Rejoice in the
Lord
Introduction to
Philippians
We are now passed Labor Day which means that school is back
in session. Whether your classroom is in a school building or in your kitchen,
there is one subject that cannot be avoided—math. As many have said, as long as
schools teach math there will always be prayer in the public school! I would
hate to see any student get rusty on their math facts over the weekend, so I
will begin this morning with a few algebra questions. Here is the first
equation. 2 + x = 5 followed by the dreaded question—what is the value
of x? The answer is three. Now for a little harder problem. What is the value of
x in this equation? 2 + 3x = 17 This one is still easy enough to figure in
your head. The answer is five. Here is the last one—I promise.
Poverty + x = Generosity What is the value of x in
this equation?
The answer is found in the eighth chapter of 2 Corinthians
which describes the church in Philippi. And now, brothers, we want you to
know about the grace that God has given the Macedonian churches. Out of the most
severe trial, their overflowing joy and their extreme poverty welled up in rich
generosity.
Do you see the value of x? x = joy, therefore, Poverty +
Joy = Generosity. In his letter to the church in Corinth, Paul used the amazing
example of the church in Philippi to teach the Christians in Corinth about
generosity. Under normal circumstances, extreme poverty could never result in
rich generosity, no more than two plus two could equal ten. But when you add in
the secret ingredient of joy, then extreme poverty can be converted into rich
generosity.
This morning we are beginning a series in the book of
Philippians and I wanted to start with this example from 2 Corinthians for two
reasons. First, because it is helpful to learn about a New Testament letter from
outside the letter itself. We could study the entire book of Philippians and
never see this example of generosity from the Christians in Philippi. This
paragraph about these poor Christians is something that we must not miss. But
the biggest reason I wanted to start with this section from 1 Corinthians is
because it wonderfully highlights the theme of the book of Philippians—joy. The
theme of joy in Philippians is so evident and so well known that many of you
will already know this. Bu from the very first time we opened the book, I didn’t
just want you to know that joy was the theme of Philippians, I wanted you to see
how this theme of joy played out in the real world.
Paul was taking up an offering to deliver to the poor,
persecuted Christians living in Jerusalem, and who had the most generous
response of all of the churches? The poor Christians living in Philippi. Poor
Christians gave a generous offering to other poor Christians. But please notice
that Paul did not say that they were poor—in fact he said they were extremely
poor. They were living in extreme poverty. Some of you have had some ups and
down in your economic life, but I doubt there is a single person in this room
who has lived in extreme poverty. Even though they were extremely poor, the
believers in Jerusalem were in worse shape. The offering that Paul delivered
probably made the difference between life and death for many in the church. Out
of their extreme poverty, one church generously gave to a second church who was
in abject, life-threatening poverty.
But there is even more in this short passage. Remember that
at this stage in the history of the church, there were a limited number of
believers and a limited number of Christians. The church had spread throughout
much of the Roman world, but its sphere was still limited. Therefore, when Paul
used the church in Philippi as the primary example of generous giving, he was
not merely using one example out of his list of stories of generous churches. He
didn’t make a list of the big donors and send them a form letter of
appreciation. “The church in Rome was generous this year—thank you. Thessalonica
presented a nice offering—thank you. The church in Loadicea—well, we all know
how they struggle with worldliness, but they did manage to take up a small
offering. Thank you Laodiceans. The church in Ephesus was down a little this
year due to their poor wheat crop, but we believe they will be back on their
feet next year. Thank you Ephesians.” This is not what Paul did. What Paul said
in his letter to the Corinthians is that the church in Philippi was the most
generous church. Do you see what that means? It means that the church in
Philippi was the most generous church in all of the world! They were number one,
and for all eternity Scripture will record that this poverty stricken church in
Macedonia was the most generous church in the world at this point in history.
And why were they so generous? Because they were joyful. To
be more precise, they had overflowing joy. Each of these characteristics is
modified by an adjective. The church in Philippi had extreme poverty and
overflowing joy which welled up in rich generosity. Let me ask a question. If
the church in Philippi was the most generous church in all the world, and since
it was their joy which caused them to be so generous, is it fair to say that the
Christians in Philippi were the most joyful people in all the world? I don’t
want to make too much of that because it is not spelled out explicitly, but I
wanted us to see the real world application of true joy. Joy is transforming.
Joy can turn poor people into generous givers. The power of joy is one of the
most powerful forces in the spiritual realm. The power of joy is an essential
ingredient in the Christian life, but it is also one of the most rare
ingredients in the Christian life. As a whole, Christians today are not known
for their joy. Do you hear people on the street talking about those joyful
Christians? Have you ever read an article in our local paper describing the
overflowing joy of believers in Viroqua? If I were to hold a joy-meter next to
you, which detects joy like a light meter detects light, what would it read?
Would the needle bounce off the right edge of the meter because joy was bursting
forth from you, or would the needle even register on the scale?
Can I suggest to you that an “unjoyful Christian” is an
obvious oxymoron? These two words simply do not belong together—unjoyful
Christian. There is no definition or category for such people. If you could have
asked the apostle Paul to define an unjoyful Christian, I think he would have
cocked his head to one side like a confused puppy and wondered what in the world
you were talking about. I am afraid he might even say that there is no such
thing as a Christian who is not joyful. I am afraid he might say that an
unjoyful Christian is no Christian at all.
Before we even open the book of Philippians, we have
already witnessed the transforming power of joy—the essential ingredient of joy,
and perhaps, if we are honest, the missing ingredient of joy. I am calling joy
an essential ingredient in the Christian life in much the same way that you and
I require essential vitamins and minerals. There is a list of vitamins and
minerals that we require to live. You might get these vitamins and minerals by
eating a good diet. You might get them by taking daily supplements or you might
get them in your morning bowl of cocoa puffs, but the point is that we need them
in order to live. These vitamins and minerals are essential for life because
without them, life ceases to exist. Are vitamins and minerals the essence of
life or the end goal of life? Most definitely not. We don’t live for vitamins,
but vitamins are essential in order to live. The same is true of joy. We do not
live for joy per se, we live for Christ, but joy is essential for living for
Christ. Joy is an essential ingredient in the Christian life.
Before we begin to evaluate whether or not we possess this
essential ingredient we need to ask a fundamental question: what is joy? When I
ask the question, “what is joy,” it is not a rhetorical question that I ask in
order to prepare you o tell you what I think it is. I mean this as a serious
question—what is joy? You may think you know what it is, just as I thought I
knew what joy was, but I am not so sure any more. Once I began this study in
Philippians I realized that I don’t have a good Biblical definition of joy.
Therefore, this is one of our main goals as we study this book together. By the
end of this study, I want us all to possess a Biblical definition and
application of joy. I have come up with a working definition of joy that I will
give you in a few minutes, but I want us to work on this definition together. I
want to tweak and shape the definition and I need your help to do it. As we work
through this book, I want to have many conversations after church about our
definition of joy. I want to receive emails from you that debate the pros and
cons of our working definition. I wan to wrestle with our understanding of joy
until we get to the end of the study and say together—“That’s it! I now know
what joy is and I know how to get more of it.”
We’ll look at my working definition in a few minutes, but
first I want to give some background to the book of Philippians. The city of
Philippi was name after the father of Alexander the Great, Philip of Maedon.
Philip was the leader of the Greek Empire and therefore had the right to name
prominent cities after himself. If a city were named after me, it would be
called “Richopolis,” and Paul’s letter would read a little differently. Paul,
a servant of Christ Jesus. To all the saints in Christ Jesus at Richopolis:
Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Paul
came to Philippi on his second missionary journey, which I prefer to call a
church planting journey. So until the year 49 AD, the gospel had never been
preached in this important city. The Lord Jesus had died, resurrected and
ascended to Heaven for about sixteen years before his gospel message reached the
ears and hearts of the people in Philippi. Paul wrote this letter to the church
in Philippi about ten to twelve years after his first visit, and this is very
important—he wrote it from behind the walls of a prison cell. Four times in the
book Paul made mention of his chains.
Make sure you catch this—not only did Paul write about joy
to a church that was probably the most joyful bunch of Christians in the world,
but he wrote the best book about joy from a prison cell near the end of his
life. When Paul wrote this letter to Philippi, he was no more than four to five
years away from his eventual beheading. He had been beaten numerous times, his
bones had been broken, he had been shipwrecked, stoned, starved, frozen,
imprisoned, spat upon and in every way possible persecuted for his faith. He had
walked and ran and sailed and swam all over the Roman world several times. By
that point in his life he was about sixty years old, his body was tired and worn
out from the work load and massive abuse. If you think you have aches and pains,
you’ve got nothing on Paul, and he didn’t have access to ibuprofen—the breakfast
of champions—to alleviate his suffering. But despite his aches and pains and
prison walls, Paul wrote the greatest book on joy the world will ever know.
You
have seen the how joy works in the Philippian church in the form of generosity,
next I want you to see why joy is the obvious theme of this book. Paul used the
word joy or rejoice a total of forty two times in all of his writings, so he was
no stranger to the word, but joy is super concentrated in the book of
Philippians. Let me show you in chart form. This chart shows the average number
of times that the word joy or rejoice I used in each of the books that Paul
wrote. In Romans, joy is used an average of 0.5 times per chapter, or once every
other chapter. Paul only used the word twice in 1 Corinthians, so it barely
shows up on our chart. But as you look at each book it is incredibly obvious how
joy plays into the book. If you averaged out all the other books, we see that
Paul used the word joy or rejoice 1500% more often in the book of Philippians
than he did in all of his other writings. Would you agree that a 1500% increase
is statistically significant?
Joy is fundamental to the book of Philippians and it is
essential to the Christian life, but what is joy? I’d like to give you my
working definition. Remember—we want to shape and tweak this definition over the
next three months or so.
Working definition: An ever increasing, right response to good gifts from
God.
Let’s break this down into
three parts and then I’ll ask a two clarifying questions.
Ever increasing—Don’t
take my word for it, but it seems clear to me that for Paul, joy is not a static
thing. It’s not like we are given an finite amount of joy to use throughout our
lives and we need to ration it like gasoline and sugar were rationed during WW2.
However, that would be a convenient excuse for our lack of joy, would it not? If
someone were to ask you why you seemed so depressed and lacking in joy, you
could reply, “I am just being a good steward of God’s supply of joy. I don’t
want to squander it all not and not have any left for later.” Joy is not only
available to us in an infinite supply, but it is also meant to be increasingly
manifested in our daily lives.
Right response—By
calling joy a “response,” I want to capture the idea that joy is so much more
than mere emotion. I think we all now that joy is not the same thing as
happiness, but I would say it is even more than mere emotion. Joy includes the
totality of our response to God and his good gifts. Some of these responses
include, but are not limited to the following: security, hope, reverence,
contentment, pleasure, humility, selflessness, happiness and peace.
Good gifts from God—A joyful
response is a response to God and his gifts, it s not a response to the
circumstances in life. This is why James could write the following sentence.
Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trails of many kinds.
If you respond to the circumstances of a trial, then joy is not possible, but
if you respond to God in the trial, then pure joy is yours to have. As we study
this book, we will see the many types of gifts that are meant to bring joy.
Now I want to ask two
clarifying questions.
Q #1. Can an unbeliever have
true joy? By our definition and from our experience, I am tempted to say no to
this question. Since an unbeliever is not saved and therefore cannot respond to
the greatest of God’s gifts, and may not even acknowledge God’s existence, how
can such a person have real joy? I thought joy was not possible until I came
across the following verse in Acts 14:17. Here Paul is on his first missionary
journey and he is witnessing to followers of Greek gods in Lystra and Derbe. If
you recall this incident, Paul had just healed a man who was lame from birth, so
these Greeks immediately thought that Paul and Barnabus were Physical
manifestations of their Greek gods and wanted to offer sacrifices to them. In
the midst of this chaos, Paul spoke to them about the joy of the Lord.
Yet he has not left himself without testimony: He has shown
kindness by giving you rain from heaven and crops in their seasons; he provides
you with plenty of food and fills your hearts with joy.
This is a
statement of the overarching sovereignty of the One Creator of the universe.
Long before Paul arrievd in their city to share his testimony, God had been
giving these people an unending testimony of his provision and good gifts. These
people even had hearts full of joy, probably in response to these gifts of
common grace—food, shelter, family, hard work and safety. So how does this match
with our definition? We don’t know if there joy was ever increasing, but it was
in response to good gifts from God. These Greeks were idol worshippers and did
not acknowledge the One, True God, but nevertheless, they were recipiets of
God’s good gifts and they responded with hearts full of joy.
This is a good
way to witness in our propserous culture, because prosperity can insulate a
person from the good news of the gospel. If you have a good job, a loving family
and a little recreation on the weekends, you are basically a happy person.
Even though during an election year both Democrats and republicans try to tell
us how bad off we are and how we all struggle to put food on the table, we are
still a prosperous people. This prosperity is not only a hindrance for
unbelievers to hear the gospel, but it is often a hindrance for believers to
share the gospel. I have often failed to share the gospel because I perceived
that the person I wanted to talk with did not have a felt need that might open
them to hearing what I had to say.
But we can and
should approach such people as Paul did. We can witness to them not by wishing
they were poor and unhappy and therefore more ready to hear the gospel, or so we
might imagine. Rather we can witness to them because of their happiness and
because of their prosperity. As Paul did, we can say to them, “Are you aware
that the air you breathe and the falling rain are both gifts from God to witness
to you? Did you know that the joy you feel when you hold a newborn baby is only
possible because God has allowed you to experience it?” Show them this verse in
Acts 14 and help them see that even everyday joys in life are gifts from God. We
think that people have to be down and out in order to want to hear from God, or
if they don’t have a “felt need”, if they aren’t struggling to make ends meet
and eke out a living, they won’t be sufficuently desperate for God. But instead
of appealing to their felt need of desperation we can appeal to their feeling of
joy and happiness by giving credit to God and pointing them to a gretaer gift of
faith in Christ.
Q #2. Can you have sorrow,
tears and joy at the same time? We’ll answer this one next week.
Rich Maurer
September 7, 2008