JOY IN MY HEART
Philippians 1.1-18
S: Joy
C: Seeing the big picture
Th: Toward the Goal
Pr: GET THE JOY!
?: How? How do we get the joy?
KW: Concepts
TS: We will find in our study of Philippians 1.1-18 three concepts that help us get the joy.
Type: Propositional
I. AGAPE
II. PROKOPE
III. XRISTOS
PA: How is the change to be observed?
• Grow in love – love one another, serve one another, look out for one another
• Push forward – don’t worry if it looks bad, God is bigger
• It’s about Jesus – all that matters is that Jesus is proclaimed
Version: ESV
RMBC 01 June 08 AM
ILL Happiness (H)
The actor Alan Alda once said:
"It isn’t necessary to be rich and famous to be happy. It’s only necessary to be rich."
Is that a statement that you agree with?
What makes you happy?
Will a new car make you happy?
Will a new home make you happy?
Will a new laptop make you happy?
For you ladies, how about one more pair of shoes?
For you men, how about one more tool?
Or for some of you that are like me, how about one more book?
What is it that will truly make you happy?
One of the fallacies in Christian circles is that it is the goal of the Christian to be happy.
God wants you to be happy.
I believe there is something fundamentally wrong with such an approach.
It treats the concepts of happiness and joy as the same.
This is wrong, I believe, because…
There is a distinct difference between happiness and joy.
Let me first define happiness.
Happiness is an attitude of satisfaction or delight when the circumstances are favorable.
When the circumstances dictate it, I am happy.
Joy, however, is deeper.
Joy is not dependent on one’s circumstances.
Joy is a state of satisfaction or delight regardless of the circumstances.
It is the willingness to state “all is well” in spite of how I feel at any given moment.
We begin today a study on the letter the apostle Paul writes to the church in Philippi.
It is a letter that has joy all throughout it.
And before you say, “Well that’s nice. It is good that Paul wrote about joy,” I want you to understand this.
Paul writes this while letter in chains.
He is imprisoned, waiting for his trial before Caesar.
And here is what he writes…
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. 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.
Here he is – literally in bonds – and what does he say to the Philippians?
“I have you in my heart!”
His heart is glad.
When he thinks of them, it brings joy.
He remembers, and it makes him smile.
You have to wonder about Paul, though…
After all, when he first came to Philippi, he was illegally arrested, beaten, placed in stocks and humiliated before the people.
I don’t think I would have fond memories of a place and a people that did that to me.
But that is not what made him smile.
What made him smile is the people to whom he ministered.
When he thought about them, it brought him great satisfaction.
Because, as he puts it…
“We are partners.”
Though he was the teacher…
Though he was the founder of the church in Philippi…
Though he was their spiritual father…
He understood that it was a partnership.
He understood there was communion between them.
There was relationship.
Even though he was imprisoned, he was not alone.
They were with him – practically and spiritually.
Think about that for a moment…
Is that true of you?
Those that have been your pastors and spiritual leaders, when they think of you, does it make them smile?
Are you a joy to them?
Does their face perk up at the mention of your name?
Do they consider you a full partner in ministry?
And perhaps, now time and distance separate you, but that does not matter.
The thought of you brings joy to their heart.
Paul was able to explain why he felt this way to the people in Philippi.
It was this simple…
“God is at work.”
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.
Paul had absolute confidence in what God was doing in their lives.
It was a good work.
It had begun in their salvation.
They had entered into a relationship with Jesus by confessing and repenting of their sin, believing in Jesus, and receiving Him as Savior and Lord.
Then God continued the good work.
It had continued in the process called sanctification.
In other words, day by day, these believers in Jesus were becoming more like Christ.
But it is not the end of the story.
For what the Lord begins, He completes.
This good work, He brings to completion.
One translator calls it a “flourishing finish.”
ILL Completion (S)
John MacArthur:
“God has no unfinished works. The God who saves is the God who justifies, sanctifies, and glorifies. The God who begins is the God who completes.”
Is the Lord doing a good work in you?
It may not always feel good, but it is good.
It may not always be easy, but it is good.
It may not always make you happy, but it is good.
It is a good work.
XARAS
So let me encourage you with this…
GET THE JOY!
Through the rest of our time this morning, you are going to get some Greek lessons by hearing about key words in this text.
The first is xaras.
It is Greek for joy.
God has designed us for xaras.
God wants us to experience joy.
He wants nothing less for us.
He wants us to get the joy!
Do you have joy?
Do you have the ability, no matter what the circumstances, to know contentment in the good work He is doing in you?
Paul continues to express his joy for the Philippians by telling them how he prays for them.
It is all about…
AGAPE
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.
Paul wants them to…
Grow in love!
Agape is the Greek word for perfect love – the kind of love that is so strong that it will do anything to improve the situation for another.
It is love that is expressed in absolute total commitment.
Paul wants them to abound more and more in this kind of love.
It is the kind of love that is decisive.
It will go the extra mile.
It will do what needs to be done in order to see people come into the kingdom.
Paul wants them to have agape because this…
Love will make you discerning.
When we have agape, we understand what is going on.
When we have agape, we are grounded in the deepest reality that exists in the world.
When we have agape, we begin to understand what it means that God is love.
And then note the result…
Love will direct you toward purity.
Agape leads us away from sin and imperfections.
And it leads us straight toward excellence and integrity.
It leads us toward a different style of life than the world knows.
It leads us to…
Love one another.
When we agape one another, we will love much.
We will love well.
One of our core values at Randall sets the goal of loving one another this way…
“We will purposefully practice being a community marked by love and grace.”
This is our goal here at Randall.
We want to be this kind of community.
We want to be known for being a place where you will be loved.
We want to be known as a place where you will experience grace.
When we do this, folks, note this.
It makes following Jesus attractive.
People are drawn toward this kind of love.
Finally, when it comes to knowing the joy of agape, send it right back to its source!
Love God.
Agape God.
When we love God, we will always point our life toward Him.
We know that any good thing about us is that way only by the grace of God.
So, we will let go of any glory that comes to us, and direct toward God.
We will offer our outstretched arms to Him with grateful thanks and say, “to God be the glory.”
[pause]
The next Greek word I want to introduce is…
PROKOPE
I want you to know, brothers, that what has happened to me has really served to advance the gospel, so that it has become known throughout the whole imperial guard and to all the rest that my imprisonment is for Christ. And most of the brothers, having become confident in the Lord by my imprisonment, are much more bold to speak the word without fear.
Paul says there is joy when we…
Push forward!
The word prokope means progress.
The ESV that we just read used the word advance to translate it.
The picture here is an artist’s rendering of Theodore Roosevelt pushing forward with his rough riders in taking the San Juan hills in Cuba.
Prokope is a military term that was used, more specifically, for the engineers that were set out ahead of the army to prepare the way.
It was dangerous work, but when they were successful, new territory was opened up.
Their progress meant progress for everyone!
Let’s note again Paul’s circumstances.
Paul is in Rome.
He is imprisoned.
Fortunately, he is not in a dungeon or in a prison.
He has private quarters that are probably being provided for by the financial gifts of the Christians in Philippi.
Nevertheless, Paul is always in chains.
One arm is bound with a handcuff with a chain that is about eighteen inches long.
On the other end of the chain, is another handcuff, connected to a Roman soldier.
And what does Paul think of this miserable situation?
He thinks…
Opportunity!
He thinks…
Prokope!
He had a captive audience.
These soldiers heard him preach and teach.
They heard him dictate letters.
He certainly engaged them in conversation.
He was getting the gospel into the Praetorian Guard, the most elite soldiers that the Romans had.
Talk about a strategic way to reach the Roman empire!
Paul’s attitude was…
So it looks bad … so what?
Paul absolutely refuses the victim mentality.
He refuses to ask, “Why me?”
He knows that Christians are not immune to the tragedies of the world.
The question for Paul is that when bad things happen, what do you do with it?
ILL Progress (S)
John Bunyan’s preaching was so popular and powerful, and so unacceptable to leaders in 17th century Church of England, that he was jailed in order to silence him. Refusing to be silent, he began to preach in the jail courtyard. He not only had a large audience of prisoners, but also hundreds of the citizens of Bedford and the surrounding area would come to prison daily and stand outside to hear him expound Scripture.
He was silenced verbally by being placed deep inside the jail and forbidden to preach at all. Yet in that silence, he spoke loudest of all and to more people he could have imagined. It was during that time that he wrote The Pilgrim’s Progress, the great Christian classic that has ministered the gospel to tens of millions throughout the world.
Paul and John Bunyan shared this same conviction.
When it seemed the world was trying to squelch their opportunities to speak the Word of God, they prospered instead.
Are you able to do that?
Are you able to rejoice at what God is going to do in your circumstances instead of complaining about what God did not do?
When we possess the joy, xaras, we get that kind of insight.
We see the opportunity.
We are ready for prokope.
We are ready for progress.
We are ready to push forward.
In this passage, this is not the end of Paul’s potential pain, as we are going to see in a moment.
He is able to get through it, though, because he has a definite focus.
It is…
XRISTOS
Some indeed preach Christ from envy and rivalry, but others from good will. The latter do it out of love, knowing that I am put here for the defense of the gospel. The former proclaim Christ out of rivalry, not sincerely but thinking to afflict me in my imprisonment. What then? Only that in every way, whether in pretense or in truth, Christ is proclaimed, and in that I rejoice.
The word Xristos is the Greek word for Christ.
That was easy enough, wasn’t it?
And we can understand Paul’s point here as well, for…
It’s about Jesus!
Paul is terribly single-minded.
Here he is, imprisoned, and what is happening?
There are other Christian preachers out there slandering him, misrepresenting him, and unjustly criticizing him.
They have stepped right into the spotlight now that Paul is out of the picture.
And they are saying, “See, Paul is getting his due.”
They are promoting themselves at Paul’s expense.
So how does Paul react?
One thing is for sure, he does not let them ruin his joy.
No sir.
Instead, he says…
Don’t worry about the competition.
[pause]
ILL Conflict (S)
It is a matter of historic record that the two great English evangelists, John Wesley and George Whitefield, disagreed on doctrinal matters. Both of them were very successful, preaching to thousands of people and seeing multitudes come to Christ. It is reported that somebody asked Wesley if he expected to see Whitefield in heaven, and the evangelist replied, "No, I do not."
"Then you do not think Whitefield is a converted man?"
"Of course he is a converted man!" Wesley said, "But I do not expect to see him in heaven - because he will be so close to the throne of God and I so far away that I will not be able to see him!"
Though he differed with his brother in some matters, Wesley did not have any envy in his heart, nor did he seek to oppose Whitefield’s ministry.
I notice that churches do this…a lot.
We compare ourselves with each other.
And if someone is bigger than we are, we tend to want to drag them down.
We call them compromisers.
We say that they are not being faithful.
We see their success as somehow unrighteous, while all the while, we wish we had the same kind of success.
Paul actually communicates to us the answer on this.
Don’t worry about the competition, he says.
Worry about the proclamation.
You see, it’s about Xristos.
It’s about Jesus.
Paul does not care about the motives.
As long as his so-called “competitors” are right about Jesus, he does not even care about their motives.
God will settle that later.
For him, as long as Xristos in proclaimed, he will just cheer them on.
That’s a man that knows joy!
So…
GET THE XARAS (JOY)!
Paul is giving us good advice when it comes to life.
He is showing us the way to move toward the goal.
His example is that we can have it, in spite of difficult and trying circumstances.
We can find something deep inside of us, put there by God, that enables us to push forward.
It is the gift of joy.
It is the fruit of a relationship with Jesus.
So how does one get this?
It is a relationship that each one of us can have by the grace of God.
He offers a relationship when we confess and repent our sin, believe in Him, and receive Him as Savior and Lord.
You can do that today.
You can know and experience true joy that will be evident in every circumstance.
You can get the joy!
Prayer:
Dear God,
I confess my sin before You, and I repent of it.
I profess my belief in Jesus, Your Son, who died for my sin and rose from the dead.
Come to me, that I may receive You as the Lord of my life.
Amen.
For Further Study: Psalm 16.11; Jeremiah 15.16; Jonah 4.1-9; Luke 2.10-11; John 15.11; Acts 16.11-40; Galatians 5.22-23; Jude 24-25
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Need a relationship with Jesus…
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Now to him who is able to keep you from falling and to present you before his glorious presence without fault and with great joy — to the only God our Savior be glory, majesty, power and authority, through Jesus Christ our Lord, before all ages, now and forevermore! Amen.
RESOURCES:
SermonCentral
Chau, Dana Turning Chains into Courage
Hunt, Darrin A Tale of Two Preachers
Yarbrough, David An Attitude of Joy
Sources
Barclay, William. The Letters to the Philippians, Colossians, and Thessalonians. The Daily Study Bible Series. Philadelphia: The Westminster Press, 1959.
MacArthur, John, Jr. Philippians. The Macarthur New Testament Commentary. Chicago: Moody Press, 2001.
Wiersbe, Warren W. The Bible Exposition Commentary: New Testament. Colorado Springs: ChariotVictor Publishing, 1989.
