Intro to My Fake Sermon

One of the classes I am taking is Communications I. It is essentially a Preaching class. Part of the class is working through the process of crafting a good Christ-centered sermon. I was assigned to preach on Philippians 2:1-11 (click on the passage to read it). Basically, I'm preparing a fake sermon. The only guys who hear it are the four other guys in my small group...and sometimes my Comm. professor, Larry Kirk (but that's only because my voice tends to carry in small rooms).

So, I thought it might be interesting to share with anyone who might be reading the intro to my fake sermon.

My family and I decided to do something that I vowed never to do. We decided to go to Disneyworld. Now, it wasn’t that I was opposed to going to Disneyworld. I love Disneyworld, it’s the happiest place on earth, or so they say. The issue was that we decided to go to Disneyworld on one of those hot, muggy, humid, I live in a Florida swamp summer days. It was also a Saturday, which meant that every tourist from St. Louis to Shanghai was going to be there. It was blazing hot and incredibly crowded. It was not what I would describe as joyful. Now, the novelty of Disneyworld usually trumps the heat and crowds, but this particular year we had been given annual passes to Disney. We had already been dozens of times that year. The novelty of a six foot talking mouse had worn off on me.
I was pounding the pavement pushing our double stroller with our two kids and working through the bitterness in my heart about swimming upstream through the masses of humanity to get to all rides so that I could spend a majority of my day waiting to ride on a ride that lasts a minute and half. We got to the “Small World” ride. It is an absolute Disney classic, complete with animatronic dolls from every continent singing in their native language, “It’s a small world…” It’s cute the first time the song plays, but then it repeats, again and again. Around the seventh time I’m struggling with really violent thoughts about baseball bats and the German doll in lederhosen. I believe I have painted a completely joyless picture of my time at Disneyworld.
Then I look at my kids. They are wide-eyed and amazed. They are singing along. They are pointing and laughing. At that moment, there is nothing greater than what they experiencing. I was so set on my own experience, my own feelings, my own rights, my own self that I was missing the reward of being at the Happiest Place on Earth with my kids. My lack of humility robbed me of the joy I could have had by joining with my children in their wonder at this ride.
We all struggle with a lack of joy at times because selfishness robs us of the unity with others. Often our humility is pushed aside so that we can exercise our own rights. We miss the reward of the joy of unity with other believers because we find it difficult to consider them above ourselves.
The apostle Paul addresses a similar issue, though under drastically different circumstances. The church at Philippi was struggling with selfishness and dissention internally and externally and this was robbing it of the joy of living in Christ. In the 2nd chapter of Philippians, verses 1 through 11, Paul shows that humility is a key to the joyful life because humility was Christ’s path to the Father.