THE PURSUIT OF REAL HAPPINESS
“What can’t I find Happiness?
Philippians 1:1-8
When I was in high school I was invited to a Bible study that took place in (of all places) a local cotton gin. The county I grew up in was a huge producer of cotton and still is. The Bible study took place inside the building-it’s kind of dark-not really set up for a Bible study and we were meeting on private property. None of us realized is young people however what was about to happen. In the middle of our study, several police cars pulled up with sirens on, came in and told us that we were all under arrest. The police took us one by one and placed us in the backseat of their cars and hauled all of us to the local jail. They lined us up and marched us into the area where the cells were, opened them and told us we were being arrested for studying the Bible and that we were on private property without permission.
I still remember looking into that jail cell not knowing at all what I had gotten myself into. It was at that moment that are leaders in the police began to laugh and told us we were not actually under arrest. They just wanted us to experience a bit of what life was like for the apostle Paul.
The setting for the book of Philippians is a small prison cell. Paul probably became a bit comfortable in this type of setting-we know of at least four times that he was put into prison and then wrote letters for us to read. This particular time Paul was imprisoned in Rome-around A.D. 62. By this time, the apostle Paul had been a believer for about 25 years. He had been…
• Beaten with rods three times
• once he was stoned and survived
• three times he was shipwrecked
• often without food
• receive 39 lashes from the Jews on five different occasions
• and of course imprisoned many times
Yet in all of this there is one word that stands out more than any other and that is the word happiness. Joy. In this relatively brief letter Paul mentions the word choice 16 times. He also mentions Christ 50 times and that is for the simple reason. Paul’s happiness was always found in Christ.
Now in all four chapters Paul will have something to say about several words. The first word is the word Chara which actually means Joy. Or we might say happiness. 2nd, would be the Greek word Charis which describes grace. This is what produces happiness. It is what produces Joy in our lives. And the 3rd word is the word Nous which is the mind. Now these 3 elements work very closely together. They are intertwined here and they will help us understand how to find true happiness. Basically this is what Paul is saying. God gives us grace when we receive Christ. Grace is of course the unmerited, unearned favor of God. Nothing we can do to impress God to give it to us. He does it add his initiative. In other words, God is always thinking about us. If God had a refrigerator, your picture would be on it. If he had a wallet your photo would be in it. You and I need to face it, God is crazy about us. He proves that by giving us Charis. Then as a result of that Charis/grace, we have Char/joy. Where does this joy live? In our mind of course. We can have a joyful mind/nous. The source of real joy comes from grace and it lives in the mind. So it is a gift God gives to us; we cannot created, we cannot drum it up, we cannot buy it but once we have it can spread it to other people.
Now the question here is this. Do you have it? And if you do why are we not always continually happy? Well believe it or not, I have an answer that question which are not alike it. The reason you and I are not happy is that we really don’t know what it would take to make us happy. And because we don’t know what it would take to make us happy, we don’t know how or where to get it.
As Paul writes, he immediately tells us that he and Timothy are slaves of Jesus Christ. And he says it, it seems in a sort of matter of fact own like old by the way, I’m a slave. Remember he is in prison. Now if you have ever received a letter from someone in prison you know that they are not generally written in a happy state of mind. Most of the time, a prisoner will be counting the days, they are down perhaps, depressed and often losing hope. What they really want is quite simple. They want out of the situation they are in. Now here’s the thing. You and I are not that different. We find ourselves in difficult circumstances, surrounded by difficult people, worried about our future; things are tough. What do we want? We want out. But consider this. What if it is God’s plan for you to be right where you are and to be happy at the same time?
Now Paul is going to help us with this because as we walk through the book of Philippians, Paul is going to point out at least four thieves. They are like armed robbers-these thieves step in at every opportunity to steal our happiness. I want to give you these four today and then will have more to say about them as we walk through this book verse by verse.
One. The first thief is circumstances. These are all the things that are happening all around us. For Paul, we would say that his circumstances were that he was sitting in a jail cell, locked up and he had done absolutely nothing wrong. He was simply telling people about Jesus and the religious crowd didn’t like that.
As you know, circumstances can often be out of our control. We even say sometimes that we are a victim of our circumstances. All of us have been guilty at one time or another of saying these words—if I could just change this one thing in my life that keeps happening then I would be happy.
Two. The second thief is people. You have a difficult people in your life? Are you married to a difficult person? Are you kids difficult? Are your friends difficult? You might think your job is great if it wasn’t for the people that you have to work with…they’re not so great. And if it wasn’t for the people you could be happy.
Three. The third thief is things. Jesus tells us that our life does not consist of the things that we own. Yet we spend many hours trying to get more and more. And too many times we think that happiness comes from the things that we own. And if we can own all the right things we will be happy.
Four. The fourth thief is worry. Worry robs us of our happiness. It drags us down. It creates all kinds of physical problems. If Paul wanted to worry he certainly had reason to do so. He was facing the possibility of death. Execution. No lawyer to help him. Many of his friends weren’t sure if they could even be seen with him for fear the same thing would happen to them. So here’s a man sitting in a cold, must the prison cell, chained to a guard who was definitely not his friend-people who hated him all around him, not sure where his next meal might even come from or if he would even see daylight for the next day but he says hey I want to write a letter to tell you how to be genuinely happy.
So there is a possibility of at least two responses we can have to this letter...
• How can someone with everything going wrong in their lives at this moment give me advice about finding happiness? That is one response. OR
• In the midst of all Paul was facing, if he is genuinely happy, how can I not take his advice? Because as bad as my life may be right now it’s not as bad as his. So how can I not listen to him?
Here are some things that Paul tells us that describe his focus during this time. This is a personal letter and I want you to read it as though Paul was writing it directly to you. Here are some things that brought Paul happiness. Some things he reminds us of.
1. As believers, we are never alone. V. 5. We have a partnership. You are a partner in the gospel. We have a partnership in life. We are not in this alone.
2. As believers, God did not bring us this far to leave us. Verse 6. Paul says, he who started this work in you and me will carry it out to completion. This fact brought great happiness to the apostle Paul to know that the God who saved him would walk through life with him every step of the way and deliver him in person at the gates of heaven and he will do the same for you and me. Unlike us many times, when God starts a work he always has a plan in mind. And he always carries it through to the finish line. Always.
3. We are all in this together. V.7. Paul is reminding us again that things work better when we work in community. It is often called synergy. You could take two horses that could each pull 1000 pounds by themselves and put them together. The math says they will pull a total of 2000 pounds but when they work together, they somehow do more. Perhaps 3000. We are better together than we are alone.
Paul tells us that we are partners in at least three things.
(1) We are partners in grace.
(2) We are partners in prison. We are cell buddies with Paul. A reminder that we are all in this together.
(3) We are partners in the defense of the gospel. The Greek word here for defense is apologia and it is where we get our word apologetics. It is arguing for a faith in such a way that it becomes attractive to others.
Happiness is not as simple as we would like for it to be. You might say it is fleeting. We think we are close to having it and it always seems to slip away.
C.S. Lewis has been one of the greatest writers and thinkers in the Christian faith. But early is life he was very negative; pessimistic and said often that he never thought that he or anyone else could actually find happiness. But in his 30’s those who were his friends and those who wrote about his life stated that during that time his life was completely transformed; changed. He finally started looking beyond the things most of us look at and he realized that the only chance for real happiness was to stop looking at things, circumstances, possessions and start with a person. And He found Christ. He wrote an entire book about this discovery entitled Surprised by Joy.
Happiness I believe begins with a choice. A choice to give our lives to Jesus Christ.
