Can't Steal My Joy Series

An airline pilot was flying over the Tennessee mountains and pointed out a lake to his copilot. “See that little lake?” he said. “When I was a kid I used to sit in a rowboat down there, fishing. Every time a plane would fly overhead, I’d look up and wish I was flying it. Now I look down and wish I was in a rowboat, fishing.” Is that not the story of mankind? We think we want something until we get it and then we realize we had what we needed all along. Contentment is one of the most treasured virtues to possess but yet it so often alludes us doesn’t it?

Open your Bibles with me this morning as we continue our Joy Ride series through the book of Philippians. And today is going to be a little unusual because we’re going to start in chapter 4, and then work our way backwards and do a final overview of the entire book in a message titled “Can’t Steal My Joy.” I’ve had so much fun teaching through this series and so let’s wrap things up this morning by looking at just 4 verses here in chapter 4.

Philippians 4:10-14 (ESV)

I rejoiced in the Lord greatly that now at length you have revived your concern for me. You were indeed concerned for me, but you had no opportunity. 11 Not that I am speaking of being in need, for I have learned in whatever situation I am to be content. 12 I know how to be brought low, and I know how to abound. In any and every circumstance, I have learned the secret of facing plenty and hunger, abundance and need. 13 I can do all things through him who strengthens me. You could argue verse 13 is one of the top 5 verses in the entire Bible…if you’re like me, you probably learned that last verse in a little different of a translation… probably something like: I can do all things through Christ who gives me strength.

About this time last year, we started our series through 1 Corinthians as we worked nearly verse-by-verse through the entire book…and it took us 29 messages to get through the entire book (my girls are like… “don’t remind us”). There are so many reasons why we teach verse by verse the main one being that it’s hard to get mad at the pastor for picking on you when he’s just preaching whatever comes next! But one of the things you have to be really careful of when you preach verse by verse is that you don’t get bogged down in the minutia of mining the text and fail to see some of the big-picture themes that are incredibly important.

That’s why I have absolutely LOVED preaching through Philippians this time around because we haven’t tried to hit every verse as much as we’ve tried to follow this theme of joy and Paul weaves this thought throughout his entire letter. Now if you’ve ever heard me preach before, you know I have a love-hate relationship with verse 13…I can do all things through Christ who gives me strength. I love it because of how I’m reminded of God’s empowering grace to live moment-by-moment on this side of eternity that is mine in Christ Jesus. But I hate it because I think the verse is rather abused by the T-shirt industry. I can’t tell you how many times I show up at the starting line of a big marathon and see someone wearing that shirt…and I always want to scream, “That’s not going to help you when I beat you!”

But before I get too distracted with this little rant, let’s go back and review this theme of joy because when you go back through Paul’s letter, I think it’s fun how you can now see this theme of joy jump right off the pages. And in each chapter, we can identify a potential joy robber but then as we look at Paul’s life we can see that NONE of these things could steal his joy…and for the Christ-follower, these joy robbers are worthy opponents, but in the end, because of the power that is ours in Jesus Christ, they CANNOT steal our joy! In fact, we could subtitle this entire series with the phrase: How to have joy no matter what!

So hang on tight as we dive into chapter one where we see the first thing that Paul’s says CANNOT STEAL MY JOY:

1. PRISON CANNOT ROB MY JOY (Chapter 1)

Philippians 1:7

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.