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.
As we learned in our very first message, Paul was LITERALLY chained 24/7 to a Roman Guard. Bible researchers have determined that it was the elite Praetorian Guard that watched over Paul and every day, they would have worked in 3-guard shifts with each guard spending an 8-hour shift chained to Paul. Do the math on this…he was chained while he ate, he was chained while he slept, and in a way only a mom with toddlers could understand, he was even chained while he went the bathroom…isn’t that a pretty thought.
Imagine if you were in prison, and especially think about this as if you were innocent. If you had a chance to write a letter back to your church, what would you say? I know what I would say, “Somebody get in touch with a good attorney…maybe one of those guys with the Innocent Project. Someone get a hold of Howard Ames. And let’s start a prayer vigil. Let’s get people praying 24-hours around the clock until I’m free.”
But not Paul…you know what he did? He prayed for THEM! He prayed that they would be more loving, and wise, and filled with discernment (vs 9) and that they would be filled with the “fruit of righteousness” (vs 11).
“12 I want you to know, brothers, that what has happened to me has really served to advance the gospel, 13 so that it has become known throughout the whole imperial guard and to all the rest that my imprisonment is for Christ. 14 And most of the brothers, having become confident in the Lord by my imprisonment, are much more bold to speak the word without fear.”
Listen to Paul’s tone: You all aren’t going to believe what God is doing here in prison! People are getting saved. We’re having prayer meetings and worship services…THIS IS AWESOME!
You’re probably like, “Well, Paul was probably in one of the country club prisons.” I don’t think so because clearly he had death on his mind. I don’t think they’re too worried about receiving a death sentence or dying in a country club prison: “20 as it is my eager expectation and hope that I will not be at all ashamed, but that with full courage now as always Christ will be honored in my body, whether by life or by death. 21 For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain.”
Paul had joy despite imprisonment because Christ was his life. His joy didn’t depend upon his freedom. It didn’t depend upon his ability to move around freely. His heart’s desire was that Christ be exalted in his body whether by life or by death and when that is your motivation (that Christ is exalted) your environment becomes irrelevant. It is simply a new vehicle in which to exalt Christ. We have a phrase around here that we use often: God is not interested in your happiness…He is interested in your holiness! And so many times He leaves us in a prison to make us holy. For us, prisons are the places and situations and seasons of life that God uses to squeeze out the truth about where we find our joy. Let me repeat that. Prisons do not ALL have iron bars – there are all sorts of prisons. It could be a relationship prison, it may be a vocational prison or any other situation that you currently cannot escape despite the desire to do so.
And when you’re stuck in a prison, those chains will rob you of your joy EVERY time until you finally understand that every pain, every trial, every suffering, every circumstance of life is filtered through God’s fingers of love – it could not come into your life if it did not have a purpose.
And so for those of you that are stuck in some sort of prison today, be encouraged by the words of the Psalmist that wrote: “weeping may endure for a night, but joy comes in the morning” (Psalm 30:5).
And so in chapter one, Paul’s life gave testimony to the fact that PRISON COULD NOT ROB HIS JOY.
2. PEOPLE CANNOT ROB MY JOY (Chapter 2)
I don’t know if this has ever happened to you, but I think there are certain people in my life whose goal is to rob me of my joy. Can I get an amen? Anybody know some joy thieves? I think Jesus knew a thing or two about people trying to rob someone of their joy!
Sometimes people rob us of our joy when we love them and they hurt us…and the standard that the Bible sets in this situation is for repentance followed by forgiveness. But SOMETIMES the reason people rob us of our joy is because we look at what they can do for us and when they don’t do what we want them to it causes us to be robbed of our joy…10 out of 10 Biblical counselors would probably tell you that this is seen most often in the context of marriage. So many times, our hope for joy is tied up in what the other person can do for us…and we begin to USE THEM to bring us joy instead of serving them as our source of joy.
Philippians 2:3-4
Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. 4 Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others.
How do you handle difficult people? Paul answers this question in verse 5.
5 Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, [your translation may read: Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus] 6 who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, 7 but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. 8 And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.
In seminary I took a class that focused entirely on the Trinity…the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. This is such an amazing doctrine in Scripture…one God but three persons all equal in divinity and equal in glory. But here we see the God Jesus, setting aside His glory and taking on humanity. Can you wrap your minds around this thought? Jesus, who was God, took upon Himself the form of a servant. I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but this is a messy world…and can you imagine for just a moment, the Creator of the universe, laying aside the rights of heaven to jump into this hot mess? That is a CRAZY thought.
So let’s tease this idea out for just a second to see how it relates to joy. A true servant’s focus is not on himself – a true servant’s focus is on others. But if being served by someone else is my source of joy, then I am a prisoner to their performance (or lack thereof). But when serving OTHERS is my source of joy, then there’s never disappointment, because my joy isn’t predicated on their response. In fact, their response has no bearing on my joy because if it does, then I wasn’t SERVING them in the first place.
Think of this in context of the illustration of marriage. My joy doesn’t come from how YOU serve me…real joy, for those that are in Christ Jesus, comes from me serving my spouse! Now in a perfect picture of marriage, both sides are equally serving each other…but since none of us have a perfect marriage, Jesus still gives us the recipe of how we can find joy even when the perfect balance of marriage is broken. So we really need to step back and evaluate our motivation in WHY we serve others the way we do…is it because I’m hoping for something in return? I’m going to quote our Senior Pastor here so I don’t get in trouble when I say this: "doing good deeds with the hope of getting something in return is called spiritual prostitution!" And according to this passage, we will constantly be robbed of our joy if that is our motivation!
3. THINGS CANNOT ROB MY JOY (Chapter 3)
Back in chapter three, Paul lists out all the things – the accomplishments – that made him special in the eyes of the religious community. As a Jewish baby boy he was circumcised on the 8th day – not the 7th and not the 9th. He belonged to the tribe of Benjamin which was greatly esteemed by the Jews because Israel’s first king, Saul, had come from this tribe. Paul proudly referred to himself as a Hebrew of Hebrews and a Pharisee…this meant that he not only kept the written law of Moses but also kept the strict ORAL laws that had been passed down from generation to generation. And he ends his resume by reminding everyone that at one time, he prided himself on the fact that he was ridding the world of the heretics and blasphemers that were plaguing the first-century Jewish culture. To those in the religious community, this would have been a very impressive list. But listen how Paul describes those things now that he has found his joy in Jesus Christ.
Philippians 3:7-8 (NKJV)
But what things were gain to me, these I have counted loss for Christ. 8Yet indeed I also count all things loss for the excellence of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them as rubbish, that I may gain Christ.
I remember the first time I led a Bible study on this passage, there was a friend there that was a native of Costa Rica and as he followed along in his Spanish Bible, when we got to verse 8 his eyes got really big and he started giggling like a junior high boy (which by the way is NOT an insult to Jr. High boys…because I am one). But as it turns out, in his Spanish version Bible, it didn’t use the word rubbish…it actually read, I count all these things as dog poop!
Trust me when I tell you there’s nothing redeeming about dog poop...unless of course your collecting it in a brown bag to set on fire on someone’s front porch (which was a real art back in the day). For years, whenever our girls asked for a pet, I would always tell them yes as long as the dog didn’t shed or poop…and while they could find ones that didn’t shed, they could never find the other! But in a huge shout out to junior high boys everywhere, Paul now compares everything on his resume with dog poop. Once he came to a relationship with Jesus, he realized that these THIINGS brought him no joy!
Paul recognized that material things, achievements, religious accomplishments… for us, this could be cars and houses, and societies and organizations, and degrees and jobs – all the things the world says are important, can rob us of our joy because they are here today and gone tomorrow. If your joy is attached to “things” then let a recession or job loss come along and you will discover the foolishness in placing your hope for joy in anything temporal.
So is it wrong to have nice things? No. But is it wise to put all of my hope for joy in anything? This was a little bit of a trick question because the answer is actually YES…look at verse 8 again: Yet indeed I also count all things loss for the excellence of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord… Paul’s saying to us this morning, “Do you want to find true joy? Then make Christ your goal – not your car collection, not recognition, not popularity, not money, not your profession.”
Look at Paul’s focus on pursuing Jesus: “13bbut one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind [this could be your failures…but it could also be your successes] and reaching forward to those things which are ahead, 14I press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.”
4. CIRCUMSTANCES CANNOT ROB MY JOY (Chapter 4)
11b 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.
Think back to the illustration that I shared at the very beginning of this message – the fisherman that wanted to be the pilot…and the pilot that wanted to be a fisherman. If I could just change my circumstances…if I could just change my lot in life, then I would be happy. Circumstances are probably the most common joy robber of all…are they not? Let me tell you why it is so common. It’s because of the American Dream has spilled over into our theology to the point that we have been infected with a joy-robbing ailment known as spiritual entitlement. In the American Dream, we learn that if we work hard, we get to play hard. We are taught that good things come to those who work.
But do you know what the Bible teaches? The Bible teaches that we live in a fallen and sin-cursed world and as a result, bad things sometimes happen to good people. We have so bought into the American dream that we begin to believe the lie that if we do right by God, then he is obligated to do right by us…in other words, God then owes us a blessed life with very little trouble or sorrow. In this worldview, we begin to see God as a cosmic vending machine. We put in attendance, and tithes, and service, and Bible reading, and prayer and then God has an obligation to dispense a blessed life. But some of you know, in very painful ways, that life doesn’t always work out that way, does it?
Sometimes people who love Jesus Christ can’t have babies while other people that have never stepped foot in a church get pregnant and abort their babies. Sometimes people who work hard with integrity for years are passed up for promotion after promotion by others with far less integrity. Some people live on very little and yet sacrifice every month to give sacrificially to the church and yet you have friends, maybe even here at church, that rarely, if ever give, and yet they have a nice boat and go on fancy vacations. This idea that if you work hard and life will work out great may be the American dream but it is far from what the Bible teaches. Because in the Bible, we learn very clearly that suffering is part of the Christian life. Peter reminds us that ALL who desire to live Godly in Christ Jesus will suffer. If Jesus suffered why would we think we should be exempt? Do I think that suffering should be a lifestyle for the Christ-follower…that REAL followers of Jesus live a life of total deprivation and misery? No…but I DO think that every true Christ-follower walks through seasons of suffering.
Paul referred to these different seasons of the Christian life in verse 12: “I have learned the secret of facing plenty and hunger, abundance and need.” That term “facing plenty” in the original language literally referred to the feeding and fattening of animals. There were times when Paul may have lived like a King…but in the same breath, he mentions seasons of hunger.
But Paul understood that seasons of hunger are part of the trials that God allowed into his life and that God brought them about to shape and mold his character. And if we don’t learn this lesson that Paul learned, then we will succumb to the greatest joy robber that has ever lived – the thief of unfavorable circumstances.
Now I know exactly what some of you are thinking – Yeah, that works great for the Apostle Paul…but I’m no Apostle Paul. Well, Paul anticipated that we would probably ask that question and he actually gives us the secret formula…the secret sauce if you will. Are you ready? Because it’s right here in the text. 13I can do all things through Christ who gives me strength.
Paul is acknowledging that without the supernatural power of Jesus Christ, he would be a victim to these joy robbers EVERY TIME they showed up on his doorstep. In the original language, the phrase “gives me strength” literally means “to put the power in.” I love that and it means that because I’m “in Christ” He infuses me with HIS strength to sustain me when I would otherwise be a miserable wretch!
But the converse of that statement is also true – if I’m being a miserable wretch, the I’m not allowing His strength to sustain me. So where do we find His strength?
• Are you in the Word? I love walking in on my daughter each morning, sitting at the kitchen table doing her devotions…that’s what it means to allow His strength to sustain you.
• Are you spending time with Christ each day rejoicing in the things that he has done for you? Have you tried a little thank-you therapy where you invite the peace of Jesus into your heart by recalling His goodness?
• Are you memorizing Scripture? We learned last week that we cannot meditate on verses that we cannot recall. Last year we were challenged during prayer week to mediate DAILY on John 15:5 and I think this verse has become my battle cry every morning as I face the day. I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in Me, and I in him, bears much fruit; for without Me you can do nothing.
• For without Me: you’re going to find yourself stuck in prison with the joy beat out of you.
• For without Me: you’re going to come into contact with people whose life goal is to rob you of your joy.
• For without Me: you’re going to chase after accolades and trophies only to find out they bring you no real joy.
• For without Me: you’re going to constantly be in search of the perfect circumstances and the perfect situations only to come up short each and every time.
If you don’t have Jesus Christ then the only thing you can hope for is perfect people around you, things that never break or rust, emotions that never enslave you, and circumstances that are ideal. But that’s not hope at all, that’s hopeless and you live your life miserable as a prisoner to whatever is going on around you. Up one day, down the next. Filled with joy one day, robbed blind of it the next.
[George Beverly Shea]
I'd rather have Jesus than silver or gold I'd rather be his than have riches untold
I'd rather have Jesus than houses or land
Yes I'd rather be led by his nail pierced hands
Than to be the king of a vast domain and be held in sin’s dread sway
I'd rather have Jesus than ANYTHING this world affords today
Ladies and gentlemen, joy has a name, and his name is Jesus!
