NT Sermons

Well, congratulations!

What am I congratulating you for, you are wondering? Well that’s how I start most sermons that I preach at a wedding. It’s what someone will say to you when you’ve passed your driving test. It’s what you say to someone who has just got a new job. It’s what you say to someone when they’ve just had a new grandchild.

We say: Congratulations! You’ve just achieved something that was well-worth doing. You’ve done something to be proud of. Well done!

There is no full script available for the sermon on Philippians 1:12-18a, but instead you can listen to an audio recording of the sermon by clicking the button below.

• Philippians_01_12-18.mp3 (Time: 24:02; File Size: 11.0MB)

Priorities are hard things aren’t they.

Like choosing a pudding. Do you like cheesecake? Yes. Do you like sticky toffee pudding? Yes. Do you like rhubarb crumble? Yes. Do you like chocolate mousse? Yes. You can’t eat 4 puddings. You wouldn’t manage to eat them all without being sick. You would get high cholesterol if you ate four puddings every day. You have to choose. Which one do you want? Cheesecake. Sticky Toffee. Rhubarb Crumble. Chocolate Mousse. You may have only one. Ah. Much harder.

Welcome to Paul’s letter to the Philippians. The church at Philippi was a thriving and healthy church. Just from this opening paragraph we get a sense of how deeply Paul feels for them. It’s almost as if they are his favourite church. Philippians is a lovely letter, because the Philippian church had no major problems. Sure, there are a few things for them to work on, and there are a few things for them to watch out for. But overall, this is a church that’s getting things right, that is in good health, and has been a tremendous strength and blessing to Paul.

One of the things that causes many people to dismiss the Christian faith is the perception that the church is hypocritical.

With great delight we have just baptised three small children. We have just welcomed three new members into our church. That makes this a good Sunday to think about our relationships with one another. How should we, who are in this church, relate to one another? What should characterise our relationships.

Most of us here this morning would agree that Jesus Christ is good. He’s good for our lives. He’s good for our village. He’s good for our nation. He’s worth doing things for. He’s worth giving things up for. He’s somebody really very precious indeed.

Over the past twenty years, the study of “comparative religion” has become a significant enterprise. As more and more religious faiths are represented in Britain in significant numbers, and as communications around the world have opened up, we feel it is important that people have a basic grasp of the religions of the world and how they differ from one another. Most GCSE RE syllabuses now focus on this, and the emphasis is on the various practices, customs and rituals of each religion. Compare, and contrast.

The question we’re thinking through this morning is this: As a church, as a congregation, what are our priorities? What are we here for? What should we look like, as a church, such that if Jesus were to come in and meet us he would say “Yes, that is what I hoped I’d find”?

This morning we come to one of those passages in the Bible that I find hard to read. I certainly can’t read it without stopping. The events that are recorded here are the most amazing events in the whole of human history. The love we find here is the deepest in the whole of human history; the injustice we see here is the most perverted in the whole of human history; the cruelty we read of here is the most vicious in the whole of human history. This was no ordinary event. This was a one-of-a-kind, breathtaking, awesome, miraculous event. That is why I can’t read it without pausing. I can’t quite believe it really happened. I can’t read it without worshipping the God we meet here.