A sermon based upon Philippians 4: 10-20
By Rev. Charles J. Tomlin, BA, MDiv, DMin.
Flat Rock-Zion Baptist Partnership, June 9th, 2019
Even the baseball legend Babe Ruth, needed love.
Baseball legend George Herman "Babe" Ruth was playing one of his last full major league games. The Boston Braves were playing the Reds in Cincinnati. The old veteran wasn''t the player he once had been. The ball looked awkward in his aging hands. He wasn''t throwing well. In one inning, his misplays made most of the runs scored by Cincinnati possible.
As Babe Ruth walked off the field after making a third out, head bent in embarrassment, a crescendo of "boos" followed him to the dugout. A little boy in the stands couldn''t tolerate it. He loved Babe Ruth, no matter what. With tears streaming down his face, the boy jumped over the railing and threw his arms around the knees of his hero. Babe Ruth picked up the boy, hugged him, set him back on the ground and gently patted his head.
The rude booing ceased. A hush fell over the park. The crowd was touched by the child's demonstration of love and concern for the feelings of another human being. Yes, caring is a gift of God that can melt even the hardest hearts.
I REJOICED GREATLY… (v. 10).
As we open our scripture lesson today, we observe that the Apostle Paul is very grateful for a loving gift shared with him by the Philippian fellowship. It touched his heart very deeply. There was always a special relationship between them, because God has used the ministry of Paul to birth this congregation in Philippi. Paul had shaped their lives in a profound way. They never forgot it.
We know from other writings that after Paul left Philippi he labored for our Lord in nearby Thessalonika. Philippi maintained contact with him and even supported him during a difficult moment when he lacked adequate financial resources. God used them to supply needed support for Paul's ministry.
Paul writes in verse 16: "For even at Thessalonika, you contributed to my needs, not once but twice." Even when even when he have moved on to his next work, they never forgot what he had shared with them. And when they had learned he
was in need in this prison cell in Rome, they immediately dispatched Epaphroditus to deliver, in person, a love offering to support him. They gave Epaphroditus the funds to assist Paul in whatever ways he could. Interestingly, from what we gather from historical records, Philippi was not a wealthy congregation, but it was certainly "rich" in love and care for one of God’s servants. Paul called their care for him an ‘fragrant offering…a sacrifice pleasing to the Lord’ (v.18).
We know the lasting fragrance certain perfumes and colognes can leave in the air when worn by someone. It is pleasant. However, the most lasting fragrance of life is result of people caring about each other in very concrete ways. Recently, I heard someone speaking about a ministry that their church was doing for the poor in their community. The ministry was sometimes difficult because poor people don’t always bathe or care for themselves very well. In one incident, a new church worker commented to another about the difficult smell. The more experienced worker responded;, ‘Yes, isn’t it wonderful?’
The puzzled worker, then asked: ‘What do you mean, wonderful?’
The experienced worker then answered: ‘It’s wonderful because it smells like Jesus.’
Jesus?
Yes, when you are with the least of these, you know you are with Jesus.
YET IT WAS GOOD OF YOU… (v. 14)
Muggeridge wrote: “When I think of Mother Teresa in Calcutta, as I often do, it is not the bare house in a dark slum that is conjured up in my mind, but a light shining and a joy abounding. I see them diligently and cheerfully constructing something beautiful for God out of the human misery and affliction that lies around them. One of their leper settlements is near a slaughter-house whose stench in the ordinary way might easily make me retch. There, when I was with Mother Teresa, I scarcely noticed it; another fragrance has swallowed it up."
The greatest good we can ever do is to share in another’s troubles. I think is what overjoyed Paul and why he was so thankful, that in the midst of the trying circumstances of a prison cell, the fragrance of the caring and sharing of the
Philippian Church was stronger than the bad odor of persecution. God had answered Paul's prayers in a special way through His spirit at work in the body of Christ at Philippi. There was something so special that transformed even the most dreaded chores into something of a pure delight.
“It was good (or kind) of you to share in my distress” (v. 14). In this most personal line, Paul expressed how he understood that the greatest RESOURCES for life and work, didn’t come through his own work, but they came THROUGH THE GOODNESS OF OTHER PEOPLE. This is how things really are, instead of how life is often falsely portrayed in advertisements and magazine ads.
California Pastor Lloyd Oglivie once related how the bold letters across the top of a full page advertisement by a famous manufacturer of men’s clothing caught his attention: "Get Suited Up With Power!" The ad pictured an executive decked out in what was called "the power suit," shown in pin stripes, of course. In the corner of his mahogany-paneled office was a full suit of armor. The idea to grasp was that both the executive’s suit and the suit of armor were to achieve the same purpose--the assertion of authority and power.
Also in the ad was a secretary, who looked as if she would be more adept at an office cocktail party than at a word processor. All the rhetoric of the ad played on the human quest for power. "Power is everything!” "You’ve worked hard to get it. It’s been a long way up the ladder of success and power. So why not look the part in the latest power suit? Then came the hook: "And even for those of you who are not yet in the positions of power you deserve, look like a warrior in armor who has taken command. So get suited up with power - now!"
In the ways of the world, power sells, but for people who live beyond the false gods and false images, we know that the greatest joys and successes of life are never something we can win or achieve on our own. We need others. We need people. We need help. We need love. We need to care for and about each other. Life without caring, compassionate, simple deeds of live, might appeal to the eyes, but in reality, having all the power and prestige in the world still ‘stinks’. Without genuine feelings and deeds of goodness and kindness, nothing matters: As the song writer Joan Baez wrote, based on the great poem by John Donne:
“No man is an island, No man stands alone, Each man's joy is joy to me,
Each man's grief is my own. We need one another,
So I will defend, Each man as my brother, Each man as my friend.”
Perhaps the most important message here, is for us to see that Paul was no superhero. He was a real human being, who needed love and care too. Even though Paul said ‘he had learned to be content’ or that he had not ‘desired their gift of love’, Paul was no stoic. The stoics of Paul’s day proposed that to reach a state of contentment that you must eliminate all care and desire. This meant the elimination of all emotion, all feeling, all care until it doesn’t matter what happens, or who cares; whether you care about anyone, or whether anyone cares about you.
This is exactly, NOT what Paul was saying. When Paul said, “I can do all things through Christ who infuses me with strength” he is not being self-sufficient, but he is being God-sufficient. Paul was able to face anything; whether he had everything he needed, or whether he had nothing, because he knew Christ was with him and Christ lived in and through him, because “Christ…strengthens” through the ‘concern’ and care we have for each other.
John Claypool was once a dynamic and popular pastor of a growing church, and enjoying a distinguished ministry in a Baptist Church in Louisville, Kentucky. He was happily married and the father of two fine children. But one day, his world went to pieces. Laura Lou was a bright, exuberant child, he said, full of life and joy that sprang up as she finished the second grade and participated in two recitals in one day - violin on Saturday morning and a ballet recital that night. The next day, she seemed tired and we attributed it to her hyperactivity. But she stayed tired, and then her ankles swelled. And finally the pediatrician sent them to a specialist at Children’s Hospital, where he heard the word, “acute leukemia. “
“When I first hear the diagnosis,” Claypool said, “I went out alone to cry” – that made me love him. He asked the same questions anyone would ask – why has this happened? Why do little girls leukemia? Why did Laura Lou get leukemia? Why is there leukemia at all? Why is there sickness and suffering if God really loves us?
He found no answers to the deepest questions of the experience. He did find that he had to go on living, for there was a little girl who was sick, a wife who needed to be comforted, a son who needed to be reassured. And in that darkness, he also found one who had suffered too. It was by Christ’s power – that Claypool learned to walk and not faint, to endure and find meaning in the darkness.” It was also through that experience, and by Christ’s power, that Claypool wrote a book about his experience and do you know what he called it? He called it: “Tracks of a Fellow-Struggler”. There is not greater ‘gift’ than to know you are not, and never alone. That’s the power that love can give.
THE FRAGRANT OFFERING…PLEASING TO GOD (v.18).
There is no surprise here in this text: PAUL KNEW THAT REAL POWER is the power of love. Love is the power that raised Jesus from the dead. It is because Jesus loved with his whole heart, that death could not hold him. It is also through our own expressions of love and care that God has chosen to make his power alive in us. When we love, when we care, and when we show generosity toward each other, these things ‘please God’ and we too become a sweet fragrance in God’s world.
Some of you may remember the man, Dr. Norman Vincent Peale, who back in the 1960’s, 70’s and 80’s pulled together the best of secular and religious thinking a famous book, entitled: “The Power of Positive Thinking’. Dr. Peale once told how when he was a young man working in Detroit, he literally ran into Henry Ford, the great inventor and car maker. Realizing this might be a once in a lifetime opportunity, Dr. Peale approached him and said, "Mr. Ford, I admire you very much and would like the privilege of shaking your hand." Henry Ford did a unique thing. He warmly extended his hand and asked, "Who is your best friend?" Dr. Peale remarked that for one of the few times in his life he was speechless and motionless. Then Henry Ford pulled out a piece of paper and pencil and wrote, "Your best friend is the one who brings out the best in you," and signed it, Henry Ford.
Dr. Peale kept the paper as a special reminder, for later on that day, he wrote the name of Jesus Christ on the note. He never met Henry Ford again, but he spent the rest of his life living out the fullness of love and grace of Jesus Christ.
In an era when so many images and human models in life are negative, now more than ever, we need people who live by the simple, but powerful principles of the Christian faith. Isn’t this why the witness of people like Billy Graham, Norman Vincent Peale, Mother Teresa, Joni Erickson Tada, have been such powerful examples of Philippians 4:19: "My God will supply all your needs according to the riches of his glory in Christ Jesus." We know God cares, not simply because of what God has done in the past, but we know God loves and cares because it is being shown and shared by people around us, right now. For the greatest proof of God’s love can’t just be what Jesus did, it is always answered by what we are doing in Jesus right now. We live out the love of Jesus toward others, because we too believe and trust that ‘God will supply OUR NEEDS’ out of the riches of his glory in Jesus Christ!”
Maxie Dunnam, once told of a woman who went to the coffee hour after church one Sunday. She stood there alone for a long time. Finally, someone went up to her and asked her, “Are you a stranger to this church?” She said, “I’ve been a stranger to this church for 22 years.” Now, of course, that happens, but that shouldn’t be! But it can happen in any community or in any church. Then Dunnam went on to share how different it became in their church. He told of how there was a young paralyzed mother in their church. One man took the initiative, stepped out in faith and purchased a van, which enabled that wheelchair restricted mother to travel about with some degree of ease and efficiency. His friends heard about his faith and in less than a year, the van, at a cost of over $18,000, was paid for.
In a letter to the fellow who had acted faithfully, the young woman wrote, “when times have really seemed to be devastating, and almost unbearable, God has always provided for my husband, my son, and for me, so that God’s promise has been true in my life, when he said: “I will bring to you those who will help, if you will leave everything in my hands.”
In this text, whether he wanted to ask for it or not, Paul needed help. God gave him help through a loving congregation of people who cared; not just by saying so, but also by doing so through their own sacrificial gifts. This gift was given to God because they gave it to someone who in need of a the generosity and gift of love. And because they gave, Paul responded, they could be sure that would also supply their needs. Is there any greater promise, or greater fragrance in life, than that? Amen.
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