Joy in Christ

Joy in Christ.

I’m so glad I’ve been given the opportunity to be here with you all this morning. It is such a pleasure to be able to fellowship with you all. Like we said last week, August is the time we typically pause whatever series we’re in to teach through some of the things we hold as core beliefs in our church. This time we’ve followed the Lord leading us to spend a month in the book of Philippians and explore the reasons that Paul discusses joy so much in this letter to the church.

We’ll start off by reading our passage this morning and then we’ll get cracking.

3 I thank my God in all my remembrance of you, 4 always in every prayer of mine for you all making my prayer with joy, 5 because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now. 6 And I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ. 7 It is right for me to feel this way about you all, because I hold you in my heart, for you are all partakers with me of grace, both in my imprisonment and in the defense and confirmation of the gospel. 8 For God is my witness, how I yearn for you all with the affection of Christ Jesus. 9 And it is my prayer that your love may abound more and more, with knowledge and all discernment, 10 so that you may approve what is excellent, and so be pure and blameless for the day of Christ, 11 filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ, to the glory and praise of God. [1]

First a little bit of background. This letter was written to the church in Philippi while he was in prison likely in Rome around 60 A.D.

I believe everyone has an image in their heads when it comes to thinking about prison. I know that I certainly do. Cell to yourself or maybe with one other person. Room to walk around, maybe get in some exercise. Large, open, common eating area. Time outside for recreation or just getting some fresh air. I’ve never been to prison so I’m pretty much basing all of that on movies and television.

A Roman prison was not so much about maintaining the dignity and humanity of its prisoners. Quite the opposite actually. Underground, poorly lit and ventilated. Small rooms which were meant to be overfilled. Large groups of people chained together with very heavy iron chains. These places were designed with the opposite of comfort in mind.

So then… why is this letter dripping with joy?!

OVERVIEW OF PHILIPPIANS/ JOY IN CHRIST

Well, we get some indication of why Paul is so completely filled with joy by what he says in the letter every time joy or rejoicing is mentioned. “Making my every prayer with joy because of your partnership in the gospel…” That gospel being the life, death, and resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ

“Christ is proclaimed, in that I rejoice.” “joy in the faith.” “… participation in the spirit… Complete my joy” “In the Lord with all joy” “Rejoice in the Lord”

Surrounded every notion of joy mentioned in this letter is some concept of that joy being tied to faith in Jesus Christ. And indeed it is a joyous thing having the eternal atonement for sin and separation from God imputed to your life.

That has got to be the only thing that can keep someone this excited and energized and filled with joy in the middle of a Roman prison. And when you have that sort of assurance beyond the span of your lifetime, it fills you with the kind of joy and excitement that is too good to keep to yourself! And when you find a collection of people who you have worked alongside of and cultivated relationships with, and they apply that same joy and motivation to their lives, that forges a bond that magnifies your joy and compounds your excitement and motivation. When you have that connection with people it also magnifies your care and affection for those people. That’s where we find Paul. In the middle of an exceedingly uncomfortable Roman prison and his heart and mind are overwhelmed with joy in Christ and concern for his friends in the church of Philippi.

Seems as though Paul’s mindset can be summed up by using joy as an acronym. Even though I find acronyms to be kind of cheesy and anyone who works at the Lab likely find acronyms exhausting, this one is really helpful and pretty accurate.

JOY

Jesus, Others, Yourself.

As you read this letter you see that Paul’s mind is completely occupied with the glory of Christ and the needs of other people.

Though he is in prison his focus is on his joy in Christ and on the well-being and spiritual growth of his companions in Philippi. Paul dies to himself, and puts on the person of Jesus Christ, stripping away the things he used to find important and running headlong into what Christ thought was important. People. You see this in the middle of Paul contemplating a scenario where he doesn’t make it out of prison. In 1:21-26...

English Standard Version Chapter 1

For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain. 22 If I am to live in the flesh, that means fruitful labor for me. Yet which I shall choose I cannot tell. 23 I am hard pressed between the two. My desire is to depart and be with Christ, for that is far better. 24 But to remain in the flesh is more necessary on your account. 25 Convinced of this, I know that I will remain and continue with you all, for your progress and joy in the faith, 26 so that in me you may have ample cause to glory in Christ Jesus, because of my coming to you again.

His concern is for their progress and joy in the faith. He goal in glory in Christ and concern for others. putting himself last. He mentions that idea of humility in chapter 2 but we’ll focus on humility next Sunday.

Paul found that when he put his energy into making his every step glorifying to God and care for other people he was filled with joy.

I find that it’s when I spend most of my time alone or tending to myself that I am farthest from joy. When I’m not around those that I consider partners in the gospel for any extended period of time it gets me down. Which is so interesting to me because if you take any time to examine the way the world chases joy you see things like self-care, self-expression, self-acceptance, self-indulgence. This is not new. The fight against the things the world finds valuable has been around forever. Paul urges us not to conform to the world in Romans 12:1-2...

English Standard Version Chapter 12

I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. 2 Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.

You have to fight against the me monster every day! But even that is impossible to do by yourself. God, in his wisdom, established the church to help bear one another’s burdens. Gal. 6: 2

Galatians 6:2 ESV

Bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ.

By now you all are probably getting sick of me saying joy so much but buckle up because we’re just getting started on this Joy Ride.

Lame joke but now that we have established Paul’s motivation for being so joyful, we can see some of the ways that he expresses that joy. First, in thankfulness for Christian Communion.

JOY IN CHRISTIAN COMMUNITY

As Paul opens this letter to the church, it seems that his mind is filled with memories of being with them and that produces in him this thankfulness for them. One way he shows that he’s thankful to them is by letting them know that he prays for them, and it would seem that he prays for them often.

English Standard Version Chapter 1

3 I thank my God in all my remembrance of you, 4 always in every prayer of mine for you all making my prayer with joy

Do you spend time in prayer for those you are thankful for? When you spend time praying for people, do you also take time to let them know that you are praying for them? I’ll be completely honest, I don’t spend enough time doing either of these things. I do pray for people, but often I neglect telling people flat out that I am praying for them and that I’m thankful for them. I certainly spend telling people specific reasons for why I’m thankful for them. Some people maybe even think that sort of thing is pretty weird. I think one explanation for that is that maybe they don’t really see that in themselves and so it might be uncomfortable to hear something about yourself that you don’t totally think applies. But rejoice when someone tells you why they are thankful for you. Not rejoicing in yourself, but rejoicing in God because of the goodness God has shown that person through you.

Paul goes on to give them specific reasons that he’s thankful for them and again it shows his priorities.

English Standard Version Chapter 1

5 because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now.

Paul expresses his thankfulness to God for the partnership he has granted Paul and this church for the sake of the gospel.

The burden of the great commission is ENORMOUS. The church exists to bear the burden of evangelism to the ends of the earth. To mobilize people for the completion of that “mission”. Every person in this room is sitting here because someone touched their lives with that mission in mind. Whether it was family, or a friends, or a stranger on the street. Someone in your life took that Great Commission seriously and shared a piece of the enormous burden of making it known to the world that there is life to be had in Christ Jesus and with his father in heaven eternally. For the faith of that person I am extremely grateful because it brought us all here together. That is really good work. Paul knew that as well and he continues through thankfulness straight on to assurance. He says in verse 6...

English Standard Version Chapter 1

And I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ.

Paul trusts deeply in God’s purposes. The grace of god in the lives of those who believe is so powerful. A lot of people try to limit this verse to personal salvation. While I think it’s right that this text can be applied to personal salvation we can’t take it to mean only that. I know personally there was a point in my walk with Christ where I was the kind of person that plucked any verse of scripture out of its proper context and made it apply to whatever I was trying to say regardless of what the text intends. We have to remember though that Paul is talking about the church here, and so we have to assume that he means the work that God has done to form a people for himself.

Paul makes it clear that the work of salvation from beginning to end is in God’s hands. There is no work that can be done on our parts to make salvation happen. We acknowledge the work God has done and apply it to our lives by having faith in the one who accomplished the work.

English Standard Version Chapter 3

Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ 9 and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith—

Believing these things about the good work of God Paul trusts God’s nature of faithfulness and purposes to form a people for himself, and he trusts the faith of the Philippians in that work and because of those two things he tells them in verse 7...

English Standard Version Chapter 1

It is right for me to feel this way about you all, because I hold you in my heart, for you are all partakers with me of grace, both in my imprisonment and in the defense and confirmation of the gospel.

Paul says that he holds these people in his heart. Who do you hold in your heart? I feel like we tend to reserve that kind of language for only our closest people. Immediate family, spouses, very very close friends. But Paul uses that language for this church. “For you are all partakers with me of grace,”. The grace we just mentioned. When someone is a partaker in the kind of grace necessary for life eternally there is a bond there that knits people closer together than the world could describe. The church is designed to be the place where people who would otherwise never occupy the same space come together under a common belief in an uncommon love. Right for him to feel that way because of their partnership both in grace and in their support for him while he was in prison defending and confirming the gospel.

English Standard Version Chapter 1

For God is my witness, how I yearn for you all with the affection of Christ Jesus.

Paul is united with Christ and he shares Christ’s love for the church. That loves produces in him joy and longing to be reunited with these people. Until he can be reunited with these people, and because he knows that there is still work for them to do, he wants them to be as well equipped for this work as they can be so he continues his prayer for them

English Standard Version (Chapter 1)

9 And it is my prayer that your love may abound more and more, with knowledge and all discernment,

He continues his prayer that they will continue in sanctification growing more into the character of Christ abounding in love more and more, growing in all knowledge and discernment. This is still true for us today. the work of the Great commission is far from complete and if there is still work to be done we need to be equipped for that work. Our love shouldn’t stop growing. If we are indeed found in Christ our love ought to be growing more and more. As our love grows more and more we’ll find that it’s impossible to contain the joy that we have in Christ. As we continue to put on Christ more of our old self will fall away and the more we’ll be able to get out of our way when it comes to sharing that love and joy with everyone we come into contact with. Biblical love is sacrificial and it necessitates action. If we want to be known in this valley for loving God and impacting the world, we have got to be equipped for the work of the ministry which Paul knows involves growing in love and knowledge and discernment.

Increasing in knowledge and discernment tends to cause us to question a lot of things in our lives and rightly. Questions like...

Is Christ my supreme joy? Is Christ what I value the most?

Am I chasing after the knowledge of Christ?

Am I honoring God with the things that I’m doing? The way I’m spending my time, money? The things I’m thinking about? The relationships I keep? The way I’m raising my kids?

Am I a partner in the gospel or am I just trying to do good things?

Examining your life with Christ as your supreme joy changes the way you do things and conduct yourself in the world. And Paul gives us reasons why doing these things is important…

English Standard Version Chapter 1

10 so that you may approve what is excellent, and so be pure and blameless for the day of Christ,

Every day that presses on the day of Christ draws nearer to us. Knowing that he is coming ought to change the way we think and live! On that day to be pure and blameless would be being found in Christ. Being pure means being of one nature and that of Christ himself. in verse 11

11 filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ, to the glory and praise of God.

We can’t do that, Paul knows and tells us that righteousness comes through Jesus Christ. Righteousness is purchased, applied to us, and presented to God through Jesus Christ! To what end? To give God the glory and praise!

If we are living our lives with Christ as our supreme joy, knowing the work he has done for us, applying it to our lives, being conformed to his image we are inevitably going to be knit together with his people and find deep and everlasting joy in his people. Who exist to share the burden of the great commission and the care and support of one another, through the work of Jesus Christ, to the glory and praise of God now and forever. Let’s pray...

The Holy Bible: English Standard Version (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles, 2016), Php 1:11.

[1] The Holy Bible: English Standard Version (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles, 2016), Php 1:3–11.

[2] The Holy Bible: English Standard Version (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles, 2016), Php 2:3.”