A Good Work in You

December 6, 2015 Philippians 1:1-14 Year C Second Sunday of Advent A Good Work in You The major themes of Advent are Hope, Joy, Peace, and love. So today I thought that instead of looking at the gospel lesson and the story of John the Baptist, that we would look at the Philippians text because it focuses on joy. Christian Joy. The joy of Christ. A priest once told his congregation that if you are a true Christian, - then your worse day in life is always ten times better than a non Christians best day. Why – because you have hope, joy, peace and love. And that makes all of the difference in the world. Several years ago Frank Court told the story of a student at Iowa State University who took to selling magazine subscriptions for additional income. He determined that a likely customer might be the president of the University. The student was greeted at the door by the president's wife who was able to resist his sales pitch by saying that her husband already received more magazines than he could read. The student assured her that he understood and turned to leave. It was then the president's wife saw something she had not noticed before. The student was crippled. She felt bad that she had turned him down, and probably out of a twinge of guilt called out to him and said, "I did not know you were a cripple." The student responded that his being a cripple was a result of having polio when he was a child. The woman then said, "My, how being a cripple must color your life." The young man brightly responded, "It certainly does, but, thank God, I can choose the color!" When we know Christ, which is a little different then just calling ourselves a Christian – them we get to choose to go through life with joy. Christ is responsible for our lives, not ourselves. Life has a way of getting us down. He shared how "there was a certain fox who wanted to eat the skylark. The fox, having a plan, caught a bunch of earthworms and tempted the skylark with them. When the skylark asked the price of the worms, the fox said, `I will give you one earthworm for one of your wing feathers.'' After making a bargain, one for one, the skylark was full, but he had no feathers in his wings. The story ends with the statement: `Here lies the skylark who sold his wings for earthworms.''" Dr. Brown believes "that there are a lot of Christians who have done that. We bargain off our wings for the earthworms of business, education, fame and money...and then we die because we can no longer fly." If we find ourselves pouting a whole lot more, rather than praying in life, then we can be sure we have traded the real gifts of God for a poor substitute. I am feeling a little down myself. But the message of Christ makes all of the difference in the world. Some people like to depend on hallmark to give words of comfort. But for me, there are no finer words of comfort than those in the bible. Paul had a way of preaching love like no other. There are no more poetic words than those in Philippians. Wanted to read this text for you again, It is short – but a powerful message. Paul is praying for you and for me and for our joy. Prayer makes all of the difference in the world. Prayer changes the situation, but it also changes ourselves. Prays for three things – your live will give you insight, you decide what really matters in life, and that as you go through life you are filled with righteousness. That we are partners in Christ. Joy is not a selfish things, it is given to us so that we can give it to others. As I watch each of you I am excited, because I see growth. Each person has a goal and working toward that goal. Not a dying church, a growing church. Everyone knows that we have so much farther to grow. Theme for advent is to think about our savior. What does Jesus mean to us. but to carry that one step farther and to give Christ to someone else. Doesn’t take a lot. Give what we have been given. A little boy was standing on a busy street corner near his home. There were two things odd about this. First, he had his school lunch bucket in hand. Second, it was Saturday morning. A neighbor noticed the oddities and came outside to ask him where he was going since it was not a school day. The little boy replied that he was running away from home, because his mother had refused to let him play some video games. The neighbor inquired how far he was planning to travel and where he was headed. The would-be fugitive said wistfully, “I don’t know! I’m not allowed to cross the street.” How many of us are like that little boy . . . . afraid of the other side, the overflowing and odd as we trod well beaten paths and stay in our boxes. That “overflowingness” is what Paul is talking about as the “norm” for all those who walk the path of Jesus smarts. The “good news” of Jesus smarts gets you a ticket to daily poverty, which is the secret of unbounded abundance. Share our joy with others, we are giving a lot. God does not always ask us to solve others problems or to have all of the answers, we just have to plant seeds in the hearts of others – God will make them grow. Text Illustration: There was once a farmer who went to town to purchase seeds for his farm. As he was returning home one of the squash seeds he had purchased fell from his pocket onto the ground. It happened that within a few feet was another seed of a different type. The place where the two seeds lay was rather fertile, and miraculously they took root. After about a week the squash seed showed signs of growth. The second seed showed none. After two weeks the squash began to sprout leaves. The second seed showed none. After seven weeks the squash began to show fruit. The second seed still showed no progress. Four more weeks came and gone. The squash plant reached the end of its life bearing much fruit in that time, but the other seed finally began to slowly grow. Many years later the squash was all but forgotten, but the other tiny seed, an acorn, had grown into a mighty oak tree. Many people want their faith to be like the squash. They want to experience it all right now… Love, hope, peace, joy. I never focus on them in advent, because we need all 4 in order to survive. Enjoy Philiippians, short , clear, positive message. Paul truly loved this church and truly wanted to encourage them. Praise them for who they are, not for who the could be. Prayer was a prayer of love for them. Said something about them that was said to no other church – treasure you in my heart. Carry tools in hands, carry thoughts in head. Only thing carry in your heart is love. Joy of Christ. Joy is not joy unless it affect our life, the way we talk, the way we treat people. Way we forgive people Treasure this church and the work ahead. Care we show for one another. The joy we share. Trust that God carries you also – just do the work of God in our lives. Gone are the days when open the doors and hope hear us and come in. go out into the streets and bring them in. not coming to see us, see God and who God calls them to be. Grow in spirit – grow in numbers. Show others our joy. Priest said sadness to the devil and his angels. Joy for who Christ is and for what Christ can do. My prayer continues to be for you Christian joy. Let us pray……. You Can Only Take 200 Pounds Glenn Adsett was a minister in China. He was under house arrest in the late 1940s, waiting to receive word concerning what the communists were going to do with him, his wife, and two children. They said, "You can only take 200 pounds with you." The family went home and began arguing about what to take. The conversation got heated around typewriters, vases, and toys. Finally they worked it all out and packed 200 pounds on the nose. The army men came for them and asked if they were ready. "Yes, we are," they replied. "Did you weigh everything?" They answered affirmatively. Then the soldiers asked, "Did you weigh the kids?" Suddenly there was an about-face: in that moment the typewriter and vase and books looked like trash in the shadow of their children's combined 200 pounds. Richard A. Wing, Deep Joy for a Shallow World, CSS Publishing Company DwightL. Moody once said, "There are two ways of being united frozen together or meltedtogether." Thank God that we are not rusted together by ritualism, frozentogether by formalism, linked together by liberalism, or even chained togetherby conservatism. We are melted together by the Holy Spirit and a blazing lovefor the Lord Jesus Christ. Paulsaid something about this church he never said about any other church. He saidin v.7 "I have you in my heart." You may carry thoughts in your head and toolsin your hands, but you only carry treasures in your heart. This church was atreasure to Paul, for where a man's heart is, there will his treasure be also. Thatexplains two things about Paul: The late Dr. David Roberts, a psychotherapist, told a story he had read somewhere of a French soldier who was suffering from amnesia. His face had been horribly disfigured by a shell blast at the front, and all his identification was blown away. When he recovered from his injuries, there was no way of telling who he was. The social services located three possible families he might belong to, on the basis of his general physical description, and made arrangements for him to visit each of the families in different parts of the country to see if the families recognized him. The first two visits ended sadly with no glint of recognition on either side. When he stepped off the train in the third village, something about the station and its environment seemed familiar. As he walked down the street, it all began to come back, and he turned this way and that growing increasingly more certain of where he was, until he arrived at the cottage where his family lived and knew that he was home. (2) Perhaps Saint Francis of Assisi said it best: "Let us leave sadness to the devil and his angels. As for us Christians, what can we be but rejoicing and glad." He said, "Sis, just remember, theworst thing that can happen to a Christian is the best thing that can happen toanyone else." St. Paul begins his letter to the church at Philippi by calling them "partners in the Gospel." That phrase aptly describes our relationship to those around the world with whom we share this celebration of bread and cup this day. That relationship cuts across national, racial, and ethnic differences. It is based on an elemental spiritual truth: WE ARE ALL ONE FAMILY. A reporter asked a white teenaged girl in Philadelphia why she participated in a riot to run a black couple out of her neighborhood. "I wouldn't want my kids to get to know the blacks," she said. "Why?" the reporter asked. "Because they might get to like them!" she answered. It is correctly said that the difference between a piece of coal and a diamond is pressure. The difference between an admirer of Jesus Christ and a faith-filled servant of Jesus Christ is how we handle the pressures of life and how we allow them to "to color" our lives. Christians are those who can cope with the changing circumstances of life because of the constant presence of the Lord Jesus Christ in our lives. SERMON ILLUSTRATION Websites Will Help You Buy 'Friends' Whoever said that you can't buy "friends" didn't know about the shallow shortcuts of our internet age. An article in Hemispheres magazine explored a number of sites that are dedicated to helping you find online "friends." These companies will create fake users or pay real account holders to follow and like you on various social media sites. For instance, on the site Socialyup.com you can buy 500 likes for $30 or 20,000 likes for $699. For a mere $10, FanMeNow will find you 1,000 Twitter followers and for $1,750 you can buy a million followers. If you need to beef up views for your YouTube video, for $150 you can buy 30,000 views from a site called 500views.com. For $3,100 they'll make your video go "viral" by getting you a million views. The article concludes with the following advice: "No matter what social network you're on, you can buy your way to popularity." Possible Preaching Angles: Of course we can't "buy" real friends so use this illustration to focus on (1) Friends, Friendship, Community, Small Groups--by showing the the need for true friendships that can only be found in authentic community. Also use it to to highlight small groups. (2) Leaders, Leadership--Effective leaders have real followers, not fake followers that they have to purchase. Eric Steuer, "Best Friend$" Hemispheres magazine (April 2013)