14th June 2025

14th June 2025


Pray (ACts)


Read (Philippians 3:1-6 focus v1)


Message (Alan Burke) 


I’d a funeral a couple of weeks ago and normally my routine afterwards is to turn of the phone and get a Munchy Box from Ali’s in Crossgar and then sit watching mind numbing TV that was produced before 2000 that these days has a warning that comes up before the programme to warn you about how “… is a classic comedy which reflects the broadcast standards, language and attitudes of its time. Some viewers may find this content offensive.” Maybe the government should provide tissues to every home in the UK so they can dry their eyes when their woke sensitivities are offended. You can probably tell I’m writing this on a Saturday and it’s been one of those weeks. Anyway instead of going to Ali’s where I don’t even have to place an order anymore the guy just looks at me as I walk in and sorts it out, I got in the car and went to the beach for a swim, probably much healthier for me. 


When I got there there was a warning about undercurrents, there was a sign up that said swim between the flags, there was buoyancy aids to help people who get into difficulty in the water, there were lots of safeguards in place but by the time I got there the lifeguards were gone, it was getting dark and very few people about so pretty idliilc. You can guess by this stage that I survived in spite of the warnings and the buoyancy aids. They were there as a safeguard for me. Paul here says that it is not trouble for him to write the same things to the church in Philippi, it is a safeguard for them. We have lots of safeguards in this life that are measures taken to protect, to prevent undesirable things from happening. From the hard hat on the building site, the high vis jacket for the walker, the smoke alarms and carbon monoxide alarms that are in our homes. 


The safeguard that Paul repeats the same things that he has already taught the church because it is a safeguard for them. We all like to think we have mastered the ABC’s of the faith but if you’re anything like me I have to be reminded again and again. Because the gospel is so counterintuitive, that it is not based on works, so that no one can boast (Eph 2:9), it is all about grace, the unmerited favour of God towards wretched sinners like I. Here though specifically the safeguard for the church is to rejoice in the Lord. Don’t forget this is coming from a man who is languishing in prison whose life is pretty rubbish. It is a safeguard for us to rejoice not in the circumstances that we find ourselves in, rather rejoice in the unchanging saviour and the unchanging hope that we have the midst of all that we face. 


For the believer, our joy is not based on the here and now, the temporal happiness that many build their lives on, that drives them, happiness that is circumstantial, no joy comes from the confident hope we have in Christ. How this life is only temporal, and what is at the end of it is eternity with our God, where their will be no more sin, no more rubbish that we have to deal with on the way. Paul had told them this same thing already, and he was righting the same thing because it is a safeguard. A safeguard for us when our lives fell like they are in the troughs like that rib on the sea, whether that trouble may be persecution, opposition, ill health, the loss of a loved one, a rebellious child. Knowing that hope we have, it is a safeguard for us. 


Pray (acTS)


Sing


WSC
Q20 Did God leave all mankind to perish in the estate of sin and misery?
A. God having, out of his mere good pleasure, from all eternity, elected some to everlasting life, did enter into a covenant of grace, to deliver them out of the estate of sin and misery, and to bring them into an estate of salvation by a Redeemer.
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