Solid Help for Solving Problems
Philippians 4:1-9
Sermon by Rick Crandall
McClendon Baptist Church - June 24, 2007
*Sooner or later, every family will face problems. In this season of church camps, let me tell you about an 8-year-old boy who went to camp some years ago. This was before the days of cell phones, and one day his parents got this post card:
Dear Folks,
I knew all along that something awful was going to happen.
Well, last night it did.
Love,
Johnny (1)
*Yikes! Sooner or later, every family will face problems. What are we to do? Today we can look into the Word of God and see.
*Now the problem Paul addressed here was between two ladies in the church. But the principles we see here hold true for every relational problem you will ever face. What should we do?
1. First: Be firm about things that matter.
*But what really matters the most? What matters the most to God? If you had to boil it down to one word, it would be relationships.
1-God cares most of all about our relationship with Him. That’s why vs. 1 pleads for believers to “stand fast [or stand firm] in the Lord.” Relationship: Paul was so passionate about his relationship with the Lord that back in chapter 3 he said:
8. . . . I also count all things loss for the excellence of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them as rubbish, that I may gain Christ
9. and be found in Him, not having my own righteousness, which is from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which is from God by faith;
10. that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death . . . (Phil 3:8-10)
2-God cares most of all about our relationship with Him. The only other thing that comes close is our relationship with each other. This is why in vs. 2 Paul said, “I implore [beseech, beg, urge, plead] Euodia and I implore Syntyche to be of the same mind in the Lord.”
*Euodia and Syntyche were having a disagreement, just like we have sometimes with our family, our friends, at school, at work, even at church.
-We don’t know what the argument was about. It wasn’t important enough for Paul to even mention. (Have you ever gotten into arguments over nothing?)
*We also don’t know who was to blame. Was it Euodia’s fault? It could have been, but her name meant “Pleasant Journey,” and I am sure she was a wonderful woman. Syntyche’s name meant “Pleasant Acquaintance.”
-Both of these women were good, Godly women.
-Both of them were saved;
-Both of them had worked together with Paul to help spread the Good News about Jesus.
*But now both of them needed to put first things first in their relationship. God wanted them to stop fussing and fighting, because it was a terrible waste and a terrible witness. Euodia and Syntyche needed to change their minds so they could have the same mind in the Lord. As Paul said in 2 Cor 10:5, every thought needed to be brought into “captivity to the obedience of Christ.”
*God wants to change our minds, so we will be firm about the things that matter.
*Remember the strategy Dr. Tony Campolo uses to help struggling marriages? Listen again to the quote I gave you a few weeks ago. Tony said,
-“I challenge those who come to me for marriage counseling this way: ‘If you do what I tell you to do for an entire month, I can promise you that by the end of the month, you will be in love with your mate. Are you willing to give it a try?’
*When couples accept my challenge, the results are invariably successful. My prescription for creating love is simple: do ten things each day that you would do if you really were in love.
-I know that if people do loving things, it will not be long before they experience the feelings that are often identified as being in love.
*Love is not those feelings. Love is what one wills to do to make the other person happy and fulfilled. Often, we don’t realize that what a person does influences what he feels. (2)
*Minister George Crane told of a wife who came into his office full of hatred toward her husband. She told the preacher, “I do not only want to get rid of him, I want to get even. Before I divorce him, I want to hurt him as much as he has me.”
*Knowing how these things often work, Dr. Crane suggested this plan:
-“Go home and act as if you really love your husband. Tell him how much he means to you. Praise him for every decent trait. Go out of your way to be as kind, considerate, and generous as possible. Spare no efforts to please him, to enjoy him. Make him believe you love him.
*After you’ve convinced him of your undying love and that you cannot live without him, then drop the bomb. Tell him that you’re getting a divorce. That will really hurt him.”
*With revenge in her eyes, she smiled and exclaimed, “Beautiful, beautiful. Will he ever be surprised!”
-And she did it, acting “as if” for two months.
*When she didn’t come back, Dr. Crane called. “Are you ready now to go through with the divorce?”
-“Divorce? Never! I discovered I really do love him.” (3)
*Her actions had changed her feelings. She woke up to what really matters: relationships. God cares most about our relationship with Him, and our relationships with each other. When Jesus was asked about the greatest commandment, His answer was: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind & with all your strength.’ This is the 1st commandment. And the second, like it, is this: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself’” (Mark 12:29-31)
*That’s what matters to God.
2. To help solve your problem: Be firm about things that matter, and listen to Godly friends.
*Paul was being a Godly friend in vs. 2 when he said, “I beg Euodia and Syntyche to be of the same mind in the Lord.”
*God wants us to be friends like that too, as we hear Paul say in vs. 3, “I urge you also, true companion, help these women who labored with me in the gospel...”
*In Eph 4:15, God calls us to “speak the truth in love,” and that is what we should do, even though sometimes it can be very hard. But Godly friends like that can’t help us, if we’re not willing to listen. Are you willing to listen? When you are having a problem, good listening can make the difference.
*Heather Whitestone reminds us how crucial hearing can be. Some of you may remember Heather, because she was Miss America in 1995.
-Like all Miss Americas, Heather Whitestone was beautiful and talented. But unlike any Miss America before or since, Heather Whitestone was deaf.
*Several years later, Heather was in the news again. By then, she was Heather Whitestone McCallum. And she talked about having cochlear implant surgery in order to hear. Heather said that she decided to have the operation when her 2-year-old son, John, fell in her back yard.
*Here’s what she told reporters: “I couldn’t hear him crying. I need to be the first one to hear him.” (4)
*Whenever we are having a problem, we need to hear, but more than that, we need to listen.
3. To help solve your problem: Listen to Godly friends, and forgive as we have been forgiven.
*Paul doesn’t directly talk about forgiveness in this passage, but in vs. 3, he talks about believers “whose names are in the Book of Life.”
-He is talking about God’s Book of eternal life, and your name will never get there without forgiveness: The forgiveness that comes only through the cross of Jesus Christ.
*Every person in this world deserves eternal punishment for our sins. But God loves us and sent His Son to die on the cross for our sins. Three days later he rose from the dead! And if you will trust in Jesus as Savior and Lord, you will receive the forgiveness that we all desperately needed.
*Then you will be able to say what Paul said in Eph 1:7, “In [Jesus] we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of His grace.”
*But know this: God calls us to forgive even as we have been forgiven.
-God’s Word makes this clear in Eph 4:31-32, which says, “Let all bitterness, wrath, anger, clamor, and evil speaking be put away from you, with all malice. And be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, just as God in Christ also forgave you.”
*Chris Carrier of Coral Gables, Florida, was abducted when he was 10 years old. His kidnapper, angry with the boy’s family, burned him with cigarettes, stabbed him numerous times with an ice pick, then shot him in the head and left him to die in the Everglades.
*Amazingly, Chris survived, though he lost sight in one eye. No one was ever arrested.
*In the late 90’s a man confessed to the crime. Chris had become a youth minister and went to see him. He found David McAllister, a 77-year-old ex-convict, frail and blind, living in a North Miami Beach nursing home.
*Chris began visiting often, reading to McAllister from the Bible and praying with him. His ministry opened the door for McAllister to receive Jesus as Savior and Lord.
*No arrest was ever made. After 22 years, the statute of limitations was long past.
*Chris later talked about forgiving the man who tortured and almost killed him. Chris said, “While many people can’t understand how I could forgive David McAllister. From my point of view I couldn’t not forgive him.
-If I’d chosen to hate him all these years, or spent my life looking for revenge, then I wouldn’t be the man I am today, the man my wife and children love, the man God has helped me to be.” (5)
4. To help solve your problem: Forgive as we have been forgiven, and get filled with the joy of the Lord.
*As Paul said in vs. 4, “Rejoice in the Lord always. Again I will say, rejoice!”
-Paul is telling us that we need to make Jesus our constant source of joy.
-There should be an unending, overflowing celebration of the Lord in our lives.
*We can always have the joy of the Lord because the Lord is always with us. As Paul said in vs. 5, “The Lord is at hand!”
*It is important to remember that when Paul wrote these words he was a prisoner of Rome, bound in chains. His only crime was telling the truth about Jesus. Paul could have been filled with bitterness, but he overflowed with the joy of the Lord. And we can too!
*Our hands are not in chains today. We are blessed far more than most people in the world. But if all of that was taken away:
-We would still have grace.
-We would still have Heaven.
-We would still have Jesus!
*I really like this story about Professor William Phelps. He taught English Literature at Yale from 1892-1933.
-Dr. Phelps was grading tests shortly before Christmas one year. And he noticed a note a student had written next to a tough question on the test.
*The student wrote, “God only knows the answer to this question. Merry Christmas.”
*The professor returned the test with his own note written below the student’s comment. Dr. Phelps wrote: “God gets an A. You get an F. Happy New Year.” (6)
*I like that statement: “God gets an A.” When the world is falling apart and nothing seems to be going your way, God gets an A!
*Forever and always, God gets an A! He is wonderful all the time. We can always rejoice in His goodness, His love and His grace. We can always rejoice in Him.
5. To help solve your problem: Get filled with the joy of the Lord, and keep focused on God’s plan for your life.
*Vs. 6-9 give us 3 key parts of God’s plan for your life, 3 things to focus on.
1-First, focus on prayer.
*The longer I am a Christian, the more I see our need for prayer. As Paul said in vs. 6&7, “Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God; and the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.”
*How should we pray? Confidently, consistently, thankfully, earnestly. Paul said “make your requests known by prayer and supplication.” Prayer is a general term for making requests, but supplication is taking it to a higher level -- praying with urgency.
2-Focus on prayer, and focus on positive things.
*As Paul said in vs. 8, “Whatever things are true, noble, just, pure, lovely, of good report, if there is any virtue and if there is anything worthy of praise, think, dwell, meditate, focus on these things.”
*Sometimes it’s hard to be positive in this world. Paul knew that our tendency is to focus on the negative. And he knew that focusing on the positive is good for us.
-It helps us to see things more clearly.
-It helps us to keep the right perspective.
-It helps us to be open to creative solutions.
*And as Christians, we have so many positive things to focus on!
-Even in these few verses, we see our Christian family. In vs. 1, Paul described fellow believers as “our dearly beloved and longed for -- our joy & crown”
-We also see our home in Heaven, because if Jesus is our Lord and Savior, our names are written in the Book of Life.
-We see the joy we can have in Jesus.
-We see the promise of God’s presence, and the promise of peace.
3-Focus on positive things, and focus on putting a Christlike life into practice.
*Keep applying God’s truth to your life. As Paul said in vs. 9, “The things which you learned and received and heard and saw in me, these do, and the God of peace will be with you.”
*What have we learned? What have we received, heard & seen in Paul? Many things:
-God’s Love & Life.
-Salvation & Service.
-Our Work & Our Witness.
-Missions & Ministry.
-And much, much more!
*The God of peace will be with us as we focus on putting the Christian life into practice.
*Elaine Pondant was reminded of this in an unusual way. A few months after Elaine’s dad died, her mother gave their old bed to Elaine. The bed was about 45 years old at the time. Elaine decided to strip the wood and refinish it for her daughter Melanie, but her plan took off in a new direction when she started the project. Here is part of Elaine’s testimony:
The headboard was full of scratches. Just before starting to take the paint off, I noticed that one of the scratches was a date: Sept. 18, 1946, the day my parents were married.
*Then it struck me this was the first bed they had as husband and wife! Right above their wedding date was another name and date: “Elizabeth, Oct. 22, 1947.”
-I called my mother. “Who is Elizabeth,” I asked, “and what does Oct. 22, 1947, mean?”
-“She’s your sister.”
-I knew Mom had lost a baby, but I never saw this as anything more than a misfortune for my parents. After all, they went on to have five more children.
-“You gave her a name?” I asked.
-“Yes. -She’s as much a part of me as any of you.”
*“Mom, there are other dates on the headboard. May I come over and talk to you about them?”
*Over lunch, Mom told me about Jan. 14, 1951, the day she lost her purse at a department store. Three days later, the purse arrived in the mail. A letter from a woman named Amy said: “I took five dollars from your wallet to mail the purse to you. I hope you will understand.”
-There was no return address, so Mom couldn’t thank her, and there was nothing missing except the 5 dollars.
*Then there was George. On Dec. 15, 1967, George shot a rattlesnake poised to strike my brother Dominick.
*On Sept. 18, 1971, my parents celebrated their silver wedding anniversary and renewed their vows.
*I learned about a nurse named Janet who stayed by my mother and prayed with her after my sister Patricia’s near fatal fall from a swing.
*There was a stranger who broke up the attempted mugging of my father but left without giving his name.
*“Who is Ralph?” I asked.
-“On Feb. 18, 1966, Ralph saved your brother’s life in Da Nang. Ralph was killed two years later on his second tour of duty.”
*My brother never spoke about the Vietnam War. The memories were deeply buried. My nephew’s name is Ralph. Now I knew why.
*When I told my husband about the headboard, he said, “There’s room for a lot more stories.”
*We moved the bed with the story book headboard into our room. My husband and I have already carved in three dates and names. (7)
CONCLUSION:
*Every believer could have a headboard like that: Stories of problems, people who helped, answered prayer, and the Hand of God at work in our lives.
*As long as we live, we will face problems. And some of them will be extremely difficult to solve. But God will always be there to help us.
*Do you know Him? Have you put your faith in Jesus Christ? Open your heart to Jesus. Receive Him as Savior and Lord. Then you can cry out to Him in every situation. Don’t try to face your problems alone. Cry out to Jesus. (8)
1. christianglobe.com sermon “FAMILY RESEMBLANCE” - Family Secrets, #7 - by King Duncan - I John 3:1-3
2. Dr. Anthony Campolo, in Homemade, June, 1988. (Found at sermonillustrations.com - Topic: Marriage)
3. Story by J. Allan Petersen (Found at sermonillustrations.com)
4. KERUX ILLUSTRATION COLLECTION - ID Number: 9908 - SOURCE: A Word With You By Ron Hutchcraft #4112 - TITLE: Hearing Your Child - AUTHOR: Ron Hutchcraft - DATE: 10/15/02
5. Christian Reader (Jan/Feb 98) - (Quoted in Leadership Journal Spring 1998, Vol. XIX, No. 2, p. 73) Found in Cross & Crown sermon “Model Prayer 1 - Spirit” by James McCullen - Matt 6:9-13
6. (Today in the Word, October, 1990, p. 10. *MODIFIED*) Found in SermonCentral sermon “What Must I Do to Be Saved” by John Baggett - Acts 16:27-34
7. Adapted from KERUX ILLUSTRATION COLLECTION - ID Number: 28108 - SOURCE: Wit And Wisdom at http://www.witandwisdom.org by Richard G. Wimer - TITLE: Stories On A Headboard - AUTHOR: Elaine Pondant - DATE: 3/18/04
8. “Cry Out to Jesus” by Third Day was the invitation.
