Sabbath School Class Week 12

Sabbath School Class Week 12

INTRODUCTION:  I can not begin to express to each of you how much I missed being in class this past week.  I have enjoyed studying this book, but it has been so much more because of our discussion together. Your insight and willingness to share.  This week the passage of scripture we have the privilege of looking into is powerful. It is deceptively simple and deeply challenging.  My prayer is that the Lord will guide us and give us the courage to live a life of Joy.  

Philippians 4:8  Finally, brothers and sisters, 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.  

Finally, brothers and sisters...

Finally:  finally, the last word - this can often mean - if nothing else, or the last thing I will say, can imply the most important thing.  It can be the wrap up, the simple explanation of what has come before. So it is safe to assume that finally implies- listen up everyone and please get this!  

Brothers and sisters: We tend to throw around the term brother and sisters in Christ a lot.  Many churches call each other brother Smith or sister Jones.  

Why?  

Is it just a cute enduring term?  

What does it mean to be a sibling?  

What makes a sibling relationship different from a friend relationship? 

Paul has made it clear throughout this book that he wants everyone to stop the fighting and get along.  To affirm one another and play nice.  I don't know about you, but probably the most difficult fights, the ugliest moments, followed by work of finding repentance and forgiveness, and then the most beautiful moments of reconciliation, all came about with my siblings.  As little children we were brutal.  As adults we are each others strongest supporters and where I feel the safest.  Why is that?

It is because we were family and that meant we had to do the hard work, we had to keep trying.  Also because we were family we choose to love each other.  We choose to forgive.  We choose to accept. "Brothers and Sisters"  are just three little words that tell us a lot about what we need to be willing to do. 

INGREDIENT # 25 BE FAMILY

ACTION:  Do the hard work of being family.  Love each other, forgive each other, accept each other, support each other, affirm one another,  see the similarities in each other and appreciate the differences. Celebrate together, mourn together, eat together, play together, and serve together. 

This week pray that God will lead you in what you can do to be more a family with each other.  

(I want to take a moment to affirm this class and our church.  One of our Sabbath School members, Hallie has needed a lot of extra help this year.  She has needed family!  She has needed a family to care for her, to protect her, to  watch over her.  This church could have said, "Were are her family members? They need to step up."  Instead, you have all worked together to make sure she is cared for.  Even though it might get messy, you have been willing to do the hard work.  Even though she doesn't understand, and may never appreciate all you are doing, you are doing it anyway. What a blessing it has been to watch.  It is easy to "be there for each other" when it is a five minute mourning, or a quick hug Sabbath morning.  It is easy when it is to celebrate a wedding, or a baptism, but the day to day hard work of making sure those who need daily help are still taken care of is remarkable and I am so thankful and humbled by what each of you are doing to make sure our SISTER Hallie is loved and cared for!)

WHATEVER- whatever has become a term that is repeatedly used to imply lack of significance.  For example: 

Joe: Sally wasn't the sermon today great?

Sally:  Yea, whatever.

If you have heard a teenager recently you can hear the tone in Sally's words. 

The youth have turned this word into something that dismisses everything that was said instead of including all.  Whatever is a very strong word.  Some translations use the word "whatsoever". 

Whatever is: 

True

Noble

Right

Pure

Lovely

Admirable

If there is anything Praise Worthy!

THINK ON THESE THINGS!

There really isn't any, but or conditions in this verse!  There isn't any warning to make sure you understand evil!  There isn't any place where he tells us to search for all the faults among us.  He doesn't ask us to figure out how paganism had crept into the church, or to find the evil.  NO WHERE are we instructed to seek what is bad so that we can stay away from it.  In fact it is not possible to seek evil so that we stay clear!  If we are seeking it our reading articles of the short comings of our church, reading articles about mysticism, or if read the websites that tell us who among us is evil, we are thinking on and bout what is bad.  You can't try to stay away and seek it.  It doesn't work.  

Whatever is true, noble, right, pure, lovely, admirable, if anything is praise worthy, is clear...THINK on these things.  The beauty is we don't need to be made aware of the evil to stay clear of it, we need to know the truth. If we know and are focused on what is good, true, lovely, pure, we will recognize when something doesn't fit and we can avoid it without seeking it out.  

I think many many good Christians who are desperately seeking to do right, spend way to much time trying to find what is wrong with our church or our society and not enough time seeking out the Lord.  

Soon after the last music award show on TV (which I had not seen), Facebook was filled with people declaring the evils of what had happened the night before.  People were going into detail about all the ick that had happened on the show.  On that same day, a friend of mine simply did what she does everyday, posts the "Jesus Calling" by Sarah Young on her wall.  As I was scrolling through face book, I would see these great "religious giants" posting such vile, and then my friend posts the devotional thought.  On her post I stopped.  I stopped and soaked it in.  One drew me to my Savior, one post reminded me of the one who yearns to have more time with me, the one who loves me, the one who strengthens me and the one who will never lead me astray.  If we want to stay away from evil, stay close to God!  If we want to know what is right, ask God!  If we want to live a life that influences others to keep there eyes on Christ, then share Christ. If we are to find and share joy with those around us, keep our eyes, our minds, our thoughts on all that is true, noble, right, pure, lovely, admirable, praise worthy and THAT ONLY!!!!!

INGREDIENT # 26 WHATSOEVER... if there is any good... THINK ON THESE THINGS!

This past summer as I worked with a group of students from the academy, we challenged each other with the concept of whatsoever!  Whatsoever is true!  Whatsoever is pure.... and so on.  Everyday if one of us started to say something negative, or if one of us was trying to be negative we would say, "whatsoever" The word "whatever" has been miss used and abused, so we used the less used word, "whatsoever" and turned it into a trigger word.  Just hearing "whatsoever" reminded us to stop the negative direction we were going, and focus on the good. 

ACTION:  Use the "whatsoever" with each other, yourself, and your family.  Challenge each other with the whatsoever concept.  Keep our hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.  Keep our thoughts on HIM!!!! Keep our thoughts on all that is good and we will not go astray!

Let's continue with verse 9.  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.

Again Paul uses the whatever, or whatsoever. 

What was he asking the Philippians to do here?

I find it interesting that when we started this study we said we were going to study not just what Paul was saying, but how he was saying it, what he wasn't saying and what he was doing.  Here he is saying the same, what they have learned, what they have heard,  what they have seen...

What does he tell them to do with it?

There is no point to knowledge without action.  That is why each week we have had an action with each of our ingredients.  Action is also not a onetime thing and here Paul uses a very important word.  

What is the action?

What does that word tell us?

Is it a onetime thing?

No matter what we are trying to do in life, practice is vital to success.  NO ONE, gets anywhere without practice.  Children don't learn to talk or walk, and athletes don't learn their sport, and typists don't learn to type, and pianists don't learn to play, and so on and so on. Yet too many times we think that knowledge of our Savior is enough for our Christian walk.  We need to practice!!!!  We need to repeatedly try over and over to do the things we know we should. 

So ACTION, is vitally important to JOY!

INGREDIENT # 27  ACTION

ACTION:  Go back through this blog and list all of our Actions.  What are they and have you been doing them.  Have you been practicing the actions.  

Challenge yourself to this week spend time really practicing one of the ACTIONS.  If you can do more or are an over achiever and want to tackle the entire list that is fine, but the important thing is to practice.  Make it a habit to think on the good things!!!!!