For the Week of May 15th.

Here's what is happening at Pilgrim

Sunday, May 15th 6:00 PM ... Youth Fellowship
Tuesday, May 17th Noon ... Prayer in the Parlor
7:00 ... Bible Study
Thursday, May 19th 7:00 PM ... Choir practice
Friday, May 20th 2:30 - 9:30 PM... Olin Mill Picture taking
Saturday,May 21st 9:30 AM - 5:30 PM ... Olin Mills Picture taking
Sunday, May 22nd 9:15 AM ... Sunday School Opening
9:30 AM ... Sunday School
19:30 AM ...Worship Service


BIRTHDAYS THIS WEEK

Sunday, May 15th ... Kaye Everhart
Saturday, May 21st ... John Ray Ward

THIS PASTOR’S VIEWPOINT

There are numerous times in all our lives when we are afraid. Fear is not a stranger to anyone I have ever talked with, well, except with one young boy in a “Time With The Children” a few weeks ago. When I asked if they were ever afraid of anything he stoutly shook his head no.

Still, the truth be told, we all know fear at some point in our lives and it’s sometimes amazing at the number of phobias there are, so many we can’t even begin to appreciate their diversity. I looked up a few and found monophobia (fear of being alone), glossophobia (fear of public speaking), taphephobia (fear of being buried alive). One can suffer from polyphobia (to have more than one fear), or opposite fears such as vestiophobia (fear of clothes) and gymnophobia (fear of nudity). If you are planning to get married you might want to get help if you suffer from pentheraphobia which is, simply put, fear of your mother-in-law.

Some fears are ancient such as brontophobia (fear of thunder and lightening), our dog Sam suffers from this phobia and ophidiophobia (fear of snakes).

There are even modern phobias that have popped up, you know, like when the SARS popped up. Some of these are electrophobia (fear of electricity), motorphobia (fear of automobiles), aviophobia (fear of flying) and in the 1950’s nucleomituphobia (fear of nuclear weapons) came into being. There is also one I suspect that affects more of us who are middle age or so, than our children. It is called cyberphobia (fear of computers) which also applies to ATM’s. I would also like to be so bold as to suggest we might create gasophobia, (fear of rising gas prices) which is a fear that many of us are struggling with today.

Of course there is always an “other side of the coin” and I was terribly relieved to come across it this week in my Bible readings. I discovered it in 1 Samuel 25:29 (NLT). “Even when you are chased by those who seek your life, you are safe in the care of the Lord your God, secure in his treasure pouch.”

If that doesn’t give you the “warm fuzzies” and boot your phobia out into the cold, well, nothing will. Isn’t God great!


Sermon, May 15, 2011

STOP THOSE TWO DEAR WOMEN FROM FIGHTING
Philippians 4:1-9
Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice! 5 Let your gentleness be evident to all. The Lord is near. 6 Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. 7 And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

8 Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things. 9 Whatever you have learned or received or heard from me, or seen in me—put it into practice. And the God of peace will be with you.
Little Jonathan came home from the playground with a bloody nose, black eye, and torn clothing. It was obvious he’d been in a bad fight and lost. While his father was patching him up, he asked Jonathan what happened.

“Well, Dad,” said Jonathan, “You know Eddie -- that boy who’s always giving me a hard time. I challenged him to a duel. And I gave him his choice of weapons.”

His father said, “that seems fair.

“I know,” Jonathan said, “but I never thought he’d choose his big sister!”

Conflict is part of life. People get into arguments. Resentment builds. Controversy erupts. Angry words are spoken. Relationships are broken. Outright fighting may ensue. Conflict happens. Even in church. Some of you are thinking, “Especially in church.”

A cartoon showed this notice on a church bulletin board: “213 days without a split!”
Conflict happens. It even happened in the churches that bore the direct influence of the Apostle Paul. Listen to Paul’s words to the Church at Philippi, as recorded in the Living Bible: “Dear brother Christians, I love you and long to see you, for you are my joy and my reward for my work. My beloved friends, stay true to the Lord. And now I want to plead with those two dear women, Euodias and Syntyche. Please, please, with the Lord’s help, quarrel no more be friends again. And I ask you, my true teammate, to help these women, for they worked side by side with me in telling the Good News to others; and they worked with Clement, too, and the rest of my fellow workers whose names are written in the Book of Life.”

Here are two of Paul’s finest lay people and they are in conflict with each other. You can’t tell in any group of people where anger and resentment may erupt.
You may know about a deadly octopus, whose bite can kill in minutes. The bite of the blue ringedoctopus, causes blurred vision and difficulty in swallowing followed rapidly by paralysis and death. There is no known antidote.

The deadly creature, native to Australia, is only the size of a golf ball. It is a truly beautiful creature in color, but it only displays its true blue ringed colors when it is about to attack. And then it is too late.

Sometimes problems arise in the church quickly and unexpectedly. Someone says something critical. Someone else gets envious. Someone takes an unpopular position, and soon people who had been friends are at each other’s throats. And it is sad.
It broke Paul’s heart to see two of his finest lay people hurting the witness of the church because of their enmity toward one another. And so he asks other members of the church to intervene.

Every pastor has to face this kind of situation sooner or later. It is part of the human condition. The church isn’t a collection of saints, but of sinners redeemed by grace. Still, we should be able to do better.

What causes us to strike out at one another? What causes us to be envious of one another? What causes us to make differences of opinion into personal affronts? Why do we find it so hard to forgive one another?

Could it be because we have never experienced unconditional love in our lives … the unconditional love of God?

Sometime back two women appeared on the Oprah Winfrey Show. Both of the women appeared to be 40ish. They were nice looking. One was blonde and slender. The other was brunette and a little heavier. But there was a strange bond that linked the two women. You see, the brunette, heavier-set lady had killed the blonde lady’s daughter.

This sounds more like Jerry Springer than Oprah, doesn’t it? Do you know what they call guests on the Springer show? Nuts and sluts. These two ladies were neither nuts nor sluts.

The brunette lady is an alcoholic who had finally gotten her life together. But not before she had done some tragic damage to people around her. She’s a mother herself with three children. While alcohol had her in its grip, she tragically neglected her children.

Even worse, she got behind the wheel of a car one day in a drunken state and plowed into a car carrying the other woman’s young daughter and killed her. Sounds like it came off of the evening news … doesn’t it.

How would you feel toward a drunk who had killed your only daughter? How would you feel toward the person whose irresponsibility had robbed you of the one person you loved most in the world? What would you do with the grief, the anger, the rage? I honestly don’t know what you or I would do in this situation, but here is what this lady did: she forgave the woman who had killed her daughter.

She not only forgave her in her mind; she reached out in love to this sad woman who had taken her daughter’s life. She helped this woman deal with her own remorse, helped her break her dependence on alcohol, helped her take control of her life and become a loving mother and a responsible member of the community. And Oprah asked in obvious awe, “How did you do this? How did you forgive this woman who had done you such a terrible wrong?” And this nice-looking blonde lady said, “I had to.” Then she added, “Because Someone once forgave me.”

Then she added, “I have experienced the unconditional love of God in my life,” she said, “and I had to share it with someone else.”

Wow! “I have experienced the unconditional love of God.”
Have you ever experienced unconditional love? Love without strings, love without expectations, love given to you not because of something you’ve done great, but simply and solely because you are you.

This is the deepest need that human creatures have … to experience unconditional love.

You know what happens to people who do not experience unconditional love as children?All their lives they search for that love. And they carry around burning questions within their hearts. Am I worthy? Do I have any value as a human being? Could anybody ever really love me?

There are people sixty years old who are still seeking some assurance that their lives count for something. Adults with this basic insecurity act it out in different ways. Some are workaholics; some are addicts. All have difficulty with relationships.

Teenagers are not immune. Can you imagine a thirteen-year-old girl driven by this insecurity? Am I worthy? Do I have any value as a human being? Could anybody ever really love me? Can you see how easily she could be manipulated by a boy concerned only with his own needs? Can you imagine a thirteen-year-old boy with these same fears?

Desperate to be accepted, he finds friends who accept him for what he is. But there is a price for admission to the group. He must take on the values of his new comrades. Most young people who get involved with drugs do so because of a need for acceptance.

Now, listen parents. If your children are still toddlers, nothing is more important than taking time to love your children. Nothing is more important. Nothing!
Your own career is not as important. Your time is not as important. Even your own happiness is not as important. If your children are teenagers, it’s probably too late. If they’re still searching for unconditional love, they will probably resist any effort you may make to bridge that gap. Unless, of course, they are among the unfortunate young people who crash and burn. Then it will be time for all the unconditional love you can muster.

Unconditional love is the greatest need human creatures have. If we do not receive that love, we spend the rest of our lives seeking after it and there is always that lingering sense of inadequacy. This is where many of our problems begin; with a sense of inadequacy, a sense that we don’t measure up. This is the curse of people who have never experienced unconditional love.

For example, suppose I hear that you have said something critical about me. It may bother me, but I will be able to handle it, if I am secure in myself, if I have experienced an unconditional love and know myself to be a complete and worthy child of God. But suppose I have this lingering sense of inadequacy. Then the criticism has much more sting and the temptation will be to strike out at you in return.
A sense of inadequacy is the source of all envy. If I know that I am worthy and complete in myself, then I have no reason to be jealous of your accomplishments and rewards.Indeed, I can rejoice with you at the recognition that you receive.

But if I am unsure about myself, any award you win is but a reminder to me of my own personal lack of achievement. And it grates on me and might even cause me to lash out at you even though you have done nothing at all to deserve my anger.

Do you see that the way to solve the problem of conflict in the church is not for us all to take conflict resolution classes and to develop our skills at interpersonal relationships though that would not hurt.

But the greatest thing we could do to have peace and harmony in the church is to focus on the unconditional love of God for each of us and to see that where that love is experienced, there is no need for disharmony and discord, no need for envy or a critical spirit, no need for angry words and smug dismissals. As psychologist Sheldon Kopp says, “All of the significant battles are waged within the self.”

And it’s true. When people have never experienced unconditional love, they have an interesting attitude toward others: Not only can they not accept themselves, they have trouble accepting others. They’re quick to pass judgment. They’re envious. They have trouble forgiving.

It has always interested me that Jesus never called anyone a sinner. Jesus had no need to put anyone else down, condemn them, and criticize them. All of his conflicts were with the people who thrived on putting other people down.

Why was Jesus able to open his heart to all people even those who hung him on the cross? It was because Jesus experienced unconditional love in his own life. He got it from his Heavenly Father and he passed it on to others just like that blonde lady on Oprah did who passed it on to the woman who killed her daughter.

You see, unconditional love is always what God is all about. “In this is love,” says the first letter of John. “Not that we loved God, but that God loved us and gave His son for the expiation of our sins.” (4:10)

The cross is what separates Christians from Buddhists, from Moslems, even from Jews. “God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son that whoever believeth in him should not perish . . .” (John 3:16) Unconditional love is what God is all about.

Several years ago, there was a Dennis the Menace cartoon that grabbed my attention. Dennis is walking away from the next-door neighbors’ house, the home of Mr. And Mrs. Wilson, with Joey, his younger friend for whom Dennis served as kind of a mentor.

Both of them have their hands loaded with cookies. Joey asks, “I wonder what we did to deserve this?” And Dennis responds with these words of profound wisdom: “Look, Joey, Mrs. Wilson gives us cookies not because we’re nice, but because she’s nice.”
And that’s the Gospel. God so loved the world . . .

Is your heart filled with anger and hurt today because you have never experienced unconditional love? Are you still questioning in your heart: Am I worthy? Is there any value to my life? Could anybody really love me?

I know Someone who loves you. Could you open your heart this day and receive God’s love? Young person, don’t settle for a cheap substitute. Mom, Dad, you can’t make enough money or win enough applause to fill the emptiness in your heart. You think it’s too late for you? It’s not. It’s never too late for God. Please, stop where you are today, and let God love you.

Paul writes to the church at Philippi, “And now I want to plead with those two dear women, Euodias and Syntyche. Please, please, with the Lord’s help, quarrel no more be friends again.” Here’s what they need.
Here’s what you and I need; to open our hearts to the unconditional love of God.

Amen.