Intro: What a wonderful letter. What a note to begin the New Year on. Rejoice in the Lord! Seventeen times in this letter Paul speaks about joy. In relation to this joy he speaks personally about Jesus Christ at least 51 times. The source of Joy is an ongoing growing relationship with Jesus. The significant life of a believer is not found in resolutions that become dissolutions but are found in redemption in Christ that results in joy.
This letter is all the more amazing because Paul wrote it while in prison. Paul thanks them for their constant support and challenges to be careful of false teachers otherwise known as dogs because they try to drag the Philippian Christians away from the Joy of Christ with empty adherence to the ceremonial law of Judaism.
Paul tells the Philippians and us that the significant life Christ offers is one that is full of joy. 51 times it is connected with Jesus. Paul makes very clear how we can live a life of significant joy. Paul makes clear that this joy is not for a select few. He says brothers rejoice in the Lord. The normal Christian life is offered to every believer. So how do we get this joy?
I. Losing confidence in yourself (Philippians 3:1-4)
A) Changing your idea of what is important
Philippians 3.7 “I once thought these things were valuable, but I now consider them worthless because of what Christ has done.”
What we have to do is keep what is important in front of us every moment. Why? Because what is pressing can overcome what is permanent. It is so very easy to let the good become more important than the best. What did Paul think was valuable before Christ? Look back to Philippians 3.5-6. Paul before Christ focused on his status and achievements. He focused on the wrong things. What things distract you from a personal relationship to God?
Why is it that so many people are unhappy at any church? Because they are focusing on what is not important. The music is not the most important thing. The way we organize is not the most important thing. The ministries we do are not the most important thing. Paul said the most important thing is knowing Christ. In the new living translation he said the thing of infinite or eternal worth is knowing Jesus. Why is this the most important thing? First it is what mankind was made for. Second it is what we are remade for in salvation through Jesus Christ. Third when we get this right it changes everything else. It changes our unity, it changes our vision, it changes our giving, it changes our service, it changes our attitudes, it changes our actions, it changes our forgiveness of others, it changes our acceptance of others, it changes our encouragement of others, it changes everything! Get this right first. What is more important than anything we can do this new year is knowing Christ intimately!!
B) Changing what you place your confidence in
Faith can also be translated confidence. So If you find out your priorities are out of whack what should you do? Well of course you should change your priorities. Paul had placed his confidence in His nationality, his religious practice, his religious passion, his reputation pedigree. Have you done like Paul? Have you placed your confidence in something that is good but not best? Jesus is calling this body of believers to a future and a hope and we need desperately to go there together. Are you confident in your relationship with Jesus or in your religious trappings?
Biblical joy consists of the deep and abiding confidence that all is well regardless of circumstance and difficulty. Where does this deep and abiding confidence come from? This form of confidence comes from a personal relationship to Jesus.
II. Losing an incorrect vision of Church (Philippians 3.7-8)
The Christian life isn’t an “improved” life – it’s an entirely DIFFERENT life! God empowers us to live a new life. C.S.Lewis wrote: “Jesus did NOT come to make bad people good, He came to make DEAD people LIVE!”
We as the church are not here to make people’s lives better. If you make a lost person’s life better they are still separated from God. People even church folk are looking for joy in the wrong place. Paul was a very religious person but was lost, separated from God by his lack of faith in Jesus Christ.
We are not here to merely make people better. We are here to know Jesus Christ.
There are many false teachers today telling us so many things about what the church should be. The church is supposed to be a group of people called out from this world system, from their sin, from their separation with God to first know God in Jesus Christ.
The basics will never change, there is a God who created al things. Because of our rebellion against His authority man is separated from Him. That separation was taken care of by the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. We are forgiven because we are forgiven we can live new lives.
But we must move beyond the basics. We must move together.
What is beyond the basics? Forgiveness, encouragement, unity in spite of diversity, passion for the vision that Christ has shown us, urgency for the mission God has show us. Growth in grace. Growth in fellowship. Considering others before our self. Humility that comes only from Christ. Etc.
How will this happen? If we lay hold of Christ together.
III. Laying hold of the joy of Christ
Laying hold of Christ means letting go of anything that keeps you from your relationship with Him!
Philippians 3.7 “But whatever were gains to me I now consider loss for the sake of Christ.”
“But not only that”, he says, “I now count ALL THINGS loss to go after Christ.” Nothing in life could be allowed to take his focus from following solely after Jesus. “It’s all rubbish!” he says. Literally: ”It’s dung”. Career, money, possessions, houses, cars, popularity, fame, security, a “nest egg” for the future, fashion, the toys of this world – IT’S ALL RUBBISH. “And I’m not pursuing it anymore. The lot’s gone overboard … that I might gain Christ.” Him, and Him alone. That’s FULL devotion.
“LOSS” – the word here is a word used to describe “a loss at sea”. When a fully laden ship was in a raging storm, things would need to be thrown overboard if there was to be any hope of the ship making it through safely. The things they threw overboard were described with this word here (the greek word “zemia”) – LOSS. Paul says “All that stuff was my distraction. I was proud of it. My hopes were in it. So I came to my senses and threw it overboard.
If anyone wants to follow in my footsteps, he must give up ALL rights to himself, take up his cross and follow me.” (Mark 8:34 – J.B. Phillipst)
To know Him personally as Savior – he takes care of my sin problem
To know Him personally as Lord – he takes control of my life’s purpose
To know Him personally as Friend – he takes care of me personally
To know Him personally as Father – he takes care of my inheritance
Wuest says
that I may gain Christ does not refer to Paul’s acquisition of Christ as Saviour, but to Paul’s appropriating into his life as a Christian, the perfection, the graces, the fragrance of the Person of Christ."
What is it that keeps you from truly laying hold of Christ? Paul’s passion was to lay hold of Christ.
Laying hold of Christ is laying hold of joy.
IV. Leaving the past behind lunging into the future living in the present.
A) Leaving the past behind
Isaiah 43:18 "Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past. See I am doing a new thing!"
If we forget what is behind we don’t allow it to affect or control us anymore. So what do we leave behind our failures
1) Our failures
Satan loves to paralyze you with your past. God loves to encourage you with your future. The past is gone. Your failures are forgiven, your blow ups have blown over. There is nothing you can do to change your past, you can learn from it and leave those things behind.
2) Our successes
Living in the glory days of success is just as bad as living in the burden of former blunders.
Why did Paul press on, why did He pursue Christ. Living off past successes leads to laziness and pride.
B) Lunging toward the future
What was Paul pursing? He was pursing perfection in Christ. That is not something we can attain in this life but it is what we pursue.
C) Living in the present (Why) because life is a vapor, a flower quickly fading, short.
What has Christ called you to? Joy is directly proportional to your relationship with Christ.
How do we work out our joy?
1) Spend time with your father hearing from His word and talking to him. Prayer is the key to growth and power. A relationship is not developed in a crowd. Jesus calls us to a personal relationship. But joy is experienced in community.
2) Trust: God wants all of us to learn to trust Him. All relationships are built on trust. This is gained only through experience. This is Paul’s number one aim to grow in His trust and knowledge of Jesus Christ.
Conclusion: What do we gain? Joy. But what is joy? Joy is confidence in Christ. It is not some worked up exuberance. Joy is confidence.
Listen to Dr DA Carson
I would like to buy about three dollars worth of gospel, please. Not too much – just enough to make me happy, but not so much that I get addicted. I don’t want so much gospel that I learn to really hate covetousness and lust. I certainly don’t want so much that I start to love my enemies, cherish self-denial, and contemplate missionary service in some alien culture. I want ecstasy, not repentance; I want transcendence, not transformation. I would like to be cherished by some nice, forgiving, broad-minded people, but I myself don’t want to love those from different races – especially if they smell. I would like enough gospel to make my family secure and my children well behaved, but not so much that I find my ambitions redirected or my giving too greatly enlarged. I would like about three dollars worth of gospel, please.
Jesus says if you will gain your life you first lose it.
Jim Elliot said, "He is no fool who gives up what he cannot keep for that which he cannot lose."
Real abiding forever joy comes from knowing Jesus Christ
