Fear & Trembling…in the Presence of God

REFLECTION QUOTES

“What you’re supposed to do when you don’t like a thing is change it. If you can’t change it, change the way you think about it. Don’t complain.”

~Maya Angelou (1928-2014), poet and activist

“We can complain because rose bushes have thorns, or rejoice because thorn bushes have roses.”

~Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865), 16th president of the United States

“Champions never complain, they are too busy getting better.”

~John Wooden (1910-2010), famed basketball coach

“A complaining tongue reveals an ungrateful heart.”

~William Arthur Ward (1921-1994), American inspirational writer

“Any fool can criticize, condemn and complain – and most fools do.”

~Dale Carnegie (1888-1955), famed writer and speaker

“Speak when you are angry and you will make the best speech you will ever regret.”

~Ambrose Bierce (1842-1914), American writer and journalist

“The one true God consists, through and through, of self-giving love.”

~N.T. Wright, scholar and retired Anglican bishop

“What determines our brotherhood…consists solely in what Christ has done to both of us…. The more genuine and the deeper our community becomes, the more will everything else between us recede, the more clearly and purely will Jesus Christ and his work become the one and only thing that is vital between us. We have one another only through Christ, but through Christ we do have one another, wholly, for eternity.”

“He who loves his dream of a community more than Christian community itself becomes a destroyer of the latter, even though his personal intentions may be ever so honest and earnest and sacrificial.”

~Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906-1945) pastor-theologian executed by the Nazis

SERMON PASSAGE

Philippians 2:5-18 (NASB)

5 Have this attitude in yourselves which was also in Christ Jesus, 6 who, although He existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped, 7 but emptied Himself, taking the form of a bond-servant, and being made in the likeness of men. 8 Being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. 9 For this reason also, God highly exalted Him, and bestowed on Him the name which is above every name, 10 so that at the name of Jesus every knee will bow, of those who are in heaven and on earth and under the earth, 11 and that every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

12 So then, my beloved, just as you have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your salvation with fear and trembling; 13 for it is God who is at work in you, both to will and to work for His good pleasure.

14 Do all things without grumbling or disputing; 15 so that you will prove yourselves to be blameless and innocent, children of God above reproach in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation, among whom you appear as lights in the world, 16 holding fast the word of life, so that in the day of Christ I will have reason to glory because I did not run in vain nor toil in vain. 17 But even if I am being poured out as a drink offering upon the sacrifice and service of your faith, I rejoice and share my joy with you all. 18 You too, I urge you, rejoice in the same way and share your joy with me.