In this sermon, Pastor Mark tells how to rejoice in all circumstances, even when you’re stressed about the past, present, and future and how to move forward with faith replacing your fear.
Philippians 2:12-13 – Therefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed, so now, not only as in my presence but much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure.
The holiday season is an overwhelming time for most people. Studies indicate that the pressures of travel, increased spending, holiday parties, crushing year-end workload, packed stores, strained family relationships, and weight gain cause increased stress and fatigue.
Sometimes, when we are overwhelmed by juggling all the balls that life throws at us, it can be helpful to gain perspective by paying attention to what others are juggling. For example, in our study of Philippians we have found that Paul is writing about joy while in prison. The hand he uses to write about joy and rejoicing is chained to a Roman soldier. In the section above, Paul gives us three reasons to rejoice:
God is for you. In calling Christians “beloved” and the “children of God” whom the Father loves and serves for “his good pleasure”, one thing is clear – God is for you and has good for you – things for which you should rejoice.
God lives in you. In saying, “God…works in you, both to will and to work”, Paul is giving us the joyful wonder of the Christian life – everything God created and commands us to be and do He helps us to become. God works at our deepest levels. In the Old Testament, this is referred to as a new heart (Jer. 24:7; Ezek. 36:26-27). In the New Testament, this is referred to as regeneration or new birth (John 3; Eph. 2:1; 2:5; Col. 2:13). Practically, this means that you are new if you belong to Jesus Christ. This new you is not a perfect you, but a new you that God is bringing through a process of growth and life that ends in perfection. New You. Not perfect, but new & in a perfecting process.
God partners with you. Because God is for you, and in you, you can be a person who obeys and is able to “work out your own salvation with fear and trembling”. God works things in you, that you work out with Him.
No matter what we are experiencing, these three things can be reasons to rejoice since they are grounded and guarded by God and more secure than anything in this life.
What is God working in you that you need to work out with Him (e.g. forgiving someone, learning the Bible, growing in prayer, freedom in worship, generosity in giving, etc.)?
Philippians 2:5-8 – Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.
When our five kids were little, we spent a lot of time reading to them, especially at bedtime. A friend recommended a large children’s book that compiled many of the great moral stories from the history of Western civilization. Each story was intended to instill a particular moral virtue in a child. At that same time, I was teaching in the book of Proverbs and kept seeing the fact that God opposes pride and gives grace to the humble. So, I double checked the children’s storybook only to find that the one virtue missing was humility!
The only book that really celebrates humility as a virtue is the Bible. That book stands against our world’s devotion to self-esteem, self-improvement, and self-actualization by revealing the humility of Jesus Christ.
What is humility? As an uncertain author once wrote, humility is not thinking less of yourself but rather thinking of yourself less. This allows you to think of God and others more. Because of sinfulness in our fallen world, pride is like gravity constantly seeking to pull us down and must be fought against. Here is a contrast between pride and humility:
Pride Humility
Our greatest enemy Our greatest friend
Compares to others Compares to Jesus
Criticizes others’ success Celebrates others’ success
About me About Jesus & others
Arrogance Confidence
Independent living Dependent living
A destination A direction
We don’t become humble by focusing on our pride. We do become humble by focusing on Jesus’ humility. Jesus Christ is the greatest Person in history because He’s the most humble. Jesus Christ is the most beloved Person because He’s the most humble. Jesus humbly left a throne in heaven, being worshipped by angels, to enter His creation as a baby in a manger surrounded by animals. As a kid, God obeyed His parents and did His chores. As a man, God worked as a carpenter with his father Joseph. Eventually, in humility, our humble homeless Savior died for our sins and rose for our salvation. Today, He has returned to glory but continues to gladly serve us humbly by forgiving our sin, hearing our prayers, and humbly preparing an eternal home where everything will be perfect and provided as gifts from the God who is humble enough to help us.
On a sliding scale, are you more proud or humble?
Philippians 2:1-4 – So if there is any encouragement in Christ, any comfort from love, any participation in the Spirit, any affection and sympathy, complete my joy by being of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind. Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others.
Jesus means “God is salvation”. Christ means “anointed of God”. Jesus Christ lived roughly 2000 years ago with a mom, dad, brothers, and sisters. His resume is shockingly simple as he never wrote a book, held a political office, married a woman, became a father, owned a house, or traveled more than a few hundred miles from his poor, small, rural town.
Today, Jesus is the most towering figure in human history. More books are written about Him, paintings of Him, and songs for Him than anyone who has ever lived. We measure time by His life as B.C. (before Christ) and A.D. (“anno domini” which means “the year of the Lord”). The biggest holiday on earth is Christmas where, in addition to the few million people who claim to be Christians, the entire world stops to throw a birthday party for Jesus.
Unlike other religions which have a holy place as their headquarters, Christians have the Holy Person as their Head. Jesus is the only founder of any major world religion who claimed to be God, and Christians today fondly talk about having a personal relationship with Him.
What is the secret to Jesus’ success? He came to serve a selfish world. Because Jesus is the least selfish person, and most selfless servant who has ever lived, He is also the most beloved, respected, and trusted. His example shows us that there are three kinds of relationships:
1. Selfish + Selfish = competitive relationship
2. Selfish + Servant = cruel relationship
3. Servant + Servant = close relationship
Which kind of relationship do you have with Jesus? What is the most common type of relationship you have with other people?
While writing the book of Philippians from prison, Paul has a Holy Spirit impartation of joy that he wants all Christians to share. In just 104 verses, he speaks of joy repeatedly:
• 1:4 – my prayer with joy
• 1:18 – Christ is proclaimed…in that I rejoice.
• 1:25 – joy in the faith
• 2:2 – complete my joy by being of the same mind…the same love
• 2:17-18 – I am glad and rejoice with you all…be glad and rejoice with me
• 2:28-29 – rejoice at seeing him again…receive him in the Lord with all joy
• 3:1 – Finally, my brothers, rejoice in the Lord.
• 4:1 – brothers, whom I love and long for, my joy and crown, stand firm
• 4:4 – Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, rejoice.
• 4:10 – I rejoiced in the Lord greatly
Here are 7 reasons for Christians to be cheerful:
1. God is happy. The Trinity is a loving, joy-filled relational community that has never sinned and, as a result, is a cheerful community.
2. God made us for happiness which is why everyone is searching for it. Since God is happy, godly people should be happy people. God made our first parents and put them in Eden, which means delight. Jesus said our “joy” should be “full”.
3. The pursuit of happiness can lead to God. A man who became a Christian very recently at our church said that he had spent decades addicted to drugs and alcohol because he “tried to feel good”. But it never worked until he met Jesus and said “He’s awesome and now I feel happy”.
4. The message of Christianity is “good news” to share with others. To state the obvious, good news is cheerful, joyful, happy, and not like all the horrifying, awful news we get every day from our cheerless planet.
5. God’s Kingdom is a happy one. There won’t be any tears or mourning, we are told. The sun will always shine, everyone will be healed, the tacos will be perfect tacos, and everyone will be nice and there won’t be any jerks hanging out with Jesus. No one in Heaven will be bummed and wishing they could go back to their old life. Here are your two options:
Option #1 – God & happiness forever
Option #2 – No God & no happiness forever
Simply, God and happiness go together forever, and you cannot have one without the other.
6. A cheerless Christian is a bad advertisement for the good news of Jesus Christ. If you are a cheerless, joyless Christian who has accepted Spock, Puddleglum, or Eeyore in your heart, you send a confusing message about good news of great joy for all the people if your face looks like you have gas while you talk about Jesus.
7. God has joy big enough for you to enjoy your life. Life is big, but God is bigger. God’s joy is bigger than your life, and big enough for you to enjoy your life. One preacher has said that life is like a can of peaches and that God’s joy is like a can opener. Until you get the joy, you cannot open up and enjoy your life. Once you receive joy from God, you will find joy throughout your life just as Paul writes about from prison with a hand chained to a soldier.
Which of these seven things was most helpful to you today? Why?
Feel like you’ve messed up too much to be joyful? In this sermon from Philippians 3:1-16, Pastor Mark tells how there’s far more joy in your future than in your past, no matter what you have or haven’t done.
In our study of Philippians, we have established that the theme of Paul’s letter from prison is joy from God that enables us to enjoy whatever life brings. Some 19 times in 104 verses you will find words like “joy” and “rejoice”. Sadly, however, Christians who should be cheerful are often cheerless and here are 11 causes that are all bad teaching:
1. God is not a happy God. The loving, unified Trinitarian God of the Bible is happy and made us to enjoy the world. No one was unhappy until Satan and sin crashed the party and in heaven, God and His children will be happy, and every day will be a good day. Furthermore, there are some 60 Scriptures in the Gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke, John) that describe the full range of emotions that our God, Jesus Christ, experienced on the earth, including joy (Luke 10:21).
2. God cares about your holiness, not your happiness. There is no reason that we cannot have both, like peanut butter and jelly. God wants us to be both holy and happy. Unholy people tend to be unhappy as they feel the weight of their sin. Holy people who walk away from their sin should not be surprised to find a skip in their step.
3. Joy is not an emotion or a feeling but a mindset. Sometimes, we are wrongly told that joy cannot be an emotion because we cannot command or control our emotions. That is simply false. The fruit of the Spirit includes love, joy, and peace which are possible if we surrender our emotions to God just as we surrender our thoughts to God. Joy is a mindset that we can use to command our emotions to obey the Holy Spirit.
4. It is selfish to seek happiness. To be sure, every other person who cheats on their spouse says they just want to be happy so this can be abused by the godless. But it can also be used by the godly to seek the Giver of good things through the gift He gives. Conversely, sometimes unhappy people are the most selfish and always moaning about how miserable they are in an effort to rob others of their joy.
5. Joy and happiness are very different things. This is an error in much Christian teaching. In his book Happiness, Randy Alcorn points out that joy and happiness appear together in around 100 Scriptures. Additionally, there are some 2700 verses in the Bible that speak of joy, rejoice, gladness, feasting, happiness, delight, celebration, and cheer, among others – using these words interchangeably.
6. To choose joy when life is hard is disingenuous and faking it. It is possible to be sorrowful yet rejoicing, something that the new Testament tells us nearly 20 times. In addition, we are told in Hebrews that Jesus endured the cross for the joy on the other side and he was not denying reality, ignoring His pain, or faking it when He died for our sins.
7. Joy is not for all personality types. Even if the test says you are a J-E-R-K personality type, the fruit of the Spirit is commanded to every personality type and sometimes we need to repent of our personality and have joy like Jesus.
8. Cheerfulness is childish. One report says that kids laugh an average of 400 times a day and their adult counterparts laugh only 15 times a day. Jesus had kids run to be with Him, which is not something they did with furrowed brow religious neat nicks who were as fun as a day at the dentist. When Jesus says we should come to Him as little children, a bit of chuckling and skipping is appropriate and not childish but rather child-like.
9. We should enjoy the Giver, not the gift. People who say this must be a real bore at Christmas or a birthday party. Imagine the grandparent showing up empty-handed and telling the kid they don’t need a new bike or cake to be happy because their grandparents should be enough to make it a happy holiday. Sometimes the best way to enjoy the Giver is by enjoying their gift which is why a kid should get the love of their grandparents and a bike along with a cake to increase their joy.
10. Joy comes after this life, not in this life. Both are true. Life has some wonderful days where you are the windshield, and other days where you are the fly. The times of joy in this life come down from heaven as sneak previews and free samples of the joy that fully awaits us eternally.
11. Joy is impossible in this fallen, broken, hurting, anxious, stressed world. Joy does not come from this world. Joy comes down from God in Heaven for us to enjoy this world. Without God’s joy, we cannot enjoy. This explains why some of the richest and most famous people are fully miserable, and people who are full of the Spirit are cheerful even when their fridge is empty because their soul is full. This world is such a mess, you won’t make it through without some joy and thankfully that is why Jesus came – to bring joy to the world! This is God’s Christmas gift for you to unwrap and enjoy this holiday season.
Which of these wrongful teachings have you believed?
Philippians 1:20-26 – …with full courage now as always Christ will be honored in my body, whether by life or by death. For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain. If I am to live in the flesh, that means fruitful labor for me. Yet which I shall choose I cannot tell. I am hard pressed between the two. My desire is to depart and be with Christ, for that is far better. But to remain in the flesh is more necessary on your account. Convinced of this, I know that I will remain and continue with you all, for your progress and joy in the faith, so that in me you may have ample cause to glory in Christ Jesus, because of my coming to you again.
The first person who ever died that I really loved was my grandpa George. I can still remember the day when my parents told me he had passed. I was 10 years old, and this experience got me thinking about death and what awaits us on the other side. Until that point, I don’t remember thinking much about death as a kid. Thankfully, Jesus came back from death and tells us that if we are with Him, He’s got life on the other side covered.
In the Bible book of Philippians, the Apostle Paul is under arrest, chained to a Roman soldier, and unsure what his future fate might be. Contemplating his own death, Paul is honestly uncertain which he prefers. If he lives, he can use his suffering as an example to encourage other believers, preach Christ, see his friends, and help those in need. If he dies, he can be vindicated by God, have his suffering end, and just hang out with Jesus, which is “far better”.
In short, living was best for others, dying was best for Paul. Once you know Jesus Christ, at some point you no longer fear death but rather eagerly await life on the other side. When we are young, we are often ambitious and too busy chasing our dreams to consider death. In our adult years, we are so busy working our jobs, raising our kids, and paying our bills that we don’t much stop to ponder what happens when we hit the expiration date for our brief life on earth. But, as we get older, we find ourselves closer to the finish line than the starting line. Our heavenly home appears on the horizon and we begin longing for that new nation. This is what Paul means saying that “to die is gain” because we get to “be with Christ” which is “far better”.
Personally, as I get older, I look forward to seeing my grandpa George again and having a fun party with Jesus for departed family and friends. How about you? What are you looking forward to? Who are you looking forward to?
The way you see your earthly father can often affect the way you view your Heavenly Father. In this week’s Ask Pastor Mark, he answers the question “How does the way you see God affect your life?”
Have a question you’d like answered in a potential future Ask Pastor Mark video? Send an email to [email protected].
Philippians 1:18-20 – Yes, and I will rejoice, for I know that through your prayers and the help of the Spirit of Jesus Christ this will turn out for my deliverance, as it is my eager expectation and hope that I will not be at all ashamed.
A man who loved his wife dearly saw her overtaken with cancer at a young age. Today, as a single father raising their children, he gave a testimony that the final year of life with his wife of two decades was their best year together, and that he was very honored that God gave him the honor of “walking her Home”. This man loved his wife dearly, missed her greatly, and had joy supernaturally.
Many people, under the same circumstances, would be angry at God, trapped in a pit of self-pity, or simply broken beyond repair, unable to move forward in life. In his testimony, this man gave three things that sustained him through their suffering. These are curiously the same three things that the Apostle Paul reveals are sustaining him as he is chained to a Roman soldier, wrongly under arrest, and unsure if his deliverance will be from jail or this life. Here are those three things you need to make it through any day:
1. You need to find someone or something in which to “rejoice”. You need to cultivate an intentional attitude of gratitude, seeking God’s grace in your life like a motivated kid on an Easter egg hunt, so that you will not lose hope.
2. You need lots of “prayers” for people you love, and from people you love. The shortest distance between two people is prayer.
3. You need “the help of the Spirit of Jesus Christ” to empower you to endure whatever you need to manifest the character of Christ on both the good days and the bad ones.
Which of these three are you strongest in? Which are you weakest in?
Even when you feel overwhelmed with life and everything on your to-do list, Paul tells that there’s still many, many reasons to rejoice in Philippians 2:12-30. He also teaches that faithfulness is the path to joyfulness and that God puts people in your life to be a blessing to you when your circumstances may seem overwhelming.
Philippians 1:15–18 – Some indeed preach Christ from envy and rivalry, but others from good will. The latter do it out of love, knowing that I am put here for the defense of the gospel. The former proclaim Christ out of selfish ambition, not sincerely but thinking to afflict me in my imprisonment. What then? Only that in every way, whether in pretense or in truth, Christ is proclaimed, and in that I rejoice.
The biggest person in history is Jesus Christ. The biggest holiday in history is the celebration of his birth every Christmas.
No one is certain when Jesus was born. So, early Christians took a day they already had off for the pagan holiday of Saturnalia and redeemed it as the day to throw Jesus a birthday party.
What we do know is that a young woman named Mary had the usual suffering that accompanies pregnancy but found all her troubles worthwhile as she was filled with joy holding baby Jesus.
Curiously, the Bible often uses the concept of birth and birth pains to explain how suffering and joy coexist in the life of a Christian. This analogy helps to explain the experience of Paul who writes to the book of Philippians from jail. Away from friends, with no spouse or child, his future uncertain, and critics mocking him publicly and positioning to overtake his ministry, Paul speaks of God-given joy some 19 times in 104 verses. Paul’s joy is despite suffering physically, spiritually, mentally, emotionally, financially, and legally. Furthermore, Paul’s suffering has no end in sight as he is unsure if he will be killed, stuck in jail, or released back into the world that had beaten him, harassed him, stoned him, left him for dead, and whipped him until his scarred back looked like his Savior’s.
Paul’s example is that suffering is part of the Christian life. When we suffer we have just two options. One, we can waste it, becoming bitter against others, angry with God, and excusing ungodly behavior. Two, we can invest it to learn more about Jesus’ suffering, become more like Jesus through suffering, and minister to other people who are also suffering.
How is joy possible amidst suffering? Suffering comes from the world, and joy comes down to the world as a gift from God. The greater your suffering, the greater your anointing with God’s joy can be as God wants His joy to always be bigger than your pains and problems. Lastly, this explains why some 18 times the New Testament mentions joy and suffering in the same verse such as 2 Corinthians 6:10: “sorrowful, yet always rejoicing”. God wants the pain of your suffering to be like Mary’s birth pain which brought forth supernatural joy this holiday season.
Would the people who know you best say you put more focus on sorrow or joy in your life?