Sermon 17th July 2016

This is the sermon of our Vicar, Cameron Barker - the reading is from Philippians 4:1-13.

Just 1 week on from all of the excitement, this topical joke is also relevant; so here goes: A Dr. advises a middle-aged man to get some proper exercise. So, inspired by Andy Murray’s recent feats on grass, he decides to re-live his tennis-playing youth.

At his next health-check a few months later, the GP asks his patient how he’s doing. “It’s going fine”, he says, ‘I’ve got a really good coach and it’s all coming back to me. So when I’m on court and I see the ball speeding towards me, my brain immediately says: “Run to the corner! Sliced back-hand! Rush to the net! Volley. Here comes the lob: jump, and smash! Now sprint back to the base-line, to cover any return!” Impressed, the GP says, “Really? And what happens then?” “Well, then my body says: ‘Who, me? Don’t be so stupid!’”

There is, of course, a serious point in there; which at least some may already be relating to, after hearing this final instalment from Paul’s letter to the Philippians. In fact, some may have been relating to it from the very start of this series back on 5^th June. This might be 1 of Paul’s shorter letters; but it packs a properly heavy punch, right from the outset; and it’s never let up since, either. Paul began by setting out his own loyalty to Jesus in terms of choosing to be his slave. From then onwards, all that he has written has proved that he meant just that. Paul’s devotion to: being ‘in Christ’ (one of his favourite phrases here); to Jesus’ gospel; to his church; to his people really has been total, and unswerving: no matter what!

In this letter Paul provides the most magnificent description in the whole New Testament of who Jesus is, and so of what God is like. He tells his readers that they are to have the same sharing self-giving, humble attitude themselves as Jesus himself - who didn’t consider equality with God as something to be grasped, but instead to be given up for us. Paul also gives us his own life-motto in here: “To live is Christ”. He tells ‘the saints’ (as he calls his readers) that they are to work out their salvation; and he gives them a blue-print for doing so with great precision. He sets out how joy is not so much a feeling as an ability to see through all Life’s up’s and downs, to the God who holds all of it, and us, in his hands. Of course he reminds us too that he is writing, and living, all of this from the prison cell from which he might be led out to his execution. And that’s far from all that there is along these lines in this letter!

Now Paul may have written his letter from deep affection for this church. He may have written it with their best interests at heart. He may also have written to encourage them in their living-out of faith. All of that, and more, has come through so clearly time and again as we have learned from this letter. But at times it may have felt rather like watching that Andy Murray masterclass in the Wimbledon final last Sunday: something that none of us could ever honestly aspire even to begin to match ourselves.

And, if anything, today’s closing thoughts and words are just more of the same. Each of these verses is packed full of the sort of wise advice that’s clearly both so sensible and Godly-good to follow, but doesn’t half take some doing: “Don’t worry about ANYthing”?! And, as with every other passage that we’ve had in this series, it would take several sermons to unpack even the basics of what we’ve heard today. So of course I’ll suggest that frequent re-reading of this letter is just what we each need to do this summer, then! And it doesn’t take much to see how Paul would have encouraged the doing of exactly that himself; had he foreseen the advent of general literacy for people, let alone the modern ease of access that we have to the Bible.

Now Paul wasn’t what we’d call shy – or perhaps even modest! He had no hesitation in holding himself up as an example for his readers to follow. Mind you, he had been - and come - through rather a lot in the years since God had first laid hold of him in Christ. As Adjoa explained last week – and, yes, all of this series’ sermons are on our website for use – Paul had certainly done his part in that process too. This invitation is to follow him – as he follows Jesus; because that is what it was always all about for Paul. But we mustn’t miss that Paul did hold himself up as an example of what God makes possible ‘in Christ’. Nor must we miss the fact that his ability to do that was both hard-won, and well-tested.

For Paul he wasn’t the point, though. What mattered to him above all was that these readers, his dear friends, who were his brothers and sisters in Christ, whom he loved and longed for, stood firm in their faith. Paul had already told them (again, most likely) how they could do it. In this final section of his letter he wanted to remind them about the practical importance of what he had just written; and then add a bit more to it. In Philippi that process clearly needed to begin by sorting out a personal issue of some kind. Do note that it was up to church members to help these to women do it, if they couldn’t or wouldn’t do it themselves. And what they all needed to remember was what – or rather who - they had in common.

It was that shared work of Jesus’ gospel that led Paul back to encouraging them to rejoice; and to pray. We got a flavour of this earlier in the letter, when Paul wrote about being chained to a Roman guard. Here’s what some might see as problem actually being an opportunity to live for Jesus: take the chance offered by having a literally-captive audience! Whatever might cause us to worry can instead be a topic for prayer, Paul wrote here. When we pray we are not least to remember some of what we have to thank God for; and that’s another example of the First-Century Cognitive Behavioural Therapy that Adrian commented on. Instead of focusing on the problem, ask God to bring about his solution to it. Part of what we’re thanking him for is likely to be how he has done that before; and it’s by remembering that that faith is built.

There are some very practical ways in which we might all apply this key spiritual learning, I’d suggest. God knows, there’s more than enough for us to worry about in this strange new world that we have found ourselves in so rapidly. Add to the economy; housing market; a new PM, and set of ministers; on-going uncertainties around Brexit; plus events of the past week alone - in Nice; Turkey, South Sudan; Zimbabwe; etc; and maybe also what has been said and decided by various church bodies too; and it’s hard to see what’s not to worry about, actually. But now think about the past century and how the world has changed since 1914. The upheavals of two world wars; the great Depression; the end of colonialism, and Empire; the Cold War; the fall of Apartheid – etc! And here we are today: still in God’s hands in so many different shapes in his world and church. How much is there to thank him for in that? So how much can we trust him to work this country, this continent, and this world into his new shape? Rather than worry about what will or won’t happen, thank God for what he’s done, and pray about what he’s doing now.

It’s not just faith that’s built either. As we remember, and trust God to do much more than all we can ask or imagine (as Paul puts it in another letter) our worry is replaced by God’s peace. It’s a peace that makes no sense if we stop and think about it. Our circumstances haven’t changed; our prospects haven’t changed either. ‘All’ that has changed is the direction that our head now is looking in: instead of at the problem, it’s at what God can do in and with it. But that in itself is key to so much of what being in Christ means. As someone put it in one of the commentaries I read this week: “So much of the Christian life comes down to the mind”. If we keep focusing on the nature of the problem then our mind is closed to whatever God’s solution might be.

Of course it’s an imperfect analogy, but that tennis joke is very relevant here. If Andy Murray decides that he won’t get to his opponent’s drop-shot, then he won’t even run for it. But if he sets his mind to trying, then he very likely will not just make it but win the point. And it’s that mind-set that made the key difference for Paul when he wrote, “I can do all this through him who gives me strength”. Now Paul doesn’t mean that in a Superman sense, of him doing impossible physical feats, so much as the ability to go on trusting in God in any and all circumstances: death itself included. As Paul said of what most see as humanity’s greatest enemy: “To die is gain” is the second half of his life-motto: “To live is Christ; to die is gain”. Even death “cannot separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord”, Paul wrote; and believed; and lived.

For Paul, the mind had a crucial part to play, in both the believing and the living. So, key to his concluding remarks was this list of how to occupy their minds; with an aim of training those in right, Godly ways. Again, it was built on solid foundations in his own life; again, of the hard-won variety. So Paul could write here, “I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances. I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want”; because he really had! And because he had, he knew that they could too. His example was there to encourage them in what was possible. ‘All’ they had to do was to try; as Paul had done. If they didn’t try, then nothing would happen; but the trying makes so much possible.

So Paul offered them, and us, this solid, Godly, practical help with doing that: “Whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable – if anything is excellent or praiseworthy – think about such things”, Paul wrote. It’s quite a list; and another one that could do with a sermon of its own. There isn’t time for that now, obviously! What there is time – and need – for is for each of us to take an in-principle decision: that this is what we are going to do. There’s more than enough rubbish that we could, and often do, fill our minds with. How much better to think instead about these things: whatever is true; noble; right; pure; lovely; or admirable? If we have learned anything from this truly amazing letter – and I hope that we’ve learned rather a lot! – it’s that if we put our minds to trying, then everything is possible in Christ. So, let’s try, then; sharing Paul’s confidence as expressed in Chapter 1, that “He who began this good work in you will bring it to completion”; and so now let’s pray …