Joy/Full Part 2

Intro:

I grew up hunting in south florida

We had a lease in the immokalee area that we would hunt

I’ve got a lot of good memories but one that sticks with me is the first time I ever sat in a tree stand alone

I was probably 10 or 11

Buck walked out

Buck fever

I remember telling my grandpa

“You’ll hardly ever hit your target if you’re shaken. You have to take a deep breath, calm, get settled and get focused to be successful.

Paul open his letter as we saw last week with this beautiful greeting full of grace and we saw how we can find joy in similar ways

Prayer

Partnerships

Anticipation

Affection

And then Paul immediately gets into the main thing

And so what we will see from Paul today as we continue to read chapter 1 of Philippians is this: Paul is able to maintain joy in ministry by staying focused on the gospel and the glory of Christ

So, let’s pick up in verse 12 of Philippians chapter 1, I’ll read, then pray for us and we can jump in

Philippians 1:12–18 NIV

12 Now I want you to know, brothers and sisters, that what has happened to me has actually served to advance the gospel. 13 As a result, it has become clear throughout the whole palace guard and to everyone else that I am in chains for Christ. 14 And because of my chains, most of the brothers and sisters have become confident in the Lord and dare all the more to proclaim the gospel without fear. 15 It is true that some preach Christ out of envy and rivalry, but others out of goodwill. 16 The latter do so out of love, knowing that I am put here for the defense of the gospel. 17 The former preach Christ out of selfish ambition, not sincerely, supposing that they can stir up trouble for me while I am in chains. 18 But what does it matter? The important thing is that in every way, whether from false motives or true, Christ is preached. And because of this I rejoice. Yes, and I will continue to rejoice,

pray

When our focus is correct our joy is unshakeable

Remember now, Paul is in prison while writing this, so his Christ-centered perspective is put on full display

He isn’t whining about his situation

He isn’t complaining abut not having amenities or freedom

He’s not even complaining about his critics who are trying to afflict him in his imprisonment

Paul, while shackled and in prison is able to rejoice

Why? Because Paul’s focus is correct therefore his joy unshakeable

And what is this focus of Paul’s that causes him to have unshakeable joy?

The gospel! Paul cares about Christ being proclaimed.

And because the gospel is advancing and Christ is being preached, Paul rejoices.

Paul shows us that the key to maintaining joy is pretty simple: stay focused on the source of joy, and you will always have the hope of joy. Stay focused on Jesus.

Make the gospel the focus of your life

Is the gospel being preached? If so, then rejoice

Are you living out and preaching the gospel to those around you?

This will become a source of joy for you?

Is Jesus Lord? Yes!

Do you know Him? If so, then rejoice!

This isn’t a naive approach to the world

Paul isn’t discounting the complexities and difficulties of life

If anyone had it rough it was Paul

But instead of focusing on what is happening around him, he is focusing on the messiah and the mission

Jesus is Lord, and His gospel is being preached so that’s good enough for Paul

In fact, Paul says, what has happened to me has actually served to advance the gospel

He could be referring to everything that’s taken place from Jerusalem to Rome.

Which would include a riot, a two-year imprisonment in Caesarea, an appeal to Caesar, the threat of his life, a shipwreck on the way to Rome, his house arrest with restricted freedom, and/or his impending trial.

Whether Paul is speaking about all of these events or just his present imprisonment one thing is clear

It has served to advance the gospel

So, you have to imagine this for a moment

Paul was a problem!

There was no stopping him

And the powers at be knew they had to shut this guy up

So they would threaten to kill him and he would respond with something like: “to die is gain” and they knew that would start a revolution and the gospel of Jesus would advance all the more

So they decide to just throw him in prison

The most powerful Christian missionary was allowed by God to be imprisoned, little did they know they were giving Paul a captive audience that he might preach the gospel to

And so now, guards, Roman officials, other prisoners were all converting to Christianity and the gospel was expanding and advancing and the city of Rome was being impacted by the gospel in ways not even Paul could have seen coming

And as he writes this letter to the Philippians I believe he is genuinely joyful over what has happened to him

So, let me encourage us with this this morning

You never know how God might use suffering to advance the gospel

In fact, I think it’s one of God’s primary vehicles

Right? Because a God who can even turn suffering to saving is a God worthy of serving

I can’t tell you how many stories I’ve heard about where the gospel of Jesus advances through some of the most difficult of circumstances.

Train your mind to view every opportunity as a gospel opportunity and just watch what God does

May we be quicker and quicker to speak out and live out the gospel in every opportunity given

For it is by the gospel of Jesus that we are saved and it is the gospel of Jesus that ties us together

Look what he goes on to say in vs’s 13 and 14

The palace guard and everyone knows that I am in chains for Christ

and my brothers and sisters have become confident in Lord and dare to proclaim the gospel without fear

The gospel is what ties us together

and you never know how your one gospel act might stir another brother or sister on to gospel faithfulness

Listen, we do a lot of different things here at Cornerstone right?

But everything we do is done with gospel intentions

We are serious about the gospel of Jesus

I heard a story the other day about a pastor who witnessed an accident between a vehicle and bicyclist

He said the guy in the car hit the bicyclist going pretty slow but knocked the guy off his bike and the guy on the bike charged at the car and he’s hitting the hood and then goes to the window and starts trying to smash the window in and he realized the guy in the car is an elderly gentleman in his 80 probably

And so this pastor has a decision to make, right? Is he going to just see how things play out or is he going to step in, what made it more difficult for him was that he had a baby in the back

But he decided to get out and he tries to calm the bicyclist down and he tries to just kind of bear hug him and get him to stop but the dude is not having it

The guy is going crazy, he rips the pastors shirt and it’s out of control

And the pastor knew he had another decision to make

Should he punch this dude?

So, one uppercut knocks this guy out.

The police come and luckily there were many witnesses and everyone testifies the same thing

Guy went crazy, the car owner was defenseless and there’s no telling what this guy would have done had the pastor not stepped in and eventually knocked him out

so question just to gauge the room a little, how many of you would have gotten out to try to stop the assault?

I think most of us probably would have gotten out and tried to do something

If you saw an elder about to get assaulted you’d probably have the courage to do something right?

Now, how many of you would go speak the gospel to an 80 year old man sitting on the bench if you knew he wasn’t a Christian?

Would you even engage in spiritual conversation with him?

I would imagine it would be less of us

Why is it that we find it fairly easy to be courageous in physical matters but difficult in spiritual ones?

In other words, why are we cowards when it comes to speaking the gospel?

Could it be that speaking the gospel is warfare? I think so!

Let us pray for great courage as we make the gospel known to be people

Let’s get serious about the gospel!

The Paul shifts a little in these next few verses to talk about two different motives form two different groups

One group who see Paul’s imprisonment as an opportunity for their ministry to thrive

To them, Paul was a threat, Paul’s ministry was booming and perhaps their’s suffered because of that.

But for whatever reason, they saw Paul as the competition and so they used his imprisonment as fuel to preach Christ even more to grow their ministry

While there were others who truly loved Paul and were compassionate toward him

They knew he was not suffering for any sort of disobedience but for the gospel and so Pauls imprisonment fueled them all the more to continue to preach

And what is Paul’s response?

I don’t really care because Christ is being preached. Either way I rejoice!

Comparison is one of the deadliest joy killers

Jealousy and envy will always steal your joy

So, we need to always check our motives

Are you constantly comparing yourself to others?

Do you rejoice when your friends succeed or do you grow jealous?

Do you resent when others are praised?

Paul was uniquely gifted and used by God. Instead of rejoicing in Paul’s ministry, the envious evangelists resented him and couldn’t rejoice in the Savior’s work through him.

Sadly, that sounds very familiar to our day.

Know this, our enemy has many tactics to rob and steal from you and when it comes to joy this is the tactic most often used

And if he can get you discontent because of what others have he knows you will never experience the joy Christ has for you

you are only hurting yourself when you compare

How do we defeat this in our lives?

The way you overcome your wicked jealousy is by caring more for Jesus’ glory than your own.

Let the glory of Christ become your chief concern

On the flip side of this, don’t be surprised if others envy you

The Lord may grant you blessings that would make others envious

You might be criticized unfairly

They might disassociate with you

They might speak against you

They might disrespect you

And it may come from people you’d least expect

But here’s what you do, follow Paul

He doesn’t try to defend himself, he doesnt really get wrapped up in it at all

He knows that God will ultimately judge the hearts of people so he simply stays focused and puts the gospel first

You can’t control what others think of you; all you can do is finish your race in faithfulness

Then Paul finishes with thanksgiving that Christ is being proclaimed

The message mattered more to Paul than the messenger

Paul was just so joyful that the gospel was advancing, he didn’t care who did it

Now I do just want to point out, there’s a difference in Paul’s tone here compared to Gal 1:6-9 where Paul is addressing false teachers

and the reason is simple, the envious evangelists in Philippi were preaching Christ, those in Galatia were not.

They were distorting the gospel

And Paul never tolerates a false gospel

So, again, Paul’s focus was on the gospel of Jesus, not the motive of man

Now, if you were here last week you may have noticed I skipped a couple of verses

And that was intentional because that’s how I want to end this morning

With this prayer of Pauls

Philippians 1:9–11 NIV

9 And this is my prayer: that your love may abound more and more in knowledge and depth of insight, 10 so that you may be able to discern what is best and may 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.

Paul had talked about his joy in prayer when he prayed for the church in Philippi and then says “And this is my prayer:”

Paul prays for a mature church to become even more mature

So, I’m going to read my own version of this prayer over us this morning

Lord, I pray that you would help us experience your love like never before. I pray that each person under the sound of my voice would have a firsthand experience of how deep and high and long and wide the love of Christ is. and through our firsthand experience of the Father’s love over us that we might love you and one another with a same kind of love. Lord I pray by the power of your Holy Spirit that you would grant us knowledge of your Word and insight to your Spirit. That we might be a people who hunger and thirst for your word. As a deer pants for water may we long for you! God give us the ability to discern what is best. Help us o God to strive to be holy as you are holy so that on that day when we stand before the King of kings and Lord of lords the Judge of the world that we might be blameless before you. But until that day comes Lord, fill us with your fruit that comes only through Jesus by the power of your spirit. May we know the fullness of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self control. May we look to nothing other than you to be our source for all. And Lord I pray, that through everything we do, it would all be done in an effort to bring you glory. That we would think of ourselves less and less. That your gospel would be our focus. That your glory would be our aim. That your kingdom would expand. That your church would grow. That your people would please you. That your Word would go forth. That your name would be known. That you would be worshipped. That you would be praised. That you would be exalted. All of this to the glory and praise of God I pray, Amen!