I know if you were here a couple of weeks ago you had a lesson on this same chapter. However, I remember the line from the Seals and Crofts song, “We May Never Pass This Way Again” and the likelihood of my teaching Philippians again is pretty remote. So, because I love this chapter so much I want to beg your indulgence and say a few things about what Paul has written not only to the church at Philippi but to the church in Tyler. Let’s read the passage slowly: Therefore if you have any encouragement from being united with Christ, if any comfort from his love, if any common…

Philippians has been called Paul’s love letter to the church. Not every love letter has warnings but Paul never missed a chance to remind the believers of the dangers not only surrounding them but also among them.  I’ve been reading Walt Whitman recently and he writes the greatest threat to the country was not from the outside but from the inside. We were at war with ourselves. It was John Adams who said, “Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide..Individuals have conquered themselves. Nations and large bodies of men, never.” That is the fear…

We live in a world of change – and that is by design. It’s not an endless circle of birth, death and reincarnation. It’s not a straight course from birth to death. It’s not fatalism. It is seasons. There is a season for everything. There is no perfect time and no fixed and permanent season. We live “between” changes all our lives. Eternity is in our hearts as Solomon says in verse 11 but everything else is in process. There are six categories of seasons in these 8 verses: Seasons of life Seasons of work Seasons of emotions Seasons of family and friends Seasons of things Seasons of the world…

1.  The lesson this morning is on the meaning of life. It reminds me of a conference a couple of years ago when Os Guinness was assigned the topic “What is Truth?” and given fourteen minutes to speak.  What do you say about the meaning of life in the time we have this morning?  It’s either too little or too much.  So, let’s turn to the first chapter of the book. Ecclesiastes is actually a Greek word for the original Hebrew word “Koheleth” which is better translated Teacher or even Seeker than Preacher. Who is it? It is clearly Solomon, the son of David, the wisest, wealthiest and most powerful…

So we come to the end of our study in Job. It’s been like a five act play in some ways. Act 1 is the introduction that sets the scene for the rest of the book. Then there is the rising force that comes with the arrival of the friends, seven days and nights of silence and then their challenges to Job with his defense of his righteousness. Then the climax in chapter 19 when Job says, “I know that my Redeemer lives and in the end he will stand upon the earth. In drama language Act 4 is where the counter parties beat upon the soul of the hero…

We left Job last week in the middle of a terrible storm with lightning flashing all around him and his friends with rain pouring down in sheets and deafening thunder. It is like the storm in King Lear. In part, the storm echoes Lear’s inner turmoil and mounting madness but also a physical, turbulent reflection of Lear’s internal confusion: Blow, winds, and crack your cheeks! rage! blow! You cataracts and hurricanoes, spout Till you have drench’d our steeples, drown’d the cocks! You sulph’rous and thought-executing fires, Vaunt-couriers to oak-cleaving thunderbolts, Singe my white head! And thou, all-shaking thunder, Strike flat the thick rotundity o’ th’ world, Crack Nature’s moulds, all…

Job 29-38 As we have done each week, let’s look at the context of the assigned verses this week.  We left Job in Chapter 28 having moved past the loss of everything in his life and He has arrived – but without his friends coming with him – to the realization that he – like all of us – was made for another world and that our true country is where our Redeemer lives. For the moment his eyes are off his loss and focused on the hope of once again having a relationship with God that will be beyond his suffering. But the opening verse of Chapter 29 tells…

We ended last week with Job’s certainty that he needed more than an advocate to plead his case or an intermediary to come between him and God. So that is why he calls for a Redeemer.   “Job is no longer asking for an intermediary or someone to plead his case but for a Redeemer to rescue his life. He is not asking for a friend but for a family member who will claim him before God. While everyone in his immediate family has either been taken from him or deserted him he is asking for a family member he cannot see not just to plead his case before God but…

Again, we need to see the context of our assigned passage this morning. Last week we met Job’s three friends, Eliphaz, Bildad and Zophar. It’s not exactly our definition of friendship, is it? They sit with him silently for seven days but then their responses to his misery grow increasingly harsh. This morning is no exception. In fact, it is growing hard to believe that they have ever been friends. It almost seems like they have been waiting for years to discover some hidden sin in him that would bring him down. If there ever was even a shred of compassion or mercy it is gone and all that is…

We left Job last week with him having experienced the loss of everything but in spite of that his response was not numb shock or anger. It was simply “the Lord gives and the Lord takes away. Blessed be the name of the Lord.” We are in Chapter 14 this morning but I think it is important to give the context before we get there. The final words of Job in Chapter 1 might have been the end of Satan’s test but it wasn’t. He insists on upping the stakes and while staying faithful after losing everything is not insignificant it is too easy.  The real test will be when…