Lasting Joy

Bible Passage: Philippians 1:1-11

Introduction

What do you believe is the chief end of most people alive in America today? We are surrounded by a lot of evil and a great deal of discontent in the collective union of the United States right now. But where did we start and what was our intent?

In Congress, July 4, 1776

The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America, When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

I think as a nation we’ve reached a point where we’re having great difficulty agree with one another about a lot of things. Maybe chief among those being what we believe constitutes life and liberty. But we still seem to be mostly in agreement that we want to remain free in our pursuit of Happiness. We may disagree vehemently what is required to get there, but most would likely agree we want to be left alone in our pursuit of what makes us happy. In other words, we can probably all agree that we want to be able to live a life of Lasting Joy.

Paul in writing a letter to the Philippians drew out a roadmap. It’s a map that clearly demonstrates the way to joy is rooted in Jesus and expressed within the church. We need to understand that is the Gospel and not our circumstances which has the capacity to sustain our joy. We need to start or strengthen meaningful relationships with other Christians if we want to live in a state of sustained and lasting joy.

1. Greetings

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

Paul

Servant of Christ Jesus

Imprisoned for the Gospel

Author of this letter

Timothy

Well known to Philippians - ministered with Paul

Now present with Paul

Joined with Paul in prayer

Greetings

To all saints, overseers, and deacons

Grace and Peace - joy good health with both temporal and spiritual prosperity

From the Father and the Son

Paul begins as he most often does with a greeting that identifies who he is and who is with him in the message being authored. He’s not suggesting here that Timothy helped him to write the letter, but rather they were of one mind and spirit in the offering of God’s favor on the Philippian believers. Most of us these days aren’t that familiar with letter writing or letter receiving. Rather than spelling out what we mean to say, we abbreviate it, BFF, HMU, JK, NVM, TTYL, ICYMI, LOL, etc. or send a series of emojis. We’ve lost much of the art of formal prose. I understand, it’s so much quicker when you’re typing with your thumbs and the phone fills in most of the emoji’s for you. Some of you will remember where it all started. Texting originally was done with just the phone pad so you only had 12 keys to type out all the letters, numbers and symbols of modern writing. Now that you have a whole keyboard it’s a little easier, but the abbreviations are ingrained now. Not so for Paul, he spelled it all out and even dressed it up a bit as is much more common in written language. Few of us have ever talked the way we write.

2. Thanksgiving and Prayer

Philippians 1:3–6 I thank my God in all my remembrance of you, always in every prayer of mine for you all making my prayer with joy, because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now. 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.

Thank God for you

Whenever I remember you

In all of my prayers for you

Calling out to God with joy for you

In all my prayers for You

Pray for you always and often

Grateful for your partnership in the gospel

Joyous for the work God’s doing in you

Confident God will complete His work

Paul and Timothy brought the Gospel to Philippi

Believers accepted it willingly and continuously supported them

Thankful prayer God would complete what He started

Leading people can be difficult. Sometimes we succeed and sometimes we do not. I lead a group of 14, now 13 engineers in my day job. For the most part it’s been done with joy. Some really do the work because it is there passion and they do it with joy. More often than not I have to try and convince these individuals to not burn themselves out. I have one young engineer who loves propulsion. He will readily work 60-80 hours per week without being asked. I don’t recall more than a very small handful of occasions when I’ve asked people to do so or even been asked myself. But this young man is so into it, I told him he need to slow down and take some time off. He said, “oh I am. It’s my first use of PTO in two years and I’m taking off more than one week.” I said great, I hope you’re planning something fun. Oh absolutely, I’m headed to Texas to judge the annual college rocketry competition. I’ve been grading their paper descriptions for more than a month. I had another young engineer who announced she was quitting the first day of the year. She didn’t care for the work and she also didn’t care for my management style. She wanted someone who was much more hands involved in their day-to-day work. It seems clear from this opening that the church in Philippi was much more like the first person I mentioned. They jumped into the ministry of the Gospel with both feet and were eager to be partnered with Paul.

3. Partakers in Grace and Gospel Ministry

Philippians 1:7–11 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. For God is my witness, how I yearn for you all with the affection of Christ Jesus. And it is my prayer that your love may abound more and more, with knowledge and all discernment, so that you may approve what is excellent, and so be pure and blameless for the day of Christ, filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ, to the glory and praise of God.

Right to feel this way about you

Hold a place in my heart

Take part in the joy … imprisonment and defense of Gospel

Yearn for you with affection of Christ

Prayer for continuous growth

Your love will flourish

Love born out of knowledge and discernment

Love that approves what is excellent

Longs to witness their transformation

Longs to see them pure and blameless

Filled with the fruit of righteousness

So God is glorified and praised

Paul expresses his gratitude for their enthusiastic acceptance of the Gospel message that He had preached. But he wasn’t content that they just walk on with life and look forward to a coming reunion in heaven. He expresses his gratitude that they’ve taken up the ministry of the Gospel. He praises them for their willingness to support him, but also for their determination to grow and expand the influence of the Gospel. It’s my experience that most parents have high hopes for their children. They want to see them grow into successful, functional members of society. They also generally want to see them avoid the mistakes they’ve made along the way and to willing embrace choices that will lead to their success in life. Many times the results of our efforts are futile. We see that sometimes the only way to learn hard lessons in life is to experience them. Other times we see them learn from our past and avoid our mistakes, but then go on to make their own. Apparently, the people at Philippi were knocking it out of the park. They caught Paul’s vision for the growth and expansion of the Gospel. They helped out whenever they could and they fully embraced Paul’s call to share the Good News. Throughout this letter we’ll see that Paul says, not only is this the right choice to make, but it is the only real path to lasting joy. If you want to experience lasting joy in your own life, you need to be rooted to the person of Jesus Christ and you need to be living that out in a community that shares that same purpose.