Sermon Tone Analysis

Introduction

Eleven years ago, I was sitting in the middle of the football stadium at Jacksonville State University to celebrate my graduation.

It seemed like everyone around me could not have been more excited and thankful for all that they had accomplished.

But, I was miserable, not excited.

I felt remarkably unfulfilled and dissatisfied.

I didn’t feel accomplished at all.

Three and a half years ago, I was eating in the cafeteria at St. Vincent’s hospital the morning after Sara’s birth, and I was so worried about so many things that I felt like I couldn’t breathe.

And, I remember sitting there thinking, “This can’t be right.

This can’t be how God intends for me to live.”

Truthfully, joy has been a fight for me.

Successes haven’t been as satisfying as I thought they would be, and failures have hurt worse than I expected they would.

Often, I have known the right answers, and I have had the right information, which has only served to add to my misery when it doesn’t change how I think and how I feel.

My expectation is that I’m not the only one that finds joy to be a battle.

In fact, while some of us struggle more than others, I think this is a normative experience, not a unique one.

Joy is a battle for most people.

In my battle for joy, no book has taken a more central role than the book of Philippians.

The book of Philippians is just over 2000 words long, and Paul speaks of joy 16 times, compared to just 36 times in the rest of his letters combined.

And so, we come to this book to ask together what I have asked personally so many times: How can we have durable joy?

How can we have a joy that holds up in the pressure cooker of life?

How can we have a joy that transcends our relationships and our finances and our threats and our worries?

So, let’s dive in this morning for an overview of this friendly letter to the church at Philippi.

God’s Word

Read

Europe’s First Church

The church at Philippi began out of remarkable circumstances, which are all detailed in .

Paul and Silas were preaching the gospel and planting churches in Asia Minor, when a vision comes to Paul.

In this vision a man from Macedonia comes to Paul saying, “Come over to Macedonia and help us.”

So, Paul, Silas, Timothy, and Luke set sail together and land in Philippi, which is one of the cities in the region of Macedonia.

And, it’s here that the very first European congregation is formed.

This is the beginning of us hearing the gospel.

This is the beginning of America and Alabama and Calhoun County getting the gospel.

When Paul first arrives in town, he finds that there are virtually no Jews present.

The city is overwhelmingly Gentile.

In fact there are so few Jews, that they do not even have a sustained Synagogue, and he finds a group of women praying, and it is there that a woman named Lydia is the first known convert of Europe.

Paul and Silas end up in a Philippian jail for casting the demon out of a slave girl, but in prison an earthquake comes, drops their chains and opens their cell doors.

But, they stay put, and just when their jailer is about to commit suicide because he believes that he has certainly lost his prisoners, they stop him, preach the gospel to him, and he is saved.

And, with this foundation, Paul and Silas leave behind Luke and Timothy with Lydia, her family, the jailer, his family, and certainly others to form what becomes the Church at Philippi.

Three Threats to Joy (Headline)

v. 1 “Paul and Timothy, servants of Christ Jesus” Paul has received word from Epaphroditus that there are some threats encroaching upon the joy of the Philippian church, and so, he wants to combat those for the good of his beloved church.

And, we can characterize the main ideas of this letter in those terms.

We’ll see at least Three Threats to Joy (headline) combatted in this book.

And, by seeing how Paul combats these threats of joy, we can see how our joy in Christ might be full and how we might defeat the threats to our own joy.

Threat 1: A “Divided” Church

The first threat to joy that we’re going to see is a “divided” church.

There is nothing more central in Paul’s mind as he pens Philippians than the unity of this church.

God has used them so mightily for his Kingdom, and Paul understands that their future usefulness will be totally dependent upon their unity with one another.

Further, he knows that Divided churches have “joyless” members.

And, that makes unity in the church worth fighting for.

We abide in Christ that our joy may be full, and we abide in Christ together in pursuit of that joy together.

If anything fractures our togetherness, it isn’t just an interruption to our joy; it’s the elimination of our future joy.

God gave us each other so that we might increase one another’s joy in him.

You are a gift from God to your brother or sister for their joy.

So, disunity in the church destroys, not just the joy you have, but also the joy you will have.

Disunity breaks off joy at the spigot.

It doesn’t dry up your joy; it keeps you dry.

It doesn’t just make you thirsty; it kills you slowly through dehydration.

Agendas Divide, the Mission Unifies

“Paul and Timothy, servants of Christ Jesus” And, we can see what a priority this is for Paul even here in his greeting.

He does a couple of things in his greeting here that is unlike any other greeting to one of his letters.

First, notice how he includes Timothy as though he were the author of this letter too, even though Paul writes everything in the first person.

Not only that, but he describes both of them in the exact same way, as ‘servants or slaves of Christ Jesus.’

There’s no other place that he does this.

Paul doesn’t identify himself as an apostle with apostolic authority.

He doesn’t identify himself as the establisher of this great congregation.

Rather, he identifies himself as being a partner, a co-laborer with Timothy, a fellow slave and servant living beneath the dominion and authority of Jesus Christ the King.

There is no rivalry, only partnership in the advancement of the Kingdom of Jesus Christ.

By identifying themselves as slaves, there is the admission that it’s not Paul’s agenda or Timothy’s agenda or Lydia or Epaphroditus’ agenda or Euodia’s agenda or Cody’s or Tony’s or Chris’.

It’s about Christ’s!

Our “agendas” divide us, but Christ’s “mission” unifies us.

Our preferences in the church fragment us, but Christ’s mission for the church unites us.

So, Paul will say in 1:27: Let me ‘hear of you that you are standing firm in one spirit, with one mind striving side by side for the faith of the gospel’.

“Paul and Timothy, servants of Christ Jesus” And, we can see what a priority this is for Paul even here in his greeting.

He does a couple of things in his greeting here that is unlike any other greeting to one of his letters.

First, notice how he includes Timothy as though he were the author of this letter too, even though Paul writes everything in the first person.

Not only that, but he describes both of them in the exact same way, as ‘servants or slaves of Christ Jesus.’

There’s no other place that he does this.

Paul doesn’t identify himself as an apostle with apostolic authority.

He doesn’t identify himself as the establisher of this great congregation.

Rather, he identifies himself as being a partner, a co-laborer with Timothy, a fellow slave and servant living beneath the dominion and authority of Jesus Christ the King.

There is no rivalry, only partnership in the advancement of the Kingdom of Jesus Christ.

By identifying themselves as slaves, there is the admission that it’s not Paul’s agenda or Timothy’s agenda or Lydia or Epaphroditus’ agenda or Euodia’s agenda or Cody’s or Tony’s or Chris’.

It’s about Christ’s!

Our agendas divide us, but Christ’s agenda unifies us!

Our preferences in the church fragment us, but Christ’s mission for the church unites us.

So, Paul will say in 1:27: Let me ‘hear of you that you are standing firm in one spirit, with one mind striving side by side for the faith of the gospel’.

Joy Comes from Mission, not Consumption.

APPLICATION: This is why Thom Rainer says: Inwardly focused churches die, and outwardly focused churches live.

This is why the more obsessed you become with your crisis of the moment the more insurmountable it becomes.

If as a church we are worried about our preferences and our favorite programs and our personal agenda, there will be no joy.

If as a Christian, we become obsessed with our needs and our problems and our crises, the bigger those needs, problems, and crises will appear.

Joy comes from the “mission”, not “consumption”.

Joy comes from unifying together for the work of God through the power of God to the glory of God.

Joy doesn’t come from our favorite music or getting our way or by obsessing over the crises in our lives.

As counterintuitive as it seems, as unnatural as it is, joy isn’t the result of getting what we want but living according to our call.

Joy comes from outward living in place of inward obsession.

Unity is an Everyone Responsibility

“To ALL the saints IN Christ Jesus" And, that’s why he addresses this letter to ‘ALL the saints.’

There seems to be an obvious tension that’s threatening the ‘all-ness’, the togetherness, the joy of this congregation.

So, he addresses it to ALL of them.

He calls all of them take responsibility for their role in maintaining unity and increasing joy.