Rejoice!

Sermon: FCC Afton 10-23-2022 Rejoice! Scripture: Philippians 3:1-11 Reminder: Mission Trip Opportunity: Pine Haven Children's Ranch- Summer of 2023 Recap: -Last week, we finished chapter two of Philippians- Paul moved away from his initial pattern of foundational truth and then the practical application for the Christian life and moved into sharing an example of two young Believers who were great examples of Jesus for the rest of the Body of Christ to follow. We looked at what it means to be an example of Jesus, of what it means to look at Jesus and decide to follow His command in John 13:15 to do just as He has done for us. We looked at how it should be one of the greatest priorities and desires of our lives to be a good model of Christ, both for Believers to see and use to help them mature and also for non-believers to see who it is that we serve and have surrendered our lives to- remember, we talked about how we are to be such amazing models of Jesus that people know without a doubt that we are His and then want to know more about Him because of what they see in us. We've talked about the over-riding theme of the letter to the Philippians is Paul's reminder to rejoice, to the point where this book is called the "Joy Letter;" but it is not a command to be irrationally happy all the time, but rather Paul's reminder to hold on to joy through all of the hardships and trials that are going to come your way because of your faith in Christ. Paul gives us this stark reminder: those of us who follow Christ are going to suffer for the cause of Christ, but when we have endured through it we will have life in Christ to rejoice about. Through it all, whether easy life or most difficult existence since Job, you are called to rejoice and exemplify Christ so that the world may see our joy in the face of trials and desire to know Jesus because of what they see in us. Today, we move on from Paul's examples of Timothy and Epaphraditus and he brings it back to himself and how he has exemplified the attitude of Christ. Read Philippians 3:1-11 Pray here! -Paul moves on here from his exhortation to live the Christian life, learning the foundational truths that he introduced and the practical application that he shared with us, and from the examples that he gave us of how to model Christ to the world, and now moves deeper into encouragement that will be needed for those who would live the life for Christ that Paul has introduced. -Main Idea: We are called to rejoice, no matter the circumstances, no matter what the world throws at you, no matter how the enemy attacks, and no matter how your flesh tries to lead you astray. Joy is a choice! -Rejoicing is an active decision on your part- it is an understood you: "You choose to rejoice; you decide to rejoice; you decide to be led by joy." Paul gives the reminder for us to rejoice, and then says that he will continue giving it because it is important and useful for Believers to hear it a lot. He knows how easy it is for Believers, especially immature Believers, to become discouraged and disheartened. Paul understood that most Believers need to be challenged, need to be encouraged, and need to be equipped in order to go out into the world and remain effective in following Christ's commission to made disciples for Him. Do you understand that your Christian life is not accomplished just because you show up at church and sing, fellowship, and listen to a sermon? Those are good things that we need to be doing, but your job as a Follower of Jesus is to come and be challenged and equipped so that you can go out and be effective in your mission field of the world. Paul understood that we would need that encouragement, so he says, 'I'm going to remind you to rejoice, and I'm going to keep on reminding you because this will be helpful to you; this is something that you need to understand because persecution will come.' This joy that Paul is reminding us about, that he says he will keep reminding us about again and again, it is rooted in Jesus- no matter the circumstance, nothing can affect our joy as long as we are focused on Jesus! Happiness is affected by pain, sorrow, sickness, poverty, and tragedy- it can change with the shifting winds, as we are tossed about by the storms of life. Joy comes directly from the Holy Spirit- it is evidence of the Holy Spirit's involvement in our lives- it is delight, gladness, contentment, and satisfaction, and it is dependent on Jesus, not on what we are going through. Happiness depends on what we are going through- sadness and depression come when happiness disappears and trials come and when our lives are ruled by the pursuit of happiness. But joy, it is an anchor in the midst of the storms of life, and joy depends, not on the circumstances that we are going through, but on WHO we are going through the trials with. This is why James tells us in 1:2-3 to "Consider it great joy" when we go through trials of many kinds because the "testing of your faith produces endurance," which leads to spiritual maturity. It is easy for us to let circumstances discourage us and knock us off the course that God has for us to walk. The enemy does not want Believers who are spiritually mature; he is going to do everything he can to take you out of this spiritual war- he wants you embroiled in some kind of sin or in something that will take yourself out of the spiritual fight. He is going to get you so busy that you take your focus off of Jesus- do you think it is a coincidence that with the rise of moral relativism that suddenly youth sports must happen all year long and practices and games must happen on Wednesdays and Sundays? Or that the message is being pushed that the only way your kid is going to make it on an athletic scholarship is if he begins playing sports at six years old? Nothing has changed except the enemy's maneuver to get our focus off of Jesus and on to anything else! Because he knows that if he can get you distracted, then he can get you discouraged- and if he can get you discouraged, then he can get you off course- and if he can get you off course, then it won't be too long before you are out of the fight and no longer a threat to his goals. The reason that Paul repeatedly tells us to rejoice is that is brings our focus back onto Jesus and gets us re-engaged in the spiritual war raging around us. It's why the writer of Hebrews says in 12:1-2, "Let us throw aside every weight (distraction) and the sin that so easily entangles and run with endurance the race that lies before us, keeping our eyes fixed on Jesus." If we can keep our eyes fixed on our anchor, then it is much less likely that we will be knocked off course by the storms of life. Paul repeatedly reminds Believers to "Rejoice always!" or some other variation of the same. He keeps coming back to the same thought: live with an attitude of joy, of thanks, of contentment, of peace. It reminds me of Paul's first interaction with the people of Philippi, which we read about in Acts 16. You remember, Paul is preaching the Gospel with Silas and keeps being interrupted by a demon-possessed slave-girl who tells fortunes. Paul drives the demon out of her, which infuriates her owners. The people set upon Paul and Silas, beat them, and then throw them in prison. Ch. 16, verse 25 says, "About midnight, Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the prisoners were listening to them." Next comes an earthquake, chains are loosed and jail doors are opened; the terrified jailer is about to kill himself before taking the blame, but instead becomes the first convert of Philippi because of the joy of Jesus that he witnesses in Paul and Silas- when Paul had every reason to be upset and to be grumbling, he was instead full of joy, praying and praising God. What a witness! Obviously, one that set the foundation for the church at Philippi- all because of the attitude of Christ that Paul chose to maintain even during trials. Joy is a choice! We must choose to rejoice, even in the worst circumstances. The command to rejoice is the inverse of Paul's previous teaching: stop grumbling! Because of Christ's sacrifice on your behalf, you have nothing to grumble about! Instead, choose to rejoice and give thanks, which honors what He has done for you! Paul moves on to give us two examples: one that will push us away from joy, the works of the flesh- and the other that will fill us with joy, the works of the Spirit- two choices in every situation: grumbling, that moves us away from joy and away from God's plan, or rejoicing, the decision that puts us in the middle of joy and in the middle of God's purpose. Truth #1: Put no confidence in the flesh, in the world, in the temporal. -Paul starts out here with a warning: watch out for those who will pull your focus away from Christ and try to steal your joy! Paul calls them the dogs, the evil workers, and the mutilators of flesh, but all can be included in one category- those who put their confidence in the works of the flesh, those who sought to bring Christianity under the laws of Judaism and who taught that righteousness could be obtained through law-keeping and religious rituals. These were the men that Paul talks about arguing with in Galatians- men that taught that circumcision was necessary for salvation and added additional works to faith in Christ as the means or payment for salvation. Paul called these men "deceitful workmen" in 2 Cor. 11:13. Strikingly, Paul is not referring to evil people in the world- it kind of sounds that way- "Watch out for cannibals and evil sorcerers." No, Paul is not warning against those in the world, those who might harm the body, but can't touch the soul- no, he is warning about those in the church, those whose works of mischief can be the most disheartening and discouraging. Watch out for the dogs: the term was used to refer to the unclean, most notably to the Gentiles. Paul uses it here to equate Jewish false teachers with the term they used to describe anyone not a Jew. These were men who were seeking to corrupt the church- they were outside the faith, and clinging to rituals and religious ceremonies, trying to convince Jewish Christians to return to Judaism. Watch out for evil workers: these were those who professed to be true believers, but who really were not. They had joined Christian fellowships in order to spread dissent and their false teachings. Their works were evil, both in intent and in outcome- we still deal with these types today. Watch out for the mutilators: All three of these descriptors were somewhat tongue-in-cheek and sarcastic, but this one most so. These were those within the church who clung to the teaching that circumcision, the mutilation, as Paul refers to it, was necessary for salvation. They were concerned only with the legality of the physical act: has your flesh been cut in the way that God demanded of the Old Testament Hebrews? No? Then you can't be saved. They didn't care about the heart behind the act, that the spiritual meaning was always about surrender and obedience, never about the actual skin being cut. Paul reaffirms this idea: all these men have put their trust in the flesh, in the world, in the temporal, in what they can do to earn God's favor. Then he goes on to say, 'I should know! I used to be the very worst of them! I had every reason to trust in what I could do, what I could achieve, to please God.' "I myself have reasons for such confidence. If someone else thinks they have reasons to put confidence in the flesh, I have more: circumcised on the eighth day, of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; in regard to the law, a Pharisee; as for zeal, persecuting the church; as for righteousness based on the law, faultless." Paul says, 'Instead, we are to be those who trust in the Spirit of God, who serve Christ and boast in His grace! We do not put our confidence in the flesh, and it is why we have such reason to rejoice!' Truth #2: Rather, we put our confidence in Christ- He is everything that we need! Everything else, including everything that I used to consider valuable, is now a loss compared to knowing Jesus! -In order for us to gain Christ, we must put aside everything that we once considered valuable. Indeed, Paul says that we must consider everything that we once took pride in, found our identity in, that we once boasted in as rubbish, as garbage. Paul says, 'Ancestry? Nationality? Culture? Prestige? Education? Religion? Personal achievement? None of it matters because I have given up everything that I used to be in order that I may gain Christ!' Paul makes a forceful refutation of the idea of human effort being necessary for salvation. Indeed, he says, 'Look at me! If human effort was enough, I should have been the most saved and blessed person on earth!' But Paul goes on- he says that all that stuff, everything that he had confidence in, he has disregarded them all in order that he might know Christ and be known by Him. But having an intimate relationship with the Savior and with the God of creation has nothing to do with what we can bring to the table. We are able to rejoice because it doesn't matter how we come to the salvation offer: outwardly spotless like a Pharisee, with all the spiritual pedigree available, or filthy and desperate- either way, we approach Christ as equals, in need of the same degree of grace, with nothing to offer but our love, our thanks, and our surrender- everything that comes after in no way pays for our salvation, we serve in joy because we were forgiven when we did not deserve forgiveness; we serve Christ, and the world at His request, to thank Him for the grace that He has poured out on us and to point others to want to know Him and the grace that He freely offers. Paul finishes his thought with his highest goal in life, and what should be ours, as well: to know Christ and completely surrender life to Him. Paul spells out for us what He hopes to accomplish in this life for Christ: -To know Christ: to have a personal, day-to-day relationship with Him, to know every day how to become more Christlike and how to have the life of Christ reproduced in his life. -To know the power of the resurrection: We rejoice because we serve the victor over death and the grave. We have surety of victory over the grave, as well as eternal life with the Father because we have accepted the gift of salvation and surrendered our lives to Him. -To know the fellowship of His suffering: When we surrender our lives to Christ and His Lordship, we are offering ourselves to Him that we will possibly suffer on His behalf in the same way that He suffered on ours. -To be conformed to His death: When we live for Jesus, we must daily put to death our own lives, our flesh, our desires and plans. If we want to live the crucified life for Christ, to show Him thanks for the grace that He's given to us, we must die to sin, to self, and to the world- and, we may also be given the opportunity to actually give our lives in repayment to our Savior. As counter-intuitive as it seems, the greatest gift that a Believer can give back to the Lord, aside from a life lived in service, is a life given in defense of the faith and of the Kingdom. Paul, though he often mentions getting out of prison to go see the Believers, was also anxious and eager to pour out his life in martyrdom- to give himself in repayment to his Savior. We should have the same eagerness- not to needlessly throw our lives away, but to make our lives available to Christ to do with what He will. We give ourselves, yes even up to obedience unto death because He was obedient unto death to save us- we have salvation and eternal life because of Him, so we should give anything and everything back to Him in thanks. We can rejoice in the security that we have living, and yes even dying, for our Lord and Savior who lived and died for us first! Invitation: Are you living your life to serve Christ today? Are you setting an example for others to follow?