Let's Celebrate!   Philippians 4:1-9

You know what we don’t do enough of? Celebrate what God has been doing in the life of Faith Church. God has richly blessed us, not with money or anything like that, but with faithful and willing people who enthusiastically minister in the name of Christ. So much ministry happens through our people and the church that we need to stop and thank God. Notice I didn’t say pat ourselves on the back. It’s not about us, it’s about God.

In our scripture passage this morning Paul says, “Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say rejoice.” As always, Paul is dealing with concrete historical situations. In this case, there appears to be a disagreement between 2 workers in the church, Euodia and Syntyche. It doesn’t appear to be serious, at least
not yet, but Paul is calling for them and the church to remember Christ, what Christ had done for them and why they were disciples ministering in Christ. Like us many times, they got so caught up in trying to do a good job according to their own understandings that they forgot why they were ministering in Christ’s name in the first place. Paul urges them to rejoice in the way the Lord is working through them, being sensitive to the fact that their work witnesses to the love and grace of Christ for the world.

Any time 2 or more people work together, there will be disagreements about how we should minister. How we work them out witnesses to the rest of the world that hostility, jealousy, self-centeredness, vindictiveness are not the ways of God. Christ has shown us a better way to live and to minister together. Paul
believed that if disciples would rejoice in Christ, that is celebrate what Christ is doing, we could make a witness to the world that center on God, not on us and our divisions.

We at Faith Church work eagerly and hard at ministering in Christ. So to promote our oneness in Christ and give our witness wings into the community, today we rejoice, we celebrate, not what we do, but what Christ is doing among us. We can’t highlight every ministry the church does, so we will celebrate all of our ministries under 8 general headings. All ministry that we do is important, not just some. And to make sure that we
don’t show favoritism, I have listed them in alphabetical order.

As a third-century man was anticipating death, he penned these last words to a friend: "It's a bad world, an incredibly bad world. But I have discovered in the midst of it a quiet and holy people who have learned a great secret. They have found a joy which is a thousand times better than any pleasure of our sinful life. They are despised and persecuted, but they care not. They are masters of their souls. They have overcome the world. These people are the Christians--and I am one of them."

My friends, each of us has a choice to make every day when we get out of bed. Are we going to participate in a sinful, hurting world, or are going to celebrate and witness to our faith in bring grace and healing to the world? It’s our choice. Nobody makes that decision for us. But this much I can tell you. I am a Christian and I choose to celebrate what God is doing in my life and in the life of those around me. I choose to offer grace and healing. I choose this day and every day to celebrate. That’s why you always see me with
a smile on my face. Because God is so good and thus life is good.

How about you? If I have any message for you today, it is to celebrate what God is doing in your life and let the world know so that others too might come to know and accept the Lord. So let the balloons fly and the bubble float and the confetti stream down, and celebrate Christ.