October 31, 2010
The Wealth of the Saints - Philippians 4:20-30
Pastor: Luke Maybry
DownloadI have had the privilege in my life of getting to know some very wealthy people, and I have had the good sense to get on their good side. Roger Milliken is a textile giant in Spartanburg, South Carolina, and really the entire South. Although Roger and I are not what you would call fast friends, we did have supper one night together when I was a college student. He actually funded a great deal of my education. I went to a private school from the third to the twelfth grades. He was that school’s biggest benefactor. Then I went to Wofford College, and he is also one of if not Wofford biggest benefactors. I could not have gone to either of those schools without the endowments that he largely funded. Roger Milliken’s generosity has helped me and I am grateful for it.
Wealth, of course, is not necessarily about money. Ross Bayard, for example, has a wealth of knowledge. He was the hardest history professor at Wofford, and for some reason I had him three times. He taught me very much much. He taught me the hard way sometimes, like by giving me a few Cs, which he was not afraid to do. As far as raw knowledge and even raw wisdom, he is the wealthiest man that I’ve known. I am grateful for having known him.
And, of course, any conversation about wealth would be remiss with mentioning John Broadus Maybry. My father has not made the Fortune 500 lately, but he is the most well regarded person in his community that I’ve ever known. Everybody who knows him loves him, and he genuinely loves them. It’s just a gift. He has amassed a fortune in that area and he has freely shared that fortune with us all of his life, for which we are all grateful. And, finally, my mother is wealthy. She has a deficit in the hot air department of my father, yet when it comes to humility and sincerity and loving kindness and so many of those other “soft” traits that St Paul talks about all the time, she’s completely loaded. Like my father, she has freely shared that wealth with me, the latest time being just yesterday, and I am grateful.
The Philippians had shared their wealth with Paul. In fact, the Church at Philippi was the only congregation in the early Church that was not in the doghouse with Paul. Paul loved the Philippians and the Philippians loved him. They had been generous with him throughout his entire ministry. The Philippians were in many ways the first example of Christian generosity. They gave freely and often. This one particular time, they went above and beyond. This passage, then, is Paul’s thank-you letter.
I’ll have to say that Paul needed to work on his thank-you letters. I owe thousands of thank-you letters to you, and I’m embarrassed that I haven’t written them. But when I do write them, I think that I do a pretty good job. I could have taught Paul a thing or two about thank-you letters. First of all, Paul went to great lengths to tell them that he didn’t ask for that gift, which is completely unnecessary. Why even say that? Paul also told the Philippians that while he was grateful for their sacrifice, he really didn’t need it, which is not what you’re supposed to say. Just so they would know, Paul told them that he had been poor before and that he could be poor again. He would have been just as well off without their gift, but now that he has it, he’ll take it. Thank you. Imagine me telling you that the casserole you slaved over all day is not all the great and I really don’t need it anyway, but it’s warm and it sure would beat the PBJ that I would normally have had, so I’ll take it. And if that doesn’t show Paul’s lack of thank-you letter etiquette, Paul even told the Philippians that they had forgotten about him for awhile, as if it was their duty to be generous.
What kind of thank-you letter is that? These people had played a huge role in Paul’s life and ministry. We owe a great deal of gratitude to the Philippians ourselves. We never would have even heard of Paul had they not been so generous. Do you remember all those saints that I mentioned earlier? I owe a great deal to them. I am sincerely grateful to them. So why would I tell Roger Milliken that I’m thankful for him endowing all those millions of dollars in scholarships and building all those science buildings, but it would have been nice for him to have built a few history buildings? Why would I tell my mom that I really am grateful for her giving birth to me (I’m a twin and she could have just stopped pushing after my older sister) and changing my diapers all those years, and feeding me all those years, and taking a second a job to finance my education, and always treating herself last (when we ran out of china during Christmas and Thanksgiving, my mother would eat on the cheap stuff and let everybody else use the good stuff)… Why would I thank for her for all of that, but then tell that I would have been just as well off without it? What kind of thanksgiving is that?
That’s what Paul did here. Paul was evidently not “Raised Right” with two capital Rs, or, he had another point altogether. Maybe Paul was just putting the Philippians’ gift in the context of God’s gift of Christ. That’s the gift that truly counts, isn’t it? That’s the Gift from which all other gifts and blessings flow. For example, I am the pastor of Central Steele Creek. I love this Church. I love what I do. So I work hard at it and I give a lot to it. You are grateful for that. You have told me that, and I appreciate that. But you don’t need me. If I dropped dead tomorrow, you would ultimately be fine. Central Steele Creek is not about me. It’s about God. It’s about the freely given promise in Christ. That’s what Central is about. That’s why I’m here. I have that freely given promise, too. I am valuable only in that promise. Now one day I will leave here. I will either resign, retire, or die. The freely given promise in Christ, though, will never leave.
That’s what makes us saints, that freely given promise in Christ. That’s what makes us valuable around here. We have that promise within us. Through that promise, through God’s call and action in my life personally, I am now a pastor, and more specifically I am the pastor here. You may like my preaching. You may like my personality. But the thing that makes me, as a pastor, useful is not me at all. It’s God. God is what makes us all valuable.
More often than not, when I show up to work, either Judy Corbett or Glenn Litiker are already here with their troops doing some work, work, just for the record, that I cannot do. That’s what God has called them to do. The thing that makes what they do here valuable is not just what they themselves do, but what God does through them. They just did a lot of painting around here. If you were in Sunday school this morning, and you learned something about God, then it’s partly because of them, or because of what God did through them.
The gift that we have to be thankful for, the gift that makes all other gifts possible, is the gift of grace that God has freely given all of us. And that gift allows us to freely give of ourselves, because there’s a lot more where that gift came from. I don’t know whether you know this or not, but you’re wealthy. You really are. You may not be financially wealthy, but when it comes to what counts, you’re wealthy. You’re loaded actually. You’re wealthy not because of your success, or your work, or your luck. You’re wealthy because God in Christ has given you a bottomless pit of grace. For some of you, that grace has resulted in financial wealth and I encourage you to share that wealth. For Kathy Bricker, God’s grace has resulted in an ability to teach. For Teresa Canipe it has resulted in an ability to relate to children. For Harry Weatherly, Grant Applewhite and my wife, it has resulted in a fluency with numbers. For Wray Moxely, it means being able to fix anything. For Tom Schmutzler and Sheila Fetner, it means music. For all of us, it’s what God has given us. And when you really get down to it, for all of us, it’s a whole bunch. I just named a few of lots and lots of examples . We’re wealthy. We have an eternal storehouse of that stuff. It’s called grace.
It’s what makes us saints. It’s what makes every other blessing and gift possible. My charge for all of us is to tap into that wealth, and to be generous with it. Maybe, after all, Paul was right. It’s not the Philippians’ gift that counts all that much. It’s God’s gift that counts. It’s God’s gift that made their gifts, and our gifts, possible. And when we really tap into them, it’s a whole lot of gifts. We’re wealthy. We’re loaded. Blessings abound!
In the Name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, Amen.
