What is there to Celebrate?
This is the sermon I preached on Sunday, Oct. 15 at St. Timothy Lutheran Church and St. Mark Lutheran Church . The scripture text is Philippians 4:1-9 . “Celebrate God all day, every day…revel in him” (v. 4). Rejoice in the Lord always and again I say rejoice! How can an attitude like that make any sense in today’s world of violence, fires and storms that devastate people’s lives and property? Additionally, it seems like we are on the threshold of war. Does such an attitude seem callous or fanatical? What was Paul thinking as he wrote this to the Philippian church? For one thing, Paul had been through the school of hard knocks. He wrote this letter from prison and had experienced beatings and all kinds of problems for the faith. Remember that before becoming a follower of Jesus, Paul was a well-respected Jewish leader. He was zealous for his faith to the point of persecuting believers in Jesus. The Philippians themselves were experiencing persecution, so you c...