"Which Way from Here?"
Philippians 2:1-13
September 28, 2008
St. Paul United Methodist Church
Rev. John A. Fleming
Browse through any book store and you will be bombarded with books on joy. I ran across a few while I was working on our sermon for today. I did some research at both Barnes and Noble on Chenal and Barnes and Noble on the internet. Here are some of the titles I found. There was: The Joy of Cooking and The Joy at Work. Sitting right next to it was a book whose title is The Joy of Not Working. There was another book whose title was The Secret of a Joy Filled Life and another one entitled Life is Good: Lessons in Joyful Living. I almost bought that one. The title nearly brought me in! There was even a book on the joy of something else that I don't think I should mention from this pulpit.
Some have compared our Bibles to a library. For sure there are all kinds of books in our Bibles of varying kinds. In their passages are ones on the subject of joy. It is Nehemiah who writes, "The joy of the Lord is my strength." Luke tells us at Christmas time, "Behold I bring you good news of great joy." And it is Paul who writes about joy in his letter to the Philippian congregation. I love these words, "Rejoice in the Lord always. Again, I say, Rejoice!"
A preacher I know tells of a nervous pastor conducting his first Christmas Eve worship service. It was a candle light service, so at the end of it the lights went down and the ushers took the light from the Christ candle and lit all the other ones in the church. Soon the Sanctuary was filled with only candle light. It was a powerful moment. It always is. It sends goose bumps up my arms every year. When the candles were held high, this new pastor boldly and nervously said, "Now that everyone is lit, let us sing Joy to the World. That sounds like something I'd do!
Joy is much more than that. I'd venture to say that most of us live routine lives. I know I do. Children thrive on schedules and so do adults. We eat at the same restaurants, order the same dishes, watch the same television shows, and shop in the same stores. Some of us even sit in the same pews that we have since we joined here.
I am a routine guy. I tell my staff that when it comes to their ministries, if there is trouble I want to know about it. These are my words to them, "I don't like surprises!" I pick out my own Christmas and birthday presents. Life just seems easier this way! If surprises happen they often are surprises of disaster. The tornado was terrible. The diagnosis broke our hearts. That sort of thing
Can I ask you what it would take for us to be surprised by joy? And what exactly is joy? The answer seems simple to me. Joy is a choice we make. Life can make us bitter or it can make us better. Life can leave us grumbling or it can leave us grateful. We can decide what we will do with life gives us, but joy is a hope that we embrace because every problem has a life span and none of them enjoy eternal life. Joy is something inside us that no one and no thing and no situation can take away from us.
That's the way it is for the apostle, Paul, in our lesson for this morning. Some commentators believe that the Philippian Church was Paul's favorite. For sure it had a special place in his heart. Some have called his letter to them an epistle of joy. They do that because the word joy appears in its four chapters some sixteen times.
The truth is that Paul didn't have a good reason to be joyful. His words are penned from a prison cell. He's there waiting for his execution. This old soldier of the cross who had been ridiculed, stoned, shipwrecked, flogged and abandoned refused to let the circumstances of his life destroy the joy he found in serving the Lord. This joy was so powerful and moving that not even a prison cell could steal it.
The joy was powerful, but it was not complete. There was something lacking in it. There was a part of him that was worried about his favorite congregation. He knew there were problems that threatened it from outside and from the inside. Paul will get to the outside problems in a few verses. He calls those who want to hurt the church dogs. There are inside problems, too. He calls the trouble makers inside the church sisters. Evidently there was a problem with two of the church leaders. Their names were Euodia and Syntyche. Paul encouraged them to be of the same mind.
In the end, Paul says that what will complete his joy is if the church will have one mind, one love, and one purpose.
Recently I have been reading a book by the head football coach of the Indianapolis Colts, Tony Dungy. The book's title is Quiet Strength. There is an accompanying Bible study for men that he's written, too. We may use that with our men's ministry. His book does not ask it, but I will. What do you think the goal of a National Football League head coach is? Ask any of them and they will tell you that it is to win the Super Bowl. Tony writes this, "In the NFL, thirty-two coaches start the season with a plan to win the Super Bowl and thirty-one of them fail every year." Now this is a paraphrase, but Tony says that his goal is to take fifty-three players and some thirteen thousand pounds and move them all in one direction.
And here I am, a head coach of sorts. What I want to do is to take our membership, some four hundred and thirty-four of us (I won't venture a weight guess) and move us all in one direction. The apostle, Paul, put it this way, "Be of the same mind, have the same love, and one purpose."
I have found that it is always better to be the church together than apart. When I was a kid, I used to watch re-runs of the Lone Ranger on Saturday afternoons. I know there is a generation who has no idea what I'm talking about and one that says, "Re-runs? I remember the originals!"
In one of those episodes the Lone Ranger and Tonto are riding through a canyon when suddenly they are surrounded by Native American warriors on horses, dressed for battle. The Lone Ranger looks over at Tonto and asks, "What are we going to do, Tonto?" To which Tonto says, "What you mean we, Kimosabe?" We are in this life and ministry together.
I have used this before. Forgive me for using it again, but there is a great Peanuts cartoon where Lucy demands Linus to change the television channel. She threatens him. He asks, "What makes you think you can walk in here and take over?" Lucy shows Linus her hand, then she says, "These five fingers. Individually they're not much, but when I curl them together like this into a single unit, they form a weapon that is terrible to behold." Linus asks, "What channel do you want to watch?" Then he turns away, looks at his fingers, and asks, "Why can't you guys get organized like that?"
We can. We don't say, "What you mean we Kimosabe?" My hope for our church is to take all four hundred and thirty-four of us and move us in one direction. The real question today is this one, "What direction is that?"
Now you all know that I'm a pretty simple person. Big concepts and huge theological words aren't things that I preach on Sunday mornings. What I am about to say may seem pretty simple, but the direction we need to be heading towards is forward.
One of my favorite stories is about the little boy who fell out of his bed one night. His mother heard the thump and ran into his room, finding him on the floor. She helped him back into his bed and she asked him, "How did you fall out of bed?" Do you know his answer? Have you heard it before? He said, "I don't know. I guess I stayed too close to where I got in."
The passage that Lissa read for us a few moments ago has the Israelite elders quarreling with Moses. They're forming a Back to Egypt Committee. Friends, we can't go back. I won't let you. We can't let that happen. We've come to far. We've done too many things. We've got ministries that are too important. Our church is too resilient.
We can't go back. Do you know what else we can't do? We can't stay where we are. I said it in last week's sermon and I'll say it today. We must make our relationship with Jesus and we must make our church a priority in our lives. It can no longer be second or third or fourth in our lives. Our salvation is at stake!
Let me say a word about that. Salvation isn't walking down a long aisle and giving your life to Jesus once and for all. Salvation is a transformation of our hearts and minds and souls. Paul says that we are to think and act and behave like Jesus. Our salvation frees us from our fears, and our failures, and from our guilt, from those things we've done we ought not to have done and left undone. We must pay attention to it! Our lives aren't about us. Our lives are about Jesus and serving him and loving him and reaching out to him and trusting him.
So today I am asking you to commit your life again to this church. I am asking for your financial pledge. But I am asking you for more than that. I am asking you to take a step in faith and a step up in your giving. I'm asking you to help this church go to places we've never been, to minister to people we've never met, and to let nothing stand in our way of doing what Jesus calls us to do, to make disciples.
We're heading in one direction, all four hundred and thirty-four of us. Will you go with me? Let us pray.
Special thanks to Rev. Rex Dickey of the Bentonville First United Methodist Church for his comments about Tony Dungy at a recent retreat for the Elders of the Arkansas Conference. His words were very helpful for this part of the sermon).