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| Rev. Brian Wilkie |
Pastor of St. Andrew's Christian Community
Rockland, Ontario
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PODCAST LINK to CFRA broadcast - Sunday, May 28th, 2017:
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Broadcast Notes:
Good Morning!
I'm your host today, Brian Wilkie of St. Andrew's Christian Church in
Rockland. As we begin today, my prayer
is that The Good News of the Lord Jesus Christ would encourage and strengthen
you today!
I gratefully acknowledge today's Sponsor, Eileen Ford. Ilene's
friendship, and prayers have been a great blessing during my ministry, Thank
you Eileen for four support today.
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The Peace
of Christ
As be begin today, the theme of my message is the peace of Christ. In my congregational preaching since Easter, I focused on what Jesus had accomplished through the cross and the Resurrection, as the Lord of life, love and peace. And today's scripture addresses the application of God’s peace to the life of believers, and this time Paul addresses the application beginning with two particular people that he knows. Euodia and Syntyche.
Here is God’s word
addressed to them and us from Philippians
4:2-
“I plead with Euodia
and I plead with Syntyche to agree with each other in the Lord. Yes, and I ask
you, loyal yoke fellows, help these women who have contended at my side in the
cause of the gospel, along with Clement and the rest of my fellow workers,
whose names are in the book of life. Rejoice in the Lord always. Again I say
it: Rejoice! Let your gentleness be evident to all. The Lord is near. Do not be
anxious about anything, but in every thing, by prayer and petition, with
thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which
transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ
Jesus. Finally, brothers, 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. Whatever you have learned
or received or heard from me, or seen in me—put it into practice. And the God
of peace will be with you.”
Now we will get a
look at what this means in a few minutes, but first I’d like to have you listen
with me, to a song sung by the band Delirious from their album Deeper and it’s
called the King of Love. Please listen to it with me.
The theme of peace is
such an important one to each of our heart as we go through life, we find our
lives unsettled by so many events in the world around us, in our close
associations and relationships and even just in our own hearts, as our minds
and our emotions sometime come into conflict. So Peace is an important theme in
the world today. It’s unfortunate that many, many people these days are filled
with anxiety to the point that there’s a lot of people who are being medicated
for anxiety disorders. And others are being medicated for other mood disorders
because of the lack of peace in their minds. We know that these things occur
both because of the chemistry of our brains and also because of the flood of information
and the worries that attend life on this planet.
Paul is addressing
his church in Philippi. The people that he has worked with to bring people to
the good news of salvation in Jesus Christ. And he’s instructing them generally
about how to live out their faith, and how to find the fullness of what God has
offered them in Jesus Christ. In the middle of this letter, he addresses two
women, whose names you can tell I have difficulty pronouncing, Euodia and her
friend. Euodia and her friend have worked together with Paul in the past.
They’ve worked as a team with Paul and others to advance the cause of God's
grace and God's love, bringing that good news to their community, but, and this
shouldn’t surprise us too much, these two people have come into conflict. We
don’t know the nature of their conflict but we know that they’re people who
have worked together in the past, and something has divided them, and they’re
lacking in peace.
So Paul does a couple
of things. He first of all urges them, each individually, to agree with each
other. To come to some kind of terms. To recognize the gifts and the abilities
of the other. To respect each other's opinions. What ever it takes, agree with
each other in the Lord. That phrase, in the Lord, is important for us as well.
That he knows that he can appeal to the most important thing in the lives of
these two women, because it’s not Jesus who’s dividing them, but something of
less importance. Let’s remember that when we find ourselves in conflict . And
he also asks the other members of the congregation, the other believers to help
them, to support them as they try to come to some reconciliation.
When he goes into the
next paragraph and starts saying, "Rejoice in the Lord always, again I say
rejoice," we don’t know yet if he’s talking generally to all Christians or
whether he’s continuing his appeal to Euodia and her friend. Rejoice in the
Lord! Well that’s good advice for people who are caught up in some lesser
problem, because problems often take our focus off the really important things.
Divisions often take our eyes off the things that unite us. And if they would
rejoice in the Lord, remember that joy, then they would be at a place where
they can come to peace in their relationship. At least they’d come a lot
closer.
You see, they may
have lost sight in all their laboring for God, of the love and the grace which
moved them into this work in the first place. This does happen among the people
of God and maybe some people who are listening to this program today, got fed up
with conflict and so on, and have turned away from gathering together with
other Christians. It’s unfortunate because God calls us to meet together. To
encourage and help one another. But when conflict divides the body of Christ,
it undoes so many good things. And so the urging of Paul to Euodia and her
friend is an urging to each one of us to be peace makers. As Jesus said in the
beatitudes, blessed are the peacemakers for theirs is the kingdom of God. Those
who are willing to find ways to dissolve conflicts and continue to work
together for the kingdom. Continue to encourage each other and build each other
up instead of tearing each other down.
These are people who
are peace makers and not only advancing the work of the kingdom, but are
themselves enjoying the benefits of being in a relationship with Jesus. In
which sins can be forgiven. In which anger can be replaced with hope and joy.
How many people today
wish for that kind of peace in their lives? The world definitely needs peace.
We are unfortunately inundated by bad news day after day. Moment after moment.
What ever channel we turn to on the TV or whatever page we flip to on the
internet, we find bad news about attacks, about dangers, about disasters, about
troubles everywhere. More than our minds can handle. We need peace in this
world. We need peace in our hearts, because without peace in our hearts we
can’t be agents of peace in the world. We instead, become part of the problem.
Instead of helping to lift people out of desperate situations, we become mired
down in them ourselves., and to rejoice in the Lord, to think about the things
of God. To agree with each other in the Lord is to find that purpose, which
goes on before that momentary struggles of today.
What God is doing is
eternal, important and significant. We need something of lasting value; to know
what we are building is not going to be washed away with the next storm. To
know what we are working towards is something of significance. That is makes a
difference in the world. That we aren’t just pushing paper or building
sandcastles, we are actually doing something that is of great worth. That gives
us peace about our work. You see, even if our lives were easy, and we’ve seen
many people who have been destroyed by easy lives, because they find that peace
without purpose is empty. They can find all the relaxation and they can find
all the pleasures of life, but their hearts remain cold and tired and
desperately search for purpose.
God gives us not just
quietness, but also a confidence that there is purpose in our lives and in the
work that he calls us to do. And another thing about the work God gives us is
that it’s hopeful work. When the two women who were in conflict in the
Philippians church remember that they are working for the Lord, he tells them
–do not be anxious about anything but, in everything by prayer and petition
with thanksgiving present your request to God.
It suggests perhaps
that anxiety has crept into the relationship and the work that Euodia and her
friend are doing. Is that not what happens so often as we work together. That sometimes
we become anxious all the little details and all the things that might not go
well. The little failures that cast a shadow on big successes. We find ourselves
getting anxious because though we know what we are doing is important. If we
fail to have hope, then we will suffer from worry. If instead we remember the
Lord and rejoice in the Lord who accomplished all these things on the cross. We
will find that we can have purpose and hope together, which can cure us of that
anxiety. We can be purposeful and desperate and be full of worry, but if we’re
purposeful and hopeful we will be able to move forward.
We’re going to look
into our topic a little bit more, but I did want you to hear some ords from
Glen Campbell who reminds us to turn to God in all our needs, as he sings Sweet
Hour of Prayer. This is from his album the Inspirational Album.
It’s certainly my
prayer for each of us and myself and all of you the listeners of today's
program that the peace of Christ will come and richly dwell in your heart, And
that’s what Paul wants for us and that’s what God wants for us, for he included
these instructions in the word of God. He says do not be anxious about anything
but by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving present your request to God.
When praying and
making your needs known to God, it’s important to spend some time not just
thinking about your problems, but thinking about the goodness and the greatness
of the God to whom you are presenting your prayers. When you are presenting
prayers you’re not just making a list of problems which threaten to overwhelm
God. You’re speaking to the maker of the whole universe. You’re speaking to one
who loves you with an infinite love who has taken your place, taken your sins
upon himself on the cross and has suffered even death, in order to bring you
into eternal life. So when you’re bringing your petitions and prayers to God,
you present them with thanksgiving because God is able to handle it. God is
able to help you and lead you and sustain you through any troubles you have
It’s with thanksgiving that the peace of God, which transcends all
understanding guards your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.
Laying your burdens
before the Lord is an important part of peace. One thing I very much want to
encourage you to do because this is a very comforting message, I hope, but I do
think that the one of the important things of God calls us to do. As he calls
Euodia and her friend to be reconciled, he calls us to the way of peace as
well. To come before him not only with the needs that press around us in the
world and in our lives , but with also the confession. The confession that we
have been misbehaving. That we have been treating others in ways that we
shouldn’t. For Euodia and Syntyche they probably had to confess to God the ways
they had said hurtful things to each other or the ways that they had been
impatient with each other, and they had to come to God and let God change their
hearts. And you know as a second step, no doubt, in order to agree with each
other in the Lord, they would need to apologize to each other. To confess their
sins to each other. And as I have spoken before, when there’s a conflict
between two people, there’s usually two people saying, I didn’t start this
thing.
But when we recognize
that we can take a step to bring an end to the conflict, when we take those
steps in humility and we confess our own sins, when we apologize for them, and
when we even recognized that we carry bitterness that has just made the
situation worse. If we take all these things by prayer and petition with
thanksgiving to God, we will find, that the peace of God which transcends all
understanding, will guard our hearts and our minds in Christ Jesus.
And so, even in our
relationships and I’m reading today this passage as though Paul were talking
specifically to Euodia and her friend. When he says what ever 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.
That doesn’t just
apply to the goodness of God. It also applies to the people around you. If you
concentrate on their faults you’ll find an endless list I’m sure. But if you
seek to find the qualities that God has been restoring in them through faith in
Jesus Christ. If you seek to see the handiwork of God, the workmanship of their
creator in their character, their personality and in their lives. If you seek
to see the qualities of redemption and grace then you will find many things
that are noble, right and pure in one another. What a way to renew your love
for another person than to think about these things and to let those things
guide you as you seek to resolve and reconcile the lack of peace in your
relationship. To do this before God and to remember the goodness of God is a good
uplift for our souls, but take what we’ve learned from God and applying it in
loving one another is a great way to restore relationships and find peace.
God desires you to
have all the blessings of his son Jesus Christ and he has given Christ to live
in our hearts so we are not doing these things without a helper, but with the
full strength of the holy spirit and the power of the resurrection working in
us. And so we can come with confidence to God and confidence in these
situations that we can find peace with God's overwhelming help.
Now today as we close the broadcast I want you
to notice the announcer makes the statement at the end of the program that
there’s been a change to our postal address. So if you’re sending financial
support or written comments, please pay attention to the new address. And I
want to thank again Eileen Ford for being a friend and sponsor for this
program.
Let us
turn to God in prayer:
Almighty God, thank you for making peace
between yourself and us through Jesus Christ. Thank you that you continue to
reach out to us in love, despite our sin and our rebellion against you. Help us
to have the same mind and heart as our Lord Jesus Christ does, as we resolve to
be people of peace. Peace in our hearts, peace in our relationships, and
peacemakers in the world. We ask that you would bless us with that great gift
of the Holy Spirit in fuller and fuller measure, through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Amen
And now in a few
minutes we’ll listen together to Carolyn Arends interpretations of one of the
scriptures which says be still and know that I am God. This song, Be Still, is
from her album Love Was Here First.
Rev. Brian Wilkie
St. Andrew's
Christian Community, Rockland,
Ontario
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To listen to the above
broadcast, click on the following link:
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