Durable Joy | Philippians 1:1-2

Philippians 1:1-2  |  Cody Hale

Transcript

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Amen. If you have your Bibles, would you turn with me to the book of Philippians? We're gonna have the opportunity to start our first book together, and I'm so super excited to turn to one of my uh very favorite books in the book of Philippians. We're gonna be in Philippians chapter one. While you're turning, I just want to say, church family, I'm so proud of y'all. Man, just to see the way the church rallied together to make this weekend happen and to give a great experience. Whether you were volunteering, whether you've given, whether you opened up your home, 26 homes opened up. That's incredible. Whether you were here all weekend. Some of you this morning, your gifts slap out, right? And uh I just praise God to be a part of a church family like that. I'm so proud of you. We're just gonna read the first two verses of Philippians together this morning. Philippians chapter 1, beginning in verse 1. It says, Paul and Timothy, servants of Christ Jesus, to all the saints in Christ Jesus who are at Philippi with the overseers and deacons. Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Let's pray the Lord together. Heavenly Father, Lord, we come this morning to open up your word as your people, because God, we want to hear from your word. And God, we know that all of these things are profitable for us. All of these things teach us and instruct us in our faith. They correct our hearts, they open our minds, they transform our character. And I pray, O Lord, that all of the effects that are meant to happen through the power of the Spirit working through your word, that this very morning, Lord, they would that all of those things would take place. Help me to forget to say anything that you wouldn't have me to say. Help me to remember to say everything that you would have for me to say. Lord, bring to my mind that which you have for your people that I'm unprepared to say. Lord, let me have the courage of a prophet and the heart of a priest. Oh Lord, be with our people and move among us now. In Jesus' name. Amen. Eighteen years ago, I was sitting on the football field of Jacksonville State University for my college graduation. And I was surrounded by what seemed to be just universal happiness. All of the graduates couldn't have been more pleased with their accomplishments. The parents and the grandparents are up in the stadium, and all of them couldn't be prouder of their graduate. Friends are hanging out and taking pictures with each other and reminiscing and telling old stories and telling inside jokes. Everybody there is laughing. And I remember sitting there on the 50-yard line of Jacksonville State University and feeling completely miserable. It felt like I had been waiting for that moment all of my life. Like I had been building, like it was a culmination, like it was an accomplishment. And when it came, it just felt flat. It felt empty. Ten years ago, I was sitting in the cafeteria at St. Vincent's Hospital in Birmingham, Alabama. It was the morning after my middle daughter, Sarah Eliza, had been born. And I remember sitting there on what should have been one of the happiest moments of my life. And I was deeply grateful that the Lord had given me such a gift as that little princess. But I remember sitting in the cafeteria that day, and it was like the low-boil anxiety that had been operating in the background of my life all of a sudden reached a fever pitch and just boiled over, over. And I felt quite literally like I was on the edge of a nervous breakdown. And I remember sitting there on the verge of just exploding in tears in the cafeteria of this hospital, thinking, Lord, this is supposed to be one of the happiest days of my life. Why is it that I feel so miserable? Why is it that I'm so anxious? Why is it that I'm so overcome by misery? This can't be. This can't be what you intend. If I'm honest with y'all, over much of my life and over much of my Christian faith, joy has been bad. Joy hasn't come easily and it hasn't come naturally. My guess is that I'm not alone in that. I think that's not an exceptional experience. I think that's probably a normative one. That some of us might be a little better at camouflaging it than others, but most of us face the reality that joy in this world and joy in this life is contested. Well, during this battle for joy in my life, there's been no book that's been more formative and more helpful than the book of Philippians. I find I found myself turning there more often than not. Joy is a major theme of the book. Paul uses the word joy or rejoice 16 times in about 2,000 words. It's more than it'll occur in all the rest of his letters combined. And it's extraordinary when you consider that he's focusing on joy while he's writing this from prison. And it makes it the perfect place, I think, for us to turn as we begin to journey together through the enjoyment of God as a body of Christ coming to focus on the joy that's available to us in Christ. Because all of us, as we think about the enjoyment of God, we we bring some really big questions to that, don't we? How is it that this joy can last? Every joy that we seem to have seems to be fleeting. How can this joy hold up under the pressures of real life? How can we have a joy that isn't hijacked by all of the different demands of life and the pressures of life and the relationships of life and the hardships of life? How can we have a joy that isn't circumstantial? That is, we might boil all of the questions that we have about joy down to one big question: how is it that we can have a durable joy? And is that durable joy actually possible? A joy that can withstand all of actual reality. Well, when we come to the book of Philippians, it really begins in a remarkable way. The church at Philippi had a remarkable beginning. Paul and Silas are in Asia Minor, and they're preaching and planning churches in Asia Minor when all of a sudden a vision of a man from Macedonia appears to Paul and says, Paul, would you come and help us? Would you come and help us? So Paul and Silas and Timothy and Luke, they board a boat and they set sail over to Philippi, and for the first time, Christianity begins its westward expansion. That the first European church that is planted is the church at Philippi. When you stop, it's really a remarkable thought because it starts with Philippi, spreads over Europe, comes into North America, to Tennessee, to all of us. And Paul is here and he comes into Philippi when he arrives in Philippi. Philippi is an overwhelmingly Gentile community. There are so few Jews there that they can't even constitute a synagogue. But he happens beside a river with a group of praying, praying women. There's a prayer group of ladies. And he goes to this praying group of ladies, and there among that praying group, he meets a woman by the name of Lydia. And Lydia becomes the first convert. She and her whole household are converted by the gospel. And the church would actually begin in Lydia's house. He moves on from Lydia, having seen the Lord do a great work, and he comes and he finds a slave girl that's possessed by demons. And he and Silas cast demons out of the slave girl. And when he casts demons out of the slave girl, it freaks out the whole community and they throw him into prison. You can read all of this in Acts chapter 16, by the way. And while he's there and he's in prison, something miraculous happens. An earthquake comes and it shakes the cells, and the door flings open, and the shackles fall from their hands and their and their feet. When the jailer rushes in, realizing what's taking place, he draws his sword and he's gonna take his own life because he recognizes that he might as well kill himself because they're gonna kill him when they realize that the soul that the prisoners have escaped. But Paul cries out, hey brother, brother, don't kill yourself. We are still here. The jailer is astounded. Though they had the opportunity to run and though they had the opportunity to escape, they don't. And the jailer says, Tell me about your God, and he converts this jailer. And so there, from a praying group of women beside the river and a remarkable jailhouse conversion, the church at Philippi is born. Well, when we get to the letter, several years have passed. The church has grown and the church has expanded, but some threats had become have become evident to the joy of the church. There are some enemies that are pressing in. So now Paul is writing this letter, and he's writing this letter in defense of the joy of the fellowship at Philippi. And so what we'll see are three threats to the joy that was there in Philippi, and there are three threats that exist for our own joy. And these threats actually help form kind of a backbone or a skeleton, a table of contents for the book of Philippians as we move forward. The first threat to joy that we'll see is a divided church. A divided church. It probably wouldn't shock you to know that children who grow up in conflict-ridden homes are statistically immeasurably less happy. The University of York performed a comprehensive study of 7,000 children. And what they found were that children who grew up in homes of low conflict all were measurably happier and had a higher quality of life by their own admission. But those that grew up in conflict-ridden homes, even when mom and dad stayed together, they were statistically, significantly higher statistically to be diagnosed with anxiety and depression. Now, what we find is that divided homes diminishes joy. This is evident, isn't it? Divided homes diminishes joy. Well, the same is true in the family of God. We are the people of God brought together in the family of God. And when there is division among the family of God, it diminishes our joy. That unity in the church is not merely cosmetic, and unity in the church is not merely aspirational. Unity in the church is actually a means of grace to us to increase our enjoyment of God. That if we put this in the framework of our new vision statement, this is what we would say: that our shared life together will either deepen or diminish our enjoyment of God. And so that's why from the outset, as Paul is sitting here to address a church that is having divisions begin to pop up and splinter among them, he's focusing on both unity and humility as going together. You'll notice something that there's pretty extraordinary. You might not know this if you aren't super familiar with the other letters, but he he starts off by talking about uh or acknowledging him as Paul and Timothy. Now, the whole letter is written in the first person. So it's interesting that he would include Timothy as part of this introduction. This doesn't happen in any of the other letters of Paul. And he would go on to describe both himself and Timothy as being servants of Jesus Christ. Now think about what Paul doesn't do. Paul doesn't assert his apostolic authority. He could come in and he's saying, I am an apostle of Christ Jesus, you ought to listen to me. And they would have been true and they ought to have listened to him. Or he could have come in and he could have said, I am the founder of the church at Philippi. I am the original planter of the church of Philippi. I care about you. You ought to listen to me. But he doesn't do that, does it? He doesn't assert any kind of authority, he doesn't uh impose any kind of past credence. Instead, he comes to them on equal footing and he's saying, Look, here's Timothy, here's me. We're just fellow servants of Jesus. Now, why does Paul do that? I think the reason that Paul does that is he wants to come out of the gate by saying that this isn't about Paul's agenda, and this isn't about Timothy's agenda, and this isn't about Lydia's agenda, and this isn't about Euodia's agenda. This is about Christ's mission. That if we focus on one another's agendas, if we focus on our own preferences, if we focus on our own desires for the church and our own hopes for the church, if we focus on what we want to get out of the church, then what we're going to find is that the church will divide. That when we focus on our own agendas, the divisions arise within the church. And focusing on our own agendas, leading to divisions of the church, will eventually, over enough time, lead to the death of the church. Mark Clifton is considered by many to be the preeminent expert on church revitalization, which means he goes to churches that have really fallen on hard times, or he advises people that go to churches that have really fallen on hard times, and he helps advise them to be able to get breathe new life into those churches and to see God do a fresh work in those churches and to enable them to move toward hell. But he says this he says, making decisions based primarily on not losing members is a death rattle of a church. Now that's interesting, isn't it? Because we would think the opposite would be true. We would think it would be a good thing to focus on not losing your members, right? Like, that doesn't seem like a bad motivation to want to try to keep the people that are there. So what's the problem with it? The problem is when you stop looking upward and you stop looking outward, and instead you start looking inward, you start noticing all the things that make you different from one another. That if you start focusing on making everybody happy and on meeting everyone's expectations and on satisfying everyone's preferences, soon enough what you'll discover is that everybody has different preferences and everybody has different desires, and everybody has a different way that they would run things if they were in charge for the day. And so if you go to every person, you're like, hey, what preferences do you well? I'll meet that preference. Well, then you're gonna make the person next to them unhappy because they have a different set of preferences. And if you try to go to all hundreds of people, we have 900 people here very often on a Sunday morning, you get a 900 people, you know what you have? You have 900 different expectations on what pastors ought to do and what the sermon ought to look like, how the music ought to be and what the volume ought to be and what the kids' ministry ought to look like and what the youth ministry ought to look like. And so if we begin to focus inwardly and we think about, well, this is what I want, this is really what I would prefer, you know what we start noticing about each other is we really aren't very much alike. We really all have very different worldviews. We really have a lot of different ways of seeing the world and understanding the world, not even bad, not even not even simple, just different. But what happens is when we turn inward, we begin to notice the differences, and when we begin to notice the differences, divisions arise among us. But guess what happens when we do the opposite? When instead of turning inward and thinking, this is what I want, this is what I would like to see happen, these are my preference, if instead we focus upward on the glory of Christ and on the enjoyment of Christ, and we focus outward on the mission of Christ, guess what we're focusing on then? We're not focusing on those things that separate us, we're focusing on those things that bring us together. We're focusing not on those things that we lack having in common, we're focusing on those very things that we do have in common. And it seems like less, but though it's less, it's weighted with a greater weight, so that what we have in common is actually far greater than that which we don't have in common. That when we focus upward on Christ and outward on the mission of Christ, that now we're able to bring together, and I'm able, I'm willing to put down some of my preferences to go and glorify Jesus. I'm willing to put down some of my desires to be able to go make sure that more teenagers hear about Jesus, right? See, we have bought the lie too often in American Christianity that joy comes through consumption. That if I can just consume more of the products that I like, if I can just consume more of the music that I like, if I can just consume more of the sermons that I like, if I can just consume more of the ministry strategies that I like, if I can just consume a better product, then I'll be happier. I'll be more joyful. I'll find it to be a more enjoyable experience. But here is Paul, and he's saying, no, no, no, no. Joy doesn't come from you satisfying all of your agendas. Joy doesn't come from you getting all of your preferences, joy comes from you being a servant of Christ Jesus, from you laying all of those things down, not focusing on what divides you, but instead focusing on that which has brought you together. That joy comes. Joy comes not from getting our way, but from living out our calling. And so he looks to them and he addresses all the saints of Christ Jesus. Now, why does he address all the saints of Christ Jesus? Well, he addressed all he addresses all the saints of Christ Jesus because guess whose responsibility the unity of the church is? All the saints of Christ Jesus, right? He doesn't just talk to the troublemakers in the church. That would be nice if he'd have just given them a stern talking to, right? He he doesn't just talk to the leaders in the church. It'd be nice if we didn't have to have any responsibilities ourselves, but we could just listen to the overseers and the elders and let them handle all the stuff. But he doesn't do that. He addresses all the saints in Christ Jesus. He wants everybody to recognize that unity in the church is in everybody's responsibility, that all of us have the responsibility to lay aside our agendas, to lay aside our preferences, to look upward to Christ, to look outward in his mission, that we could exist in unity with one another. In fact, when he says to all the saints in Christ Jesus, he's using a very Pauline way of talking about our union with Christ. That he is saying that our unity with each other is based upon a greater union that has already taken place, and that union is the union that we now have in Christ. That we are in Christ, and because we are in Christ, now we are bound with one another. It brings into that picture of John 15 that we talked about a few weeks ago, doesn't it? That when we are grafted onto the vine, that there is one vine, all life, all vitality comes from that vine, that vine being Christ. But when we are grafted onto that vine, we are not grafted as a single branch onto that vine. We are grafted as many plural branches into the vine. So that now as we abide into Christ, we are now abiding with one another. That our union with Christ is meant to be the foundation of our unity with each other. That there is a cycle that emerges over the book of Philippians, and it's a cycle that emerges throughout the New Testament. That my union with Christ has created a unity with you. But not only has my union with Christ created a unity with you, but my unity with you is meant to deepen the joy that I have in my union with Christ. That being drawn to Christ has established and serves as the foundation as my friendship with you. And because my union with Christ stands as my the foundation of my friendship with you, my friendship with you is meant to increase the enjoyment that I have in Christ. So here is Paul, and what Paul is saying is, y'all, we haven't been brought together by a style of music that'll crumble. We haven't been brought together by a charismatic preacher that will crumble. We haven't been brought together because there's a cool kids' ministry on the other side of the building. We have been brought together because we have been united with Christ, and that that will not crumble. That will endure the test of time, that will be established. And so our union with Christ is meant to create a unity with one another that creates an upward spiral in our faith to deeper love for each other and deeper devotion to Christ. This is why Paul in Philippians chapter 4, he'll begin to address these unity, this these divisions really head on, and he'll talk about one specifically. He says, I entreat you, Odia, and I entreat Syndechy to agree in the Lord. That means there is a division in the church at Philippi. And what does he say? Just two verses as he continues to clarify? He says, Here's what I want you to do. I want you to rejoice in the Lord always. Again, I will say, rejoice. What's he saying to them? He's thinking, stop focusing on the differences that you have. Stop focusing on your preferences, stop focusing on your agendas, stop focusing on all the things that separate you. Instead, focus on the joy that you have in Christ. Rejoice in the Lord because you are in the Lord, and rejoicing in the Lord as one in the Lord will bring you now together. That it's meant to be a transformative experience. It reminds me of something that I often tell married couples. You'll hear me say this because I believe it bears repeating. You'll hear me say this over the years multiple times, I think. But I can give you a foolproof way to have a healthy marriage. And the foolproof way to have a healthy marriage is to have a marriage with two healthy people. If you have two healthy people, both of whom who are emotionally healthy and spiritually healthy, both of whom have a healthy perspective on life, inevitably the outcome of that is to have a healthy marriage. Well, how is it that you have a healthy person? Well, a healthy person is one who is abiding in Christ as deeply as they can abide in Christ. See, very often couples will come to counseling and they'll think all about the horizontal relationship between husband and wife. And so they're spending all of their energy focusing on one another. They're buying all the books, they're going to all the conferences, they're listening to all the podcasts, they're taking all the steps. Every time they're around each other, they're talking marriage, marriage, marriage, marriage, marriage, marriage, marriage, they get wake up talking about the marriage, they go to bed talking about the marriage. And the marriage, what happens when you focus on it that way? Well, it's magnified. It's magnified. It becomes the center of your life. And now, no matter how hard you work, no matter what you do, it's like you just can't get it better because you're working on it so much and you're obsessing over it so deeply. You're so focused on the horizontal relationship that you're missing the forest for the trees. Now, at the center of your life is something that can't bear the weight of your actual marriage. Your marriage. So, how is this meant to happen? Rather than focusing horizontally, we're meant to focus vertically on Christ. That my relationship with my wife is not, first of all, a relationship with her. My relationship with my wife is first of all based upon my union with Christ. That if my relationship, if my unity with Megan is focused on My union with Christ, guess what happens? As I grow closer to Christ and Megan grows closer to Christ, what happens? We grow closer to each other. So rather than obsessing over the thing and magnifying the thing that can't actually bear the weight of my life and bear the weight of my family and bear the weight of my marriage, if instead I'll focus on Christ and magnify Christ, I'm focusing on the one who actually can bear the weight of it. And what happens is as I abide in Christ and as she abides in Christ and we pursue Christ together, the nearer we draw to Christ, the nearer we draw to one another, and the nearer we draw to one another, baby, the better the joy gets in our relationship. This is the picture. This is how it's supposed to be in the local church. This is how it's supposed to be in the local church. That we all are supposed to be pursuing an abiding relationship in Jesus. And when there are divisions that are breaking apart in the church and the church is splintering, inevitably what we have are people that are taking their eyes off of Christ and off of the mission and placing them on themselves and magnifying something that can't bear the weight of it. But if we all together, collectively, all the saints in Christ Jesus will pursue Jesus and abide in Jesus, as we grow closer to Jesus, guess what's gonna happen? We're all gonna grow closer to one another. And as we grow closer to one another, baby, that's where the joy takes place. Right? So here's Paul, and he's saying that there's a threat, and it's a divided church. The second threat that we see is that there is a false gospel. A false gospel. I would propose to you that there is nothing that is more dangerous than an enemy that looks like a friend. An enemy that looks like a friend. That history repeats itself by telling us that the greatest enemies are not those that are declared enemies of your state, but those who live within your state and appear to be patriots but are actually undermining it from within. Benedict Arnold is the most famous example of this, isn't it? Benedict Arnold was a war hero. He had proven his cause. He had been wounded in battle. Finally, he gets the promotion that he's long sought, but he's so bitter over it that when he goes to take over West Point, he takes the opportunity, though he's wearing a patriot's uniform, to negotiate with the Brits and to sign over to them our most strategic forts for his personal benefit. So though he was wearing our uniform, he was actually working against us. He looked like a friend, but he was undermining our actual unity and our actual joy. This is what false gospels do. You know why false gospels are appealing to you? False gospels are appealing to us because they promise joy to us. Because they look like friends, because they're wearing uniforms that make us think that they aren't as threatening as they actually are. And so here's Paul, and I want you to notice that he addresses the overseers and the deacons. This is another feature of the book of Philippians, where he doesn't just address the elders, he addresses the elders and the deacons. He's talking to the entirety of the leadership of the church. And what is the leadership of the church responsible for? The leadership of the church is responsible for the unity of the church, it's responsible for the doctrine of the church, and it's responsible for making sure that wolves in sheep's clothing don't find their way in. And so he's saying, here there are two double agents. There are some sleeper agents that are living behind uh enemy lines here that are that are seeking to undermine the unity of the church and the joy of the church and the abiding that they have in Christ. And the first one of these double agents is the enemy of legalism. The enemy of legalism is self-sufficiency and self-belief camouflaged as devotion. And it feels good because it feels serious and it sounds faithful and it looks spiritual, but underneath the uniform, it's working for the enemy. See, this is what he's talking about. He'll build on this in Philippians chapter 2, or in Philippians chapter 3, verse 2, when he says, look out for the dogs, look out for the evildoers, look out for those who mutilate the flesh. He's talking about the Judaizers. And what Paul recognizes is that this needs great force because the Judaizers can have the same impact and the same effect to the detriment of Philippi, the same way that they had done in Galatia. You see, the legalists, they don't deny Jesus, they add to Jesus. They say it's Jesus plus, right? It's Jesus plus the Old Testament law. It's Jesus plus the circumcision. It's Jesus plus all the rule keeping. It's Jesus plus all the feasts and all the festivals. It's Jesus plus. That they don't say that Jesus is unnecessary. The legalists say that Jesus is insufficient. In other words, Jesus offers us something that we need, but now we must match our effort with Jesus' effort. We must match our works with Jesus' works. That Jesus' works are not sufficient in and of themselves to save us, that we have to take our works and synergize them with Jesus' works so that we can ultimately be saved, not just by him, but also by ourselves. And what happens in legalism is it creates a tug of war in your life, a tug of war between your pride and your shame. That on days when you're doing really good, guess what? Man, you like being a legalist because now you think you enjoy all the things. It allows you to stand up and to look down your nose on everybody else and be judgmental of how weak they are in light of how strong you are. But you know what? That's not sustainable by a human being, is it? So on other days, you go to the other side and you didn't wake up early and you and you didn't keep all the rules that all the commitments that you made to the Lord and all the rules that you set for yourself and you didn't read your Bible that day, and your prayers really were pretty empty. And what happens on those days? On those days, you beat the living daylights out of yourself, don't you? You feel abused by shame. And so constantly you're in this tug of war between pride and shame, pride and shame. On your prideful days, you look at your life and you believe that you're not getting all the joy that you deserve. On your shameful days, you look around at your life and you can't even enjoy the good things that you have because you don't believe you deserve any of it. What's the reality? It's a false gospel, it's a gospel that's told you that you have to earn joy because you have to earn your way into the kingdom of heaven. What's the true gospel? Well, Paul tells us the true gospel is grace to you. Grace to you. The true gospel is not that you earn joy, it's that by God's grace, without any merit of your own, Jesus has already purchased joy and given you joy. It's not joy that you earn, it's not joy that you deserve, it's joy that through Christ you can now receive. It's grace to you. It's not about your pride, it's about Christ. It's grace to you, it's not about your shame, your shame has been overcome. It's grace to you. It's the true gospel undermining the enemy that is trying to pretend to be a friend, and it's offering you something that is secure because it's a gift, it's offering you something that can't be taken away because it's already been purchased, it's offering to you a joy that is durable. A joy that is durable. Well, there's a second, and there's a second secret agent. There's the enemy of legalism, and then there's the enemy of licentiousness. If legalism wears the uniform of discipline, licentiousness wears the uniform of freedom. It promises you that you can have all the things that you could ever want. It offers to you anything that it takes grace and it bends grace and it manipulates grace so that now grace becomes a license for your sin. That the person that suffers from licentiousness, the mantra of their life, is it really doesn't matter what I do. Isn't God just gonna forgive me anyway? Isn't God just gonna, isn't God just gonna wipe my record clean anyway? So it doesn't matter how I live, it doesn't matter who I have sex with, it doesn't matter how I use my money, it doesn't matter what I spend my life on. None of those things matter because ultimately, ultimately, it doesn't matter. Grace to me, right? Like, so that grace means that I'm off the hook for all of it altogether. See, where legalism tells you that you have to earn grace, licentiousness says that you consume grace. You consume grace. It takes your appetites and it makes them your authority. It takes your desires and it makes them your king. Paul will say this again in Philippians chapter 3. He says, their end is destruction, their God is their belly, and they glory in their shame with minds set on earthly things. And you know what else he says about these people? What is he describing? He's describing as those who walk as enemies of the cross of Christ, that you have set yourself against the cross because what you are living is you are living in defiance of the very thing that Jesus has come to accomplish for you. And what has Jesus come to accomplish for you? The deliverance from your sin. And so he's saying with Paul, should I go on sinning so that grace may increase? By no means, by no means. See, the truth, God, true gospel, has to do with the fact that you are now saints in Christ Jesus. There's been an identity transformation that's taken place in your life. Used to you were regarded as a sinner. Used to people thought you're a sinner that just does sinful things, but a transformation has been taking place because grace has come to you. And when grace has come to you, it has changed your status in the kingdom of heaven, so that now before the Almighty, you are no longer beheld as a sinner. You are beheld as a saint, one who is holy and righteous, cloaked in the righteousness of Jesus. And now living out in everyday life is no longer theoretical. You have been delivered from the power of sin, so that you are growing into the image of Jesus, that you are living not out of your old identity to say I'm gonna be forgiven anyway, that's the old identity. You are now living out of your new identity as a saint in Christ Jesus. So the question that faces all of us this morning is where is it that you're going to secure your joy? Where is it that you're going to secure your joy? And the way that you answer that question is gonna determine exactly how durable your joy really is. Are you the legalist trying to earn your joy? Well, eventually you're gonna fail. And your joy is gonna fail with it. Are you living a licentious life trying to consume your joy? Well, guess what? You're still gonna be hungry, you're still gonna be thirsty, there's always gonna be more to buy, there's always gonna be more people to sleep with, there's always gonna be new experiences to have. That's not gonna hold up. Or are you receiving your joy from Christ? Are you receiving your joy by faith? Because, brothers and sisters, that's a joy that begins right now and doesn't end for billions and billions and billions of years. It is a joy that can endure the way of life, it is a joy that is durable. The first threat to our joy is a divided church. The second threat to our joy is a false gospel, and the third threat to our joy is a misunderstood trial. The way that Paul bookends the book is he focuses on the same thing. You'll notice that he starts it in Philippians chapter one and he picks it up again in chapter four. In chapter one, he says, Grace to you and peace from God, our Father, and the Lord Jesus Christ. And then in chapter seven, you can tell he's developed it a bit, but he's coming back to the same theme. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. What's important to note is what Paul is not saying here. Paul is actually changing the paradigm for how we're meant to understand the concept of peace. How is it that we typically understand the concept of peace? We typically understand peace as being a tranquil life, as being a smooth life, as being a life that's not being rocked to and fro, that's not filled with controversy and filled with conflict and filled with hardship and filled with suffering. That's not what Paul's talking about. Paul is writing this letter literally from prison. This isn't his life. He's writing it to a church that is going to endure trials and suffering and persecutions and all kinds of things like that. No, no, what Paul is warning them to do is to have a new perspective on peace. Something that's fresh, something that can endure, something that will be durable in the long haul. That's what he's warning them to see is that peace is not based on the kind of life that you have. Peace is based on the connection to the source that you have. You notice this? That he says that peace is not from a well-lived life, peace is not from a great promotion, peace is not from enough degrees, peace is not from a big enough retirement. Peace is from God. Peace is from God. Verse 7, peace is of God. This is the connection that he's wanting us to make. He's wanting us to recognize that we in and of ourselves can't secure this peace. No, no, no, no. If we're dependent on the circumstances of our lives, we're never gonna have peace. If we're dependent on a tranquil life, we're gonna be pursuing something that's never gonna happen. If we're pursuing a consuming life, we're never gonna consume enough. None of these things are gonna be enough. None of these things are gonna bear the weight, none of these are gonna lead to a durable joy. No, what we have to have is a peace that has been given to us from God. You see, trials, the enemy uses trials to kind of to try to kind of deceive us about the goodness of God and the power of God. That they try to confuse us by saying, you know, if God was really good, will he allow you to really go through this? Or if God was actually powerful, if God was actually sovereign, if God was actually mighty, why wouldn't he have stopped this from happening to you, having happening to you? That trials tempt us to interpret our circumstances as a commentary on God's character, doesn't it? But here's Paul, and he's saying, no, no, no, no. There's a different way. There's a different way that the trials that you encounter in your life, the hardships that you face in your life, the suffering that you know in your life, what they can actually do is clarify from whom peace actually comes. Clarify where a solidified, durable peace can actually be found. That in other words, what the trials do is they can reveal when you're trusting something that can actually deliver what it's promising. They can reveal to you that you have your hope in a job and a job that doesn't care anything about you. They can reveal to you that you've been looking in and trying to dig deep and be tough enough and emotionally stable enough and wise enough, and eventually you come to the end of yourself and you're like, I have no solutions. And it's revealing the trials are revealing to you that you, in and of yourself, are inadequate and insufficient. That is the trials. When rightly understood, let us recognize that peace can only be found in God Himself. What is it about this peace that surpasses all understanding? You probably heard that all of your life. You ever wondered what it actually means? Well, what it means is that peace is not found where everybody else is looking for it. Peace is not found in a smoother life. Peace is not found in a different marriage. Peace is not found when you have kids, peace is not found when your kids grow up and move out. Peace is not found when your kids finally get on the straight and narrow. Peace is not found when you find a better company, it's not found where everybody else is looking for it. No, peace is not found in circumstances at all. That's why it's beyond our understanding. Peace is found in the knowledge of God, in abiding in God, and enjoying God, despite the realities of life. This is what Paul was going to use today. See if we go back to where we started the sermon. The problem that I was having on the football field at Jacksonville State University or in the cafeteria the day after Sarah was born, the problem wasn't that those weren't great events. They were great events. They were significant accomplishments, they were joyful mile markers in my life. But the reason that I wasn't able to enjoy them was because I was demanding from them something that they couldn't give to me. I was demanding from them a peace and a significance and a purpose that circumstances just can't deliver. But brothers and sisters, when we recognize that our peace is from God, we begin to recognize that peace isn't a feeling. And joy isn't a feeling. Joy is an exercise of faith. And when you begin to recognize that joy is an exercise of faith, then no matter what's happening in your life, if it's good, you can enjoy it to the fullest, and if it's bad, you can make it all the way through, still intact. Because you begin to recognize that God is good even when my life is not good, that God is powerful even when my life feels out of control, and God's providence is trustworthy even when I would have written my story. And when you begin to recognize that joy is an exercise of faith, not a circumstance that you experience, now your joy is on the path to reveal it. We pray the Lord together.