Untitled Sermon

Philippians 2:14-16

The New Testament in Modern Speech: An Idiomatic Translation into Everyday English from the Text of “The Resultant Greek Testament” Chapter 2

14 Be ever on your guard against a grudging and contentious spirit, 15 so that you may always prove yourselves to be blameless and spotless—irreproachable children of God in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation, among whom you are seen as heavenly lights in the world, holding out to them a Message of Life. 16 It will then be my glory on the day of Christ that I did not run my race in vain nor toil in vain.

The book of Philippians was written by the apostle Paul to the church in Philippi. The letter focuses on the proper Christian attitude especially during times of suffering.

When I worked in retail, we would all dread working on Sundays because when church let out and everyone came in to shop, they were the most miserable and hateful group of people we had to work for all week. How can we be children of God and be so miserable? The book of Galatians tells us that the fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness,, faithfulness, gentleness, and self control. This fruit is supposed to be the result of God’s spirit within us.

We aren’t perfect people. We are humans who constantly fail at the life we are supposed to live in Christ. We will never be perfect but that doesn’t mean that we should give up trying to do our best with God’s help. It is possible to change our behaviors and responses.

Have you ever eaten at Chic-Fil-A? The employees always smile and welcome you. When you thank any of them for doing something for you, what is their response? “My pleasure”. Do you suppose that all of the employees in all of their restaurants just happen to have the same welcoming smile and response to your thanks? Of course not. It is the standard of the Chic-Fil-A chain to have the employees respond the same way every time to their guests. Why would the restaurant want their employees to have the same canned reply when you thank them for helping you? It’s because they know that when you repeat something often enough, you begin to believe it. By repeating to every customer “my pleasure” every employee will soon believe that they enjoy being of service to every customer.

This same method can be used to help us change the way we interact with people. If we really want to change, we should pray to God for help then make it a priority to change what needs changed. God will remind us when we don’t hit the mark.

We don’t like to wait do we?… at the doctor’s office, in the checkout line, at the gas station on a busy day, or behind an accident on the freeway.

We aren’t always loving.… when someone hurts us we want to hurt them back. We sometimes put someone down because they look or act differently than we do.

Joy can be difficult when we have a rough day at work or just a bad day period. When a co-worker asks how our day is going, we tend to respond, without even thinking, “I’m living the dream” which is sarcasm of course. but the negative response plants the seed in our brain that can grow into dissatisfaction.

When I became a nurse, 10 years ago now, I was excited to do my work and enjoyed caring for people who needed help with some of their activities. As time went on and I was surrounded by nurses who were jaded by different situations, I started to lose the joy of my work. It has only gotten to be a joy again when I realized what was happening and decided that I wanted to feel good about what I was doing again. I began seeing Christ in my patients again and realizing that what I do for them, I also do for Him. In talking with patients and their families I tell them about how I love what I do and their response is almost always, “it shows”. What a compliment from them to say they see and sense the love I have for my work.

My biggest challenge to showing the fruit of the spirit is when I’m driving. I can’t stand to have to wait behind somebody who isn’t driving the way I want them to. I am anything but loving, joyful, patient, peaceful, kind, good, faithful, gentle or self controlled when someone is driving in the fast lane at the same speed as the person in the slow lane.