Sermon for September 10, 2006

I CAN DO ALL THINGS THROUGH CHRIST WHO STRENGTHENS ME!

9^th and final in a series of sermons from Philippians

By

Rev. Dr. Harvey C. Martz

Scripture:  Philippians 4:10-23

10 I rejoice in the Lord greatly that now at last you have revived your concern for me; indeed, you were concerned for me, but had no opportunity to show it.

11 Not that I am referring to being in need; for I have learned to be content with whatever I have.

12 I know what it is to have little, and I know what it is to have plenty. In any and all circumstances I have learned the secret of being well-fed and of going hungry, of having plenty and of being in need.

13 I can do all things through him who strengthens me.

14 In any case, it was kind of you to share my distress.

15 You Philippians indeed know that in the early days of the gospel, when I left Macedonia, no church shared with me in the matter of giving and receiving, except you alone.

16 For even when I was in Thessalonica, you sent me help for my needs more than once.

17 Not that I seek the gift, but I seek the profit that accumulates to your account.

18 I have been paid in full and have more than enough; I am fully satisfied, now that I have received from Epaphroditus the gifts you sent, a fragrant offering, a sacrifice acceptable and pleasing to God.

19 And my God will fully satisfy every need of yours according to his riches in glory in Christ Jesus.

20 To our God and Father be glory forever and ever. Amen.

21 Greet every saint in Christ Jesus. The friends who are with me greet you.

22 All the saints greet you, especially those of the emperor's household.

23 The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit.

This coming week is a very important time in our life as a community of faith. We are going to the next deeper level in our study of our Bibles as 270 people begin a weekly Bible study through the Disciple Bible classes and as we hand out 55 Bibles next Sunday to our excited third grade Sunday School students.

We really encourage each other to read and know our Bibles in our congregation—not because we are literalists but because we believe we will meet God there and that we will receive guidance for life—AND because most of us are just woefully ignorant about our source book. George Gallup Jr., pollster and active Episcopalian, says the number one problem in American Christianity is biblical illiteracy.

In fact, during September about every other year we tell the same story about the seventh grade Sunday school students who took a survey at the beginning of the Sunday school year to see what they knew about the stories in the Bible and the results were troubling.

One student said on the survey that Noah’s wife was called Joan of Ark. Lot’s wife was a pillar of salt by day and a ball of fire by night. The Jews were a proud people but throughout Old Testament history they had trouble with unsympathetic Genitals. Other students came up with these answers: In the Exodus the Egyptians were all drowned in the dessert. Afterward Moses went up on Mount Cyanide to get the Ten Amendments.  Moses died before he was able to reach Canada. Joshua led the Israelites in the battle of Geritol. David was a Hebrew king skilled at playing the liar.  David fought with a race of people in biblical times known as the Finkelsteins. Solomon, one of David’s sons, had 300 wives and 700 porcupines. And Jesus was born because Mary had an immaculate contraption.

Every other year when we use those stories in September I wonder how long the jokes will be funny because for them to be funny you have to know what the original references were—that the Israelites had trouble with unsympathetic Gentiles and that what Solomon had was 700 concubines and not porcupines. You can look up the other mistakes.

One of the reasons I am so proud of our vital congregation is that we have been willing to study and learn together not only in our Disciple Bible study classes but in all these other experiences like the one tonight with Shaul Amir talking with us about Israel. And when I represent our church next month at a workshop in Kansas City telling about our journey through growth and change and when Cindy Bates and I do the same kind of workshop in Michigan in November with ministers from larger churches, we will be emphasizing how important our commitment to study has been and how important our commitment to knowing the stories and passages of the Bible has been.

There are hidden treasures in our book that we will not find if we do not open it and learn from it. There is a story of a young couple who got married a few years ago and the wedding gift from the grandparents of the groom was a new Bible. The note that was with the Bible said that the wisdom of the Bible had been a source of sustenance and guidance and courage for the grandparents in their fifty two years of married life and they hoped the newly weds would find the same treasures in the Bible. The young couple put the Bible aside on a shelf and never opened it for ten years. They were going through some tough times later on and they took the dusty Bible off the shelf and opened it to the first chapter of Genesis and lo and behold, in between those pages, was a hundred dollar bill! They were overwhelmed until they looked at a couple of other books and found the same thing—other hundred dollar bills until they looked at the beginning of each of the books of the Bible and how many did they find? Sixty-six bills. It was a life saver for them and they also understood that there are other kinds of treasures there if we just start to get familiar with the stories and the images in our book

That has been one of my goals the past nine weeks as we have read through the warmest and most personal of all of Paul’s letters, his letter to the congregation at Philippi. We have seen in this letter that even while Paul is in prison as he writes, he is able to encourage his close friends to have an attitude of joy and hope. He tells them several times that the peace of God surrounds them and that the source of confidence and hope is their relationship with God. We saw last week that Paul involved women as leaders in his congregations and we learned that there were conflicts and disagreements in the early church. He reminds us of the critical importance of prayer.

And today, as we end our sermon series on Philippians, we are hearing some of the most familiar and I think important, verses in this letter; verses that give us guidance for life. I think they are so important that we have printed up 2000 wallet sized cards for you to take that have some portions of chapter 4 on them for you to carry with you and I hope even to memorize.

I hope you have memorized and will memorize parts of the Bible to guide you and to sustain you. Dr. Dick Murray who helped develop the entire curriculum for the Disciple study thirty years ago and was one of my seminary professors, told about when he was in some of the battles in Europe during WWII and how it was the memory verses he had learned as a child and teenager—Psalm 23, Philippians 4, and others that sustained him and comforted him and strengthened him in that crisis. The verses not only help us in crises, they can guide us as we face ethical choices and vocational decisions as well.

There are, in these words from chapter 4, two lessons for us. The first one is in the last section of the verses. You probably missed this when we read it but verses 14-20 are a thank you note from Paul because the church members have taken up an offering for him and sent him some money. He is deeply touched and grateful for it and he promises something that is true for us today when we share our gifts for God’s work; he promises that will satisfy their needs as well out of God’s great abundance.

He says something else about what happens because of their generosity: he says he is glad for the benefit that they will get for their generosity!! Does that make sense to you—that when we are generous in sharing our gifts, that we get something out of that???

Has that happened to you—that when you have shared with others or given yourself for good causes including our church, that you get a good feeling out of that? I hope that has been true and I pray it will be true for all of us. The checks that Judy and I write to support the programs of this church do that for us. I felt the good feeling Paul talks about several times in the past two weeks. On Wednesday afternoon we had the first day of children’s choir rehearsal and the building was just alive with energy and enthusiasm from all the great kids who were excited about choir this year.

I felt that benefit two weeks ago when our Holy Pretzel youth choir came together for its first rehearsal of the fall and 82 youth showed up including 24 first time members of the Pretzels. The actual total membership is 91 kids, which is a world record for us, and just speaks about how well we are reaching and involving kids in music.

And there were two other very different occasions where I felt a benefit of what we are able to do together as we offer our generosity to God’s work:  more than a week ago we had on two days in a row, two funerals for beloved members of our church—Duane Robinson on Thursday a week ago and Donna Schuett on Friday a week ago. Our building and our staff were a very important resource as we gathered as a faith community to share our loss and to offer our memories and to affirm our faith in a God larger than death.

Paul promises that when you and I give to others and practice that spiritual act of generosity, we will realize benefit from that generosity.

The second lesson for us in these verses is about what Paul says as he receives the generous offering from his friends in Philippi. He thanks them and then he says it is not as though I really needed this money. He is happy to have it but he tells them that he has been through all kinds of difficulties and he has learned something critical.

Let’s rehearse: Paul has been run out of the towns he tried to start churches in, he has been beaten, he has been stoned, he had been in jail other times, he had gone through a shipwreck, he has survived all sorts of trials and troubles because of his passion for people knowing God in Christ.

Like the old Andre Crouch song says, He has been through it all. 

He has been hungry and he has been well fed. He has had little and he has had plenty. And he has learned that the goodness of life and the meaning of his life does not depend on where he is-in jail or in a palace; it does not depend on what he has or does not have. The goodness of his life only has to do with his relationship with God and the peace and confidence that come from that relationship. 

Do you know other people who have told about that confidence and peace in times of trial and suffering? One of the classic stories to come out of Nazi Germany is the story of Dr. Viktor Frankl who writes not only of his own struggle as he barely survived years in a concentration camp but of seeing other prisoners who like Paul showed an attitude of courage and even serenity in their imprisonment and who were willing even to share their meager rations with someone else. Frankl said that it is not our circumstances that determine the quality of our lives but our response to them. 

The same insight comes from the story of John McCain who spent years in prison in Viet Nam after he was shot down and who tells about the faith of some of his fellow prisoners and writes about the most meaningful Christmas ever service in his life as he and his fellow prisoners sang Christmas hymns and told the Christmas story from memory or read from the brief Bible pages they had copied and passed around.

I have learned to be at peace, to be content Paul says whatever circumstance I am in because I can do all things through him who strengthens me. Does that make sense to you? Have you discovered that truth along with Paul? 

One of our church members told me last Sunday after church that her family had their car stolen two weeks ago right from their garage, right after she had come to choir rehearsal for the first time. They had had the car four months. They did get it back somewhat the worse for wear but she also said that being in church helped her put all that in perspective and helped her remember that some things that we think are very important turn out not to be quite as important as we thought.

The peace and confidence that can sustain your life come not from where you live or what you drive or what your status is or from anything you own or do not own; the peace and confidence and serenity (look at Niebuhr’s serenity prayer) only can come from your relationship with God. And if that relationship is current and up to date, we will have a different approach to life

Stephen Bauman is senior minister at Christ United Methodist Church in Manhattan. He writes in a new book about a time he was waiting for the subway and the crowds had grown to claustrophobic proportions. His train was late and he became anxious and impatient and then noticed others around him sputtering and muttering with impatience as well. He realized how silly it was to get bent out of shape about something small and says at the end of his devotional that he needs to remember that serenity is there every time he realizes he is not the center of the universe.

In another piece he tells about having lunch with a college senior at Columbia who felt she was an enormous failure because she had failed to be accepted at all three graduate programs she applied to. He says she was poised on the precipice of despair. He told the young woman a story he read about a high school boy who went up to his attic and drew a circle on the floor with a big F in the middle of the circle. He had not been doing well in school. He hung himself right over the F on the floor. Bauman told the young woman that the high school boy had not been able to distinguish between the grade he was getting and who he was as a person.

Dr. Bauman says he told the student in front of him over the lunch table about some of his own experiences of rejection and told her “never, ever, to hand over her essential identity to anyone other than the God who loved her beyond her wildest imaginings.” (Simple Truths, p 63)

Paul says I have learned that whatever happens I can be at peace, I can be content because I can do all things, I can face all things through Him who strengthens me. I can face failure, I can face rejection, I can face grief and loss and loneliness and sadness—through the help of the One who strengthens me.

That word in Greek for “strengthen” will surprise you. It is the root word “dunamis” and it means power. God not only strengthens us, God empowers us, gives us real power. You can imagine the English words that come from that Greek word: dynamite, dynamo, dynamic. I can do anything through Him who gives me power and strength.

Pull out the quote card and we will read these verses together as part of your beginning to commit them to memory.

The lord is near; do not be anxious, but in everything make your requests known to God in prayer and petition with thanksgiving. Then the peace of God, which is beyond all understanding, will guard our hearts and our thoughts in Christ Jesus. And now, my friend, all that is true, all that is noble, all that is just and pure, all that is lovable and attractive, whatever is excellent and admirable – fill your thoughts with these things.

I have learned to be content whatever my circumstances. I know what it is to have nothing, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have been thoroughly initiated into fullness and hunger, plenty and poverty. I am able to face anything through Christ who gives me strength.

Philippians 4:11 ~ Revised English Bible

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