The Gift of Example

 

So many are seeking something to put under the tree for the kids this time of year.  Times are tight. Many are enslaved by the world’s hype and bury themselves in debt by giving beyond their means to impress someone who won’t be impressed.

The smartphone or watch glitters in the children's eyes for a week, maybe longer, and then it’s on to something else. So many people get caught up in the gratification of themselves and others.  We generate a frenzy around things we suddenly can’t live without. Wow! Problem solved with a single click.

We hurt when we can’t give our kids more. We feel that we fell short. Actually, the only place you fell was into opportunity.  Opportunity for what?

Give the gift of example. That sounds a little cliché but think about being an example of joy every morning. The world might be angry and bitter, but joy abides in you.

Think about being an example of peace. Controversy rules in the world, but you are at peace. You have peace that only God can give, and you share it.

Think about being an example of a praying person. Lead your children to and in prayer.

Lead them to worship services and classes. Teach them reverence.

Lead them to help a neighbor in some way.  Teach them compassion.

Lead them to do their homework. Show interest in the subject even if you know little about it. Model learning.

Lead them to a good vocabulary. So many problems with vulgarity come from having a poor lexicon—a group of words at our ready disposal. Model expression with a good vocabulary.

Teach them to think, not just to repeat the common gossip, but to analyze and understand something before reaching conclusions or defining an opinion. Lead them by your example of sound thinking.

Lead them to courtesy. Teach them to open a door for another person, greet someone with polite words, or help someone be seated or stand.

You may not have the cash to buy the latest video game or smartphone, but you are rich with opportunities to be a great example to your children and to others.

Be the example! Give your children the gift of example. It is priceless.

Merry Christmas.

Anxious for Nothing!

 Read Philippians 4:6-7

There are two short verses today, but they pack a big punch.

Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

Which brings us to restraints & constraints. That’s how Paul paired these verses. Restraints are things that we must not do. Constraints are those things that we must do.

We will take the first part in this service—the restraints.  Don’t do this.  There seem to be a bunch of those in the Bible. Don’t kill, don’t steal, don’t cheat on your spouse, don’t covet what others have should sound familiar, and I am still in the top 10.

Go to Leviticus if you need some more, thou shalt nots. But this restraint doesn’t sound like a command. It doesn’t feel like a don’t even think about having other gods directive.

It is part of a coupling of what to do and what not to do, with the end result being peace, which is more than we can comprehend.

In the middle of this very conflicted world, we have peace, and it is more than we can comprehend.

Consider the words of Jesus from John’s gospel.

 Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid.

That’s a good place to land, in a peace that guards our hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.

So, let’s look at the restraints proffered in Philippians. Do not be anxious or be anxious for nothing. It’s a familiar tact.

·       Don’t be anxious.

·       Don’t worry.

·       Don’t’ be afraid

·       Don’t rely on your own understanding.

·       Don’t store up treasures on earth.

·       Don’t think that your anger can bring about God’s righteousness.

·       Don’t run with scissors.

·       Don’t spend it all in one place.

That’s a good list, but it doesn’t include the how. That’s in the second part of the verse, which we will discuss more in the next service. For now, consider that if you can worry, then you can pray. I first considered this thought years ago when I read The Purpose-Driven Life.

If I become anxious, pray.

If I start to worry, pray.

If I am afraid, pray.

If I am selling myself on my own understanding, pray.

If I am starting to feel self-righteous in my anger, pray.

If I am running with scissors, walk.

The prayer part is the constraint part—the must do part. To have any degree of efficacy in the second part, we need to master the first part.

These two conditions should create dissonance in your hearts and minds:  Worry and Trusting God.  We either trust or we don’t.

These two conditions should create dissonance in your hearts and minds: Anxiety and Assurance. We can either be anxious or rest in the assurance that all of God’s promises are true.

These two conditions should create dissonance in your hearts and minds: Fear and Faith. It’s one or the other.

Paul’s counsel is to get rid of the obstacle and pursue relief in prayer.

The promise is that if we abide in the restraints and constraints, our problems will go away. No, the promise is that we will have peace even in the middle of the world’s conflict, confusion, and continuing controversy.

It’s a peace not reliant upon what happens to the circumstance that is elicting anxiousness or worry. It’s one of those, the numbers don’t add up but I still have peace.

If we consider the syntax further, we see that nothing is excluded from the category. Be anxious for nothing.  Nothing means nothing. There is no thing, no circumstance, no force excluded here. Nothing is too difficult or too complicated for God.

Nothing!

I used to run about 7 miles a day, 5 or 6 days a week.  It was a good distance. I could run it, get showered and back in uniform, and finish my day.

I wanted a little more challenge but couldn’t give up more time for more mileage, so I got an old, metal-plated flak vest to run with. It added a few pounds and was good for kicking my workout up a notch.

Had I opted to add a hundred-pound pack to my back, the debilitating effects would have outweighed the benefits. No question.

You can run with a hundred-pound pack for a couple of miles and not have any ill effects. At the end of a long hike in full gear, we would often run the last mile or two.

But trying this for much more than that works against you.

It’s the same for holding on to your anxiousness while you pray to God. You can carry a little burden while you give things to God, but not a lot.

You are still working on the problem or circumstance but not debilitated by it. You still have peace. You might not understand how you can have peace, but you can.

Quit holding on to your anxiousness first, then let God do the heavy lifting.

Be anxious for NOTHING!

Amen.

 

In Everything

 Read Philippians 4:6-7

We begin in Rome where Paul was imprisoned. Paul wrote to the first church that he planted in Europe. That church was in Philippi.

The letter begins with a standard salutation: This letter is from Paul, except the text notes that it is from Paul and Timothy. Most scholars agree that the style of the letter suggests that Paul was the sole author.

It’s sort of like your Christmas letters that some families send out. It’s from the Smith Family or the Jones Family, but we all know that Mom wrote it.

And we note that Paul gave thanks for these believers in Philippi. He called them partners in the gospel. Paul is telling his modern-day readers that these guys got it from the beginning.

He didn’t have to reiterate time and again that salvation flows from grace, not law. He didn’t have to counsel them on leaving some believers on the outside while enjoying the benefits of fellowship with a select group.

He didn’t have to chastise them about something getting in the way of their faith. There is no, you were running a good race, who cut you off verbiage.

I think Paul enjoyed writing this letter. He enjoyed thinking about this group of believers he met by the river years earlier.

It’s in the first part of this letter that we see words we hear and use again and again: Confident that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion.

For the believer who struggles with life, not because life is tough, but because he or she realizes that they can’t hit the mark every time, Paul provides comfort in his counsel.

 You stay the course and do your part, knowing that God will get you where you can’t get yourself.

I will borrow Isaiah’s words for a moment and ask if you can see what is happening here in the first part of this letter.

Do you not perceive it?

Perceive what?

Fellowship. Can you not perceive it? Can you not taste it?  Do we know it?

You might be wondering, what fellowship? Paul was writing from prison.

It is a fellowship that comes in doing things greater than themselves. That’s a nondescriptive descriptor by itself. I’ll try it this way.

When we do things that are too difficult to do alone, but we do them with other believers, we know a fellowship that doesn’t visit people in their comfort zones.

Taking this gospel to a world that did not have a relationship with God was impossible. That world had a relationship with gods they had created for themselves but they did not know the one true God.

Paul was on a mission from God to take the gospel to this world. Paul noted that he became all things to all people so that some might be saved.

He planted churches and wrote most of his church plants letters of counsel and correction. Paul sent joy and rejoicing to these Philippian believers. Sure, they had much to learn, but they were partners in the gospel.

There was fellowship in doing great—even impossible things—together. It is a fellowship that I long for us to know better.

The Marines have a saying when asked about doing the impossible: We do difficult things every day; the impossible just takes a little longer.

Doing things together that are too difficult, even impossible, and then knowing the camaraderie of accomplishing those things through Christ produces a fellowship few know. Paul and the Philippians had this fellowship.

The gospel was going into the world. Paul had a big assignment, but now he had a partner. Timothy was his protégé and partner, but Philippi was a whole congregation planted in the middle of Rome (East) and they were partners.

When we consider the church at Philippi, we see that they had genuine fellowship. Let’s move on for the moment.

Philippians brings us the words: to live is Christ and to die is gain.

We note words often repeated in the Christian world: Every knee will bow, and every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord.

We stop there too often and make these verses a sword of revenge. Christians sometimes say these words, wanting to share in God’s righteous anger. Oh, yeah, one day God is going to get you!

The words that Paul penned say that this reverence and profession will be to the glory of God. Don’t get caught up in trying to share in God’s righteous anger. I know there are Christians and even Christian preachers teaching that if God’s wrath could be poured out on it, then it’s OK for us to be angry with it.

That's a good argument, unless you want to be biblical. We have two examples: Jesus and Satan. Jesus set aside his equality with God, humbled himself, and became a servant.

Lucifer, on the other hand, wanted what God had. He wanted to be God. Being an angel wasn’t enough.

Jesus lived and died for us in humility. Satan wants to steal, kill, and destroy. Don’t let righteous anger have you take the yoke of Satan instead of Jesus. Our anger does not get us to righteousness.

Moving on. Paul told the Philippians and he is telling us to work out—live out our salvation with fear and trembling. Live the rest of your life for God. Bringing glory to his name in everything we do is now our daily standard.

Paul wrote elsewhere that we should live a life worthy of the calling that we have received.

Paul noted that he counted all of his worldly status and accolades as loss. He didn’t throw them away. He used them in his ministry—even his Roman citizenship—to advance the gospel. He encouraged the Philippians to press on towards the goal.

We finally come to Chapter 4. We note Paul’s familiarity with the congregation, telling two women who were very much working to spread the love of God through the gospel to sort out whatever was getting in the way. He didn’t pick a side. He said, you took yourself out of the game. Put yourself back in.

Then we come to joy and rejoicing. Paul said to rejoice, and he said it twice. That one is on the test. At last, we come to the scripture for today.

Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

Which brings us to restraints & constraints. That’s how Paul paired these verses. Restraints are things that we must not do. Constraints are those things that we must do.

We discussed the restraints in the first service. Now, let’s examine the second part of this coupling.

It begins: In everything.

In everything!

That’s all the time and in all circumstances. That’s a lot. That’s everything. That’s always. That is governing in the whole of our lives.

What is?

Coming before God and talking it through. Paul lists three things—prayer, petition, and thanksgiving. I begin with thanksgiving. If you have been paying attention over the past couple of decades, you might note that I begin a prayer with thanksgiving about 99% of the time.

Even when someone is going through the loss of a loved one, I give thanks to God first. I am thankful that this whole loss thing doesn’t revolve around me. God’s got this, and I thank him for it even when it doesn’t seem to be a time of thanksgiving.

Paul did not prescribe an order or even a ranking. Thanksgiving just fits up front when I pray. It shows up again and again later in my prayers, but it is where I start.

Then we come to petition. These are the requests that we put before the throne of grace. We come boldly before the throne of grace. We ask for what we need and we need what we ask for to accomplish the mission given to us.

We ask our Father in heaven for what we need and do it without any anxiety. We are his servants. We desire to take whatever we are given and put it to work immediately to produce a return for our Master.

So we are thankful, and we ask for what we need.  Anything else?

How about prayer?

Isn’t that what we have been talking about?

Yes, but prayer is more than thanking and asking. It’s conversing with God almighty as if he had called you friend, son, or daughter. It’s just talking to the One who loves you more than anyone else, and we should keep the conversation going all day long.

It’s like getting to work with your best friend and talk about anything and everything all day long, and not worried about the boss telling you that you talk too much.

Prayer, petition, and thanksgiving should be our daily constraints. We should not do them only because we are instructed to, but because we recognize the value of doing them. This is a twofer: We obey and we understand. We get it.

When we couple this with being anxious for nothing, we have a balanced approach to Christian life.

This would be the perfect place to wrap up, except that I wanted to share something with you that I have shared with the session once or twice over the years, and it might have been included in a First Light sermon somewhere along the way.

It is also a topic that bores people to tears each time. What is it?

Front-end analysis, and no, that has nothing to do with your vehicle. It’s about working more on the front end of a process so that corrections are minor instead of addressing things later on when they might have grown into a larger issue.

What?

What if we started the day setting aside anything that caused us to worry, then went into prayer, petition, and thanksgiving?

Start with prayer, that’s nothing new. Most of us start our days with a prayer oif some sorts.  True, but let’s not stop there.

Let’s say you start to worry about something an hour or maybe ten minutes later. Fix it then—at once—now. Make the correction immediately. Don’t drag it out.

I’m worried—what can I do?

Pray. If you can worry, you can pray.

If you are getting angry, then stop and pray.

If your eyes are not on Jesus, stop, pray, refocus on the target.

When? Now!  Do it as soon as you detect that you are off course.

Consider the whole front end of the process business. Visualize a fifteen-degree angle. Why not a two-hundred-degree angle?

The first angle is a cute angle (acute), and using the second angle in my example would be obtuse.

Let’s look at the small angle. There is not much space between the initial side and the terminal side where the angle begins, but there is a whole lot of space between the lines the farther from the initial vertex you get.

Fixing something early—near the front end—is a smaller task than later on. I understand that we want to do things and get them going and over with and that working on the front end of things adds time when we think we should be on to something else.

But it also keeps us on course. I will use an example from Stephen Covey. It deals with leaders and managers, but it applies here as well.

Imagine a well-organized company hired to cut a path through thick Jungle vegetation. Strong men with sharp blades hack away, while others are ready to take their place when the blades get dull.

Men and women are behind them, sharpening blades. The rotation of the cutters and the work of the blade sharpeners look like a well-oiled machine.

The leader climbs a tall tree to get the overall picture. He notes the company is getting off course and shouts down, “Wrong direction!”

To which the managers reply, “Shut up. We’re making good progress.”

This front end of the process and course correction business applies to more than a couple of verses in Philippians, but today, we keep our focus there.

·       Anxious for nothing

·       Prayer

·       Petition

·       Thanksgiving

Let’s return to where we started: fellowship and doing things more significant than ourselves.

See if these apply to you in some way:

·       I want to do God’s will.

·       I want to put his words into practice.

·       I want to be known as belonging to Jesus by my love.

·       I want to fulfill the commission that Christ gave me.

·       I want to be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to become angry.

The list could continue, but these will likely fit most of us. I start my day wanting to do all of these, and the next thing that I know, I say something that I shouldn’t have, or my mind drifts to something that causes me to worry or get angry. I get off course. I take my eyes off Jesus.

Don’t put that course correction on hold. Fix it now. Thank God now. Ask him for help now. Let him know you want to get back on course and press on towards the goal.

Don’t procrastinate. I was going to set up a Procrastinators Anonymous group to help with this, but I haven’t gotten around to it.

Don’t wait until you get around to it!

A week or two ago, I gave everyone in the session meeting and everyone at the First Light Service a Round Tuit. It’s a coin-sized reminder to do things now. Don’t delay. Don’t wait until your get around to it.

Paul’s counsel is simple. My guidance from the full biblical witness might bore you, disrupt your comfort zone, or seem like a pain at the time, but the time invested at the front end of things—most often our days—produces dividends for us, and we produce better dividends for our Master.

Let’s begin our days with Paul’s counsel and continue to address our constraints and restraints with the same counsel as the day progresses.

Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

OBTW—you get a peace that is more than we can comprehend.

I want you to know this peace—one that goes beyond what we understand.  I also want you to know the fellowship for doing incredible things with other believers and the fellowship it produces.

Amen.