First Presbyterian Church
Marianna, Florida
Sunday, March 11, 2007
Sermon by Huw Christopher, Pastor and 
Memorial Resolution and Prayers for Milton Gerard Wynn 

Scripture Readings: Matthew 27:15-31
                                Galatians 6:11-18
Sermon Title: “The Cross of Jesus: The Source of Our Boasting”
Sermon Text: Galatians 6:14:  May I never boast of anything except the 
cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by which the world has been crucified to 
me, and I to the world.

	What is the greatest accomplishment of your life?  What has brought you the 
greatest satisfaction in life? Of what are you most proud in your life?
	On Wednesday of this past week as I was thinking about those questions I 
found that two of my daily reflections spoke to them in two very differing ways.  
The first said, “So many of us have been taught from childhood that since we are 
only sinners saved by grace it is somehow ‘wrong’ to say or think anything good 
about ourselves.” (Society of St. Andrews, Devotions for Lent 2007, Wednesday, 
March 7, page 1) This reminds us of the way in which so many of us have been 
taught not to be boastful. We have been told, and know from our own experience, 
that people do not like those who are always bragging about their own 
accomplishments, and who are always blowing their own trumpets.
	In the words we heard Paul says, “May I never boast of anything except the 
cross of our Lord Jesus Christ.” It would seem that he would say that such an 
attitude in which we refrain from boasting of our own accomplishments and our 
own achievements is a right and proper one.  The words of our anthem and our 
refrain as we confessed our sin were based on these words of Paul as they said, 
“Forbid it, Lord, that I should boast, saved in the death of Christ my Lord. All the 
vain things that charm me most I sacrifice them to his blood.” These words of 
Isaac Watts written three hundred years ago again would seem to affirm the fact 
that he also would say that we should not be proud people, and that we should not 
be concerned to feel good about our accomplishments.
	In contrast to such thoughts my other daily reflection last Wednesday came 
from Dr. Gary Chapman, a Baptist minister, pastoral counselor and best selling 
author. In his daily e-mails this past week he was sharing thoughts on meeting the 
needs of one’s spouse. He said, “There is within each of us the desire to do 
something bigger than ourselves, to accomplish something that will impact the 
world, that will give us a sense of fulfillment and satisfaction. This need for 
significance is sometimes behind the driven nature of the workaholic.  
(www.MarriageVine.com, March 7, 2007)
	How is it possible for me to receive on the same day what appear to be two 
such contradictory themes both from Christian writers?  Should we strive to make 
something significant of our lives that others will praise, and of which we can be 
proud? Should we look for that which will bring satisfaction and fulfillment to our 
lives? Or should we acknowledge that pride in our own accomplishments is 
wrong? Should we see that feeling good about our achievements is indeed sinful, 
and is, therefore, something that we should avoid at all cost?
	As I thought about both of these reflections in the light of our Scripture 
readings this morning and also the hymn of Isaac Watts I was struck again by the 
danger of pride in our lives.  Pride in our own accomplishments is extremely 
dangerous Paul would say when it causes us to feel that by our own abilities and by 
our own accomplishments we can put ourselves in a right and proper relationship 
with God.  In his own experience that was precisely what Paul had sought to do 
through his pride in his circumcision as a sign that he was a good Jew.  Writing in 
another place to the Christians in Philippi he had spoken not only of his heritage 
and his circumcision but of the way in which he had sought to live up to that 
heritage by his faithful obedience to the laws of Moses.  But he says, “Yet 
whatever gains I had, these I have come to regard as loss because of Christ.  More 
than that, I regard everything as loss because of the surpassing value of knowing 
Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things, and I 
regard them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not 
having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but one that comes 
through faith in Christ. (Philippians 3:7-9)  Paul would not say that pride in our 
accomplishments is wrong.  He would, though, warn us that pride in our 
accomplishments is dangerous when it leads us to feel that we have no need of 
what God in love has done for us in Jesus Christ, and in his death for us on the 
cross.  When we feel we are good enough and have achieved enough to make us 
worthy of God’s love, and do not need God’s forgiveness in order to live in a right 
and proper relationship with our Creator then we fail to see any reason why Christ 
should have died for us.  In our pride we then will see no reason to stand before the 
cross of Jesus.  In our pride we will find so many other things in which to glory 
rather than in the cross of Jesus.  Paul says that he writes in large letters to his 
friends in the churches of Galatia that they might see clearly the dangerous road 
down which their pride might lead them.  
Writing many years after Paul, but still 300 years ago, Isaac Watts saw the 
same danger for human pride and human boasting.  In more recent times Harry 
Emerson Fosdick in his hymn for the Dedication of the Riverside Church in New 
York City in 1931 prompts people to pray to God and to say, “bend our pride to 
Thy control, shame our wanton selfish gladness, rich in things and poor in soul.” 
As we listen to the words that come to us down through the centuries we are 
prompted again to look at our own accomplishments and to see how we would 
view them.  Does our pride in what we have done stand in the way of our feeling 
any need for what God has done for us in Jesus Christ, and the love that God has 
shown for us as Jesus dies on the cross for us?  When this happens then pride and 
boasting are indeed dangerous things. Harry Emerson Fosdick saw this danger and, 
therefore, would prompt us to pray that God would “bend our pride to God’s 
control.”  
As we look at the whole of Fosdick’s hymn, (God of Grace and God of 
Glory) though, we note that he sees clearly that God does not expect us as human 
beings to be lazy in case we start to boast about our accomplishment. He sees that 
God does expect us to accomplish and to achieve. He would affirm that God wants 
us to find fulfillment and satisfaction in the things that we do.  So it is that he 
would urge us to pray, “Set our feet on lofty places; gird our lives that they may be 
armored with all Christlike graces, pledged to set all captives free.  Grant us 
wisdom, grant us courage, that he fail not them nor Thee!”
          As we pray in this way our accomplishments and our achievements are seen 
not as things we have achieved and accomplished by our own abilities or in our 
own strength, but rather as those things for which God has gifted us with insight, 
with abilities, with wisdom and with courage and strength.  This means that instead 
of being proud and boastful about all that we have been able to do, we become 
grateful to God for all that God has enabled us to accomplish.  As we pray in this 
way we also come to see that God has given us the privilege of not just 
accomplishing things for ourselves, or even just for our family, but of striving to 
accomplish those things that will be of lasting value because they are the things of 
God and of God’s kingdom.  As by God’s wisdom and with God’s strength we are 
empowered to reach out in love and in concern to other people following the 
example of Jesus, so we have the privilege of finding that fulfillment and 
satisfaction of knowing that we are doing those things that are not just satisfying to 
ourselves, but most of all are satisfying to God.
As we have heard again this morning those events surrounding the death of 
Jesus we are reminded that people sought to get rid of the One who challenged 
their positions, who threatened their pride, who questioned their feelings about 
their own importance, and their boasting about their own accomplishments.  What 
happened then is not so strange because those who are filled with pride in their 
own accomplishments and who like to boast about all that they have achieved will 
never be ready to stand before the cross of Jesus and to say or to sing in the words 
of our introit, “My sinful self my only shame, my glory all the cross.”  For those of 
us who would want to sing, “In the cross of Christ I glory,” let us remember again 
what it means to stand beneath that cross of Jesus as we affirm our faith using the 
words of affirmation printed in the bulletin.  Let us stand and affirm our faith 
together…

THE AFFIRMATION OF FAITH:		 	                from The Declaration of Faith
 	                                                 of the Presbyterian Church in the United States

We confess that in the execution of Jesus the sin of the human race 
reached its depths. The only innocent One was condemned and put to 
death, not by the sinfulness of one nation, but by the sinfulness of us all.  
In the presence of Jesus, who lived out what God wants us all to be, we 
were threatened beyond endurance.  Blinded by our rebellion against our 
Creator, we killed his Son when we met him face to face.
We believe that in the death of Jesus on the cross God achieved and 
demonstrated once for all the costly forgiveness of our sins.  Jesus Christ is 
the Reconciler between God and the world.  Jesus acted on behalf of 
sinners as one of us, fulfilling the obedience God demands of us, accepting 
God=s condemnation of our sinfulness.  In his lonely agony on the cross 
Jesus felt forsaken by God and thus experienced hell itself for us.
Yet the Son was never more in accord with the Father=s will.  He was 
acting on behalf of God, manifesting the Father=s love that takes on itself 
the loneliness, pain and death that result from our waywardness.
In Christ, God was reconciling the world to himself, not holding our sins 
against us.  Each of us beholds on the cross the Savior who died in our 
place, so that we may no longer live for ourselves, but for him.  In him is 
our only hope of salvation. 

HYMN OF RESPONSE No. 84                                                                  Rathbun
                                   AIn the Cross of Christ I Glory@

Memorial Resolution for Elder Milton Gerard Wynn
Milton Gerard Wynn was born in Marianna, Florida where he lived most of his life.  He 
attended Riverside Military Academy in Gainesville, Georgia, the University of Florida, 
where he lettered in football as a fullback, and Florida State University.  During World 
War II, he served on the Battleship Mississippi. Milton worked in sales until his 
retirement, and had served the Marianna community as a member of the Marianna 
Kiwanis Club.

Although raised as an Episcopalian at St. Luke’s Episcopal Church in Marianna, Milton 
became an active Presbyterian after his marriage to Joanne Wandeck, who was reared as 
a faithful member of the First Presbyterian Church of Marianna, Florida.  

Milton was an active member of various Presbyterian Churches in places where he and 
Joanne lived during the early years of their marriage.  In Fitzgerald, Georgia, Milton 
was first ordained as a deacon in 1967, and began his service in that office.

On returning to live in Marianna, Milton and Joanne became members of First 
Presbyterian Church on March 15, 1970.  Milton was elected to serve as a deacon on 
May 9, 1971, and then elected as an elder and ordained to that office on July 8, l979.  He 
served with the Elder Class of 1984. Throughout the years of Milton’s life, the First 
Presbyterian Church remained a very special place where he was faithful to attend the 
services and worship the God he loved.  

During their retirement years, Milton and Joanne spent much of their time at their home 
on Mexico Beach.  While living there, Milton enjoyed fishing, walking on the beach, and 
watching beautiful sunsets.  On weekends, he and Joanne would leave their peaceful 
environment and return to Marianna in order to be present at church on Sunday.  
Throughout his illness, Milton rarely missed a Sunday Worship Service, and was even in 
attendance the Sunday prior to his death.

Milton not only set an example of faithful church attendance as he walked through the 
valley of the shadow of death, he also gained strength and comfort as he continually read 
his Bible. Many nights when he could not sleep, he would spend those hours reading his 
Bible and drawing near to God.  Milton demonstrated the promises of God that His 
Grace is sufficient and that His strength is made strong in weakness.

In his spirit of humility, Milton appreciated all the prayers of his fellow Christians 
throughout his illness, and he was thankful for the loving fellowship and support of his 
family and the congregation of the First Presbyterian Church of Marianna.

As a congregation, the First Presbyterian Church of Marianna, Florida, gives thanks to 
Almighty God for the life, service, and example of Milton Gerard Wynn who died on 
December 23, 2006, and entrusts Joanne and the rest of the family to the comfort and 
strength of Almighty God, who will never leave us or forsake us.

In gratitude for the example set for us by this faithful elder, we, the Session of the First 
Presbyterian Church of Marianna, Florida place this memorial in the minutes of our 
Stated Meeting on February 20, 2007, request that copies be given to his family, and that 
a copy be forwarded to the Presbytery of Florida.

Silent Prayer we as offer our own personal words of thanks to God for all that the 
life of Milton Gerard Wynn has meant in our lives.

Prayer:
Gracious God, we thank you for all of the ways in which you help us to draw 
closer to yourself and to be assured of your love for us in Jesus Christ your Son.  
This day we would thank you especially for all those who have shown us the way 
and guided our feet in your ways and enabled us to come to know what it is to live 
in a loving relationship with you.  We praise you for all that it meant to Milton 
Gerard Wynn to know that in life and in death he belonged to you.  We thank you 
for all of the ways in which he came to appreciate your love for him as he saw it 
reflected in the beautiful and bountiful world you have made, as it was exemplified 
by family and friends, and most of all as he knew what it was to read your Word 
and to share in fellowship with you in prayer.  We praise you for all of the strength 
with which you provided him to live life and to face even death without fear, but 
with trust in your never failing love for him and for the whole world.  As we give 
you thanks for Milton, for all that his service to this church meant to us, and for all 
that our relationship with him meant in our own personal lives so we pray that you 
will help all of us that, filled with your wisdom and your courage, we might all 
become examples to others of what it means to live and to die knowing that we can 
do so with confidence not because of anything we have done but because of the 
love so amazing and so divine that you have shared with us and for us in Jesus 
Christ your Son, in whose name we pray.  Amen.
 
 
 
 


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