Completing Our Joy (Philippians 2:1-4)

Humility is Essential for Joy in Christ

Our Passage today is going to be in Philippians 2:1-4 and the sermon title is Completing Our Joy. Last week we talked about Joshua and the idols. We saw how idols will always hinder our ability to find satisfaction and joy in Christ. Today I want to talk about the other side of that. So we saw what it looks like when Christ isn’t the source of our joy. Today we are going to see what it looks like when Christ is our joy. The main idea of the sermon is Joy Comes through Humility. A humility that raises Christ above all else. He has to be above all else or it doesn’t work. Because as we saw last week, if it’s Christ plus anything, you’ve made an idol in your heart, and those idols kill your ability to experience the full Joy and satisfaction found in Christ. So, If you’re all in our text, I’ll read it. This is Philippians 2:1-4 “So if there is any encouragement in Christ, any comfort from love, any participation in the Spirit, any affection and sympathy, complete my joy by being of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind. Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others.” One thing I want to start out is clarifying the “if” Paul uses in the passage here. We need to understand that Paul is using condition language. Similar to perhaps some proofs you might find in geometry. For instance, a simple example might be. If 2+2=4 then 4=2+2. We all know what 2+2 is, I’m almost completely certain at least. So the statement isn’t calling into question the validity of the math equation but rather attributing a logical conclusion based on the facts. So, then, we could read the passage like this, “SINCE there is encouragement in Christ, comfort from love, participation in the Spirit, affection and sympathy, complete my joy by being of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind. Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others.”

Paul is using if then statements. He is saying, “If this is true, then do this. And because these things are true, there is encouragement in Christ, there is comfort, there is participation in the Spirit, and there is affection and sympathy, then do this. Ok, just wanted to briefly touch on that. So, Paul is writing to the church in Philippi in prison and he is rejoicing that his imprisonment has made several people bold in Christ, he en courages them to likewise take courage and continue to spread the Gospel. And so we arrive at our text and you might be scratching your head a little wondering how this particular passage ties in to joy. About satisfaction in Christ. This passage seems to be about humility and how we ought to live. Even the title for the passage in my Bible is called “Christ’s Example of Humility.” So how do these things connect? Well that brings me to my first point.

Humility is Essential for Joy in Christ

If you remember, one of the points from last week was Idols will always Kill Satisfaction In God. Idols are anything that we think Christ lacks. Whether its money, security, family, power, or fame. Whatever our hearts are actively seeking after that isn’t pointed to Christ, is an idol. And I don’t believe there is any idol so prevalent today as the idol of self. While it’s possible for idols to stem from good intentions, they all stem from self. I want to provide for my family. I want to be able to af

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