Episode 940: What the World Seeks | Part 1

We're diving into our series in the book of Philippians. Philippians is probably one of the most quoted books in the New Testament. It's really easy to read. I probably would only take you about 20 minutes to read the whole book, but the reason I think most of us fall in love with the book of Philippians is because it's filled with so much joy. In fact, 16 times in these four short chapters Paul uses the words "joy" or "rejoice." And what's amazing is that even though he's teaching us about joy, he's at that time serving a two-year stint in prison. Chain, not just in prison, but chain to a Roman guard. He's not even sure if he would survive this imprisonment. So if anyone had a reason not to be joyful, it was Paul. And it's not just this circumstance. He has a long litany of difficulty. And he talks about them in 1st or 2nd Corinthians 11. He says that he's been in prison more frequently, been flawed, more severely, and been exposed to death again and again. Five times I receive from the Jews, the 40 lashes minus one. Three times I was beaten with rods. Once I was pelted with stones, three times I was shipwrecked. I spent a night and a day in the open sea, in danger from rivers, in danger from bandits, in danger from my fellow Jews, in danger from Gentiles, in danger in the city, in danger in the country, in danger at sea, in danger from false believers. Have often gone without sleep. I have known hunger and thirst, and have gone, often gone without food. I've been cold and naked. But notice, this isn't a letter filled with self-pity. In fact, do you know how he describes these things that I just read to you? He calls them in verse 17, "Light afflictions." And in Philippians, he writes about joy. Someone asked Mother Teresa what it would take for someone to join her in her difficult work in the streets of Calcutta, and she said two things, the desire to work hard and a joyful attitude. I think that's a good job description for anyone serving the Lord, don't you? And I believe it's our nature, though, to focus on the bad things. Several years ago, we invited Billy Beecham to speak to our staff that work here at Lakeside. Billy Beecham is well known for writing disciple-now materials for our students during discipleship weekend. Well, Billy came and did a talk, and he talks about how it is our nature to go negative. And he gave an example. He said, "Let's say at the end of my talk, and there are about 30 employees here at Lakeside listening." He said, "Let's say 29 of you gave an amazing review." And you said, "It was the best talk I've ever heard, but there was one person that just said, 'This was the worst thing I've ever heard anybody speak about.'" He said, "Which one are you going to focus on?" I think all of us, by nature, focus on the negative. And he went on to talk about how we can be transformed by the renewing of our minds. In other words, Romans chapter 12. And I've often thought about that because I do think in our spiritual battle, the devil uses our negativity, our tendency to lean that way in the flesh, to not experience what God wants us to experience. So if we could answer that question, what is it about Paul's life that made him joyful, despite all of those difficult circumstances? If we could tap into that secret this morning, wouldn't just radically change our life and our outlook and the way that we see things, and the way that we experience the Lord Himself? Knowing the answer to this question would really inform us in the way that we deal with all the things that we go through? I think that'd be a valuable exercise. So let's dive right into the outline. Joy is found in God, not in our circumstances. That's the most basic part of the solution. He said this in the first chapter, "I thank my God every time I remember you, and all my prayers for all of you. I always pray with joy because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now." Being confident of this, that He who began a good work and you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus. Now if you were to survey all of the prayers in the New Testament of the Apostle Paul, you will quickly discover that most all of them are saturated with one thing, and that one thing is thanksgiving. That even the midst of awful circumstances, Paul always found reasons to be grateful. Even in the shadow of his execution looming over him, he can't help, but thank God for his friends and for who God is. So my question for you, and it's my question for me too, is this a normal practice in your life? Is this something that you exercise as part of your spiritual disciplines? Because this particular challenge can see you through a lot of difficult times in life, and that's the gratitude challenge. I've shared it with you over the years many times, but I can tell you by experience that if you would take the gratitude challenge, in other words, think of three things that you can be thankful to God for every single day for 30 days, and express that to God audibly in prayer or to write it down, either one, whatever your preference would be. If you could take the gratitude challenge and see how that changes the way you think, another is Romans 12, the transforming of your mind, that it might even go beyond 30 days, but that practice in and of itself is probably one of the most practical things I can share with you. This is Paul's exercise. Paul goes on to say that his gratitude is anchored in his joy. He said this phrase, "In all my prayers for all of you, I always pray with joy." So notice, Paul's showing us that he has learned to recognize the fingerprints of God in every circumstance whether bad or good, not saying that God sends those bad things, but God doesn't waste them either. Does that make sense? That you would begin to ask that question in all your circumstances, "Where is God in all of this?" Because joy is not a matter of temperament. He's not saying, "Oh, I'm just naturally optimistic." That's not what he's saying. He's not saying, "I'm just an upbeat person." What he's saying is that if grace has gripped your heart regardless of your temperament or your natural inclination, he's saying, "Joy will fill your life. Joy will find expression on your lips as you learn to give thanks to God no matter what you're going through." And if you don't have joy right now in this moment, don't blame your circumstances. Circumstances were never intended to bring you joy in the first place. You see, you need a joy that's not tied to your circumstances. It has to be tied to something much different than that. Something that doesn't change. What I'm saying is that joy is kind of like a worldview. You've heard the word worldview, different beliefs around the world. Well, it's a perception that God is always at work in my life, that He's always working for my good and for my growth. And that kind of joy is not dependent on the absence of pain or the absence of sorrow. It's rooted in the character of God. I love what Walter Wangeron said. He's a great theologian in his book is called reliving the passion. He said the difference between shallow happiness and a deep sustaining joy is sorrow. Happiness lives where sorrow is not. When sorrow arrives, happiness dies. It can't stand pain. Joy, on the other hand, rises from sorrow and therefore can withstand all grief. And then Pastor Paul Thigpen said to discover joy, we must abandon the search for it and go looking instead for the one who is himself, joy to see, to know and to love. See, I cannot find happiness in every circumstance. But if I can find God in every circumstance, it brings me what? Joy, exactly. Sometimes you find Him in that still small voice, don't you? Sometimes you find Him in the ways that others care for you in your struggle. Sometimes it's in the strength that you have or the peace that you have. Sometimes it's in seeing how your life has influenced others in their struggle. So there are so many people who try to find joy by eliminating pain or distracting ourselves by going shopping or distracting ourselves by going on vacation or distracting ourselves even by indulging in addiction. And the problem with those strategies is that the cost continues to go up with every single distraction. And the Bible gives us the opposite answer and it's the best answer that God's joy is the source of our joy. Have you ever thought about God having joy over you? This is one of my favorite all-time images of God as he relates to us, Found in Zephaniah chapter 3. It says, "For the Lord your God has arrived to live among you." He is a mighty savior. By the way, this is a messianic prophecy, isn't it? He will give you victory. He will rejoice over you with great gladness. He will love you and not accuse you. Is that a joyous choir I hear? No. It is the Lord Himself exalting over you and happy song. Now we often praise God. We just did it for a good while there. Sing to God, but have you ever thought about God Himself singing over you? It's one of the most beautiful pictures that reminds me of my wife and I. singing over our children when they were born as they're sleeping in the crib. Of course, there was a strategy there to keep them from crying, right? We're singing over them. And God does the same thing. And don't you love that image that he takes so much delight in us that he sings over us, that our spiritual ears think that we're hearing a choir, but it's really just God taking delight over me. And not only that, I love this idea of God having an infinite capacity for joy because God is infinite, isn't it? When I think of joy, I think about how children love to laugh. This newspaper said the typical child laughs 150 times daily, but the average adult laughs only 50 times a day. And isn't that true? The older we get, we tend to let that joy slip away, don't we? And think about this, the joy that we see in children is only a fraction of the joy that we see in the heart of God. In other words, compare the joy that children have, that God has even more than that. And don't you, as parents and grandparents, just live to make your children laugh? I mean, with my grandchildren, if I could just do a raspberry on their tummy, it's good enough for a good laugh. In other words, they're an easy audience. It's much easier than preaching, trying to get a laugh, right? I mean, just you can take a three-year-old and just throw them in the air and they laugh. It doesn't take much. And so G.K. Chesterson makes the same analogy. He said, "A child kicks his legs rhythmically through excess, not the absence of life." Because children have a bounding vitality because they are in spirit, fierce and free. Therefore, they want things repeated and are still excited. They always say, "Do it again!" And the grown-up person does it again till he's nearly dead. Anybody relate to that? Sure, sure. For grown-up people are not strong enough to exalt him and not me, but perhaps God is strong enough to exalt him and not me. It is possible that God says, "Every morning, do it again to the sun and every evening, do it again to the moon." It may not be automatic necessity that makes all daisies alike. It may be that God makes every daisies separately but has never got tired of making them. What a beautiful picture that is. That God creates daisies every day for thousands of years. He never gets tired of it. Think about daisies. They're really not good for anything. Are they? In fact, I believe all flowers are just weed showing off, right? But I mean, you think about that. That most things in nature are not functional. Primarily, they're just beautiful for our enjoyment that God creates all of these things. I talk about that here and there about how you think about how long it took God to create the earth about six days, right? And you think about all the beauty that God gave to us. He could have made everything one color. He could have made everything taste like broccoli. He could have made every person have the same personality. But God gives us all of this variety just to show us He loves us. And then, GK Chesterson adds this, "It may be that God has the eternal appetite of infancy for we have sinned and grown old and our Father is younger than we." You see, it's not that God isn't Osarro. He does. The Bible says Jesus was a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief, but we have to understand that God's sorrow, God's anger and God's grief are only His temporary response to a fallen world. One day, sorrow will be banished forever from His heart. It even tells us in the end of the book of Revelation that He will one day wipe away your tears forever. Can you imagine that? Very hands have borne the mountains, the very hands that curled at the Roman spike. Well, one day, cup your face in His hands and it'll brush away those tears forever. What an image that is. By the way, as we have often said, happiness and joy are not synonymous. Are they happiness depends on happenings. But joy is the condition of our heart and people fall for the happiness trap all the time. I'll be happy when I'm out of school. I'll be happy when I finally get married. I'll be happy when I have kids. I'll be happy when my kids leave. I'm still waiting for that one. The truth is we have to learn how to rejoice today. If you wait until the conditions are perfect, you'll wait until you draw your last breath. Paul said in Philippians 4, "Always be full of joy in the Lord." I say it again, rejoice. Now, rejoice is a different word from joy. And rejoice is so powerful because it reminds us to return to the source of joy. So, if you want more joy, you need more of God because God is the source of joy. Psalm 16 says, "Your presence fills me with joy." So if you want more joy, you really want more God, don't you? And how do you get more of God? You give him more of yourself. Which leads to the next principle in your outline. We can handle the worst if Christ is enough. Now, the Apostle Paul, after you met Jesus, was one of the most successful people who've ever lived. He wrote most of the New Testament, didn't he? And he says in chapter 1, "For me to live is Christ and to die is gain." Now, actually, in the Greek language, there are no verbs in this sentence. So literally, you would translate it into English for me to life Christ and to death gain. So it almost reads like a math equation, doesn't it? Life equals Christ and death equals gain. So how would you complete this sentence? For me to live is, some might say kids are travel or health, but no one, no one, leaves that sentence blank. And if you don't fill it with Jesus, then what do you put there instead? Paul's giving us this challenge. Is Jesus alive to you? Is Jesus enough? Is Jesus satisfying? Because Paul explains that there are two possibilities for his future. Either he will win his case and be released from prison, or God's going to take him home because he's going to be executed. And here's the truth. We're the same way. We can face the worst that life throws us if Christ is enough. If you can truly say to live is Christ, then when it is time to draw your last breath, then you'll be able to say to death is gain. Now there's a limit to what trials and tribulations do to us. They can never truly defeat us. As Paul says in 2 Corinthians 4, "We are handicapped on all sides, but we're never frustrated. We are puzzled but never in despair. We are persecuted, but we never have to stand it alone. We may be knocked down, but we're never knocked out." In other words, God is much bigger than any problem we could ever have, including death itself. He says in chapter 1, I eagerly expect and hope that, now as always, Christ will be exalted in my body, whether by life or by death. He's saying, "Even death is the best possibility. If I die, gain for me, if I live, gain for you." So who can stop somebody like that? I mean, he's stronger than dirt, isn't he? If you kill him, he dies with a smile on his face. If you put him in prison, he preaches to the guard. If you chain him up, he sings amazing grace. If you run him out of town, he just goes to the next town and plants a church. If you try to stone him, he'll take the rocks and use those rocks to build a cathedral. So Paul doesn't actually know which of these things will happen while he's in prison, but this is his conviction in chapter 1. This, he said, "I know that I will remain and continue with you all." But then just two verses later, he says, "Whether I come and see you or am absent." So he's allowing for either possibility, and it's not his call to make, but he's okay with whatever God decides. And at least this final conclusion in number three in your outline, the amazing purposes of God for our life. Verse 12, "I want you to know, brothers, that what has happened to me has really served you advanced the gospel." When we're struggling, we are tempted to just say, "Well, God just doesn't like me. God's mad at me. God's getting even with me." And that's not how God works at all. God, it works for your good and for your growth in all circumstances. We might be tempted to think that putting a powerhouse like Paul into prison would hinder his ministry. I mean, this is a guy who planted all those churches that we read about in the New Testament. He was given the responsibility of bringing the gospel to the Gentiles, but God is actually using his imprisonment to advance the gospel in ways that none of us could ever imagine. Remember, Paul always wanted to go to Rome to preach the gospel. He said to Romans one, "I am eager to preach the gospel also to you who are at Rome." That was his desire. Now thanks to his false charges in Jerusalem and his appeal to the emperor, he's been given an all expenses paid cruise to Rome. His faith and powered eyes could see that his imprisonment has caused the gospel to break out in all kinds of wonderful ways. Far from ending his missionary work, this is expanding it. Now he can freely share his faith in places he had never been before before kings and people of power. And what did he say? What has happened to me has really served to advance the gospel. That word advanced is a military term and it's where scouts would go before the army to look for the enemy to clear the path so they could scout the terrain so that as the army advanced they wouldn't be hindered in any way. Paul says that what his imprisonment has done for the gospel, it has cleared the path. And he gives three examples. First of all, it has cleared the path with the palace guards. And verse 13, as a result, it has become clear throughout the whole palace guard and to everyone else that I am in chains for Christ. So who are the palace guards there? They're the elite, Praetorian guard. They're like a cross between secret service and special forces. I mean, they're tough. They were created by Caesar, Augustus about 70 years prior to this time and numbered around 9,000 men. They paid double wages and they could retire with benefits after just 12 years. They were considered so powerful in Rome that they would put forth nominees for the Roman Senate. They were the most influential group in all of the Roman Empire. And Paul could not rent the Coliseum and do a Rome for Christ event. You couldn't do that. But God gave him the best access to this influential group. And since they changed guards every six hours, here's the statistics. Paul had a new audience four times a day. That's 28 times a week, more than 2,900 times in two years. There's no doubt that many of those guards began to realize that he wasn't chained to them, but they were chained to Paul. You see the difference? Which reminds us that we often only see God's hand and hindsight. We often only see a fragment. I don't think that even Paul thought that when he ended up in Cessaria, that he would end up preaching to these Roman guards. So just like Paul, we have to trust. What do we trust? We have to trust two things. We have to trust in God's time and in God's way that he will bring about redemption. That God is always working to redeem. So while we're waiting for our circumstances to change, God says your circumstances aren't even an obstacle for me. Some of you know this. It's a humble reminder that most of our mission partners, those that are members at Lakeside and the many several thousand others that we support through our giving here at Lakeside, most of them are working in what we call the 1040 window. And that's the part of the world that's mostly like the Middle East. And so most all of our missionaries, I would say 90% of our missionaries have pseudonyms. I don't know if you know that. Even the ones that are even in our midst today, they have these pseudonyms and they have to have these jobs to get them in the country that have nothing to do with their missionary work. That we support is they grow coffee in one part of the world. And so I have a little container of coffee that he just sent me to just for us to be reminded to pray for them. So I just wanted to share that because that's not it's not an obstacle to God. There's one particular Middle Eastern country that they don't allow any Christians in the country at all, but you know what they do allow in? Nannies. They bring in these Filipino women and most of them are born again Christians and they don't even know it. So most of their future leaders and influences are influencers are sitting in the laps of these Christian women who are no doubt sharing the gospel with him. In other words, circumstances don't defeat God, do they? So God brought the gospel of these guards. Next, God used these ordinary believers, verse 14, "Because of my chains most of the brothers in the Lord have been encouraged to speak the word of God more courageously and fearlessly." Now get this. He's not referring to pastors. He's referring to ordinary believers in Rome. And the word "speak" doesn't mean preach. It's just everyday conversation. So before Paul's imprisonment many of them were too afraid to share their faith, but now they're emboldened. They're encouraged by Paul and their everyday conversation. So because of his imprisonment these believers are set free and Jesus becomes the talk of the town. See how God works. Brothers and sisters, the work of the gospel is never meant to be carried on the shoulders of just pastors and missionaries. I think COVID taught us this, right? That COVID taught us that God can accomplish His work without church buildings and without a lot of the things that we used to consider to be essential. During COVID someone sent me this cartoon where the devil says to God, "With this virus I closed all your churches and God responds on the contrary, I opened one in every home." And I think that was so true. That many of us, because of that difficult season in our life, we were emboldened. We were encouraged to share our faith in ways that we might not have done before. And then finally preachers with good motivations and others with bad motivations. He says in verse 15, "It is true that some preach Christ out of envy and rivalry, but others out of good will. The latter do so out of love knowing that I am put here for the defense of the gospel. The former preach Christ out of selfish ambition, not sincerely, supposing that they can stir up trouble for me while I am in chains." But what does that matter? The important thing is that in every way, whether from false motives or true, Christ is preached and because of this, I rejoice. Now for some of us, that almost sounds a little strange, doesn't it? But some were trying to discredit Paul. Some were trying to prop themselves up. They weren't preaching a false gospel. If they were preaching a false gospel, Paul would have had something different to say. They're preaching the true gospel, but they're doing it with selfish motives. They have an opportunity in other words to seize the limelight because Paul's in prison. Now since the beginning of the church, I think all believers have struggled with the sin of envy. But the good news is this, that even though there will always be people who will try to divide the body of Christ, Jesus himself told us this, that they will know that we are Christians by our self-righteous attitudes on Facebook, right? No. By our love and yet isn't it amazing that God won't even let selfish motives keep the gospel from being heard? And finally, what Paul shows us is that adversity makes clear who your friends are and who they aren't. Paul was still thankful that the gospel was being preached. The miracle is that God can use anyone to get his message out, that he uses flawed people like me and you to accomplish his will. In fact, this is how God works. I've probably read this verse more than any of the verses I've been your pastor, but let's do it one more time. We know that in all things God works for the good of those who love Him, who have been called according to His purpose. Now remember, this isn't a promise that everything in your life is going to be okay, but rather it's a promise that God will work in every circumstance in every detail of your life in good times and in bad for His kingdom and for our good and our growth. Is there anyone ever written a book about chains being an effective model for ministry? Well Paul did, and I remember the persecuted Christians in China told Nick Ripkin that that was their seminary. We had Nick Ripkin come and speaking of pseudonyms, Nick and Ruth Ripkin wrote the insanity of God. If you never read that book, I highly recommend it. It ought to be on your list of books to read, but they came in pre-sure several years ago and he talked about, you know, when they get put in prison for being Christians in China, they consider that a way to learn more about God from their brothers and sisters that are already there in prison. What an amazing perspective. Who would ever dream up a strategy of putting Christians in prison for the ministry? See nothing takes God by surprise. He knows the future. He knows how He will navigate His plans in our life forward. And let us return to our source of joy which is Jesus. Let us take the gratitude challenge. Let us press on with our ministry no matter what our circumstance is. So I want you to stand with me this morning as we have our time of invitation. And before we sing this song, if you'll just give me just a moment, a very brief moment to make sure that everyone listening knows that their reservation in heaven is met. And it's simply by responding to the gospel. We share it in this acronym every Sunday. The letter G in this, across it, reminds us that God has created you for one single reason and that is to have a relationship with you. That is His reason. But He also knew that there would be sin in your life because there's sin in every human being's life and that sin separates us from God. So it creates a problem of dilemma. Now the world's solution in the world will tell you almost every belief system outside of Christianity will just do more good things and bad things and it will all work out. So that would create a tremendous amount of anxiety and I think it does for most of the world. But God's plan takes all that away. God's plan is perfect. God, the Father sent Jesus, God the Son, to live a perfect life and to die for our sins in our place on the cross. And we know the miracle was that He didn't stay on the cross. He was resurrected and the Bible calls His resurrection the first fruits, which just means this. All of us can join Him in that resurrection to be in heaven for an eternity if we'll respond to His invitation. So God's invitation, not mine is this, that every single person who trusts in Christ alone is promised eternal life. And the supernatural part of this, the beauty of this is that you don't have to clean up your life first, they didn't come to Him. He said that that life begins the moment you say yes to Him and then goes unbroken all the way into eternity. So come just as you are and let God do the miracle, let God do the changing, let God do the supernatural. So I just can't imagine anyone turning down that invitation. Don't let that be you today. So as we've seen this song, if you've never trusted in Christ, if you've never been born again, come and take the hand of one of our pastors as we've seen this song. There are lots of other reasons to come. We honor that as your pastors as well. But let me pray for us and then we'll sing. Father, thank you for your goodness and thank you for the good news of the gospel. Today, someone who has never been born again, we ask that today would be the day of their salvation. The day of their spiritual birthday, Lord, that their destiny would be changed as a result of them responding and saying yes to you. Father, we thank you for your goodness. As we sing this song, may we worship you in spirit and in truth, knowing that you also sing over us. pray it in Jesus name. Amen and let's sing together.