I Thank My God...for You

When I was in college, every Wednesday for the entire 5 years (that part is another story for another time), I received a card from my parents in the mail. Every single week without fail. At times my roommates would tease me about it in good fun, and at times I would act like I didn’t like it or understand it...but I did like it. It reminded me on a weekly basis that I was not forgotten, that I was valued, that I was loved.

I know I am not the only person to have received those cards, either. I know of persons who were going through cancer treatment, who were away from home, or were dealing with something that would get cards from my mom every week. What the card said or what was written in the card is really secondary to the fact that you got a card. The card communicates that you are remembered, you are thought of, you are cared for. That is so important in a world where there is so much isolation and loneliness and where people are going through so many things and they feel like they are going through them alone.

I have a buddy of mine who is a pastor. His name is Tommy. He is one of the best pastors I know. He and I have been getting together for breakfast most Thursdays for about 13-14 years now. Wherever we have been, we find a halfway spot to meet and support each other, talk through things we have going on, talk through sermons, and just be together. He is also a letter writer. On my birthday, I get a letter from Tommy in my mailbox. On my anniversary, I get a letter from Tommy. If I am going through something, I get a letter from Tommy. I asked him what his letter writing budget was one time and he just laughed. He said he writes about 30 notes a week to people. He is an Ole Miss Grad (bless him), and recently he told me that he had written the head basketball coach at Ole Miss a few letters. I don’t know if Tommy had heard that Coach Beard had been dealing with something in his personal life or if it was simply the fact that he felt sorry for him because he had nowhere else to coach except Ole Miss—which I can imagine would be depressing—but nonetheless, Tommy wrote him a few notes. Then one day Tommy’s cell phone rang and he answered it and it was Coach Beard calling Tommy to thank him for the notes, telling him how much they meant to him. What a cool moment that was for Tommy, not only to get a call from the Ole Miss basketball coach but also to hear someone simply want to let him know that it touched him and impacted him.

I tell you this because writing a letter to someone makes a difference. I also in saying this, acknowledge it is something I am not good at and do not do enough of. Now, I do pretty good at texting people, and I think that is OK, but it doesn’t compare to sending someone an old fashioned letter in the mail. When we open the mailbox and see a hand-addressed envelope, something happens inside of us, even more so now that most of what we get in the mail is junk or bills. I want to broaden our text today beyond what was read. In fact, I want to look at Paul’s letters to the church as a whole.

Outside of Jesus, of course, Paul is probably the most important figure in the New Testament. The reason I say that is, while he wasn’t one of Jesus’s twelve disciples, he became one of the major evangelists that moved the Gospel and the Church forward. Half of the book of Acts is about his conversion experience after an encounter with the risen Christ, then his missionary journeys and all of the adversity he overcame in following Jesus. In addition, 14 of the 27 New Testament books of the Bible are attributed to Paul. His writings were letters to churches that he helped start. We know he started at least 14 churches in his 3 missionary journeys, and he kept in touch with them, addressing issues, giving them guidance and hope as this new movement was birthed, even from within jails as people wanted him dead.

The letters we have that made it into Scripture continue today to be vital for the church for understanding our roots and how important certain aspects of theology and church life are. We learn much from the successes and failures of the first century churches in hopes of us not repeating the failures and growing from the successes. Paul opened most of his letters similarly. Let me let you hear a bit from some of them:

• Romans - 1:8 - "I thank my God through Jesus Christ for all of you because of your faith."
• 1 Corinthians 1:4 - "I always thank God for you because of his grace given to you in Christ Jesus."
• Ephesians 1:15 - "Ever since I heard about your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love for all the saints, I have not stopped giving thanks for you."
• 1 Thessalonians 1: 2 - "We always give God thanks for all of you, mentioning you in our prayers."
• 2 Thessalonians 1:3 - "We ought always to thank God for you, because your faith is growing."
• 1 Timothy 1:12 - "I thank Christ Jesus our Lord, who has given me strength, who has considered me faithful despite my failures."
• And the list goes on and on, but I want to finish with the one that he does not begin it this way - Galatians. Here what he has to say here: "I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting the one who called you by the grace of Christ and have turned to a different gospel." OUCH! He definitely had a different message for them.
• I love the one from our text for today in Philippians because it says, "I thank my God every time I remember you. I always pray with joy because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now. And I am confident that he who began a good work in you will carry it out to completion."

Unless Paul was really upset with you as a church and what you were doing, he made sure and communicated and encouraged the churches he was overseeing - showing gratitude for the hard and important work they were doing. Doing the work of the church is hard. Working with children and youth when they are crazy and don’t want to listen is hard. Getting out on a cold, rainy Wednesday night or sometimes Saturday morning to rehearse choir pieces so you can lead the congregation can be hard. Getting up early on a Saturday for a food giveaway or staying overnight on a Friday with unhoused neighbors can be hard. Giving your hard earned money to the church can be hard. But it is important. The work of the church - the work of sharing the gospel of Jesus Christ to a hurting and broken world; the work of making disciples so that we can make it on earth as it is in heaven is important work. And it is hard work! Paul knew that then and we know that now. And it takes a commitment to move the church forward. So for those who were doing that, Paul wanted to be sure and say THANK YOU, to express gratitude - to give thanks to God - for you and to offer hope that the one (Jesus) who began a good work in you will not abandon you, will not let you fail - he will bring it to completion. . . if we do not lose faith . . . do not lose hope.

So church, I am a lousy letter writer, but I give God thanks for you every time I remember you for your partnership from the first day until now; because of the grace you have given me, for your faith which keeps growing, to God who uses us despite our flaws, and I am confident that he who began this good work in Lebanon Tennessee will bring it about to completion. This brings us to today’s experiment. I hope you are still giving out your bottles of water - there are more to be given out. Please take some. I hope you are working on who you are going to invite for dinner. Both of these are offering relationships. Today, I want you to write a letter. Actually I want you to write 5 letters. I want them to be I GIVE GOD THANKS FOR YOU LETTERS, just as Paul wrote. And I don’t necessarily want them to be to obvious people. For many of us it is probably obvious to our parents or our kids how thankful we are to them BUT to some it may not be. I talked about how hard the work can be in the church. I remember growing up in the church how I terrorized Sunday school teachers, youth leaders, even school teachers - especially substitute teachers. I should probably write them and say I GIVE GOD THANKS FOR YOU THAT YOU DID NOT GIVE UP ON ME OR BEAT ME OVER THE HEAD. Maybe there are people who made a huge impact in your life and they do not know it. I GIVE GOD THANKS FOR YOU FOR THE DIFFERENCE YOU MADE IN MY LIFE THAT YOU MAY NOT EVEN REALIZE.

Outside in the narthex, there are packets of 5 notecards. I want everyone to take one packet and write 5 notes to people thanking God for them and telling them why. It will make a huge difference.

Thanks be to God
AMEN