HOW TO BE A CHRISTIAN AND STILL ENJOY LIFE
GUESS WHAT? THE CHURCH HAS PROBLEMS!
Sunday March 30, 2008
Scripture Reference: Philippians 1:15-18a
Intro.
A. [] Show video clip from Apollo 13 movie. “Houston we have a problem.” Those are probably considered by many people to be immortal words. Words that will not long be forgotten, unlike the most popular phase of 2007, any one know what that was? “Don’t taze me bro.”
1. As Neil Armstrong said to the space center in Houston “Houston we have a problem.” I want to say to you here today at Cornerstone and any one else who may listen to this sermon on our sermon player, “Church we have a problem.” Well that is not entirely true; the reality is we have multiple problems! Let me share a few more quotes from a book I mentioned a while back called “The Jesus I Never Knew” by Philip Yancey. He quotes a lady named Annie Dillard who said, “What a pity that so hard on the heels of Christ come the Christians.” Yancey said that her comment reminded him a t-shirt he saw at a political rally that read, “Jesus save us…from your followers.” In a movie called “Heavenly Creatures” he quotes two girls who describe an imaginary kingdom like this, “It is like heaven only better-there aren’t any Christians.”
2. I know it may be hard to swallow but it is true, sometimes we have found the enemy and he is US! One of the ways we try to escape the problems facing the church today is by longing for the “Good Old days”. Boy if we could just go back in time to the days of the New Testament church, the days of Peter, Paul, John and the others. You know what I am talking about don’t you? The days when the church had no problems, the days when everyone loved each other and got along like two peas in a pod. You know the problem with the so called “good old days” is that when we remember them we tend to use selective memory. You know the church has and still has problems. I like to quote my former pastor who said, “The church would be perfect if it wasn’t for you and me, but as long as you and I are in it is not a perfect place.”
B. Oh for the days of the New Testament church, well let’s think about those days for a few minute shall we? I will show you in a moment some of the problems that existed in the church Paul was writing to here but let’s think about a few other churches. One was the church in Galatia. Let’s turn to Galatians 1:6-9 (read). Boy I can sure understand Paul’s pain. He just finish preaching a message and they church no sooner got out the door than they forgot what he preached and started doing the very things he warned against. Let’s go back to Philippians 4:2-3 (read). Can you believe it? There were actually two people not getting along in the church at Philippi. Now we won’t turn to the various verses but consider with me the church at Corinth. Paul writes to them in 1 Corinthians and scolds them because they are taking sides as to who was the one to follow. Then there is this guy who I shaving sex with his fathers wife and on top of that they are taking each other to peoples court and airing all their dirty laundry for people to see. Oh for the good old days of the New Testament church. You know those days when all was well and no problems existed.
Trans. Now I would remind you today that Paul is addressing specific problems that are occurring in the Church at Rome but please remember why he is sharing this with the church at Philippi. He knows that what happened at Rome can happen at Philippi and what happened at Rome and can happen at Philippi can also happen at Cornerstone in 2008. What I see in the things Paul is saying in V.15-18a is that the church has an attitude problem.
I. THE CHURCH HAS AN ATTITUDE PROBLEM.
Paul said to these Christians in 2:5 “Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus.” We will of course look more closely at that when the time comes but what we see in these verses we are studying today is that this attitude did not seem to exist at least for the church in Rome. In fact I see here that they are displaying four bad attitudes that quite honestly are the same bad attitudes that exist in the church today. Let’s look at them. Now before we look at the specific attitudes I want you to see what I have already been saying in that the trouble that Paul was experiencing during his imprisonment was being caused at least in part by Christians! Now I am equally as certain that others were causing Paul a good deal of trouble but the fact is we would expect trouble from those who do not follow Christ, but we don’t expect it from our own kind.
A. The Christians Were Causing Paul Trouble,
1. I know this is not an easy pill to swallow but what we reading these verses shows us that the bad attitudes Paul was dealing with while imprisoned in Rome were coming from other Christians. Now there are some who feel that the people Paul was talking about in these verses were those we call the Judaizers. The Judaizers were a group of people who believed that salvation was obtained by the performance of certain laws. The most important of those laws to them was circumcision. If you were not circumcised you could not be saved. Now the reason it appears that it is not these people Paul is speaking about here is because when Paul did address the problem of the Judaizers his words were much harsher. In fact a great example of this is found in 3:2 (read).
2. If you will notice when reading these verses Paul does not speak about a false doctrine or message that is being preached he just talks about a false motive or attitude behind the message. I won’t go there again now but if you look back at those verses in Galatians we looked at a few minutes ago you will see that there Paul is addressing these Judaizers.
Trans. Now let’s look at these three bad attitudes that Paul said existed in the church and that I would suggest are still prevalent in the church today. First there is the attitude of jealousy.
B. The Attitude Of Jealousy.
1. Now notice again in V.15 that Paul says these people are preaching Christ, but the problem was their attitude or motivation for preaching which appears to be jealousy. What were these people jealous of? Well I think it was most likely that they were jealous of Paul. Now in order to understand what is being said here you need to understand a little about the context. Remember that Rome was considered at this time to be the center of all society. You might say that the people of Rome felt as though they were the center of the universe, hence expression all roads lead to Rome. Many scholars feel that the religious establishment of Rome at this time felt that Paul could not survive if he had to come there and preach his message. So when Paul arrives he is given quite a welcome and then as we learned in the last verses we studied he was even guarded by the most elite troops Rome had to offer. It doesn’t take a great stretch of the imagination to see jealousy welling up in the hearts of some of these people.
2. Sadly jealousy is an attitude that the church has not been able to completely free itself of. I wish I could point my finger at you and say this is a problem YOU have and you better fix it. The reality is jealousy is a bad attitude I have to battle more often than I like. My jealous attitude is probably not that far off from what Paul was addressing here. Unfortunately there are times when I have jealous attitudes about other pastors. “Why did that guy get that church?” “What did he do or who did he kiss up to merit that church?” “How come that guy’s church is growing and mine isn’t?” “I am every bit as good a preacher as he is.”
3. Aren’t you glad that jealousy is only an attitude we preachers have to battle and not you? I am sure that you never feel jealous of someone at work. Someone who got a promotion you felt should have been yours. After all you have worked there longer than they have. I am sure you have never had jealous feelings towards someone because they were able to afford some of the nice things that you can’t afford. And I am totally certain that you never struggle with the attitude that says, “Why does that person in church get so much attention or praise?” “Why did pastor give them his appreciation award and not me?” “I deserve it a lot more than they do.”
Trans. Church we have a problem and it is the bad attitude of Jealousy, but unfortunately that is not all. There is also the bad attitude of strife.
C. The Bad Attitude Of Strife.
1. Most bibles translate this word as the NLT does as “rivalry”. What it is talking about is the desire to argue and fight about just anything. I honestly feel that there are some people in this world who feel that if there is not something to fight about then life is not worth living. And if there is nothing to fight about they seem pretty capable to find something to argue and fight over.
2. Now I will grant you this there are some things worth fighting for. There are some things that we ought to stand up against or stand up for. In fact look at what Paul said in V.27 (read). While there are those things that we ought to stand against that thing should never be EACH OTHER! The fighting that was happening here was not the fighting that was going on in V.27. You know we are not told exactly what kind of things these people were arguing about but I think that is a good thing. If we knew exactly what the argument was about we might be tempted to excuse ourselves. We might be tempted to say, “Well I am not arguing about that, my problem is of a totally different kind.” I think Paul left out the specifics of this battle because what he wanted us to know is that we ought not to be fighting amongst ourselves.
3. I mentioned in a message a few weeks back about some theological difference that exist between churches. Those differences are real but they ought not to be the source of strife in the church. They are not issues that make the difference in people finding Christ or not, but when we fight about them they certainly become obstacles to that message. [] Let me share a personal experience. Our Saturday night street evangelism in Bible College.
Trans. In V.18 Paul lists two more attitudes that were plaguing the church at that time. The first was:
D. The Bad Attitude Of Selfishness.
1. Paul said that some people were preaching Christ out of a selfish ambition. I am not going to elaborate on this a lot right here because we are going to be looking at this attitude in chapter 2, but we have to admit that there are some who see the cause of Christ as an opportunity to profit for themselves. It would be hard to deny the fact that there are some preachers who have used the gospel more to advance their own cause than the cause of Christ. I fully believe that a workman as Paul said is worthy of his wages (1 Timothy 5:18). The problem arises when we see pastors who seem to be living levels that are so out of proportion to the people they are supposed to be leading.
2. One of the things that I admire so much about Pastor Rick Warren of Saddleback church is his understanding of this. Did you know that after his book “The Purpose Driven Life” came out he began receiving churches for millions of dollars? Did you know what he did with those checks? He paid back 20 years of salary to his church and quit taking a pay check for this ministry there. What he DIDN”T do is just as significant. He didn’t buy a new car or a new house. He kept the ones he had and began to tithe 90% of his income. [] His TV interview.
3. I have no problem with pastors of large churches making a lot of money. Many years ago I heard an answer to an argument about pastor’s salaries that really helped me. I was in a meeting where a policy was being set about what pastors should be paid. One man spoke up because he felt pastors were being paid too much and were given too much vacation time. The man leading the meeting asked what we felt a person would make who lead a company of 50-100 employees. Some figures were given and then the man asked us to consider that pastors are basically heads of companies and even a small church is a fairly good size company to lead.
Trans. Now there is one more attitude that is mentioned here and I can only describe it as the attitude of irritation.
E. The Bad Attitude Of Irritation.
1. When Paul said in V.18 that these people wanted to make the chains he was in more painful for him the word here means for these chains to rub against his wrists and cause an irritation. What Paul was telling us is that these people were trying to make Paul anxious about getting free from these chains he was in but I want you to remember what Paul told us back up in V.13-14 (read). Remember that Paul did not see his chains as something that held him back but instead they were something that set him free. Notice that is says in V.18 “...intending to make my chains more painful for me.” Paul speaks just like Joseph in Genesis 50:20 You intended to harm me, but God intended it all for good. He brought me to this position so I could save the lives of many people.
Trans. Let’s shift gears here and talk about what we can do to combat these attitude problems that existed in the church of Paul’s day and still exist in ours.
II. HOW TO COMBAT BAD ATTITUDES.
Just like last week in my message I am going to get very simple here. The best way to combat the bad attitude of other is to have the right attitude yourself!
A. Have The Right Attitude Yourself!
1. Look at what Paul said in V.18 “But that doesn’t matter…” Do you want to know what my first reaction is when I read those words? “What does it matter? What does it matter? I’ll tell you Paul “what does it matter.” It matters a whole lot, if these people are jealous, selfish, divisive, and hurtful it matters a whole lot! How can you say, “What does it matter, are you crazy?” That is how I want to respond to Paul. What is going on here is Paul a pacifist, is Paul one of those people who says, “Can’t we all just get along.” Never mind that these people are bad people and that they are doing things wrong, let’s just hold hands and sing Kum Ba Ya.
2. No that wasn’t who Paul was in fact we can see in the writing of Acts and the letters he wrote to the various churches that Paul was a passionate guy. The difference between Paul and most of us is that Paul knew what to be passionate about! We need (and I have to include myself in this group very much) we need to choose our battles carefully. I know this is not true for you but I can get pretty irritated over things that really are no big deal. I am afraid that I expend valuable energy some times on things that are just not worth it and most of the time I am not talking about physical energy but emotional energy which I think sometimes is even more important.
3. I think that what we are learning here takes us back to V.9-10 (read). Isn’t this what Paul is telling us here, that we need discernment to know what really matters or what is best? What really matters is not whether you are Wesleyan or Calvin in your theology. It is not whether you pre-tribulation or post tribulation. What matters is are we sharing our faith, winning people to Christ and helping them to become disciples of Jesus Christ! All the other stuff is hay and stubble!
4. If you and I really want to change the attitude of others then we probably ought to start with the person in the mirror. In fact I have found in my own life that when my attitude it right the other person’s attitude just doesn’t seem to be so bad.
Trans. Let me share just one more thing quickly here that we can do to help improve the attitude problems in the church.
B. Leave Room For Differences.
1. Someone asked me once why there were so many different churches and I told them it was because there are so many different people. Why are there so many different writers? Because there are so many different readers. We don’t all enjoy reading the same authors and we don’t all enjoy listening to the same preachers. As much as it pains me to admit I know that not everyone will like my style of preaching, but as my mom always told me “You are entitled to your opinion no matter how wrong you are.” Lol.
2. Paul does not excuse the motive behind these people who were trying to cause him trouble but what he does is he elevates the message they are preaching. He realizes that Christ is being preached and for that he rejoices because that is all that matters. God will deal with the bad attitudes, so let’s leave that work to Him.
3. Have you ever stopped to consider this; some of the things these people might have been saying about Paul were true? Paul for as much as we admire him was not flawless. He was a man with weaknesses just lie the rest of us. I am sure that if he were pastoring a church today there would be some who would leave his church upset over his style just as some have left my churches. What I see in Paul that I admire is that he doesn’t work to discredit those who do not agree with him. He keeps turning the attention to Christ and not personalities.
THE NEXT STEP
A. Let’s go back to that story in Apollo 13. They had a problem, a BIG problem. As I think about that movie I realize that in that lunar modular there were three men with three very different personalities yet in spite of the difference among them they worked together and made what seem to be impossible happen.
1. If three men can figure out how to get this space craft back to earth using their own ingenuity then certain we who have the power of Christ in us can get past our differences so that a lost world can be reached for Christ.
