, a stumbling stone. You're going to trip over it.

You're going to fall headlong. You're going to dash yourself to pieces. Or maybe even worse than that, it's going to fall on you and crush you.

Jesus Christ will either be the foundation stone on which our life is built, or he'll become a stumbling block on which we trip and fall. You can avoid the issue only so long. He does give us a period of time in which we can be casually indifferent.

We can look the other way. We can exercise some sort of benign neglect. But sooner or later, for each one of us, God presses the issue and says, Decide, which will it be?

Will you build your life on the cornerstone, on the foundation of my Son, the Lord Jesus, or will you trip over Him? We look some other place. You may remember a few weeks ago as we were reading through John's Gospel that Jesus at one point was making some extraordinary claims for Himself, telling the people that unless they in fact devoured Him, made Him their nourishment, the source of their strength and health and joy, unless they feasted upon Him, cannibalized Him, They'd have absolutely no part of God's purposes.

Most people were offended by that. We read that from that point on, the majority of them left him. And Jesus turned around and faced his hand-picked twelve and said, Will you also go away?

I think that was a real question. Don't think it was rhetorical. I think Jesus was prepared to be utterly abandoned at that point.

He said, will you also go away? And Peter, as he usually did, spoke for the rest. He said, Lord, to whom would we go?

You have the words of eternal life. To whom would we go? If you won't have Jesus Christ to be the cornerstone of your life, to whom will you go?

Where will you go for the words of life eternal? Where will you go for the gift of forgiveness? I'm reminded of Jim Elliott, the missionary of a generation ago who went to South America and was killed along with four other men by the Yucca Indians, a Stone Age group of savages who practiced cannibalism.

It's interesting that now a generation later, out of that martyrdom has come a living, vital church that is actually sending out missionaries around the world. but Jim Elliot prayed a prayer when he was about 16 or 17 years old he said Lord make me a milestone man make me a milestone man that others meeting me will be forced to choose they'll turn either to the right or to the left that was Jesus' prayer that was Jesus' commitment that was his experience others meeting him would have to deal with a milestone man. They would have to turn either to the right or to the left.

Sooner or later the issue is joined. Will you have him as the foundation stone of your life? Or will you trip over him?

What's interesting to me about the career of the man we know as the Apostle Paul is that he tried it both ways. He began by rejecting this cornerstone. And then, one day, en route to the city of Damascus, where he had it in mind to destroy the church, to persecute it and kill the Christians, he met the living, resurrected Christ, and his life did a 180-degree turn.

And what we read throughout his letters, and specifically in that of Philippians this morning, is the testimony of a man who in essence is saying, I used to reject this cornerstone, but now I've begun to build my life upon it. I'm interested this morning in one phrase from his third chapter to the Philippians. One verse, verse number 10.

He sums up the new goal, the new direction, the new purpose of his life. having met this stone, this Lord Jesus Christ. He says, now my new purpose is fourfold, that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection and may share in His sufferings, becoming like Him in His death.

I'd like to examine that fourfold purpose with you for a few minutes this morning. What does it mean to build your life upon the cornerstone of Jesus Christ? Paul says, the very first thing it means for me is that I want above all else, the priority of my life is to know Him.

That might strike you as rather odd. If ever there was a man who came to know Jesus Christ, it was St. Paul. That's what we've just been alluding to.

He says, I know whom I have believed and am persuaded that he is able to keep that which I have committed unto him against that day. I know whom I have believed. He says elsewhere, for me to live is Christ.

If ever there was a man who knew Christ, it was Paul. And yet he says, my goal in life, my purpose, my priority is to know him. Well, I wonder if any of you have had the experience of going through perhaps a crisis or perhaps some delightful moment in your life.

You've gone through it with a loved one or perhaps a neighbor or a business associate. You've gone through some life-changing experience and suddenly as you look back, what you realize is, in the process, I came to know this person so much more deeply. Do you know what I mean?

that happens over and over in a good marriage. You go on discovering the other person. It's not so much that you get new information as it is you get new appreciation.

There's a new depth, there's a new subtlety, a new sensitivity, a new empathy in the relationship. You might not even be able to put it into words, but you've discovered a new level in the relationship. In fact, I'd say that what makes a marriage go bad is that you stop doing that.

You say to yourself, I learned everything there is to know about this person 15 years ago. And the marriage just dies. Do you know what I'm talking about?

I think something like that is in Paul's experience. I know him, and it makes me want to know him. To go on knowing Him, to getting acquainted, to discovering in every nook and cranny of my life what it is to know Him.

I find that there were things that my father told me when I was a little boy that I never appreciated until now that I'm a father and I'm telling them to my little boy. And even now, there's a sense in which I'm discovering what it is to know my father. He's been dead five years.

I find myself over and over wanting to chat with him about things that I'm discovering, subtleties to our relationship. And that is just a little hint of the communion of saints. Paul says, I know him, and it makes me want to know him.

Rather than that being a paradox, perhaps we can turn the thing all the way around. I'd like to suggest to you this morning that if the goal of your life is not to know Jesus Christ, I'd question very much whether you know Him. If you don't want to know Him better, if that's not the passion of your life, you may be a very good person, but you're probably just playing church.

Paul says, my first priority is to get to know Him. Let me ask you, Is that your first priority? I mean, is it really?

And if it is, what are you doing about it? You're not going to get to know Him without spending time with Him. Without talking to Him.

Without reading His love letters to you. Without hanging out with some of His friends. Do you want to get to know Him?

Is that really what your life is about? Paul says that I might know Him. Then he goes on, and the power of His resurrection.

Do you know that the Christian life is a life of victory? Is anybody out there this morning? Do you know that?

Amen. It's a life of victory. He is not talking in this passage about resurrection of the body someday.

Though that's another issue. he's talking that I might know the power of his resurrection here and now in the day to day existence Paul elsewhere talks about the power of his resurrection which is operative in the church that's God's will for us do you believe that it is not God's will that you be some sort of a hopeless spiritual cripple but that he wants you to move power of the resurrection in your day-to-day life right now. Paul says, that's what I want to know.

Picture it this way. You go out and buy for yourself a brand new Frigidaire freezer refrigerator. 18 cubic feet.

It's got three doors. I mean, I don't know what you need three doors for two compartments for, but it's got three doors. Okay?

It's got a meat keeper. It's got a vegetable keeper. It's got an egg keeper.

It's got a butter keeper. It's got an automatic humidity control. On the front door, you can get ice cubes, ice chips, and ice water.

All right? And it's got fingerprint-proof panels all over it. And you bring this incredible thing home, and you put it in the middle of your kitchen, and the only problem is it doesn't work.

So you start twisting the dials and pounding the buttons and opening and closing the doors. nothing you kick it you curse at it you adjust the load level around the bottom nothing so you call the repairman and he comes over and takes one look and begins to laugh because you forgot to plug it in there was nothing wrong with the refrigerator there was also nothing wrong with the power the problem was the connection I want to suggest to you that you right now have all the equipment you need for success in the Christian life right now whatever your circumstances Paul goes on in the very next chapter to say I have learned in whatsoever circumstances I am therewith to be content you've got the equipment nothing wrong with the equipment there's nothing wrong with the power Jesus Christ has all the power to make you victorious in the Christian life today, right now. Your plug may be loose.

If you're not living the life of victory, the problem is not with Him. Paul says that I might know the power of His resurrection. Might live in resurrection power today.

I want that. I hope you do. He goes on to say that I might share in His sufferings.

Now that obviously can't be right, because he's just been talking about victory and power, and everybody knows that victory and power are absolutely inconsistent with suffering, right? Wrong. It's not the way it was in Jesus' life.

He knew suffering like nobody's ever known, and in the midst of it he was victorious. Paul knew suffering, and in the midst of it he was victorious. Unfortunately, the 23rd Psalm does not say, Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I'll fear no evil, because immediately you'll pull me out of it.

It's not what it says. It says, because thou art with me. Nobody ever said the Christian life was going to be easy.

What they said was, it's worth it. God's power is made perfect in our weakness. His victory is released in the midst of difficulty.

I don't believe this is some sort of masochism or death wish on Paul's part. I think what he's saying in fact is I want to be so identified with the Lord Jesus that what breaks his heart breaks mine. It came down the Palm Sunday route down the Mount of Olives into the Kidron Valley and up to the city of Jerusalem.

Halfway down the Mount of Olives, there's a lovely little church in the shape of a teardrop. It's called Dominus Flavit, which means the Lord wept, the Lord cried. Because it marks the place where Jesus paused and wept over the city of Jerusalem.

He broke His heart. How often would I gather you as a mother hen gathers your chicks, but you would not. Even today, if only you knew the things that are for your peace, but you would not.

I think Jesus weeps over the city of Washington, over the city of Fairfax, over some of our relationships. Do we weep with Him? Are you moving into such an identification with Him that what breaks His heart breaks your heart?

Are you prepared to go where He would go? And do what He would do and be what He would be regardless of the consequences? If you are, I can almost guarantee you, the more you get to be like Him, the more likely it is you're going to suffer what He suffered.

Unless the world has changed. He didn't enjoy the suffering. He said, nevertheless, not my will but thine.

It's not a death wish. It's a wish to be where He is, regardless of where that might be. That I might share in His sufferings.

And finally, that I would become like Him and specifically like Him in His death. And again I say that's not a death wish. It's a wish to be like Him in His death.

which was in the moment of total, perfect yieldedness to the Father. That's the goal of my life, says Paul. That I would know this Lord Jesus, that I would have the power of His resurrection so released in me that I'd be victorious no matter what the circumstances, that I'd be increasingly conformed to Him, that I would share fully, I'd drink the dregs of the cup of suffering if need be because I want to be where He is.

and finally that I'd be just like Him. That others who see me would in fact see the Lord Christ utterly yielded, available to the Father. So much so that He could say, it is finished before it was finished.

Have you ever noticed that? The night of the Lord's Supper, before the betrayal, He said, I have finished the work You gave Me to do. How could He say that?

Because He had finished it in His Spirit He finished it in His flesh. Paul says, that's where I want to be. Where my spirit is so yielded to the Father that even if it means crucifixion, I'm ready.

I'm available. That's what it means to build my life on the foundation stone that is Christ. How are you doing?

Do you want to know Him? Do you really want to know Him this morning? Do you want to know His power released in you?

You're equal to whatever circumstances. Not in yourself, in Him. Are you willing to be broken bread and poured out wine if need be, sharing His sufferings?

Finally, like Him, in total abandon to the Father. See, there are two questions. first is what are you building your life on is it this stone the rock that is higher than I the stone which the builders rejected which has become the chief cornerstone what are you building your life on and the second question is what are you building on it what are you building on it only one life will soon be passed only what's done for Christ will last let's bow our heads the refrigerator is made to run on electricity and you and I are made to run on the Lord Jesus Christ Father we thank you for the witness of St. Paul and we would learn from that witness and be encouraged by it and we would adopt as our own the goals that He articulated for Himself.

Lord, it's our desire this morning to come to know You more fully and deeply, more perfectly, more radically than ever we have before and in the process to become like this Lord Jesus in whose name we pray. Amen.