Unshakable Joy: Living for Christ in all Circumstances

The Joy of Gospel Partnership: Encouragement for the Christian Life

Introduction:

Point 1: Let us humble ourselves and receive the grace and peace that God gives.

Philippians 1:1–2 ESV

1 Paul and Timothy, servants of Christ Jesus, To all the saints in Christ Jesus who are at Philippi, with the overseers and deacons: 2 Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

Explain:

v. 1a - Paul sets the tone for the whole letter with the introduction of himself and Timothy as the authors of the letter. “Servants” here literally means “like slaves,” so slaves of Christ. This theme is the undertone through the whole letter. As you can see in Phil. 2 where Paul says to count others as more important than yourself.

**v. 1b - Another little note here (not related to the overall point) is that Paul addresses to all the saints and mentions overseers and deacons, which is just important because it reinforces the understanding we have that church has some semblance of structure. It’s not just a free-for-all and there is an authoritative “hierarchy” in the church.

v. 2 - I like this comment on v. 2 by Lightner,

The order in which he used them is significant. Before there can be any genuine peace there must be a personal response to God’s grace,

Robert P. Lightner, “Philippians,” in The Bible Knowledge Commentary: An Exposition of the Scriptures, ed. J. F. Walvoord and R. B. Zuck, vol. 2 (Wheaton, IL: Victor Books, 1985), 649.

That humility we see from Paul is a genuine response to the grace that he received from God. Paul the former persecutor of Christians saved from his sinful and wicked ways by the Grace of God. Filled with humility because he did not deserve that salvation yet for some reason known only to God, was given salvation. That grace led to humility and then peace that is demonstrated by Paul in the later verses in this first chapter (what’s happened to me has served to advance the Gospel).

Application:

Humble yourself before Jesus and thank Him for his grace in your life.

I don’t know if there is a single more important virtue as a Christian than humility. If you are not humble, you don’t see you need for salvation. You won’t admit when you have sinned. You think you don’t need help. Everyone else is the problem and not me. The other students are the problem because they won’t come talk to me. Certainly I am not the problem. I don’t need accountability to stop watching porn. I’ll stop by myself. A prideful heart corrupts all other areas of your walk with Christ.

How can we maintain humility? Have deep Gospel-centered friendships that keep us all focused on the gospel.

Point 2: Rejoice in Good Gospel Work and Relationships

Philippians 1:3–8 ESV

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.

Explain:

Before I dig into the next set of verses, I want to make sure we understand what a few words mean.

Joy: an internal sense of delight and contentment that is grounded in our trust in God.

Rejoicing: is the external expression of that internal joy.

So just so you understand, there is a difference in this type of emotional reaction (rejoicing) and say happiness. Happiness goes away with a change of circumstance. Joy and the emotional expression of that joy (rejoicing) does not change with circumstance. That is a big theme in this letter as a whole.

Paul rejoices with his brothers and sisters at the Church in Philippi in a few different ways:

v. 3-5 - Rejoicing because of their fellowship in the gospel. So they are all saved. “…making my prayer with JOY, because of your partnership in the gospel..” Partnership also can mean fellowship. Like we fellowship together. Same concept Paul is using here.

v. 6 - Paul is rejoicing in their continued sanctification. When God saves us he begins this good work Paul is talking about. He is making us more and more like Christ each day. Ultimately this will not be fully completed until the day Christ returns and calls us up to Heaven. How does God work out this sanctification? Well the core of it is his Spirit but usually it is the Spirit working through those gospel relationships and his Word.

v. 7 - He rejoices because of the Gospel work the Philippians are doing. The Lord is completing the work he started while they are out doing Gospel work. What does that mean? You are ready now to do gospel work. The more you do for the glory of Christ, the more you grow in Christ. Important to remember that work does not save you. You work from the grace you have been given not to gain any additional grace from God.

v. 8 - Paul rejoices in the love that he has for his brothers and sisters in Christ at Philippi. This is built up from these last 5 verses on the foundation of their fellowship in the gospel. That should be the foundation of any deep relationship like this. Your deepest friendships should be gospel-centric.

Illustrate: I get flashbacks of my youth pastor when I was growing up. He has the luxury of seeing several of the young men and women he invested in so heavily actively involved in the ministry (not that church work is the only form of ministry but the ones I am thinking of particularly are involved in church work.) He has expressed this type of affection for some of us. It was something that started as a rejoicing because of our fellowship in the gospel, our growth as Christians and then work together in sharing the gospel. Now we have this close friendship connection and “yearning” because of the time we spent together in the Gospel and walking through life together. It started when I was in 8th grade and went from there.

Application:

Get good gospel centered relationships in your life that grow you in the Lord and work for the Lord.

Where do we find these relationships? Paul is writing to a church…you can find these relationships in the church. At the church we have the fellowship of the Gospel with other, just like Paul was praising and thanking the Philippians for! Lean into these relationships here and hold each other accountable, work together for the advancement of the gospel. Some of you may be thinking “well no one wants to talk to me here so I don’t know what to do..” well, I want to ask questions to a few different students for a second:

The shy/standoff that doesn’t believe you have any friends in the group: Have you put yourself out there? Have you gone up to other people and tried to talk to them and build on the common ground you have (Jesus..the common ground is Jesus)? OR are you standing in the corner or off to the side every time we get together, hoping someone will come talk to you?

To the social butterfly that talks to everyone: Are you only talking to the people you like, know, or are like you? Are you seeking out the ones who may not be quite as social as you or your friends? Are you putting yourself out there?

Y’all have heard me talk about my best friend John from my youth group. He is a very, very introverted person. In a room like this, he would rather sit in the corner and not go out of his way to talk to anyone. He gets extremely nervous talking to people he does not know. Yet our friendship started because he was encouraged by someone else step out of his comfort zone (repeatedly, this did not happen overnight) and talk with me, who he did not know, on a random Wednesday night. Over the next few years we became extremely close and he helped me through some of the “dark days” of my teenage years. Who knows where I would be if he had never done that…and guess what, he was like 11th or 12th grade and I was 8th or 9th. So older folks, you can have this kind of relationship with the younger folks too. I harp on this because I know the importance of this..I would not be where I am today if it were not for John stepping out of his comfort zone and making friends with me.

Point 3: Continue living out love for the glory of God.

Philippians 1:9–11 ESV

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.

Explain:

Paul ends his introduction in this letter with a heartfelt prayer that builds up to the ultimate purpose statement for the Christian “to the glory and praise of God.” Paul sifts through love that abounds more and more, through spiritual knowledge, discernment, meeting the standard, being pure and blameless and filled with the fruit of the Spirit. All of this leads us to giving glory and praise to God.

v. 9-10 - This love that Paul speaks of is guided by spiritual knowledge and discernment. This is not just a general knowledge and discernment but a spiritual kind that leads us to love others more. We learn about the character and the ways of God and discernment makes us sensitive to the needs and situations of others.

When we are guided by this spiritual knowledge and discernment, we more consistently meet the standard of the Christian life that is pure blameless.

Important that this is generally speaking. You are not going to be this all the time but you can strive to live this way. Repent when you get off track and get back right.

v. 11 - When our love abounds more and more the fruit of righteousness flows from our lives.

Our love abounds through Christ (v. 11a), for Christ (v. 10), and to Christ (v. 11b).

The Spirit working through us fills us with this love that we pour out to those around for the glory of God through Jesus Christ.

Application: Love people - in the church and out of the church - for the glory of God.

Look for good to do to others.

Remember the discernment that Paul talks about is focused on seeing needs that other people have, one of the best ways to do that is see the needs of those in the church..in your youth group.

Conclusion:

If there is any encouragement from these first 11 verses, I believe it is this:

Christians can be encouraged today, knowing that God is continually at work in them (v. 6) as they labor for the spread of the Gospel (7-10) and the glory of Jesus Christ (v. 11).

From the start you can feel the joy and encouragement that Paul is bringing to the Philippians. We’ll see next week that Paul is in prison while he is writing this and he wants to instill a sense of joy in these believers that even though times get hard, God uses those bad times to build his kingdom if we are faithful to Him.

So as we go to small groups think about how you act when times get tough and then how you can repurpose that pain into joy for the glory of God.