Philippians 2

5 Minute Sermon: Crying Over Spilt Milk

Audio Sermon: Philippians 1

God is LOVE

God is LOVE

1 John 4:8 “He that loveth not knoweth not God: for God is Love.”

There are some quite tragic accounts about in the world, where a man and a woman are in love... the man is a Christian, the woman is an atheist, but the man decides he can’t be with her because it could mar his relationship with God and his religion. They’re both really sad for the rest of their lives following that, wondering all the time what it might have been like had it worked out between them, of if He would just give up his religion, or made some compromise.

There’s another story too... Another man and another woman are in love, the woman is a Christian, and so is the man, but the man is a divorcee, and so the woman decides it would be against the wishes of her God that she should be with this man, and that it would be blatant adultery. So the two live the rest of their lives in misery wondering what it could have been like had everything worked out alright.

These two stories are tragic right?

Or wrong?

You know what I’m going to say right? I’m going to tell you that God is much more important that fulfilling all your selfish lusts. That’s what I’m going to say isn’t it?

No you are wrong!

Now I have shocked you!

In the first story the man should have stayed with the woman, and in the second story the woman should have stayed with the man.

Now you are thinking that Michael Buckingham has gone crazy... maybe he doesn’t even believe the Bible any more... could it be that Michael thinks that sensual love is more important that the love of God.

No. I’m not crazy. I do believe the Bible. And the love of God is far higher than and sensual love could ever be.

So it seems that I have made some kind of logical error?

No.

You see, in both the first and the second stories, neither the man of the woman had the love of God. They would never think back over a sensual marriage, Lot’s wife looked back... looking back is a sure sign that you are not really saved and you are still part of the world from which you have just left.

Before I go on, I would just like to clarify that it is an admirable thing for a sinner to live as a Christian, but to say you love God and you don’t that is a lie.

So let me rewrite those two stories where the spouse really does love God.

There is a man and a woman who think that they are in love... Christians often get mistaken, but this kind of love is no love at all.

The man is a Christian, the woman is an atheist. The choice is extremely heart-rending, but because of the man’s love towards God, he is able to make the right choice and he parts ways with the woman before any kind of immorality occurs.

Time goes by, sure the man thinks about his former lover, but he never regrets his decision, because although, he never married in the end, he found where true love lives, in the bosom of love itself: GOD.

Remember our text? “God is love”

I’ll let you rewrite the second story in your own time.

On my mind for quite some time now, is what it says in Philippians 4:4 “Rejoice in the Lord always”. Always? That’s kind of hard to do isn’t it... don’t you sometimes feel down, and sad? But God said we have to be joyful all of the time. It was actually Paul that wrote the words but as we know all scripture is inspired by God.

SO here’s how we rejoice all the time, how we can be continuously happy: We think about God’s love all the time... love is never a sad thing is it?

How do we think about God all the time? That’s easy! Everything in this world should be able to remind us of God, because it was He who created all things... so right here right now, what can you see? Can you see your fingers? Can you see the sky? Trees? Are you breathing air? Yes it’s all made by God. If you are alive it’s only because of God and his undying love... so we have always something that will remind us of God, and because we are always thinking about God, we cannot but be happy can we?

So there’s 3 aspects of love that I would like to focus on today:

1. God’s love to us

2. Our love to God

3. Our love to other people

So firstly, God’s love to us.

SO how much really does God love us?

Much more than you or I can even imagine... the English language cannot do the love of God justice... the Greek language as I understand had multiple words for love, but yet it could still not do justice to the love of God.

The last part of Romans 8 has a great description of the Love of God, I advise you to read it through some time.

Maybe you have been in a similar situation to me.

There was a girl that I really liked, I wanted to marry her, but the thing is, I wanted to know if she felt the same way about me.

But that was the problem, how can you tell how much someone likes you.

To tell a person’s weight you put them on a weighing scale.

To tell a person’s height, you get a measuring tape.

But there is no such measurement for love.

But you can get some kind of idea about a person’s love for you by how much they would do for you.

Well, needless to say, it didn’t work out between me and this girl, it seemed that she probably wouldn’t go to the end of the world and back for me, and it seems that I wouldn’t for her either.

So let’s have a look at God’s love to us... how far would God go to show his love to us?

We could not begin to imagine... God is God, and God lives in Heaven, God has everything He wants when He wants, He even created the world for His own glory, man was created for His glory. Yet God leaves all that behind, and lives like a humble human being, he is born in a stable because there was no room for him in the inn... He has the lowliest birth imaginable.

His earthly father Joseph is a carpenter, so he didn’t have much disposable income... so Jesus is definitely poor.

What a drop from being supreme God of the universes!

That’s real love isn’t it?

You know if someone were to do that for me, I would love them forever and ever and ever!

But that’s not all God did for us... and this part is so unimaginable: God, who is sinless and perfect, took upon Himself all our sins and failings, and bore them all away on the cross, and dying paid the penalty that we should have paid.

And praise be to God! We are free of sin, and God has purchased our souls to reign with Him in glory!

That’s the most beautiful act of love EVER!

Beats bringing flowers home to the wife doesn’t it?

So that’s something of God’s love to us, I don’t think I even touched a drop in the ocean of all that God’s love is about... but if you want to learn more about God’s love, I endure you to read more of your Bible, perhaps you might find a study Bible of some use.

So now we come to the second point of my sermon on LOVE.

The Second point is our love to God.

We are a fallen depraved people we sin as if we are breathing, every breath seems to be dedicated to the devil and our own selfish lusts.

We are utterly incapable of any kind of love.

But if you were listening to the last section of my sermon, you might have noticed that God bore our sins away on the Cross. So now we are saved.

God has made a show of love to us, in taking our sins, and in so doing has given us the means whereby to love Him in return.

So God has given us that initial ability to love Him, but we still have a small part to play... we have to practice loving Him.

Here’s how: we read in our Bible about how God loved us, we meditate upon it day and night, every thought should be on the love of God... and in thus feeling loved, we in return love him.

Have you ever met someone that think you are just so amazing, who dearly loves you, perhaps a spouse, boyfriend, girlfriend, or maybe a son or daughter. They like you so much, and although you don’t “naturally” like them, because they think the world of you, you begin also to think the world of them.

It’s kind of like that with God, but in no way did we deserve to be loved so much... God loved us in spite of all our sins and backslidings.

So now we have looked at the love of God to us, then we looked at our love to God, so now we come to our 3^rd and final point:

Our love to other people.

O wait just 1 sec... just before we look at that, just going back to our love to God, we can show our love to God by obeying His commandments, read 1 John if you have the time.

So back to our love to other people.

What is the greatest commandment? Jesus tells us in the Gospel doesn’t he? The greatest commandment is to love the Lord thy God with all thy hear and with all thy soul, and the second greatest command is like it, thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.

SO this is the second greatest command to love other people... if you study the teachings of Jesus you will find that this refers to the love of both Christians and non-Christians.

Now, just to clarify, when it says that we ought to love non-Christians it does not mean that we can intermarry with them... a Christian should only marry a Christian.

But what it does mean is that we should be kind to non-Christians, we should even listen to their point of view even though we do not agree. We listen out of respect, and then we tell them that we disagree, and calmly tell them about Jesus.

We do not have fellowship with Non-Christians, that is not how we show our love. We show our love to a non-Christian when we tell that about what it is that has made our life so much better: Jesus. We love them so much that we want to give them that best of gifts: Jesus!

And then our love to Christians is so important... we could so easily miss out our fellowship with the people of God by spending so much time with non-believers, even if we are always telling them about Christ.

We need that special time when we can just talk to another Christian about how much we love Jesus.

And remember the more time we spend reading the Bible, which is the one book in the world that talks about PURE love. The more time we spend reading this special book, the more we will start loving as we begin to understand what love is.

God changes a man’s heart in a nano-second, but it takes a lifetime to change his lifestyle.

Well we have only briefly touched on the matter of love... but this sermon will not be my only chance to demonstrate to others the greatness of love... I can show love every day, every waking moment, by the way I live. Yes, My lifestyle can be a manifestation of God’s love!

Well, I hope this sermon has been of some edification to someone.

God bless.

Amen!

The Christian Workout

The Christian Workout

Ø Monday:

Love

Ø Tuesday:

Joy

Ø Wednesday:

Peace

Ø Thursday:

Spreading the Gospel

Ø Friday:

Poor Relief

Ø Saturday:

Prayer

Ø Sunday:

Rest

The Idea is to build up Christian muscles which are these 6 virtues followed by a day of rest. If you have ever been to the gym to build muscles or just to tone up, you will have been given a similar workout routine, working on Back, Chest, Biceps, Triceps, Shoulders, and Legs, with some cardio and a warm-up to start with. And this new method has a similar idea.

I have called this devotional method “the Christian Workout” solely because of it’s being based on a gym workout system.

I will be giving training advice on my new Workout blog http://www.thechristianworkout.blogspot.com/ but for now here is a bit of a starter:

On Monday our theme is Love:

I’m presuming that you will all be beginners for now; perhaps you are quite new to the Christian faith.

Every morning should start off with a Bible reading and a prayer, perhaps you could read 1 Corinthians 13 which is a great chapter, written by the Apostle Paul, completely devoted to love. Then you could pray that God will teach you how to love throughout the day.

Maybe you go to work, is there anyone you don’t like at work? Someone maybe you find hard to get along with? A great show of love would be to act courteously with them, be kind, and try and show a loving spirit. Remember God told us to love our enemies!

If you have time later, maybe you could pick up your study Bible, and look at all the themes of Love.

Love is the main theme in the Bible, it was all for love that Jesus came to Earth to save us, we would do well to truly understand this principle!

And before going to bed, don’t forget to read your Bible and pray again!

On Tuesday, our theme is Joy:

A great passage to read in the morning would be the Epistle to the Philippians, it’s all about Joy. Then you can pray to God that you will be given joy throughout the day.

Then what ever you do, see if you can keep smiling non-stop throughout the day. Don’t be discouraged if you don’t succeed, it takes a long time to build up your spiritual muscles. Do the best you can this week and hopefully next week you will be doing much better.

It won’t hurt to smile on the day’s that isn’t Tuesday, Tuesday is just the day when we really focus on Joy, a Christian should always have each of these principles in the Christian Workout at all times! But the idea of the workout is to encourage us to focus on these topics.

A Christian is a saved soul; nothing in this world that can ever happen to them should be able to make them sad or depressed!

On Wednesday our theme is Peace:

This one is really, really hard! Peace isn’t something easily acquired, like love and joy, we might only be able to achieve a little in a day, but we must pray that although we only achieve little, that God would help us to improve every week.

Is your job stressful? This inner peace can make all the difference.

I am no expert in Peace, I do not claim to have received much of it, but if we look in the Bible, doubtless we will be able to find the answers. I recommend that you buy yourself a good study Bible, and a concordance, just look through each of those reference to peace, look at examples of how people received peace and you will find the Bible an excellent resource.

And remember always read your Bible and pray.

On Thursday our theme is Spreading the Gospel:

This is one for every Christian, it’s the great commission found at the end of Matthew, preaching is not just for preachers, if you truly love God and are truly grateful for Him dying to save you, you will want to take every opportunity to talk to people about Him. But the problem is that we are all very fearful people, and we are afraid that people will make fun of us because we are Christians. So I have devoted Thursday to talking to people about Jesus.

In the morning you could read some chapters from the book of Acts, where the apostles told people about Jesus, ask for God’s help to open your mouth.

If you are anything like I used to be, you probably never even mentioned to your friends that you are a Christian, so a great start for you would be to let it slip out in conversation that you are a Christian, they won’t tear you to pieces, the hardest bit is overcoming yourself.

If you are an experienced Christian you might want to strike up a conversation with someone, and tell them about what Jesus means to you.

And remember, a good Christian life is as good an example as any, be kind and loving to all, and be certain to never do anything that God would not approve of.

On Friday, our theme is Poor Relief:

Give money to charity, if you have a good income you might want to set aside a sum of money each month for charities. Remember God loveth the cheerful giver!

Maybe you have some unwanted items hanging around the house, why not take them down to your local charity store.

Read the Gospels, you will see what love Jesus had to the poor.

Pray for the poor, prayer can do more than all the money in the world! But don’t think that you can pray and then you are absolved from financial contribution, that’s like the Pharisees that say one thing and do another.

As always, Bible study and prayer are invaluable!

On Saturday our theme is Prayer:

Prayer is of number 1 importance, and should be exercised every day, that and Bible Study form the Spiritual cardio, while the others form the spiritual muscle building.

But, we have set aside Saturday as a special day of prayer, see how long you can pray for with feeling. Don’t just say words, you have to really mean them, you must be passionate.

Pray for those close to you, pray for your natural and spiritual teachers, pray for important people in every walk of life, pray for the week and infirm, pray that the Lord would make you grow in grace and in the knowledge of Him, and most of all pray that God would be glorified.

A couple scripture passages that you might want to focus on is The Lord’s Prayer in Matthew 6, and Jesus’ prayer in John 17.

There is much study that can be done on the matter of prayer, and much experience taken from simply pouring out your heart before God!

And finally on Sunday our theme is Rest:

Basically there is no theme, you just worship God as He ought to be worshipped, go to Church, sing praises just totally let God take over your life.

Remember God made the Sabbath for man and not man for the Sabbath, you should learn to enjoy your Sundays, do things that you want to do, but be certain that it’s all to do with God!

So just a few tips:

When building up your spiritual muscles, always work to your limit, love until you can love no more, be joyful until you have run out of joy, be perfectly peaceful until there is no peace left in you, and so on. Your spiritual muscles will only grow in they are pushed to their limits.

If you are new, don’t be disheartened if you feel like you are not achieving anything, everyone starts from somewhere.

And never let this workout become a burden to you, try and enjoy it. If it becomes a burden to you and makes you want to give up you Christianity it is of no use!

And remember all things should be done as unto The Lord bringing all honour and glory to His precious name!

Please check the blog mentioned above for more advice, and don’t hesitate to email me on cassie.holmes@hotmail.co.uk if you need advice or if you have any advice for me, or you just want to tell us how the workout scheme has blessed your life.

I pray the Lord would bless you,

Michael Buckingham.

The Scary Sermon

The Scary Sermon

Are you scared today? What are you afraid of? Are you afraid of the future? Are you afraid of a person? Are you afraid of dying?

Whatever you are afraid of today, I intend to help you to understand your fear and how to overcome it. Chances are I won’t address your particular need as you would like, but the principles that I will bring before you should be easily moulded so as you can apply it to your own case.

I’m going to tell you a story, but I need you to try and be scared for me, you might need a little bit of imagination as my story telling skill might not be too good!

The story starts with a boy of 12 whose name was Jim. Jim was a pleasant young lad, but one day his mother became very ill, the doctor came and saw her, and he explained to Jim and his father that in all probability Jim’s mother will die. Sad right?

Well, the day came for Jim’s mother to be taken from this life, and she died. Then it dawned on Jim that maybe one day he would die too. The thought really scared him!

You can imagine the sorrow in Jim’s heart when he saw him mother placed in a coffin and put in the ground, her lifeless body never to see the light of day again! Where is she now? Jim wondered whether she was in a different world. Maybe she had gone to Heaven? Is there such a place? Or maybe when you die you just stop existing? Jim decided he was going to think that his mother was with Jesus in Heaven!

That’s great! Jim’s finally come to believe in God! Or has he?

Well, the first few nights after the burial, Jim started to have nightmares about his mother dying, he told his dad, but his dad just assured him that they will eventually go, which they did. But with the passing of the nightmares about his mother, came nightmares about his own death.

Jim had once heard a preacher mention something about a place called Hell, where there are lots of flames and bad people are tortured every day. Jim started to have nightmares about Hell now, and he wondered whether, should he die, whether he would go to Heaven or to Hell.

Jim tried to think of himself as a good person and that surely he would go to Heaven. But the nightmares kept on coming.

The nightmares had a terrible effect on Jim, he began to have lots of other little fears, he began to be afraid of spiders, and afraid of heights, and he developed claustrophobia. Jim gradually began to lose friends because they thought he was a freak, no-one wanted to know him!

Jim’s in quite a state right?

So it’s time to play doctor! So Jim’s come to my little doctor’s surgery and asked for my help. I’m going to diagnose him as having multiple fear disorders. Do you agree with my diagnosis?

If yes, then please help me now to find a cure!

If you went to any normal doctor, I’m sure they would send you to a psychiatrist, and the psychiatrist would prescribe you some kind of anti-depressants, and they’ll probably do you no ounce of good, or even worse make the nightmares go away, so that Jim can live his life again just as he wanted, fulfilling all his selfish desires.

So here’s my perfect cure for Jim’s sickness, I give him a Bible, and I instruct him to read a few chapters a day.

Do you agree with my clinical judgement? Am I right to prescribe the Bible? I’m sure most of my hearers are Christian, and so you’ll probably be pleased to hear of my answer to Jim’s condition. But let’s see what actually happened when Jim started to read his Bible!

So, Jim leaves the doctor’s surgery thinking that the doctor is a complete idiot, and that any sensible doctor would have given some sort of tablet to remove the nightmares. But Jim was quite desperate, and he really wanted to be normal again and not be afraid of dying all the time.

Well, Jim opens up his Bible randomly and his eye fall on the passage in Hebrews 2 “Forasmuch then as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, he also himself likewise took part of the same; that through death he might destroy him that had the power of death, that is, the devil; And deliver them who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage”

That’s last bit really describes Jim doesn’t it? That’s what he thought too. And it was quite a relief to feel that he was not the only one like this. But he thought it quite weird that someone dies and that stops people being afraid of dying... shouldn’t that make them more afraid?

Jim decided to read a bit more of the Bible, but instead of taking away his fears, it added one more fear. Jim read about a mighty God who had the power to either save you or send you to Hell, he read that everyone deserve to go to Hell. So Jim develops yet another fear, a fear of God.

That’s terrible! So my so called “cure” has only made it worse for Jim, I’ve added yet another fear to his huge list of fears.

Have any of you read proverbs?

If so, you will know that the fear of God is a good thing, as you will see with Jim.

Jim starts to have nightmares about God being angry with him and punishing him. And Jim began to be afraid to do anything that was against what God wanted him to do, so he started reading his Bible a lot, and he soon learned that God can also be merciful, and that God is loving and pardon’s sins. And soon Jim started to think of God as his Protector, and he lost all his former fears, except for his fear of God, which looks more like love than any kind of slavish fear.

So Jim finds the fear of God and now he’s not afraid of anything.

Go ahead and try it, If you are afraid, just think about God’s might, learn about Him in your Bible, and pray that God will give you this valuable fear of God!

Maybe you are afraid of someone? Do you quarrel with your boss at work? Do you have fights with your Husband? Your wife? Are you rebellious against your parents?

Fear turns to Anger, Anger turns to Hate!

If you hate someone, it probably means you were afraid of them to start with. Just think about it. Who are you angry with? Can they seriously affect your life?

I used to fight with my boss, I was afraid that they would give me bad work to do, or even fire me. It seemed that my boss had the power to make my day go well or to make my day an absolute misery. I resented that, and soon I began to be afraid, and then angry, and soon began to hate. And hating is totally wrong, both in the Bible, and anyone will say that is bad to hate people.

So if you are a Christian, and you have the fear of God, and you don’t want to do anything contrary to the will of God, you will not be afraid of man, because it doesn’t matter if you get fired, it doesn’t matter if your husband makes your life a misery, all you are concerned about is doing the will of God, and you know if God loves you, no one can touch you.

Ever wanted to be like Superman? Get the fear of God and you’ll feel utterly invincible.

The fear of God brings Joy!

Well, now here are just a few examples from the Bible of people who had fears.

David. David said in 1 Sam 17:1 “And David said in his heart, I shall now perish one day by the hand of Saul: there is nothing better for me than that I should speedily escape into the land of the Philistines; and Saul shall despair of me, to seek me any more in any coast of Israel: so shall I escape out of his hand.” He was afraid that Saul will kill him, he didn’t seem to remember that God had anointed him king of Israel, and that if God promises something He will keep his promises!

Has God given you any promises? Don’t doubt God, and don’t be afraid of man!

“And fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul: but rather fear him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell.”

Esther. Esther was asked of Mordecai to go to king Xerxes to save to Jews, but to go in to the King without him calling you was a penalty of death unless the king spare you, and you might remember Esther’s famous words “if I perish, I perish” she went in not fearing the king who could kill her, but God who could destroy her soul!

There are many more examples in Scripture, Jonah fled to Tarshish, the disciples all forsook Jesus when He was arrested, Peter denied Jesus with an oath.

But if we have the fear of God we will be able to look at death in the face and laugh saying: “Death is swallowed up in victory. O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory? The sting of death is sin; and the strength of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.”

There are stories told of martyrs that went to their deaths singing. I pray that when the time comes that God will give each of us the strength to go equally joyful to our deaths however they occur!

Now I pray that we will be given this great gift of the Fear of God and that, we will not be afraid of man!

May God add His blessing on what has been said, and pardon anything that I have spoken amiss.

May all be done to His honour and glory!

Amen!