PAUL’S ‘RECIPE’ FOR SHARED JOY
Posted by Pastor Greg Allen on November 14, 2024 under AM Bible Study |
AM Bible Study Group: November 6, 2024 from Philippians 1:1-7
Theme: We share together in joy when we share together in the labors for the gospel.
(All Scripture is taken from The New King James Version, unless otherwise indicated).
Today, we begin a study of a remarkable book of the Bible. It stands out as the great New Testament letter of joy.
How would you define ‘joy’? We all know that it’s not merely an emotion of ‘happiness’; which is something that can be produced artificially. True joy may certainly include the emotion of happiness—but it’s not just the emotion itself. A good possible definition of ‘joy’—as the Bible speaks of it—would be ‘a happy outlook that comes from confidence in an unchanging God’. And that’s the theme of Paul’s New Testament letter to the Philippians.
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The English word “joy” is found 5 times in Paul’s letter to the Philippians (1:4, 25; 2:2; 4:1, 2); and the word “rejoice” shows up 11 times (1:18; 2:16-18, 28; 3:1, 3; 4:4, 10)—with two of those verses containing the word twice (1:18; 4:4). There are multiple references to joy in every chapter of this letter. In fact, the key verse could be considered 4:4; where Paul writes, “Rejoice in the Lord always. Again I will say, rejoice! (Philippians 4:4).”
Now; this theme of the Epistle to the Philippians—that is, a happy outlook that comes from confidence in an unchanging God—is all the more remarkable when we consider the circumstances in which this letter was written. It’s considered one of Paul’s four ‘prison epistles’ (Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, and Philemon) because, at the time that Paul wrote it, he was in prison because of his ministry in the gospel. And yet, consider how Paul expressed a prevailing attitude of joy in the Lord despite the difficult circumstances.
It was, for example, a time of opposition. Some were seeking to add affliction to Paul’s difficult imprisonment by preaching the gospel out of an attitude of rivalry, envy, and selfish ambition. They assumed that it would sadden him to think that others were having a seemingly successful preaching ministry while he could not. Perhaps it did, at times, sadden him. But he said he nevertheless rejoiced that ‘whether in pretense or in truth, Christ is preached’ (1:18).
It was also a time of uncertainty. He wasn’t sure whether he would be released from prison or be executed. His life was hanging in the balance when he wrote to his beloved Philippian brothers and sisters. There were times when Paul despaired of life—and perhaps this was one of them. But he nevertheless had joy in the midst of his trial of uncertainty. He knew that, either way, he would be victorious; because for him ‘to live is Christ, and to die is gain’ (1:20).
It was also a time of exhaustion. He had labored hard and was weary and spent—even as he sat in a prison cell and watched others proclaim the gospel that he had been called to preach. There were very probably times when he didn’t feel that he could go on. Nevertheless, he rejoiced that he had been ‘poured out as a drink offering’ on the sacrifice and service of the faith of the Philippians—knowing that he had neither run nor labored in vain (2:16-17).
And it was also a time of need. Through his imprisonment, he had become impoverished and was brought to a state of hunger and need. The frustration of being constantly in deep need must have—at times—saddened him. And yet, he wrote this letter—in part—as a ‘thank you’ note to the Philippian believers because they sent relief and support to him time and again. Even in his need, he ‘rejoiced in the Lord greatly’ that their care for him flourished (4:10).
And so; all through this letter are indications of Paul’s joy in the midst of a very troubling circumstance—a happy outlook that came from confidence in an unchanging God. And the wonderful thing about it all—and a reason why we should be so grateful that the Holy Spirit preserved this wonderful letter for us—is that Paul repeatedly let his readers know how it was that he experienced such overcoming joy. He continually let them in on his secret—which is summed up in the words of 4:13; “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.”
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Now; the joyful tone of this letter is set for us in Paul’s opening words—found in 1:1-7;
Paul and Timothy, bondservants of Jesus Christ,
To all the saints in Christ Jesus who are in Philippi, with the bishops and deacons:
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
I thank my God upon every remembrance of you, always in every prayer of mine making request for you all with joy, for your fellowship in the gospel from the first day until now, being confident of this very thing, that He who has begun a good work in you will complete it until the day of Jesus Christ; just as it is right for me to think this of you all, because I have you in my heart, inasmuch as both in my chains and in the defense and confirmation of the gospel, you all are partakers with me of grace (Philippians 1:1-7).
In these words, Paul expressed his joy in the context of a shared experience. He didn’t have joy all by himself; but—even in prison—he experienced joy through his fellowship with the Philippian believers; the very believers who had worked so hard alongside him and partnered with him in the labors of the gospel. And this teaches us an important lesson in the household of faith, and reveals to us one of the ways that we can experience true joy: We share together in joy when we share together in the labors for the gospel. Do we want joy? Then let’s labor together in spreading the most joyful message there is—the message of the gospel of Jesus Christ.
Notice that, in these opening words, we find …
1. A JOYFUL FELLOWSHIP WITH BELOVED BELIEVERS (vv. 1-2).
He began by writing, “Paul and Timothy, bondservants of Jesus Christ …” We often consider this to be a letter written by Paul; but here, we see that it was actually written by two people—Paul and Timothy. Timothy was his younger ministry partner; and the one that he often referred to as his ‘son in the faith’. Obviously, the great apostle Paul was the one—humanly speaking—who was the main writer of this letter since he said so many things in the first person singular. And as an apostle, he would naturally have been considered to be the most outstanding of the two. But Paul didn’t present himself as superior to Timothy. Instead, he presented himself and Timothy—both together—as “bondservants” or “slaves” of Jesus Christ. What a fellowship they shared in the ministry!
And then, he identifies the letter as being sent to a church. You can tell that it was a well-organized and established church because Paul addressed it not just to “all the saints in Christ Jesus who are in Philippi”, but also to “the bishops and deacons” who ministered to them. It was a church that existed in a very important city—an ancient city that bore the name of its esteemed founder King Philip of Macedon—the father of Alexander the Great. What’s more, this ancient city had even received the great honor from the Roman emperor of being declared ‘a Roman colony’. Everyone who lived in Philippi walked its streets with their heads held up high; because even though they lived in far-away Macedonia, they were officially considered to be just as much citizens of Rome as if they had actually walked the streets of Rome itself. What a significant city in which to be a church! What a great church with which to be in fellowship!
And finally, Paul affirmed those believers to be the recipients first of God’s grace; and then, because of God’s grace, they were also recipients of “peace from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ” (v. 2). They were believers who were growing in spiritual maturity, because Paul said that he prayed they would grow “more”. They had also partnered with him in the work of bringing the gospel to others. This was a truly wonderful community of believers!
Do we want to experience the kind of joy Paul had? Well; we can’t experience it alone. We need to experience it in the context of—and through—fellowship with other believers in Christ.
And then, consider how Paul began his letter with …
2. A JOYFUL REMEMBRANCE OF SHARED EXPERIENCES (vv. 3-5).
In verses 3-5, he wrote; “I thank my God upon every remembrance of you, always in every prayer of mine making request for you all with joy, for your fellowship in the gospel from the first day until now …” Paul had a lot of memories in the ministry to share with the Philippian believers—and they with him. Acts 16 tells us the story.
It all began when Paul and his missionary partner Silas were seeking the Lord’s will as to where they should go in their missionary journey. They had been forbidden by the Holy Spirit to go into the regions of Asia. So, they tried heading in an easterly direction. They sought to enter into one missionary field, and then into another. But the Holy Spirit seemed to keep prohibiting them at every turn. And then, one night in a dream, Paul saw a vision of a man in Macedonia pleading with him and saying, “Come over to Macedonia and help us.” Paul concluded that God was calling them to go to the West instead of to the East. So; they immediately got in a boat and sailed across the sea to Macedonia. And as it turns out, Paul was right in his conclusion.
The first city that they went to to preach the gospel was the very city to which this letter was sent—Philippi. Good things began to happen once they arrived. First, they met up with a small group of pious women who had gathered by a riverside on the Sabbath for prayer. Paul and Silas spoke to them and shared the gospel with them; and the Lord opened the heart of a very important businesswoman named Lydia. She believed and offered her home to Paul and Silas as a base of operations. She became a great support to them in their ministry.
But that’s also when troubling times began. The Gospel writer Luke—who also wrote the book of Acts—was with Paul and Silas in their time in Philippi; and in verses 16-19, he said,
Now it happened, as we went to prayer, that a certain slave girl possessed with a spirit of divination met us, who brought her masters much profit by fortune-telling. This girl followed Paul and us, and cried out, saying, “These men are the servants of the Most High God, who proclaim to us the way of salvation.” And this she did for many days (vv. 16-18a).
The repeated words of this evil spirit greatly annoyed Paul. It wasn’t appropriate for a demon to call attention to preachers of the gospel of Jesus Christ in this way. Paul didn’t want the gospel message that they preached to be—in any way—associated with the devils’ work in the paganistic city of Philippi. So Paul turned and said to the spirit that was in her, “I command you in the name of Jesus Christ to come out of her.” And the spirit immediately came out.
We can be sure that this slave-girl felt herself delivered from demonic influences, and believed on the Lord Jesus with joy. But her masters were not so joyful. They saw that the profits they made from her were now ruined; so they threw these two outsiders—Paul and Silas—into jail. It could have been a cause of great despair to have been doing the work of the Lord so faithfully … and then to suddenly suffer so terribly as a result of their faithfulness.
But it’s then that something happened that a lot of the believers in Philippi would have no doubt remembered—and that would have also influenced how they received Paul’s letter about ‘joy’. After having been treated very roughly, beaten with rods, and locked securely in a prison cell with their feet in painful bonds—not knowing what might happen to them the next day; whether they would live or die—Paul and Silas joyfully sang songs and hymns to the Lord at midnight. Even in one of the most trying circumstances anyone could imagine, they were worshiping the Lord with joy. It must have caught the attention of every other prisoner in the jail. The man in charge of the prison, no doubt, would have been used to hearing every kind of moaning and weeping and cursing come from his prison cells. But after hearing these two missionaries sing hymns of praise in a dark prison cell—possibly awaiting death—even he would have been amazed. Luke went on to tell us;
Suddenly there was a great earthquake, so that the foundations of the prison were shaken; and immediately all the doors were opened and everyone’s chains were loosed. And the keeper of the prison, awaking from sleep and seeing the prison doors open, supposing the prisoners had fled, drew his sword and was about to kill himself. But Paul called with a loud voice, saying, “Do yourself no harm, for we are all here.”
Then he called for a light, ran in, and fell down trembling before Paul and Silas. And he brought them out and said, “Sirs, what must I do to be saved?” So they said, “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and you will be saved, you and your household.” Then they spoke the word of the Lord to him and to all who were in his house. And he took them the same hour of the night and washed their stripes. And immediately he and all his family were baptized. Now when he had brought them into his house, he set food before them; and he rejoiced, having believed in God with all his household (Acts 16:26-34).
The remembrance of this remarkable event must have made a tremendous impact on the Philippian believers later on in their lives. Perhaps that jailer would have been one of the members of the church that read this letter—and perhaps even some of his former prisoners! They would have remembered Paul’s remarkable, Holy Spirit-empowered joy as he suffered to bring them the gospel. And as he wrote in this letter to them, he thanked God for them—remembering them in his prayers—recalling with joy their “fellowship in the gospel from the first day until now”. There’s just something about the trials and tribulations of work in the gospel that unites us together in joy.
And then; notice how Paul wrote this greeting with …
3. A JOYFUL CONFIDENCE IN A GLORIOUS FUTURE (v. 6).
He said that he thanked God for them every time he remembered them, and prayed for them, as he recalled his labors with them in the gospel with great love and affection for them; and then said in verse 6, “being confident of this very thing, that He who has begun a good work in you will complete it until the day of Jesus Christ …” The fact that they had believed was an indication that God’s grace had worked in them—opening their hearts to the Lord Jesus, just as He had opened the heart of Lydia. And he knew that the work of God’s grace in them would not cease until everything that the Lord had purposed for them in their salvation was fully accomplished in Christ. The times they suffered together in their labors for the Lord would only be temporary … and would then lead to eternal joy.
When Paul said that he was “confident”, he used a word in the original language that’s expressed in what’s called ‘the perfect tense’ of the verb. This describes a completed action. Paul wasn’t simply saying that he had been having a strong feeling that something might be true and that he was growing to be ever more confident about it as he went along. Rather, he was saying that he had already become perfectly, completely, unshakably persuaded that it was absolutely true. This was because he knew the sufficiency and power of the Lord Himself. Paul was completely persuaded that the Lord Jesus had begun a work of grace in them, and that He Himself—who had died on the cross for them and was risen from the dead for them—would not cease that work until it was completed in them … and that they would be with Him in full glory at His coming. Paul’s confidence was the same confidence that we find in Jude 24-25;
Now to Him who is able to keep you from stumbling,
And to present you faultless
Before the presence of His glory with exceeding joy,
To God our Savior,
Who alone is wise,
Be glory and majesty,
Dominion and power,
Both now and forever.
Amen (Jude 24-25).
Knowing that we are destined to be eternally glorified with those who have also believed—and who also labor with us in the cause of the gospel—is a cause of truly prevailing joy in the midst of trials.
And finally, notice how Paul emphasized …
4. A JOYFUL PARTNERSHIP IN THE CAUSE OF THE GOSPEL (v. 7).
He had said that he was thankful for them and was certain of their future glorification; and added in verse 7, “just as it is right for me to think this of you all, because I have you in my heart, inasmuch as both in my chains and in the defense and confirmation of the gospel, you all are partakers with me of grace.” The Philippian believers had been praying for Paul while he was in prison for the gospel. But they weren’t satisfied with that alone. As we’ll see near the end of this letter, they actually sent members of their congregation to come and comfort him; and they repeatedly sent material support to him in order to keep his ministry going. They shared in the ministry with him—and also in the trials—and also in God’s grace. And this strengthened their mutual joy. In this, they were like the Thessalonian believers; of whom Paul once wrote,
But now that Timothy has come to us from you, and brought us good news of your faith and love, and that you always have good remembrance of us, greatly desiring to see us, as we also to see you—therefore, brethren, in all our affliction and distress we were comforted concerning you by your faith. For now we live, if you stand fast in the Lord (1 Thessalonians 3:6-8).
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Joyful fellowship in Christ, joyful experiences of labor, joyful confidence in a shared future, joyful partnership in the work of Christ—these constituted a part of Paul’s recipe for joy, even in the midst of difficult trials—a joy that’s ‘a happy outlook that comes from confidence in an unchanging God’.
So; as this greeting in Paul’s letter teaches us, let’s learn that we share together in joy when we share together in the labors for the gospel.
AE
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