-Words are important, wouldn’t you agree?
-There is a big difference between saying, “That’s looks terrific!” and “That looks interesting.”
-The impact of “I love you” is very different than “I hate you.”
-The name of one’s church says a lot as well. Bethlehem Lutheran Church is a wonderful name for a church. King David’s family probably takes special emphasis for y’all and I would imagine that Christmas is an extra special celebration for y’all. As I looked through the phone book and looked at the names of different churches in the area and others that I remembered from outside the area we have a plethora of biblical people and place names that form the names of our churches in America: St. Luke, St. Peter, St. Paul, St. Matthew, St. Mark, St. John, St. Timothy, St. Titus, St. James, Antioch, Bethel, Berean, Bethany, Mt. of Olives, Mt. Zion
-My wife and I joked around a bit right after we found out we were pregnant but before we found out we were going to have a son five years ago. We were trying to decide on a name for our child. We came up with some names we knew that we didn’t really want to use because they brought up negative connotations
-We thought naming our child – Jezebel, Rahab, Nadab, Abihu, Ananias, Sapphira, Absalom, Amnon, Gomer, Lo-Ruhamah, Lo-ammi, Nebuchadnezzar – probably brought up too many negative connotations and might scar them for life
-There are some names for churches that have been avoided for obvious reasons
-I did an internet search and found no Laodicean churches probably because in Revelation 3, God uses John to call them to account for being a lukewarm church that He would spit out of His mouth
-I found one church named after the church of Thyatira – a church that God convicted of participating in sexual immorality
-I wonder what their worship services are like. I don’t think I want to know.
-There aren’t many churches name after the church at Corinth because of the many troubles that the Apostle Paul had to deal with there
-I don’t know why there aren’t many Philippian churches
-Now, don’t get me wrong – there aren’t any perfect churches
-One of my seminary profs once said that if you want a perfect church get rid of all the people and that includes the pastor
-However, the Philippian church is probably a good model for a healthy church
-Why don’t we have more churches named after the church of Philippi? {PAUSE}
-We’ve been very blessed – most of the congregations that we’ve been called to work with have not only been very rewarding to work with but we’ve been very personally blessed to work with them
-My field work church just outside the St. Louis city limits is an older congregation. They just celebrated their 100th anniversary a few years ago. They’ve had seminary students assisting in worship for probably the majority of that time and they love seeing their students grow, learn and develop. They love being a part of that process.
-My vicarage assignment was working with two mission congregations in Northern Kentucky. Both of them were about four years old at the time and were started by lay people who put ads in the paper to see if there were Lutherans in the local area that were interested in beginning a worshipping community. They were as different, demographically, as night and day. One was in a suburb and the other out in the country. One was made up of young families and the other mostly retired folks but they shared a deep affection for one another and their pastor.
-The congregation that I assisted with after graduation from the seminary was a medium-sized congregation in a suburb of Des Moines. It was an interesting mix of semi-retired farmers and young families who worked in Des Moines. They also loved one another and their pastors very warmly. The congregation threw us a house warming party after we arrived and a number of families from the congregation signed up to invited us to their homes or different community activities in order to get to know us better. They also wowed us with some wonderful books containing warm wishes and gift certificates from the members of the congregation to show their appreciation for their pastors for Pastor Appreciation Month. When their senior pastor celebrated the major milestone of 25 years in the ministry they got him a weekend getaway to St. Louis to go see the Cards and Cubs play baseball.
-I’ve been blessed to work with some Philippian churches even in my short time in the ministry
-How about you? Are you a Philippian church? {PAUSE}
-I had just got home from work, I listened to my answering machine and I had received a rather nasty message from my boss, he was not happy
-He told me to give him a call when I got in but not before 9 p.m. That was in three hours. I stewed and worried for all 10,800 seconds. I picked up the phone at 9 p.m., dialed the number, Capt Davis answered and was about to explode. I apologized and told him that it would never happen again. He said, “okay” tersely and then said, “See you tomorrow.”
-What just happened? Was that it? What happened to the chewing out?
-About 80% of what we worry about never happens and the other 20% turns out better than we probably imagined it would
-One pastor once suggested that if we spent less time worrying and more time praying, we would have less to worry about
-Why do we worry so much? Is it that we don’t really trust God with everything in our lives? Do we think that we know better than God does how to handle the issues in our lives?
-We like to be in control. Guess what? That’s not a good thing.
-When the going gets tough, who do you want driving the car, you or your infant, you or your toddler, you or your teenager, you or a professional driver who has logged millions of miles and knows the road like the back of his hand? The most experienced driver of course. Who knows the road better than the one who made it?
-Jesus walked the way of hardship for us so that He could walk it again with you when you are going through it.
-And notice what it says the result of praying to God in all things is. Verse 7 says, “And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your heats and your minds in Christ Jesus.”
-I’ve seen what military policemen do on a daily basis to secure the military installations. I pity the poor fool who tries to get on illegally. That will not be the best day they ever had.
-Wars have always been about superior technology, overwhelming force, better tactics and the ability to resupply. However, they have also been, especially in modern warfare, been about ideology and winning public opinion by winning the mind.
-And that’s what God does. He isn’t as much interested in watching over lives as He is hearts and minds. You see, if you win the hearts and minds, generally the body falls in line
-And how much more powerful, how much more able is God to protect us? That is what God does for us.
-The Philippian church trusted God to protect them even in the midst of turmoil{PAUSE}
-When I graduated form West Point in 1991, I intended on retiring from the Army after 20 years. God had other plans. I ended up burning myself out and needed to get out to maintain my sanity. God used the opportunity to draw me closer to Him and send me off to seminary so that years later I could come back in as a chaplain. I try not to focus on the fact that I have 16 years to go until retirement but I have had a lot of good experiences from my days in the Army that are helping me today to help many young men and women to not repeat my mistakes.
-It is all about perspective. It is about reframing the issue.
-The other day I was talking with a young couple that was sharing some of the tragedies that they had gone through in their lives – family members had died, people had gotten sick.
-I asked what the mortality rate in the United States was. 100% It is not a tragedy when a person dies. It is not what God initially planned but it is now normal. It is part of everyday life. It is actually a blessing. It gets us part of the way to our eternal hope. We don’t get the whole enchilada until Jesus comes back but at least it gets us out of here – this side of the veil of tears. It is about perspective.
-Paul encourages the Philippian church to focus on the positives. They were a half-full type church {PAUSE}
-The Philippian church was not a perfect one, by any stretch of the imagination
-The verses preceding our text for today proves that
-There were two ladies in the church who, for some reason or another couldn’t get along {PAUSE}
-Corrie Ten Boom was a Dutch Christian girl whose family hid Jewish people after they had been invaded by the Germans during WWII. They were eventually discovered and imprisoned. After her family died and the war was over, Corrie went around Europe telling her story of courage and forgiveness.
I found this illustration on the internet:
-It was in a church in Munich where I was speaking in 1947 that I saw him--a balding heavyset man in a gray overcoat, a brown felt hat clutched between his hands. One moment I saw the overcoat and the brown hat, the next, a blue uniform and a visored cap with its skull and crossbones.
-Memories of the concentration camp came back with a rush: the huge room with its harsh overhead lights, the pathetic pile of dresses and shoes in the center of the floor, the shame of walking naked past this man. I could see my sister’s frail form ahead of me, ribs sharp beneath the parchment of skin.
-Betsie and I had been arrested for concealing Jews in our home during the Nazi occupation of Holland. This man had been a guard at Ravensbruck concentration camp where we were sent.
-Now he was in front of me, hand thrust out: "A fine message, fraulein! How good it is to know that, as you say, all our sins are at the bottom of the sea!"
-It was the first time since my release that I had been face to face with one of my captors and my blood seemed to freeze.
-"You mentioned Ravensbruck in your talk," he was saying. "I was a guard there. But since that time," he went on, "I have become a Christian. I know that God has forgiven me for the cruel things I did there, but I would like to hear it from your lips as well. Fraulein--" again the hand came out--"will you forgive me?"
-And I stood there--and could not. Betsie had died in that place--could he erase her slow terrible death simply for the asking?
-It could not have been many seconds that he stood there, hand held out, but to me it seemed hours as I wrestled with the most difficult thing I had ever had to do.
-For I had to do it--I knew that. The message that God forgives has a prior condition: that we forgive those who have injured us. "If you do not forgive men their trespasses," Jesus says, "neither will your Father in Heaven forgive your trespasses."
-Still I stood there with the coldness clutching my heart. But forgiveness is an act of the will, and the will can function regardless of the temperature of the heart. "Jesus, help me!" I prayed silently. "I can lift my hand. I can do that much. You supply the feeling."
-And so woodenly, mechanically, I thrust my hand into the one stretched out to me. And as I did, an incredible thing took place. The current started in my shoulder, raced down my arm, sprang into our joined hands. And then this healing warmth seemed to flood my whole being, bringing tears to my eyes.
-"I forgive you, brother!" I cried. "With all my heart!"
For a long moment we grasped each other’s hands, the former guard and former prisoner. I had never known God’s love so intensely as I did then.
-That is what Jesus has done for us – it was our sin that not only caused him to be beaten and tortured but he died for us too – all of our sins have been taken away and He grants us forgiveness as we request it from Him
-We need to be reminded every week that we are forgiven sinners so that we might extend the love and forgiveness of God to others that He has placed in our lives
-The Philippians were forgiven and they knew it. {PAUSE}
-Because of Jesus’ love for them, the Philippian church, most of all, was a giving, concerned church
-They were filled with the attitude of gratitude
-The Apostle Paul, had been sent to them by God to start the church in Philippi
-However, he was not allowed to stay long because of one of the usual uproars that started because of the Gospel preached there
-Paul paid his way on his missionary journeys by selling tents
-However, being in prison, as he was, he obviously could not make or sell his tents
-The Philippians found out of his need, collected an offering for him and sent it by means of Epaphroditus
I got this illustration on Sermon Central:
-After being away on business, a man thought it would be nice to bring his wife a little gift. “How about some perfume?” he asked the cosmetics clerk.
She showed him a bottle costing $50.00. “That’s a bit much,” he said, so she returned with a smaller bottle for $30.00. “That’s still quite a bit,” he complained. Growing annoyed, the clerk brought out a tiny $15.00 bottle. “You know,” he said, “What I mean is that I’d like to see something really cheap.” The clerk handed him a mirror.
-Just as God was extravagant in His giving us Jesus Christ for our good, the Philippians were extravagant in giving for Paul’s good
-Are you a Philippian church?
