To Live: Grace & Peace Series

TEXT: Philippians 1:1,2

TITLE: To Live have Grace & Peace

SERIES: To Live

TOPIC: Grace & Peace

OCCASION: Burnside Christian Church,

PROP.: Paul reminds the Philippian church how to live…and live with JOY!

INTRODUCTION: Good morning! It is really, really good to back home and to be here with this church family again. For those who maybe weren’t aware, Lindsay and I came home Thursday night after an extensive and exclusive 8 day vacation to the Iowa City Hospital.

Thank you to all of you who prayed, called, visited, sent cards, sent gifts, emailed, text messaged -- it was really nice of you to express your concern and care in this way.

I want to briefly explain what will happen in the next few weeks to come. Lindsay was in the hospital because of crohn’s related conditions. She had a 4 inch abscess that had formed due to a deteriorated section of her large intestine. The abscess didn’t burst and all the infection was contained. While we were in the hospital, the doctors treated the abscess until they felt it was safe for us to come home. We will have to go back to Iowa City hospital in 4 - 8 weeks potentially for surgery to remove the section of diseased large intestine. In the meantime, Lindsay has a PICC line and is receiving all of her nourishment through the PICC line.

This is what she gets to eat every day for 14 hours a day…no…not the milk, but bag of fluid. Appetizing, huh? She can only drink water. Can’t even have chewing gum.

So this is how you can specifically continue to pray:

Pray that Lindsay won’t need surgery, but if she does, that we will have the best doctors and surgeons.

Pray that Lindsay will be satisfied with the food she is getting and will not crave other foods

Pray that her PICC line doesn’t become infected

Pray for Mark’s busy summer schedule.

Thanks for your care and concern. It means a lot to us.

Ok…back in the saddle again. Here we go! By the way, Mark Pettit did an awesome job preaching! I was able to listen to the CD yesterday…it was on forgiveness! If you didn’t get to hear it live, request a copy at the sound booth!

Today, I am doing something that I’ve not done in a long time! I am going to be preaching through an entire book of the Bible. For the next 10 weeks, we are going to be studying, applying and learning the truths contained in the book of Philippians.

Two things I would ask of you for the next 10 weeks:

1. Bring your Bible and a pen. (there may be things you want to mark in your Bibles and I want to encourage you to do so!)

2. Read through Philippians each week.

So when we are done with this series, you will have read Philippians 10 times. It is only 4 chapters long. It will take you 15 minutes a each week to read it! I want you to have some owner ship to this letter. I want you to become very familiar with this letter. Underline parts that speak to you. Highlight parts you want to put to memory.

Ok? Got those two things?

So as you’re turning to Philippians, allow me to give you some background information on this short letter.

AUTHOR: This letter is a letter written by Paul.

DATE: Probably 61 or 62 AD

PURPOSE: Why did Paul write this letter? I want you to jot this down. This is important! This is why we are going to spend 10 weeks looking at this book:

Paul reminds the Philippian church how to live life.

In fact, that is the name of this sermon series: TO LIVE!

And Paul uses such words as - Joy, gladness, rejoice to describe how to live! Many commentators have suggested that the theme of Philippians is joy!

INTRODUCTION:

And can I be really honest with you? I’ve been planning on preaching through Philippians even before Lindsay got sick and went to Iowa City. And while we were up there and while I was working on my sermon, I came REALLY close to preaching something else this Sunday. Why? Because I wasn’t really excited about preaching about joy. My life this past week wasn’t very ‘joy filled’.

The experiences of being in a hospital with Lindsay, of watching her suffer, of being away from home and family and friends didn’t make me happy. And I thought, “How can I preach from a book of the Bible that emphasizes joy when I am not happy?”

And then I remembered something: Paul is the one who is writing about joy. And where was he when he was writing about living life with joy? In prison! In jail! Shackled. A stone’s throw away from Nero’s palace. This missionary - this powerful communicator - is sitting in jail, suffering, away from home, away from friends and family and he is writing to the Christians in Philippi about how to live life with joy!