21st July 2025

21st July 2025


Pray (ACts)


Read (Philippians 3:7-11 focus v7-8)


Message (Alan Burke) 


What do yo think of our politicians? Everyone has an option don’t they but in my mind our democracy should be based on our Presbyterian form of church governance and even the GAA in their governance structures see this. If you compare the Presbyterian (biblical) system of church governance with the GAA’s governance as local clubs like the local church send their reps to Divisional Boards like our Presbyteries, now they also have a few mores steps before you get to their Congress like our General Assembly but it’s the same system and compared to the many wet wipes we have would see an improvement. 


Anyway up to this point is just a wee bonus, something you probably didn’t know but what got me started on politics and thinking of the state of the country is the Chancellor Rachel Reeves and the rumour mill is that she is going to announce how savers should put their savings in stocks and shares sometime this week. That is if you have money lying about in savings because most of us don’t have a lot of it. You don’t need to be a stock broker to see that profit or gain is good and loss is bad. 


Paul now understood what he once was, was loss and what he once would have considered loss was gain. In effect since he came to saving faith his life had been transformed so that what he once considered as profit he now considered loss. So much so that he considered everything loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus his Lord. This is a man who once amongst his own people would have been seen as a man who in every way had something to boast about, his heritage and his piety, his devotion to his Lord but he considered these things as worthless. 


What is more he considered them rubbish. That is the PG version of what Paul was saying although today there is no such thing as rubbish probably a renewable resource but I digress. The Greek word that is used here Skybala, it can be used to describe various kinds of filth, rubbish yes, but it also is used to speak of dung, excrement and that’s me being polite. For Paul, he was able to say everything that he had compared to knowing Christ was rubbish, dung, excrement. 


For Paul he would have lost his family, he would have been shunned, disowned, disinherited, he would have lost all his friends, he would have have been unable to return to where he grew up. For Paul the cost of following Christ was great, for many today the cost of following Christ where they live in countries that they for following Christ can be beaten, tortured, raped, martyred for their faith and yet the cost for us is so small. And even though Paul had lost all things, he was not lamenting, he in fact considered all that he had lost as rubbish in order that he may gain Christ. 


We may think that what matters in this life is a good education as money in the bank account. Maybe we want for our children to be rich and famous to never have to deal with the things that we have to deal with the struggles that we've had to deal with, but in reality these things cannot save us. While they might give us temporal comfort they do nothing for us eternally. Often though we live like the things of this world are of more value to us that our eternal hope through Christ. Know that they are loss, that they are rubbish, dung, excrement in comparison to Christ for through him we have a righteousness that is not our own, we obtain a righteousness by faith alone that means we have an eternal home. 


Pray (acTS)


Sing


WSC
Q26 How doth Christ execute the office of a king?
A. Christ executeth the office of a king, in subduing us to himself, in ruling and defending us, and in restraining and conquering all his and our enemies.
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