“The Joy of Jesus”
Philippians 1:1-2

INTRO:
Good Morning. In Bible class on Sunday morning we have been studying from Paul’s beautiful letter to those at the congregation in Philippi. I have personaly been inspired by this study and I want to thank brother Dale for his teaching. Based on this letter I would like to present a series of sermons to call us back to the cross of Jesus Christ because it is my conviction that the cross is the foundation of who we are as Christians. It is the foundation of our theology of our salvation, and it’s the foundation for our ethics. What we do, who we are and how we live. Everything comes back to the cross of Jesus.

It is my intention to preach some sermons that I hope will get our focus back to that cross. I'm going to attempt to do that by continuing to study Paul’s letter to the Philippians, it is one of my favorite letters perhaps because it has so much to say about joy.

It’s interesting that a lot of people, when they think of joy, they don’t think of Christians.
Why is it when you say ‘happy hour’, nobody thinks about church service or bible study? Why is that? Instead when they think "Christian" they think of a person that looks like they were bathed in lemon juice. At least it appears that’s what some of them think. If you need a joy transfusion this morning, then Paul has the prescription for you.

As I said we’re going to study from the Book of Philippians again. What we’re going to do is discover the joy of Jesus. Notice how Paul starts in Philippians chapter 1. He addresses the church by saying, in Philippians 1:1-2 – "Paul and Timotheus, the servants of Jesus Christ, to all the saints in Christ Jesus which are at Philippi, with the overseers and deacons: grace be unto you, and peace, from God our Father, and from the Lord Jesus Christ."

As we begin this series it is important to have a little background about the letter and the church in Philippi. I don’t think Paul ever planted a church as dear to him as this little church. You might remember back in Acts chapter 16 the background to the church in Philippi. If you have not read it in awhile I would encourage you to read it to refresh your memory.

Paul never intended to go there. He intended to go to Asia but the Holy Spirit wouldn’t let him go. In fact, he tried to go into Bithynia (bith-in-nee-uh) but the Spirit stopped him. Then one night in his dreams, a man from Macedonia came to him and said, “Come over to Macedonia and help us.” Paul knew that was the Lord’s prompting and scripture says “immediately we sought to go to Macedonia, concluding that the Lord had called us to preach the gospel to them.”. Paul and Silas crossed a body of water. To our knowledge they were the first missionaries in Europe. They reached a main city in this new region called Philippi, which was a Roman colony. There aparently were not many Jews there as there was no synagogue.

That’s important because Paul would usually go to a city, find a synagogue and preach there first and then go outside and preach to the people in the market place. Philippi didn’t even have a synagogue, so on the Sabbath he went somewhere else. The Bible says in Acts 16:13 – "And on the sabbath we went out of the city by a river side, where prayer was wont to be made; and we sat down, and spake unto the women which resorted thither." That’s where he started to preach to them, and there was a woman named Lydia, who with her family, were baptized. They were the first converts to Christ in Europe.

I. Paul began to walk through Philippi and a young girl started to follow him everywhere. She was possessed by a demon. She was a little slave girl and made money for her masters by soothsaying. She followed Paul around and shouted, according to Acts 16:17 – "These men are the servants of the most high God, which show unto us the way of salvation." This was upsetting to Paul.
A. As an aside, the first thing I wonder about, is the action of the masters of this slave girl whom they exploited as a soothsayer. Why did they not believed it when she identified Paul and company as servants of the Most High God showing the way of salvation?
B. Then, why, we might wonder, was Paul upset by this? Perhaps Paul was upset that he would have any credibility come from such an evil source. Or perhaps going on from day to day it was simply too much of a distraction to his mission. Paul turned around and rebuked the spirit. In verse 18 Paul said, "I command thee in the name of Jesus Christ to come out of her." and the spirit obeyed, as spirits always have to obey Jesus. This little girl was freed of the evil spirit and the people who were her masters became upset because she was cured. This source of income was now gone.
C. Another interesting aside here is that the greek word, “exelthen” - (G1831), used by Luke which we translate as “came out”, “went out”, “departed” from her describing the evil spirit. The same word is also used to describe the loss of income, it “came out”, “went out”, “departed” from them.
D. According to Acts 16:19-24, they went to the magistrates and accused Paul and Silas of being troublemakers and teaching customs which they said; “are not lawful for us, being Romans, to receive or observe”. The magistrates threw Paul and Silas in prison, but first they had Paul and Silas beaten with rods and then in the prision had them chained. You remember the story. When in prison, what are Paul and Silas doing? Acts 16:25 “They are singing and praising God.”
E. If that was me I’m afraid it would have been different. If I were beaten and chained up in prision, I would throw myself a pity party. I would be saying, “Now God, I tried to go to Asia, you wouldn’t let me. I was obedient, I came here and what do I have to show for it. I’ve baptized a few prople and now I’m in jail.” I’d be saying: “God, is this what you want of me?”
F. That’s what I might have done, but Paul was praising the Lord so he could serve Him even in Philippi. You remember in Acts 16:25-29 there was an earthquake, the bars of the jail came open, and the chains fell off their arms and legs. The jailer was about to kill himself, but Paul stopped him. Then the jailer fell down on his knees, and said according to Acts 16:30, “What must I do to be saved?” Then in Acts 16:31-33 - "... they said, Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved, and thy house. And they spake unto him the word of the Lord, and to all that were in his house. And he took them the same hour of the night, and washed their stripes; and was baptized, he and all his straightway "
G. Think about it, this is the start of a congregation. We talk about being here in small numbers, but look at the few mentioned here. You’ve got an upper class woman with her household, and you’ve got a Roman jailer and his household. That’s the start of the church in Philippi. This became one of the great churches of the New Testament. Paul was very fond of them because they were so generous.
H. There are a number of different times we can find in the Bible where they took up money for support of others.
II. The book of Philippians is the story of one of those times. Remember, Paul was in a Roman prison. I read that someone joked once, “When Paul went to the city he didn’t check out the hotel, he asked what the jails would be like because he knew he was going to end up eventually”. That was Paul’s life.
A. When Paul is in jail in Rome and the Philippian church finds out, they take up a collection and gave it to a man named Epaphroditus. He is one of their brothers and he goes to Rome to give Paul the money, but he brought something else with him. He also brought news of a church in need of a joy transfusion.
B. When we think about Philippi, we might be excused if we think of a happy church because there are 15 explicit references to some form of either the noun “joy” (chara in Greek) or the verb “rejoice” (chairo) in this short letter, more than any other New Testament book. Paul talked about the the furtherance of joy of faith in them. About his joy in them, and his desire for them to have joy. He did not indicate “They had any joy”.
C. As we study Philippians, we are going to find out exactly why this church was lacking joy. Today we are going to look at Paul’s cure. Paul’s got a prescription for a church needing some joy and that prescription is “The joy of Jesus”.
III. According to Acts 9, when Paul was on his way to Damascus Jesus Christ appeared to him on that road. From that moment on, you can sum up Paul’s life in one word—Christ. In Philippians 3:10 Paul says: “that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death,” I want to know Christ. I want to know the power of His resurrection. We want to know that as well, don’t we? Then he says,: I want to know the fellowship and share in His suffering. Wait a minute. That might not be too cool. I'm not so sure we like the sound of that part.
A. Listen again to how he started that letter. Philippians 1:1-2 - "Paul and Timotheus, the servants of Jesus Christ, to all the saints in Christ Jesus which are at Philippi, with the overseers and deacons: grace be unto you, and peace, from God our Father, and from the Lord Jesus Christ."
B. When I study a book for the first time, not just read but study, I try to note all the words that I think are important. Yes, the words for joy do come up 15 times in Philippians, and yes the word gospel does show up 9 times, but do you know what shows up 38 times?... Do you know what shows up 3 times in the first 2 verses? The name of “Christ”. The letter to the Philippians is absolutely about Christ.
C. Paul says right in the first chapter what the theme of his life is. What the focus and desire of his life is. He will tell us in Philippians 1:21 – "For to me to live is Christ and to die is gain." “To live is Christ”. That’s what he says. When we read Philippians we are going to read a letter by a man who is absolutely focused on Christ and we need to understand that to understand Paul.
D. We need to understand his focus to understand why Paul could be in prison and have more joy than the church he is writing to. Notice how Paul describes himself. He said that, “I am a servant”, literally, “I am a slave of Christ Jesus”. What could he, Paul, have said? He could have said, “I’m the premier missionary of Christ Jesus”. He could have said, “I’m an apostle of Christ Jesus”. We could have said, “he is the author of half the New Testament” but Paul did not say those things.
E. Instead when he described himself, Paul said, “I’ll tell you who I am, I am the absolute possession of Jesus Christ, that’s me”. “I’ve totally sold out to Jesus Christ”. “I’m a slave for Christ”. According to Acts 9 that we looked at a few moments ago, he was going to Damascus, Jesus Christ appeared to him on that road, and from that moment on you could sum up Paul’s life in one word, “Christ”.
F. Let me show you how focused he was. Look at Philippians 3:10 again, to the end of the verse where he says, "... and the fellowship of His sufferings, being made conformable unto His death." Paul says “I want to become like him in his death”. Wait a second, we remember how Jesus died.
G. This is how focused Paul is. He says, “Anything about Christ I want, I want to know him. I want to know the power that He felt when He rose. I want to suffer like He suffered. I want to die like He died.” He was absolutely sold out to Jesus Christ.
i. There was a little boy who went to Sunday school for the first time. When he came home, his mother said, “What was it like? Who was your teacher?”
ii. The little boy said, “I don’t know her name, I think it must have been Jesus’ grandmother because He’s all she talked about.”
H. That’s Paul, and all he’s going to talk about is Jesus Christ. People can say, he’s obsessed with Christ because for him Christ was everything he had been searching for in life and more. They can ask, “Who are you Paul”? Paul would say, “I am a slave of Jesus Christ.
I. Then Paul would say, “Now let me tell you who you are”. “You are the saints in Christ Jesus at Philippi”. Or if he were writing to us he would say, “You are the saints in Christ Jesus in Chardon”.
IV. This is an important point for us. What Paul is saying to Christians is, “You’ve got parts to your addresses.” Every one of us have parts to our address. “You are the saints... in Christ... in Chardon, that’s who you are”. We have two addresses if you will.
A. Over and over Paul says in this little letter, “You are in Jesus Christ, that’s where you belong.”
B. You take a fish out of the water, and he’s not going to survive too long, is he? You take a worm out of the ground, he’s not going to live very long.
C. As Christians, if we don’t stay in Jesus Christ, we’re going to be in difficulty as well. Being in Christ is the “element” that is made for us.
i. That is why we sometimes don’t have a lot of joy. We’re spending too much time in world and not enough time in Christ.
ii. We are forgetting what our main address ought to be. We spend too much time in the wrong places.
D. Paul says to the Philippians, “You’ve got to get back to where you belong, you’ve got to get back to where you live. You’ve got to get focused on Christ again.” What Paul is saying is, “You’ve got to keep your eyes fixed on Jesus Christ if you want to reach the destination God intends for you”.
E. Fix your eyes on Christ. Perhaps, I suppose, some folks just aren’t in love with Jesus as much as they need to be. We read in the book of Revelation about a church that lost it’s first love. Lets look at how Paul is in love with Jesus. Let’s look at 4 points that Paul tells us about Jesus.
V. Here’s the first one. In chapter 1 Paul says, “Jesus is my purpose”. His purpose certainly was not to be in a Roman prison. He didn’t want to be there. He was a victim of very cruel circumstances and he finds himself in a Roman prison. Yet, he’s still full of joy? How can that be? How can you explain that?
A. Look at Philippians 1:12-14 – "But I would ye understand, brethern, that the things which happened unto me have fallen out rather unto the furtherance of the gospel; So that my bonds in Christ are manifest in all the palace and in all other places; and many of the brethern in the Lord waxing confident by my bonds, are much more bold to speak the word without fear." In other words Paul is saying, “My life has a purpose, and my purpose is to exalt Christ and I can be joyful even in this prison cell because... even in prison... I can do what God wants me to do”.
B. Perhaps one reason so many people in this country are unhappy today is they’re playing games. They are playing at, “Let’s see how much money I can make”, “How many sticks and bricks I can own?”, “How many degrees can I have?”, “How many people do I know?”, “How high can I rise in my company?”, “What can I put into my body to make me feel good?”. They’re playing games.
C. Why do I think they’re playing these games? They’re trying to inject some meaning into what is a basically meaningless existence. They think that life is only about self, and they do not understand it's meaning. People don’t have a purpose, but Paul did. Paul’s purpose in 2 simple words was “Exalt Christ”. Paul can say “I can exalt Christ in a shipwreck I can exalt Christ in a prison, I can exalt Christ in a courtroom and I can exalt Christ in a market place”. “I can go down to a river and find a couple of people praying and exalt Christ”. “You can’t put me where I can’t exalt Christ, that’s what I’m wired to do by God”.
D. Can you remember right after that earthquake in Acts 16:25 and following? Here’s Paul singing in jail right after the earthquake in Philippi. The jailer is just about to kill himself. Why? Because one man had a purpose for living and one man had no reason to live.
E. That’s the difference Christ makes. We read in, Chapter 1:20 – "According to my earnest expectation and my hope, that in nothing I shall be ashamed, but that with all boldness, as always, so now also Christ shall be magnified in my body, whether it be by life, or by death." Paul says, “I don’t care what happens to me, I can exalt Christ and there is such wonderful joy in knowing that, in any circumstance, I can do what I was meant to do”. Paul was so focused on Christ, “He’s my purpose” Paul says.
VI. Then in chapter 2 Paul says, “He is my pattern”.
A. Everybody’s life is shaped by other peoples lives. Who’s shaping our life? Who is our hero, or who’s our mentor? Who is our biggest influence? Part of the problem of our culture is we sometimes choose the wrong people for models. We are expecting the sports teams to give us our models. We’re expecting TV to give us our models. We make actors and singers our models and sometimes we even make evil people our models. We see that reflected in some of the entertainment that people seem to enjoy. If that’s where we go for our models, we’re going to end up with a culture that is sick. Perhaps we already have.
B. Paul would say, “I’ve got an answer for the arrogance and the selfishness that is destroying us” and the answer is in, Philippians chapter 2 starting in verse 3-8. I'm paraphrasing here - "Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better that yourself. Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus. Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant being made in human likeness and being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death ----even death on a cross”!
C. There is a pattern in the Bible for us, for the church... and the pattern is Jesus Christ. Peter says in 1 Peter 2:21 – "For even hereunto ye were called: because Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example, that ye should follow His steps." We should ask ourselves, in any situation, what does Jesus want me to do? That’s the kind of pattern we need.
D. Paul says, “I’ve got a model, I’ve got a mentor, I’ve got someone who shaping my life and that person is Jesus Christ.” “There’s joy in knowing that.” Paul says, “In any culture I’ve got a way of living above the culture because I’ve got a Man who lives above it and He is my pattern”.
VII. In chapter 3, Paul tells us, “Jesus is my prize”. We are going to find people in Philippians who say, “The way to get right with God is to earn it. They say you merit your righteousness with God”. Did you know that is what the muslim religion teaches as well?
A. Why is it that some people don’t seem to have any joy as a Christian? We all know people who never seem happy. Do we know why that is? Perhaps for some it is because they are trying to earn saint status. They think they are never going to be happy or get right with God unless they do enough. Now “doing” can be a good thing if it is because of faith. But if it is because we are trying to earn our salvation we have a problem. If that’s a persons model for getting happy, they are never going to be a very happy person. Paul had been down that path, and he knew it full well.
B. In Philippians chapter 3 Paul says, “Listen friends, if you want to try and earn righteousness I can hang with any of you. I can put my cridentials up against any of you if that’s what you want to do.” “Do you think pedigree makes a difference? I can put mine up against anybody”. Notice chapter 3 starting in verse 7-9, "But what things were gain to me, those I counted loss for Christ. Yea doubtless, and I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord: for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and do count them but dung, that I may win Christ. And be found in him, not having mine own righteousness, which is of the law, but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith."
C. Paul tell us he has no regrets giving up everything. Everything he ever achieved... for the sake of Christ. In fact Paul says, “Now I understand those things I used to think were so beneficial to me, were hurting me because they were keeping me from seeing my need for Christ”. Paul says, “I can have everything you think is important, everything you think is prestigious, and if I don’t have Christ, it is not a profit -- but on the other hand I can give up any thing and I can surrender anything... but Christ. When I’ve got Christ, I am the richest man alive.”
D. Paul could rejoice because he says; “Jesus Christ is my prize” and in chapter 3:14 he says, "I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus."
E. Paul rejoices because he knew his salvation was secure. You see, it is a joy to know that in any event our standing with God is secure because our righteousness is given to us—through faith in Jesus Christ and not earned by our merit. Paul says, “Listen, Jesus is my purpose, Jesus is my pattern, and He is my prize”.
VIII. Then in chapter 4 to finish off he’s going to say, “Jesus is my provision”. I think it is kind of ironic when you think about it! Philippians is a letter written by a man in prison on trial for his life, to a church, telling them about joy.
A. Look with me in chapter 4 starting in the middle of verse 11-13 - "I have learned, in whatsoever state I am, therewith to be content. I know both how to be abased, and I know how to abound: every where and in all things I am instructed both to be full and to be hungry, both to abound and to suffer need. I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me.
B. Paul knew he was in Christ. That was his address, and if he is in Christ, then he shares in His riches. Christ is going to give him everything he needs. Notice he didn’t say, “Everything I want, (certainly sometimes he’s been without), "but everything I need to accomplish the purpose for which Christ has me here, Christ is going to give me".
C. In chapter 4:19 he says, "But my God shall supply all your need according to his riches in glory by Christ Jesus." We said Paul could be joyful in any circumstance because he knew that he could do what he was meant to do. He could be joyful in any culture because he knew there was a way to live above it. He could be joyful in any event because he knew his standing with God was secure. Paul could be joyful in any situation because he knew Jesus Christ would supply his needs.
D. Paul would say, “I don’t have to go anywhere outside of Christ to get anything I need. The address of being in Christ is just fine for me”. He’s telling the Philippians to, “Get back to your right address. Get back to where you belong. Get back to living in Jesus Christ, and everything you need will be provided, and then you will have joy”.

CONCLUSION:
That’s what happens when Christ is you’re all in all. Paul says in chapter 4 beginning in verse 4, "Rejoice in the Lord alway: and again I say, Rejoice."

Notice, he doesn’t say, “Rejoice in the culture, rejoice in your job, rejoice in the world, or even rejoice in your church”. "Rejoice, Let your moderation be known unto all men. The Lord is at hand. Be careful for nothing; but in every thing by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God. And the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds, where? in Christ Jesus."

Folks, we need to be reminded to get back to the cross of Jesus, back to our right address. We need to get back to being absolutely obsessed with Jesus Christ. Paul would say, “Rejoice in the Lord always”.

If you have never experienced the joy of Jesus Christ, today is the time. If you have lost the joy you first felt in Christ, now is the time to ask for prayers.
Let’s finish by doing what Paul and Silas were doing in the jail in Philippi. Let’s just sing and tell Jesus about just how much we love him.

Reference Sermon
By Mike Glover