Greetings in the name of our Lord who put us before Himself. I am sorry it took me a couple days to get my sermon on here, life is just a busy thing. I am doing very well and survived the craziness of last week. I have a little breathing room before the craziness starts over again. Every one at field work really enjoyed my sermon. I wish I had a recording of it, because some of the phrases that I used in actually preaching the sermon were not the same as the manuscript and I really liked the way it came out. Then of course by the time I go back to the manuscript, I can't remember those differences. This is my constant reminder that the Holy Spirit is giving me the words and meditations of my sermons because when I get going on them, they just really come together nicely. I really do enjoy the amazing opportunity to preach and am so thankful the Good Lord has given me the strength and growth that He has in that area.
I had my first placement meeting this morning with the Placement Counselor. It was really good to just sit and talk to him about what type of ministry, what type of setting, and what type of congregation I think would be the best fit for me. He is such a great guy to just comfortably talk to and it really does help calm some nerves and anxiousness. Next week I have my interview with the Placement Director and that will be more giving him a chance to really know who I am, my strengths and weaknesses and specialties. I am looking forward to that too. I need to start my SET form one of these days. I can't believe this process is even started already let alone going to be coming to a completion in eight months.
I had coffee with Dr. Saleska today discussing the Psalms. As you all know by know, I have an extreme love with the Psalms. He is currently writing the commentary on Psalms 1-50 so it was really fun to pick his brain on how he is going about it. He appreciated my passion and encouraged me to keep going with my devotions and study of them. We plan to get together every once in a while and just keep discussing our shared love.
Well I need to go to work so here is my sermon from this last Sunday. Hopefully you will understand my challenge to you last week now after reading this sermon. I hope to write more this week and am definitely motivated to keep working through more psalms with devotions. Blessings in Christ.
Our text for this morning is from Philippians 2, verses 1-4
“So if there is any encouragement in Christ, any comfort from love, any participation in the Spirit, any affection and sympathy, 2 complete my joy by being of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind. 3 Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. 4 Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others.”
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
How many of you have heard of the Epicureans? In college, I took a class on philosophy and in this class I learned about several different schools of philosophy and their different world views. One of these schools of philosophy is the Epicureans. The Epicureans entire goal is to live in a state of pure happiness. This seems impossible when you first hear about it, I mean how can someone live in a state of pure happiness all the time? However, they had a unique way of reaching that state in their lives. They strive to always be happy by lowering their standards of their expectations to match their current experience. They believed if you are not happy with something in your life, it is because you think you deserve better than what you are experiencing. If you are unhappy with your job, it is because you think you deserve a better job than the job you actually have. They even take it as far as to say that pain should not cause you unhappiness. Pain is you simply thinking you should feel better than you actually do, therefore if you just accept that you should feel the way you do, not think you should feel better, and you can be happy with your actually experience even in times of pain. This is how they go about trying to live in a state of pure happiness.
At first, when I heard about this I really liked the idea. I mean I obviously know someone can’t be happy all the time, but it doesn’t mean we can’t try to happy as often as possible. I wake up every day trying to be as happy and positive as possible. I even liked the idea of lowering your standards to make yourself happy. However, the more I thought about this, the more I realized there is one major flaw with the Epicurean view. Do you know what it is? (Pause) The major flaw is that it is entirely focused on yourself in order to be happy. Their whole worldview is only focused on themselves in order to be happy. They take no one else into consideration, they are so focused on their own happiness, they turn all of their attention to themselves.
When we look at our text for today, Paul is also talking about being happy, being glad. However, he takes a little different approach to reaching this gladness. In verse 1 Paul says, “So if there is any encouragement in Christ, any comfort from love, any participation in the Spirit, any affection and sympathy, 2 complete my joy by being of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind.” Then immediately he follows up with verses 3 and 4, “Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. 4 Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others.” Here Paul is inviting the Philippians to join in his joy by thinking of others. By counting all others as more important than yourself, this is how Paul invites them to be happy, to complete his joy.
However, in our American culture we tend to lean more towards the Epicurean way that Paul’s way, don’t we? It is easier to think of ourselves and our own interests than to think of other people’s interest first. We get so wrapped up in ourselves that we forget to think about others. And I don’t believe it is even that we intentionally focus on ourselves first, it is just our natural habit, our natural sinful habit. We think we since it is our happiness, it must be our interests that we need to attend to. We all are guilty of putting ourselves first. We forget about around us, in order to make sure we are happy, that everything is OK with us. Even worse we blame those around us when things aren’t going our way. We find others to fault for our bad days, for our frustration. Road rage happens because we blame everyone else for going to slow or being a horrible driver, when really it us who is speeding or switching lanes. We get angry with coworkers or bosses at a bad day at work because if they would just do their job better or more efficiently than we would have to do less work, when really we are just being lazy and don’t want to have to actually do the work to get things done. When we are upset with spouses or siblings or family members, we talk about their bad habits or selfishness behind their backs, when really most likely we are the ones who are just being stubborn and unwilling to compromise. When we are angry, upset, frustrated, mad, stressed, irritable, or offended, I think it is safe to say 99% of the time it is because we are only focusing on our own interests. We are thinking about nobody besides ourselves, and we let that selfishness, pride, laziness, or arrogance lead us to not have joy or happiness in our lives.
So again we go back to Paul’s letter and see how he reminds us to be partakers of his joy by putting others before ourselves. And then I love the example he uses as the main point of his argument in verses 5 to 11. These are probably the most familiar verses from this passage, and while we remember these verses, I think we too often forget the point Paul is trying to make with them. In verses 5 to 11 we hear Paul say, “5 Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus,6 who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, 7 but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men.8 And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. 9 Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, 10 so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, 11 and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.” If there was ever anyone who had the right to put himself ahead of everyone else, it would have been Jesus. The true Son of God, equal to God who is control of all things, did not consider this equality with God as His right to come and be served by all of us mere humans, but rather he emptied Himself to come be our servant in the flesh of mankind. He did not consider himself as the Son of God as more important than us sinners, but rather lowered Himself down to our likeness to put us first. He was willing to put our interest first ahead of His own to the point He was willing to die, even die on a cross, a painful, gruesome, horrible death, so that you and I may have life. He put us ahead of Himself and this is the example Paul is using to remind us to put others before ourselves. Look to Christ, our Savior who took away all our sins, who continues to forgive us even as we continue to live in selfishness, pridefulness, and arrogance. He died to take all of these sins away from us so that we have salvation and life in His name. He did this for us because He counted all of us as more important than Himself.
Paul reminds us of this amazing Lord who we have who was willing to do this for us, and then reminds us that we who are saved in the name of our Lord, being baptized, holy, chosen children of God, we too are to live this life of putting others ahead of ourselves. We to can share the love of Christ with others by living the servant life He came to live for us. And again in our final verses for today Paul reiterates his point by saying, “14 Do all things without grumbling or disputing, 15 that you may be blameless and innocent, children of God without blemish in the midst of a crooked and twisted generation, among whom you shine as lights in the world, 16 holding fast to the word of life, so that in the day of Christ I may be proud that I did not run in vain or labor in vain. 17 Even if I am to be poured out as a drink offering upon the sacrificial offering of your faith, I am glad and rejoice with you all. 18 Likewise you also should be glad and rejoice with me.” Be the light of the world that shines the love of Christ, be the blameless children of God in the midst of the crooked and twisted generation we most certainly live in. Strive to live each day in this happiness, this gladness that Paul is talking about by putting everyone around you as more important than yourself. Do all things without grumbling because you know through all you do you are serving others just as Christ served those around Him. Can you imagine how happy a place the world would be if everyone followed these words of Paul, doing nothing out of selfishness or conceit, doing all things without grumbling or disputing, but rather in humility counted everyone else as more important, serving their interests rather than your own. The Good news is that through the love of Christ that has been made known to us through the power of the Holy Spirit who called us into the faith, we can live these words and strive to make the world a better place. We can join in Paul’s gladness and rejoice with him. We can be glad and rejoice that we know Jesus Christ is our Savior who did consider us more important than Himself, willing to die for us so that we may be forgiven of all our sins, having salvation and eternal life in His name so that one day when He comes back we may bow and confess He is our Lord. We can be glad and rejoice that we, who have been saved and given this life in His name through the Holy Spirit, we can live this life of serving others.
So I have a challenge for you for this week and the weeks to come. Any time you find yourself angry, frustrated, upset, offended, or irritated, STOP! Stop because I guarantee you are forgetting at least two people. The first person you are forgetting is Christ who served you, kept you as more important than Himself. The second person or group of people is that person who you are not putting ahead of yourself. Once you have realized who you have forgotten, say a prayer asking for forgiveness of your sin and give thanks that you are forgiven of that sin knowing that in Christ you are forgiven. And then make the proper change or adjustment to put that person you were forgetting as more important than yourself. Do what you need to do to serve that person, and do it in the gladness and rejoicing of Paul. See every opportunity God gives you to serve those around you as an opportunity to rejoice over, because each one of these times is truly a time of gladness. It is a time of gladness because we know in Christ’s service to us we have our salvation and eternal life, and now have the opportunity to serve others and live that life of service being the light of the world. In Christ, in the service of life you have been called into, be glad and rejoice!
In the name of Christ our Lord, Amen.
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