Good morning,
Praise the Lord for the gift this new day in His Kingdom. I trust that you had a very blessed week and that you are getting geared up for this weekend of rest, refreshment in the Lord, and a great time or renewal. It is a great blessing to get reconnected with the Lord of Life who infuses us with His authentic life and power. He is IMMORTAL, He is INVISBLE, and He is WISE. Let His GRACE come upon us. Those who live in the area join us for our FRIDAY evening TV OUT RACH at 7 PM on Time Warner Cable channel 4. We will gather for our weekly SATURDAY EVENING WORSHIP at the historic First United Methodist Church, Endicott at 6 PM for Coffee Fellowship and at 6:30 PM for worship. Join us in praying that the Lord would pour out His anointing upon all of us. We are claiming blessings of miracles and healings. Rev. William Puckey will be preaching. Those who are able please join us an evening filled with the Fresh Fire and Fresh Wind of the Holy Spirit. Plan to prayerfully invite someone to join you for worship on Sunday, the Lord's Day, as we worship the Living Lord. Remember that we serve under a captain who has never lost a battle.
We are getting excited about a entering the season of Thanksgiving. Looking at the Book of Philippians we find joy in the midst of personal pain. This is truly a mystery, both personal and theological. Unfortunately, we live in a world where tragedies like this have become commonplace. I do not think that Philippians offers us a final answer to the mystery of suffering, but it does point the way to a genuinely Christian response. As we read these four chapters, Paul tells us in many different ways that, while we cannot control what happens to us, we do have total control and responsibility regarding our response. Tragedy strikes, children die, planes crash, good men go to jail, people gossip, marriages break up, and people lie about their behavior. This is an ongoing consequence of living in a fallen world.
The heart of the letter begins in Philippians 3:1 with Paul’s thanksgiving for the Philippians. This paragraph (which runs through verse 8) gives us a glimpse into Paul’s heart and shows why Paul loved this church so much. “I thank my God every time I remember you. In all my prayers for all of you, I always pray with joy because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now.”
Paul begins by expressing his gratitude for all that the Philippian believers meant to him. He remembered his friends—and that memory led him to give thanks to God. His thanksgiving led naturally to joyful prayer on their behalf. Paul chose to focus on the positive. I wonder how many of us could say the same thing about our own prayers. Often we focus only on the negatives. We pray to “correct” something in other people or to ask God to change them more to our liking.
George Buttrick once advised praying for your enemies this way, “Lord, bless this person whom I foolishly regard as an enemy. Keep him in thy favor. Banish my resentment.”
Paul’s thanksgiving for the Philippians was centered in the gospel. In verse 5 he mentioned their “partnership in the gospel.” The Greek word for “partnership” is koinonia—sometimes translated “fellowship.” In our day “fellowship” means something like a social gathering where we drink tea and eat crumpets and share casual gossip. To most of us “fellowship” means warm friendship with other believers. While it is true that drinking tea and eating crumpets has its place, this does not begin to attain to the New Testament meaning of “fellowship.” The word originally had commercial overtones. If two men bought a boat and started a fishing business, they were said to be in koinonia — a formal business partnership. They shared a common vision and invested together to see the vision become a reality. True Christian fellowship means sharing the same vision of getting the gospel to the world and then investing personally to make it happen.
There are financial overtones in the word koinonia as well as a call to personal sacrifice. When Paul thanked God for the “fellowship” of the Philippians, he was thanking God that from the very first day of their conversion, they rolled up their sleeves and got involved in the advance of the gospel. True fellowship means putting the gospel first as the controlling motive of your life and then doing whatever it takes to spread the life-changing message to the ends of the earth.
“Being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.” Many people consider this one of the greatest verses in the entire Bible. Theologians use it to defend the doctrine of the perseverance of the saints. Perhaps it is better to say that I believe in the “perseverance of God” and the “preservation of the saints". We will be “reserved” to the end because God will always “persevere.” What our Lord God starts he always finishes.
In Christ,
Brown
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pA7ujUJCIdEbrow
Saturday Evening Worship Service
Location: First United Methodist Church
53 McKinley Avenue
Endicott
Sponsored by the Union Center United Methodist Church
128 Maple Drive
Endicott
6 PM: Gather for Coffee and Fellowship
6:30 PM: Worship
Special Music: The Worship Team from Hawleyton United Methodist Church Preacher: The Rev William Puckey
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