Living a Joyful Life in a Daunting World

Living in joy is difficult in a daunting world. It seems like every time you’re about to summit one of life’s uphill climbs that the summit is just an illusion. It merely leads to another climb, another avalanche, more struggle. We’ve seen that as a community over the last few days with the tragic death of a beautiful child. The family’s of the child and of the bus driver have experienced a trauma that will affect the way that they see the world forever.

It’s a story that has been on my mind because it has been so often repeated in my life. God had delivered Israel from the mightiest army in the world. He had put a dry sidewalk in the middle of the Red Sea. He had sustained them in the wilderness with food from the sky and water from a rock. He had guided them with his own presence. And, He had committed to be with them with the same goodness and the same power and the same provision forevermore. And, there they are, right on the edge of the Promised Land, with the promise of God and the proof of God in their midst, paralyzed by their own fear, preventing them from knowing the full goodness of God. And so, they tell Moses, “We have to take matters into our own hands. We have to go back to Egypt. God is content to let us die, and we have to fix it.” In my life, I have seen God do miraculous and wonderful things so that it would seem impossible for me to doubt the goodness and willingness of God; yet, I still find in me an impulse to take matters into my own hands. I still find in me that I very often have greater confidence in myself than I do in God, and like Israel, no sooner do I take control does my joy crash. This morning, Paul will explain to us how we can avoid these crashes in our joy that we might live a supernaturally joyful life.

So, it’s easy for us to see such a heartbreaking example of how daunting this world is and wonder what hope there is for joy. Tomorrow it may be our child, or it may be our car that strikes them. Tomorrow, we may have cancer, or our wife may have an affair. Tragedy taunts us. One of the interesting findings about social media is that it increases depression and anxiety in people who use it frequently. Why? At least one of the reasons is that we know of so much more tragedy than we used to. And, it’s there taunting us that it may very well show up at our doorstep tomorrow. So, how is it that we can find joy in such a daunting world? Paul’s going to share that with us today.

God’s Word

Read (Focusing on verses 1-6 this week)

How to Live a Joyful Life (Headline)

V. 1b “To write the same things to you is no trouble to me and is safe for you.” From the beginning, we have seen that Paul is writing to the Philippians because he is even more concerned about their joy than he is with his own joy. He even says that if it were just about his joy, he’d assume to die and be with Christ so that his joy can be complete, but that he knows that he is to stay for the ‘progress and joy’ of their faith. And, that’s his concern still in our passage this morning. He is bearing the burden of their joy so that it might be safe, that it might be durable in the face of opposition and adversity. And, we’ll learn the same good news that the Philippians did: How to Live a Joyful Life (Headline).

Be “Glad” in “God.”

v. 1a “Finally, my brothers, rejoice in the Lord.” First, if you are to live a joyful life, you must Be “glad” in “God”. He tells them very specifically that they are to “rejoice in the Lord.” The usage of the word “Lord” to refer to Jesus is a reference to his sovereignty. The Philippians were Roman citizens and were accustomed to calling Nero their ‘lord.’ The emperor was their sovereign, and he determined the direction and significance of their lives. But, Paul is pointing to something far greater for the Philippians. Their Sovereign is not a wicked and weak emperor; He is the Almighty. Their Sovereign was in control of all things past, all things present, and all things future. So, the Philippians are to zoom out to see the control of their King rather than zooming in and being undone by their circumstances. They were to find joy and gladness that their God was over and in it all.

v. 1a “Rejoice in the Lord” He tells them very specifically that they are to “rejoice in the Lord.” The usage of the word “Lord” to refer to Jesus is a reference to his sovereignty. The Philippians were Roman citizens and were accustomed to calling Nero their ‘lord.’ The emperor was their sovereign, and he determined the direction and significance of their lives. But, Paul is pointing to something far greater for the Philippians. Their Sovereign is not a wicked and weak emperor; He is the Almighty. Their Sovereign was in control of all things past, all things present, and all things future. So, the Philippians are to zoom out to see the control of their King rather than zooming in and being undone by their circumstances. They were to find joy and gladness that their God was over and in it all.

Adversity had come to the door of the Philippians.

Adversity had come to the door of the Philippians. If they wanted reasons to grumble and to divide and to panic, they weren’t hard to find. Their missionary was in jail. Their messenger had almost died. Their church was divided. They had opponents, and they had preachers telling them that Paul had not shared with them the complete truth. The natural thing to do would be to throw up your hands and just stop caring, wouldn’t it? The natural thing to do would be to take matters into your own hands and see if you can find a better way. Adversity will teach you what you believe about God. It’s adversity that will show whether your confidence is in the Sovereign grace of our Lord or in yourself. Adversity will clarify your theology. Adversity is the proving ground of faith.

You see, as many reasons as they had to panic, they had even more to trust God. In Christ, we have far better reasons to be encouraged than we do to be negative. This is what Paul wants them to recognize. Being glad in God requires a singular focus in a world of alternatives. They could either look down, or they could look up. This is the decision with which adversity confronts us. They could look down and see the divisions, or they could look up and see the God that was bringing all peoples together. They could look down at Paul’s chains, or they could look up and see the God that had used Paul’s chains to penetrate Rome with the gospel. They could look down and see Nero’s threat of death, or they could look up and see their true Lord’s promise to raise them to life again. They could look down and tremble, or they could look up and be glad they aren’t alone, be glad that nothing is accidental, be glad that their adversity wouldn’t be wasted.

You see, as many reasons as they had to panic, they had even more to trust God. In Christ, we have far better reasons to be encouraged than we do to be negative. This is what Paul wants them to recognize. They could either look down, or they could look up. This is the decision with which adversity confronts us. They could look down and see the divisions, or they could look up and see the God that was bringing all peoples together. They could look down at Paul’s chains, or they could look up and see the God that had used Paul’s chains to penetrate Rome with the gospel. They could look down and see Nero’s threat of death, or they could look up and see their true Lord’s promise to raise them to life again. They could spy out the giants of Canaan and go running back into the wilderness, or they could look up and see their sovereign Lord seated upon his throne and press on to the gates of Jericho.

Don’t Look Down

APPLICATION: It’s human nature to look down. It’s human nature to look down and see how far you might fall and to feel that skip in your heart, and you can’t have joy that way. You can’t have joy when you face failing health and sick children and career setbacks and dying babies and the terrible diseases that tomorrow may bring, if you look down. You’ll think every day about failure, every day about death, every day about how dangerous your situation is. Oh, but if you look up, if you look up and see the hand of the Almighty holding you up, if you look up and see your sovereign Lord seated upon his throne working all things to his glory, if you look up and remember that not even a sparrow falls to the ground without his knowing, you’ll have gladness on your darkest day. I wonder this morning how many of you feel like you’re always about to fall. I wonder for how many of you it feels like your life is always coming unravelled. I wonder for how many it feels like your grip is slipping just a little bit more. Don’t look down. Look up! Look up, and be glad that God is there! Gladness in God is the bedrock of a joyful life. Our only hope for durable joy is for a steady source, a source of joy more steady than the source of misery found in this daunting world. This is who Christ is. He is the One making it all new, turning it all to glory. Choosing joy is a simple, and as difficult, as choosing to trust God.

Be “Vigilant” Against “Counterfeits.”

v. 2 “Look out for the dogs, look out for the evildoers, look out for those who mutilate the flesh.” To live a joyful, you must also Be “vigilant” against “counterfeits.” Specifically, it’s to be vigilant against counterfeit gospels. If the gospel is the good news of how God offers reconciliation to us through Christ’s substitution, then a counterfeit gospel is any way that we attempt to find life apart from total dependence upon Christ. Sometimes, a false gospel is a perversion of the true gospel, offering us something that looks like Christianity without actually being Christianity. Other times, it’s something that attempts to answer the question about God without God or with another god entirely. In this case, it’s the former. There were a group of people called the Judaizers, and they claimed to be followers of Jesus and Moses. Judaizers believed that Jesus would bring you into the Kingdom so long as you became a religious Jew, so long as you measured up to the Law. So, if a Gentile, like the Philippians would have been, wanted to be included in the people of God, not only did were they to come to Christ but they were also to become a Jew. So, their formula for salvation was Jesus plus circumcision. Jesus plus the festivals. Jesus plus the Sabbath. Jesus plus the food regulations. And, you can see how this would have been an attractive message. Jesus was a Jewish messiah that had come in fulfillment to the Jewish prophecy. The reason that Paul tells them to ‘Look out’ for these counterfeits is that counterfeits are difficult for us to spot. The Judaizers had the appearance of godliness, but not the power of godliness. The Judaizers used the Bible (OT) to justify their cultural bias. But, most damning of all, The Judaizers didn’t believe that Jesus was enough. They believed that Jesus required their own morality, their own obedience, their own ethical purity to paired with his sacrifice for their salvation. This was a different gospel entirely.

Paul condemns them with startling irony. Jews called Gentiles dogs, because dogs were filthy. They were scavengers roaming around feasting on dead carcasses. These Judaizers believe they are the ones who are pure, and Paul calls them filthy dogs. They believe that their works set them apart, but their works are evil. They are evil doers. Doing things in hopes to be God’s favorites all while heaping judgement upon their own heads. They circumcise themselves and demand others do it to so that they might be shown to share in the Abrahamic covenant of God’s favor and eternal blessing. But, their circumcision is mutilation like that of the prophets of Baal, who in cut themselves and scream in hopes of awakening their sleeping, imaginary god. They appear godly, but are selfish. They look zealous, but are foolish. They sound faithful, but live faithless.

God Doesn’t Need Your Bailout

When Israel was the edge of the Promised Land and heard the spies report, they refused to go in because they believed that they weren’t strong enough to bail God out of his mess. Their army wasn’t strong enough to defeat the Canannite armies. Their prosperity wasn’t as great as the Canaanite prosperity, and they knew that they couldn’t

Just think of the joy that Moses missed by listening to the spies and not entering the Promised Land. The closest he ever got was a view from the mountaintop. He never saw the walls of Jericho comes crashing down. He never saw the sun stand still. By believing that God needed their strength and their armies and their resources to accomplish his work, they missed the joy of seeing God crush walls with trumpets. By taking his salvation into his own hands, he took upon himself a burden that he could not handle and forfeited the peace and rest and joy of watching God deliver him. Trying to protect his joy, he forfeited his joy.

Theological Drift Drowns Joy

APPLICATION: The gospel we believe matters! To be theologically adrift is to drown your own joy. Let me explain. The Judaizers added to the gospel so that they could promote their own definition of godliness, their own definition of righteousness. What are you tempted to add to the gospel so that it better suits your agenda or absolves your responsibility? What are you adding to help God’s word out? Are you adding your politics as though God is right-winged or left? Are you adding social, racial, and ethnical biases to the gospel so that you can be justified in your discrimination? Are you requiring the drug addict to clean up first or the drunk to stop drinking first or the teenager to stop rebelling before they come to Christ? Have you added in dressing a particular way or not dancing in any way or living in a particular kind of house to what the gospel must do? If so, you have set yourself up for a drowning joy. You see, the true gospel doesn’t say that you must measure up and come to Jesus, or even that you must come to Jesus and then measure up from there. It says come to Jesus and rest because Jesus has measured up for you. Come to Jesus and rejoice because your fight has already been won. Every addition to the gospel is a subtraction from joy. Every addition calls us back to the slavery and oppression of the Law, but Jesus through the gospel has set us free now so that we can actually rest and actually live. Does your gospel encourage you or crush you? The true Gospel brings rest to the weary, hope to the hopeless, and joy to powerless.

Be “Certain” of “Who” You Are.

v. 3 “For we are the circumcision, who worship by the Spirit of God and glory in Christ Jesus and put no confidence in the flesh.” Finally, to live a joyful life, you must Be “certain” of “who” you are. He says that ‘we are the circumcision.’ Now, this is extraordinary because the Philippians were Gentiles. And, Paul was a Jew’s Jew, as he says. And, now, Paul says to Philippi: “You are the fulfillment of his promise to Abraham! You are the nations that have been blessed and through you the nations will be blessed!” So, in the face of this false gospel, what Paul wants the Philippians to see is that they can take joy in who they are. They don’t have to worry about becoming Jews to be Christians. They are the result of what God’s been doing all along. The promise came to the Jews, but it was always heading to them. They are the new Israel. They don’t have to be circumcised; they are the circumcision. He points to three different proofs of how they can know that this really is who they are:

All adversity is both an opportunity and a threat

“who worship by the Spirit of God” We are identified by the “Spirit”, not by the “knife”. This is what he means when he says they are those ‘who worship by the Spirit of God’. He says something in that’s helpful for us to understand this. He says,“For no one is a Jew who is merely one outwardly, nor is circumcision outward and physical. But a Jew is one inwardly, and circumcision is a matter of the heart, by the Spirit, not by the letter. His praise is not from man but from God.” The new Israel is not constituted by those who were born into the right tribe. It is constituted by those who are born again in Christ Jesus, born of the Spirit. We don’t need ethnic markers to identify us as people of God. The very presence of God dwells within us. The Spirit awakens our hearts to love God. The Spirit sharpens our senses to experience God. The Spirit gives us faith to believe and joy to express and hope to cling to. The Spirit is constantly, inwardly preaching to our hearts the wonderful truth about God so that they become so full that they worship! The Spirit has made creatures of wrath into vessels of worship. The Spirit supplies what the believer expresses. And, a life like that will be clear enough separated from the world.

“who glory in Christ Jesus” We are identified by boasting in “Christ”, not in “achievement”. There’s a reason that Paul is able to concisely and eloquently articulate his proper standing as the ideal Jewish man. It had been his lifelong source of identity. It gave him prestige, influence, and confidence. He was a Kennedy. He was a Bush. He was a Roosevelt. He was of the tribe of Benjamin, named after the first King of Israel who came from the same tribe. He was brilliant, educated, and influential. It felt good every time he told somebody of his lineage, of his birthright. He gloried in the family he was born to, in the last name that he had, in his standing among his comrades. And, to follow Christ he had to forsake it all. He had to leave behind his very identity, his ambitions, his birthright. This is what the Judaizers couldn’t give up. How in the world could they forsake a heritage so rich, achievements so great? But, the Christian that has found the glory of Christ see it so differently. We say, “Why in the world would I try to live a life so daunting when there’s a Savior so refreshing? Why would I labor to uphold appearances when God has received me already? Why would I boast in my misery when Christ has liberated my joy?”

“who put no confidence in the flesh” We are identified by confidence in “grace”, not in “ourselves”. When Paul uses the word flesh here, he’s talking about everything about ourselves that we are tempted to trust. It includes our effort, our self-righteousness, our opinions, our virtues, our character, and our heritage. It’s what we can muster from within ourselves. He lists out for us all of the reasons that he has to have confidence in himself. He lists out all of the reasons that he has to believe in himself, to believe that he has no real need for Jesus, no real need for the gospel. And, the list is impressive. He is passionately religious. He is prestigious and influential. He is well educated and well endowed. If he were one of us, he could show how he had been in church since his birth. He could show how he had attended the right college and obtained the ideal job. He could show how he had provided his kids with more than he had and how he had become a well-respected member of the community. But, ultimately, he determines that any confidence in such things as these, any reason that you have to believe in yourself is too weak to bridge the gap between he and God. Regardless of who he was, regardless of what he’d done, his heritage and his good deeds were incapable of holding up under the weight of God’s awesome holiness. Trying to satisfy God’s holiness with his wretched righteousness was like trying to catch a cannonball with a paper towel.

How Do You Comfort the Doubt that Comes?

APPLICATION: You see, Paul’s identity had been completely redefined. If you would’ve come to Paul as a young man and asked him how he knew that he was a child of God, he would have told you about his heritage, his faithfulness, and his achievement. But, if you were to ask him here, he wouldn’t tell you of his achievements. He would tell you of his joy. Joy applied by the Spirit accomplished by Christ and given by grace. So, I have a question for you ask yourself to cut through all of the noise to heart of the matter so that you can see whether your hope is in Christ or in yourself, so that you can see whether the gospel that you’re clinging to is the real thing or a counterfeit. How do you comfort your doubt? What do you look to when you wonder whether or not you are right with God? Would you point to how you go to church and have always went to church? Would think of how your whole family believes that you’re a godly person? Would you think about checks that you write to the church or perhaps a class that you teach? Would you think about how friendly you are and how thoughtful you are? You see, that sounds a lot like Paul’s list, doesn’t it? And, as impressive a list as it is, it’s the exact list of obstacles that had to be overcome for him to be saved. So, would you comfort your doubt by your own achievements, or would you comfort your doubt by the achievement of Christ, the presence of the Spirit, and your confidence in grace? Do you comfort your doubts by your goodness or God’s? Do you point to your joy in Christ or Christ’s joy in you?

Questions:

Why do we tend to focus more on the reasons that we have to panic than the reasons that we have to trust God? How does this stifle our joy?

How does looking up at God help us in times of hardship? Have you ever experienced this before?

What are some things that we are attempted to add to the gospel?

How does a proper view of the gospel increase our joy in daily living? How can we improve in our understanding of the gospel?

How does the Spirit mark us? What does it mean to be a Jew inwardly? ()

What are ways that we comfort the doubts that we face in our faith? What do these means of comfort (our efforts vs. Christ’s achievement) say about our confidence in Christ?

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