Sermon from 1st June 2008
Today's sermon is delivered by one of our trainee ministers, Adjoa Cunnell. It is based on the reading from Philippians 2:12-18
New Responsibilities
My Dad and my stepmother Rosemary came up to stay with us last weekend. They’re Quakers and last weekend was their annual conference, a bit like the Lambeth Conference but quieter. Anyway as we sat talking at dinner, Rosemary repeated a phrase that someone had come out with at conference that day that had stuck with her. The speaker was describing how they felt their Christian faith impacted on their day-to-day life. They said
“Through a process of continuous and continual discernment I turn to the inward light, am transformed by it and go into the world to live from that place.”
I’ll repeat that.
Through a process of continuous and continual discernment I turn to the inward light am transformed by it and go into the world to live from that place.
That phrase echoes for me the sentiments of this part of Paul’s letter. It is a description of an active involvement in the world inspired and supported by a personal faith in Christ. Bringing our inward faith into relationship with the world is a strong theme in Paul’s letter, which we’ll return to.
But first, as it’s been a few weeks since we shared together this love letter from Paul to the church at Philippi, let’s recap. Especially since today’s passage begins ‘Therefore’, referring us back to what Paul has just spoken of.
Cameron began this series reminding us that Paul, like his Lord and Master Jesus, wanted nothing more than for people to live life to the fullest – as God intended us to. Paul calls us to a holy life, filled with truly good qualities, which only Jesus Christ can produce. God has put his new heart in us so that we can actively be his people, living for him and his Good News. Paul tells that this new life begins with our being willing to die for our faith, willing, in the strength and courage of God, to use any opportunity to share the Gospel with those around us. As John went on to highlight, this new life in Christ Paul writes of, demands of us that we are united in purpose and attitude, regarding the Gospel and what it means to be citizens of heaven.
And in order to live God’s abundant holy life full of Christ’s good qualities, with a unity of purpose and attitude, we must therefore, Paul says, follow the path of Service and Obedience as Christ did.
And this path leads us today to New Responsibilities, for ourselves vv 12-13, for the world around us 14-16a and for our church community vv16b-18.
Next Wednesday it’s the press night of the play I’m in at the National Theatre. Everyone gets jumpy around press night. When I was asked to preach this Sunday, my first full-length sermon three days before Press night, I got jumpy! Press night’s the night to shine, to give a great performance, to garner great reviews, it’s my calling card for my next potential job, as it is for all the other actors, for the director, designers, composers, author. We yearn for good reviews…. Notice me, like me, hail me, we mutter to ourselves. Perhaps for you its being a teacher yearning for good results, or a lawyer wanting to successfully see through a case, a health care practitioner wanting to deliver year on year improvements in health, or someone working in admin determined to get a project in on time and on budget. It’s a competitive world. There is a drive to do well.
I’m sure there are times when we all feel we’re striving and struggling. Perhaps we get passed over, perhaps we feel jostled out of what we were hoping for, unfairly treated, resentful? It’s not a good feeling, is it? It’s quite embarrassing actually, a bit small, a bit petty. Aren’t we beyond that? We are Christians after all. Where is our Christ centred response?
How do I square it’s press night “love me” give me another job, with Paul’s call to remember Christ’s self denying service for others to the point of death? How do we square those personal tensions, those worldly demands, the dynamics within our own communion, with our new lives in Christ?
You know the much abused saying ‘with rights come responsibilities’ well Paul is telling us that it does still hold true.
By God’s gracious, saving love, we have been given the right to call him Father, knowing that he is with us always and that on last day we will be with him always in heaven. But this isn’t a secret right. We are to live out the qualities, the responsibilities that grow out of that new relationship with God. Remember that opening phrase from Rosemary?
Through a process of continuous and continual discernment I turn to the inward light am transformed by it and go into the world to live from that place.
Our Christ centred response, our responsibility, Paul tells us, is to live that transformation in our lives, to be obedient as Christ was obedient, to serve as he served, to live a life transformed by his example. We are to use that process of prayerful discernment; of listening and looking for God’s guidance at work in us, so that we may ‘work out’, live out our salvation. There is our focus, it is not in the passing gratification of praise from the boss or a good notice in the paper, it is to be diligent in our work and to be good friends and neighbours, but as God’s people.
Paul says in vv12-13, ‘Keep on working with fear and trembling to complete your salvation, because God is always at work in you.’ The RSV has it as ‘Continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you’. We are to work out our salvation, in the same way that we may work out an apprenticeship, learning more and more until in the fullness of time, we are qualified, ready to take up that place in heaven that awaits us.
Meantime we are to work out our salvation with an attitude which, Paul writes at vv3-4,“should be the same as that of Christ Jesus” whereby “we do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than ourselves, looking not only to our own interests, but also to the interests of others’.
“ The attitude we should have is the one that Christ Jesus had.”
Does that sound hard? Arrogant even?
Well, take comfort, because the blessing of a life lived for God, is that we are not in this alone. Paul says in verse 13 “God is ALWAYS at work in you to MAKE you WILLING and ABLE to obey his own purpose.” (RSV For it is God who works in you to will and to act according to his good purpose) We don’t aspire and work towards an attitude like Christ’s alone. Neither is it a one time only event, God is ALWAYS at work in us. “Keep on working with fear and trembling to complete your salvation”. Our life in Christ is a continuous process in which we turn with the fear and trembling of real commitment, to that inner place where God is at work in us. He will nourish us and give us the ability to bring outward that attitude which is like Christ’s into our own lives, into the life of the world around us and the life of the church.
When Paul writes to his dear friends in the church he inspired in Philippi, he does so in part to head off a growth of resentments and tensions within their community, a little of which we read in Chapter 4. He writes to refocus that church on what it means to be a follower of Christ in community with other Christians; a community operating in a world in real need of Christ.
We may well look at the news reports this week of the number of our young adults in London alone, who have died at the hands of other young adults, or we may look to the continuing misery of civil wars, poverty and injustice worldwide and see a world crying out in need of Christ. And like the Philippians we too may need to refocus our Christian responsibility.
One of Paul’s great gifts to the Philippians and to us is that he always looks at the BIG picture. His focus returns always to Our Salvation; to that act of healing and saving, to the fact that Christ ‘acted on our behalf without view of gain’; to the fact that it was ‘self denying service for others to the point of death with no claim of return, no eye upon a reward.’ Christ showed his responsibility for us in his humble life, his service in sacrificial death and in the promise of eternal life hereafter for us all in his resurrection. ‘Therefore’ we too, having chosen to take up his offer and place him at the centre of our lives, have a responsibility, to show a like obedience to that of our Lord’s. That’s Paul’s point. That’s the big picture. And he writes to us today, just as surely as if he were sitting in prison in Rome this Sunday morning.
He writes this letter of love, joy and encouragement in the midst of his own suffering in Prison and perhaps in the midst of the suffering of the Philippians too, a church community under hostile Roman rule. He wants them to see the big picture. He wants to reilluminate them so that they, and we, living in a world full of people acting in dark ways, may “shine among them like stars lighting up the sky”.
I don’t know if you were one of those children who needed a nightlight at bedtime, or had the door left slightly ajar with the landing light on, but I was. I used to imagine all sorts of terrible creatures coming out of the wardrobe to ‘get me’ in the night. And so when Paul calls us to be those shining stars, it’s not just to shine with good deeds or a welcoming demeanour, we are to shine v 16 says as we offer those around us “the message of life’. Life in Christ. The fears of the world, like the night terrors of a small child, CAN be eased. A new abundant life in the reassuring power of a loving God is available. And it is our newfound responsibility as obedient followers of Christ to offer that message. We are to be active. We know that doesn’t stop bad things threatening or happening, but we have God, a place of light to take those fears to, and so, Paul says we ‘must’ also be that nightlight, that door ajar showing the way to God for others. We ‘must’ be a power for God’s good purposes.
So do we grab the opportunities that come to us unexpectedly, like Paul locked up in prison, preaching the Gospel to the entire Palace Guard? Maybe we don’t feel brave enough to launch in, in as bold a manner as Paul’s, at our work places or among our neighbours and communities. But if we ARE living as those shining stars, in the world but not of its darkness, then that quality of God working in us will mark us out perhaps, as a place where someone may come, who has a desire for change in their life without quite knowing yet how. Rosemary says ‘The place that God calls us to, is where our deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet.’
So, it may be the case that everyone sitting here this morning will not be here next week because God’s Holy Spirit will so have moved in us that we’ll all be off travelling the country, or the world, as Paul and others did, spreading the Gospel and that would be fantastic. But then again perhaps most of us will still be back here and that’s fantastic too, because the Church of England, is an apostolic church. We are part of a communion of apostles, it is our responsibility to evangelise through the power of God at work in us, wherever we are, Roman Prison or Milkwood Community Park. And we’re not to worry, because God will give us the desire and the ability.
So what is our responsibility to each other within this apostolic communion? The Philippians would have been familiar with the pre Christian tradition of pouring out a libation or drink offering to announce the main offering or sacrifice. In vv17-18 Paul invokes this early tradition as a way of illustrating how he ‘pours out’ his life in service to the work of bringing others to a life in Christ and right relationship with God. And there is such joy in Paul’s service. If we share the joy Paul speaks of in that same work, I pray we too may discover that depth of loving communion with each other, which Paul says at verse 8 comes from ‘a deep feeling rising from the heart of our Lord himself.’
And so finally let’s ask ourselves today
Would Paul have reason to be proud of the effort he put in on our behalf on the day of Christ’s coming again?
Are we working to complete our salvation?
How does the way we conduct our lives, light up dark places, offering other people hope in Jesus?
Let’s be inspired, refocused on the Big picture! Salvation!
We are to live in imitation of Christ, in obedience, in humility, in service; but we are not alone, for God is working in us so that we can be that joyous starlight shining out God’s message of a new abundant life in him.
Far more rewarding may I suggest than a pat on the back from the Boss or a great review from the press.
And if for any reason you want to turn inward in prayer this morning, we have people on hand by the Billington room after the service who will gladly pray for you.
And so now let us pray.
Heavenly Father, we thank you for the opportunity to be your children. As you work within each one of us so that we may live the abundant life you created us for, fill us with that willingness and ability to live out your good purposes, so that we may indeed shine out your message of hope at all times and in all places, we ask this in the name of Jesus who died for us, Amen
New Responsibilities
My Dad and my stepmother Rosemary came up to stay with us last weekend. They’re Quakers and last weekend was their annual conference, a bit like the Lambeth Conference but quieter. Anyway as we sat talking at dinner, Rosemary repeated a phrase that someone had come out with at conference that day that had stuck with her. The speaker was describing how they felt their Christian faith impacted on their day-to-day life. They said
“Through a process of continuous and continual discernment I turn to the inward light, am transformed by it and go into the world to live from that place.”
I’ll repeat that.
Through a process of continuous and continual discernment I turn to the inward light am transformed by it and go into the world to live from that place.
That phrase echoes for me the sentiments of this part of Paul’s letter. It is a description of an active involvement in the world inspired and supported by a personal faith in Christ. Bringing our inward faith into relationship with the world is a strong theme in Paul’s letter, which we’ll return to.
But first, as it’s been a few weeks since we shared together this love letter from Paul to the church at Philippi, let’s recap. Especially since today’s passage begins ‘Therefore’, referring us back to what Paul has just spoken of.
Cameron began this series reminding us that Paul, like his Lord and Master Jesus, wanted nothing more than for people to live life to the fullest – as God intended us to. Paul calls us to a holy life, filled with truly good qualities, which only Jesus Christ can produce. God has put his new heart in us so that we can actively be his people, living for him and his Good News. Paul tells that this new life begins with our being willing to die for our faith, willing, in the strength and courage of God, to use any opportunity to share the Gospel with those around us. As John went on to highlight, this new life in Christ Paul writes of, demands of us that we are united in purpose and attitude, regarding the Gospel and what it means to be citizens of heaven.
And in order to live God’s abundant holy life full of Christ’s good qualities, with a unity of purpose and attitude, we must therefore, Paul says, follow the path of Service and Obedience as Christ did.
And this path leads us today to New Responsibilities, for ourselves vv 12-13, for the world around us 14-16a and for our church community vv16b-18.
Next Wednesday it’s the press night of the play I’m in at the National Theatre. Everyone gets jumpy around press night. When I was asked to preach this Sunday, my first full-length sermon three days before Press night, I got jumpy! Press night’s the night to shine, to give a great performance, to garner great reviews, it’s my calling card for my next potential job, as it is for all the other actors, for the director, designers, composers, author. We yearn for good reviews…. Notice me, like me, hail me, we mutter to ourselves. Perhaps for you its being a teacher yearning for good results, or a lawyer wanting to successfully see through a case, a health care practitioner wanting to deliver year on year improvements in health, or someone working in admin determined to get a project in on time and on budget. It’s a competitive world. There is a drive to do well.
I’m sure there are times when we all feel we’re striving and struggling. Perhaps we get passed over, perhaps we feel jostled out of what we were hoping for, unfairly treated, resentful? It’s not a good feeling, is it? It’s quite embarrassing actually, a bit small, a bit petty. Aren’t we beyond that? We are Christians after all. Where is our Christ centred response?
How do I square it’s press night “love me” give me another job, with Paul’s call to remember Christ’s self denying service for others to the point of death? How do we square those personal tensions, those worldly demands, the dynamics within our own communion, with our new lives in Christ?
You know the much abused saying ‘with rights come responsibilities’ well Paul is telling us that it does still hold true.
By God’s gracious, saving love, we have been given the right to call him Father, knowing that he is with us always and that on last day we will be with him always in heaven. But this isn’t a secret right. We are to live out the qualities, the responsibilities that grow out of that new relationship with God. Remember that opening phrase from Rosemary?
Through a process of continuous and continual discernment I turn to the inward light am transformed by it and go into the world to live from that place.
Our Christ centred response, our responsibility, Paul tells us, is to live that transformation in our lives, to be obedient as Christ was obedient, to serve as he served, to live a life transformed by his example. We are to use that process of prayerful discernment; of listening and looking for God’s guidance at work in us, so that we may ‘work out’, live out our salvation. There is our focus, it is not in the passing gratification of praise from the boss or a good notice in the paper, it is to be diligent in our work and to be good friends and neighbours, but as God’s people.
Paul says in vv12-13, ‘Keep on working with fear and trembling to complete your salvation, because God is always at work in you.’ The RSV has it as ‘Continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you’. We are to work out our salvation, in the same way that we may work out an apprenticeship, learning more and more until in the fullness of time, we are qualified, ready to take up that place in heaven that awaits us.
Meantime we are to work out our salvation with an attitude which, Paul writes at vv3-4,“should be the same as that of Christ Jesus” whereby “we do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than ourselves, looking not only to our own interests, but also to the interests of others’.
“ The attitude we should have is the one that Christ Jesus had.”
Does that sound hard? Arrogant even?
Well, take comfort, because the blessing of a life lived for God, is that we are not in this alone. Paul says in verse 13 “God is ALWAYS at work in you to MAKE you WILLING and ABLE to obey his own purpose.” (RSV For it is God who works in you to will and to act according to his good purpose) We don’t aspire and work towards an attitude like Christ’s alone. Neither is it a one time only event, God is ALWAYS at work in us. “Keep on working with fear and trembling to complete your salvation”. Our life in Christ is a continuous process in which we turn with the fear and trembling of real commitment, to that inner place where God is at work in us. He will nourish us and give us the ability to bring outward that attitude which is like Christ’s into our own lives, into the life of the world around us and the life of the church.
When Paul writes to his dear friends in the church he inspired in Philippi, he does so in part to head off a growth of resentments and tensions within their community, a little of which we read in Chapter 4. He writes to refocus that church on what it means to be a follower of Christ in community with other Christians; a community operating in a world in real need of Christ.
We may well look at the news reports this week of the number of our young adults in London alone, who have died at the hands of other young adults, or we may look to the continuing misery of civil wars, poverty and injustice worldwide and see a world crying out in need of Christ. And like the Philippians we too may need to refocus our Christian responsibility.
One of Paul’s great gifts to the Philippians and to us is that he always looks at the BIG picture. His focus returns always to Our Salvation; to that act of healing and saving, to the fact that Christ ‘acted on our behalf without view of gain’; to the fact that it was ‘self denying service for others to the point of death with no claim of return, no eye upon a reward.’ Christ showed his responsibility for us in his humble life, his service in sacrificial death and in the promise of eternal life hereafter for us all in his resurrection. ‘Therefore’ we too, having chosen to take up his offer and place him at the centre of our lives, have a responsibility, to show a like obedience to that of our Lord’s. That’s Paul’s point. That’s the big picture. And he writes to us today, just as surely as if he were sitting in prison in Rome this Sunday morning.
He writes this letter of love, joy and encouragement in the midst of his own suffering in Prison and perhaps in the midst of the suffering of the Philippians too, a church community under hostile Roman rule. He wants them to see the big picture. He wants to reilluminate them so that they, and we, living in a world full of people acting in dark ways, may “shine among them like stars lighting up the sky”.
I don’t know if you were one of those children who needed a nightlight at bedtime, or had the door left slightly ajar with the landing light on, but I was. I used to imagine all sorts of terrible creatures coming out of the wardrobe to ‘get me’ in the night. And so when Paul calls us to be those shining stars, it’s not just to shine with good deeds or a welcoming demeanour, we are to shine v 16 says as we offer those around us “the message of life’. Life in Christ. The fears of the world, like the night terrors of a small child, CAN be eased. A new abundant life in the reassuring power of a loving God is available. And it is our newfound responsibility as obedient followers of Christ to offer that message. We are to be active. We know that doesn’t stop bad things threatening or happening, but we have God, a place of light to take those fears to, and so, Paul says we ‘must’ also be that nightlight, that door ajar showing the way to God for others. We ‘must’ be a power for God’s good purposes.
So do we grab the opportunities that come to us unexpectedly, like Paul locked up in prison, preaching the Gospel to the entire Palace Guard? Maybe we don’t feel brave enough to launch in, in as bold a manner as Paul’s, at our work places or among our neighbours and communities. But if we ARE living as those shining stars, in the world but not of its darkness, then that quality of God working in us will mark us out perhaps, as a place where someone may come, who has a desire for change in their life without quite knowing yet how. Rosemary says ‘The place that God calls us to, is where our deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet.’
So, it may be the case that everyone sitting here this morning will not be here next week because God’s Holy Spirit will so have moved in us that we’ll all be off travelling the country, or the world, as Paul and others did, spreading the Gospel and that would be fantastic. But then again perhaps most of us will still be back here and that’s fantastic too, because the Church of England, is an apostolic church. We are part of a communion of apostles, it is our responsibility to evangelise through the power of God at work in us, wherever we are, Roman Prison or Milkwood Community Park. And we’re not to worry, because God will give us the desire and the ability.
So what is our responsibility to each other within this apostolic communion? The Philippians would have been familiar with the pre Christian tradition of pouring out a libation or drink offering to announce the main offering or sacrifice. In vv17-18 Paul invokes this early tradition as a way of illustrating how he ‘pours out’ his life in service to the work of bringing others to a life in Christ and right relationship with God. And there is such joy in Paul’s service. If we share the joy Paul speaks of in that same work, I pray we too may discover that depth of loving communion with each other, which Paul says at verse 8 comes from ‘a deep feeling rising from the heart of our Lord himself.’
And so finally let’s ask ourselves today
Would Paul have reason to be proud of the effort he put in on our behalf on the day of Christ’s coming again?
Are we working to complete our salvation?
How does the way we conduct our lives, light up dark places, offering other people hope in Jesus?
Let’s be inspired, refocused on the Big picture! Salvation!
We are to live in imitation of Christ, in obedience, in humility, in service; but we are not alone, for God is working in us so that we can be that joyous starlight shining out God’s message of a new abundant life in him.
Far more rewarding may I suggest than a pat on the back from the Boss or a great review from the press.
And if for any reason you want to turn inward in prayer this morning, we have people on hand by the Billington room after the service who will gladly pray for you.
And so now let us pray.
Heavenly Father, we thank you for the opportunity to be your children. As you work within each one of us so that we may live the abundant life you created us for, fill us with that willingness and ability to live out your good purposes, so that we may indeed shine out your message of hope at all times and in all places, we ask this in the name of Jesus who died for us, Amen
posted by Parish Administrator at 12:54 pm
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