September 13, Sunday School Begins, Grandparents Day

Lessons: Philippians 1.12-30

Sermon Title: No Matter What!

INTRODUCTION

What’s a Dog For

A nursery school teacher was delivering a station wagon full of kids home one day when a fire truck zoomed past. Sitting in the front seat of the fire truck was a Dalmatian dog. The children started to discuss the dog's duties.

"They use him to keep crowds back," said one youngster.

"No," said another, "he's just for good luck."

"I know!" said a third...

"They use it to find the fire hydrant!"

I.        In The Christmas Carol by, Charles Dickens what is Scrooge going to find?

          A.       Arriving home after a bitter discussion with his nephew Bob Cratchit who wants Christmas off, Scrooge sees the face of his former partner Jacob Marley in the door knocker.

                     1.       He can’t believe his eyes.

                     2.       He enters double locks the door, and goes to his room where he also locks the door.

          B.       A short time later there is a lot of noise and the clanging of chains.

                     1.       Marley enters.

                     2.       The same face: the very same.

Marley in his pigtail, usual waistcoat, tights and boots; the tassels on the latter bristling, like his pigtail, and his coat-skirts, and the hair upon his head. The chain he drew was clasped about his middle. It was long, and wound about him like a tail; and it was made (for Scrooge observed it closely) of cash-boxes, keys, padlocks, ledgers, deeds, and heavy purses wrought in steel.

His body was transparent; so that Scrooge, observing him, and looking through his waistcoat, could see the two buttons on his coat behind...'You are fettered,' said Scrooge, trembling. 'Tell me why?'

'I wear the chain I forged in life,' replied the Ghost. 'I made it link by link, and yard by yard; I girded it on of my own free will, and of my own free will I wore it. Is the pattern strange to you?'

Scrooge trembled more and more.

'Or would you know,' pursued the Ghost, 'the weight and length of the strong coil you bear yourself? It was full as heavy and as long as this, seven Christmas Eves ago.

You have labored on it, since. It is a ponderous chain!' Scrooge glanced about him on the floor, in the expectation of finding himself surrounded by some fifty or sixty fathoms of iron cable: but he could see nothing.

                     3.       Scrooge finds chains that are a metaphor of the selfishness that exits in his life and colors all his decisions.

II.       Chains do not have to have this kind of an impact!

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I.        Paul is in chains.

          A.       The chain is the chain of a prisoner.

                     1.       He is a prisoner of the Roman Emperor.

                     2.       Chained to a member of the Pretorian Guard.

                               a.       Could go no where without his escort.

                              b.       Most people would find this frustrating and restrictive.

          B.       Paul saw his chains as opportunities.

                     1.       How may we see our chains as opportunities?

                    2.       Friedrich Nietzsche has said,

"He who has a why to live for can bear almost any how."

                     3.       Victor Frankel, from his experiences in several concentration camps during WWII, commenting on Nietzsche's observation writes:

"What was really needed was a fundamental change in our attitude toward life. We had to learn ourselves and, furthermore, we had to teach despairing men, that it did not really matter what we expected from life, but rather what life expected from us. We needed to stop asking ourselves about the meaning of life, and instead think of ourselves as those who were being questioned by life--daily and hourly. Our answer must consist, not in talk and meditation, but in right action and in right conduct. Life ultimately means taking the responsibility to find right answers to its problems and to fulfill the tasks which it constantly sets for each individual...These tasks, and therefore the meaning of life, differ from man to man, and from moment to moment. This it is impossible to define the meaning of life in a general way. Questions about the meaning of life can never be answered by sweeping statement. 'Life' does not mean something vague , but something real and concrete, just a life's tasks are also very real and concrete. They from man's destiny, which is different and unique for every individual."

                               a.       It is not what life owes us.

                               b.       It is what we owe life.

                               c.       It is not what we expect God to do for us.

                               d.       It is how we handle what life throws at us.

                     4.       This is how Paul experienced life.

          C.       Current circumstances were not as important to Paul as what he did with them.

                     1.       What do we do with current circumstances?

                     2.       We have several choices.

          D.       There are simply no other choices, only variations and combinations of these four:

                     1.       Choice #1: We can abandon all hope.

The first choice leads to bitterness or insanity.

If we really took the enormous suffering of the world to heart, and saw no way out, no final justice or redemption, we'd either become embittered in our despair, or we'd crack under the strain, which suggests this is not a good choice.

                     2.       Choice #2: We can pretend things aren't that bad.

The second option is a much more common choice than the first.

Pretending things aren't that bad reveals itself in either naïve optimism or willful attempts to remain blind to other people's suffering.

Some naïvely optimistic pretenders are optimistic for themselves, as they believe the bad stuff only happens to other people who somehow deserve it

These are very unpleasant people to be around when you're suffering, and they don't tend to do too well when suffering finally catches up to them, either. They get stuck on the question: "What did I do to deserve this?"

Other naïvely optimistic pretenders are optimistic for the sum total of humanity, believing that we can create our own paradise on earth if we just work at it together. But even if this were possible - and every bit of evidence in the history of humanity says it isn't - this future paradise wouldn't undo all of the pain and suffering and crushed hope of the past.

On the other hand, blind pretenders simply try to ignore pain as much as possible, usually by running away - making a break for it, an escape attempt - from suffering.

                     3.       Choice #3: We can believe that it's all part of the Big Plan.

"My uncle was the head deacon of a small church in the hill country of southern Kentucky. When the worshipers decided to boot a less than inspiring preacher, it fell to Uncle Baker to draft the letter of discharge.

"He took the task seriously, struggling through the night to find just the words to convey the flocks displeasure.

After crumpling a ream of paper, he finally gave up and penned this simple sentence:

'We the undersigned members of New Sulfur Baptist Church would druther have your vacancy than your presence.'"

                     4.       Choice #4: We can accept what is happening and attept to make something constructive from it.

II.       We may not be in prison, but we may be imprisoned.

          A.       We may be imprisoned:

                     1.       What do you do with indecision?

                     2.       What do you do with financial burdens?

                     3.       What do you do with family conflict?

                     4.       What do you do with church conflict?

                     5.       What do you do with work related stress?

                     6.       What do you do with illness?

          B.       Some only scratch the surface.

SONNETS, Lois Kilgore

The few dead leaves still hanging from the tree
Scratch helplessly, wind-tossed, against the, bark
Of frosted branches winter-trimmed and stark,
Stiff relics left from summer's greenery.
Such freezing cold as knifes the flesh would be
To men so bound more torment than their woe
At wishing they could will themselves to go
Where other happier leaves lie peacefully.
This tortured grace God gives to those who fear
His ever dimly known mysterious way:
Unending hours, imprisonment.
They hear The call of love outside and far away.
No language but their clinging cry makes clear
They only scratch the bark of any day.

          C.       Some see beyond the immediate to the potential future.

                     1.       H. Stephen Shoemaker in the “The image of God, resurrection and end-of-life issues,” tells the story of Moss

Moss was his name. He was a member of my church in Louisville. He was as rough as a cob, one of the toughest men I’ve ever met. He ran some parking lots downtown; and the story goes that once some mobsters beat him up, tied him up and then threw him into the trunk of his car to die. But Moss beat on the inside lid of the trunk long enough and loud enough that someone heard and rescued him.

One day later in his life he discovered he had a rather advanced and aggressive stage of lung cancer and chose to have surgery. I went to see him the morning of the surgery to pray with him. As I walked into the hospital room he was sitting on the edge of the bed pulling on his pants underneath his hospital gown. “What are you doing, Moss?”

He said, “I’m out’a here.” “Why?” I asked. Then he told me: “Just an hour ago they wheeled my roommate back to his bed over there. He’d just had the same surgery. I asked him how it went. He raised his head and said, ‘It was a breeze.’ Then his head hit the pillow and he was dead. I’m out’a here.”

He left that day and lived two more years, as long if not longer than most of the original predictions indicated. And in the two years I saw a man changed. I saw him ennobled by his suffering, a man become kinder, more spiritual, a better man, as he prepared to die and leave this life and enter the next. That’s what his wife said, too. And she would know, above all others. It was a holy thing to walk beside him on that road.

I’ve seen it happen over and over. A person fighting valiantly for life against disease or infirmity and wringing every good thing left out of life. Then they turn a corner and begin to let go of life and prepare to meet death and enter the life to come.

          D.       You can be like Paul who looked for opportunities to demonstrate the gospel and his faith.

                     1.       Paul was a selfless person.

                     2.       Some were proclaiming Christ from envy or rivalry.

                     3.       Some were proclaiming the Christ of the Judaizers.

                     4.       He saw the good in what was being done.

                     5.       Christ was being preached.

                     6.       The same is true in our denominationally ruled world.

III.      Paul encouraged the Jesus people to live a life worthy of the gospel.

          A.       Living a life worthy of the gospel will create great joy and the possibility of intense suffering

                     1.       Nicholas Berdyaev writes:

"I suffer, therefore I exist. This is truer and more profound than the cogito of Descartes. Suffering is linked with the very existence of personality and personal consciousness... Suffering is the basic fact of human existence. In this world, the fate of all life which has attained to individuality is suffering .... In suffering man passes through moments of God-forsakenness. On the other hand, through suffering he arrives at communion with God. Suffering may pass over into joy."

                     2.       Suffering may pass over into joy.

IV.      When we suffer we may faithfully represent Christ.

          A.       Our message and example will have an effect (Acts 5.21).

          B.       Suffering may provide the following benefits:

                     1.       Suffering takes our minds off earthly comforts and focuses them on present hope.

Resurrection hope is not escapism; it is the certain knowledge that something better's coming.

A friend writes:

"Last year I hoped that the Orioles would make it to the World Series. They didn't.

"I also hoped that my investments would do well enough to sustain dreams of early retirement. They didn't.

"I occasionally hope that creative types will use their talents to produce the kind of art and music and television and movies that uplift our spirits and inspire us to try to be better than we are. Last I checked there is still a Warner Brothers Television Network.

"When my mother found out she had breast cancer, I hoped that she would be able to avoid a radical mastectomy. She didn't.

"When 6-year-old Ryan Caspar lay in the hospital suffering from a malignant brain tumor, I hoped for a cure. He died."

When you feel like the patron saint of lost causes, it is easy to ask whether God has abandoned us, or whether God is there at all.

This is precisely what was beginning to happen among the Christians Paul addresses in today's passage.

They were Christians who were in danger of giving up their faith because of the hostility and persecution they faced.

                               a.       What could they do?

                               b.       What can we do?

                     2.       Suffering weeds out superficial believers and leaves the church with the faithful tried and true.

                     3.       Suffering strengthens the faith and created endurance.

                     4.       Suffering serves as an example for others to observe, learn from, and choose to follow.

                     5.       Suffering for our faith does not necessarily mean that we have done anything wrong.

                     6.       It may be the means of verifying and demonstrating our faithfulness.

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Conclusion:

I.        We use suffering to build and not to tear down.

          A.       Do not suffer in silence.

          B.       Do not suffer in isolation.

          C.       Let your suffering be seen, understood, and appreciated.

II.       No matter what, we live our lives in a manner worthy of the gospel of Christ

Valedictorian

At the beginning of the school year, one seventh grader was reflecting on his chance at being the 8th grade valedictorian.

He said his dad was valedictorian, his mom was valedictorian, and his sister was also valedictorian.

He paused, leaned back in his chair and said, "Looks like the end of an era!"

          A.       This is not the end of an era.

          B.       It is a continuation of the era begun by Jesus Christ.

Amen!

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