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From Philippians 2:1-11: What is joy? Have you ever felt like it has alluded you? Escaped you? In this message, we’ll see that joy is not an occasion, a circumstance, or a feeling. It’s a path. It’s a way.
Over the past few weeks, we’ve been looking at a first-Century letter that a leader in the early church wrote to a church in Philippi.
And we’ve been looking at it against the backdrop of our own world that can be full of discouragement. And the crazy thing is, the discouraging kind of world we live in today, for the people who received this letter originally, it could be argued that their world was even more discouraging.
But the reality is, the human experience has largely consisted of similar challenges throughout the centuries.
Once our basic needs of survival are met, we experience sickness, relational conflict, power struggles, loneliness, inadequacy, pride, questions about our own existence like why we’re here, and then this thing called death.
What We’ve Seen
And what we’ve seen Paul describe to the Philippian Christians, this group, this church is that hey, God’s not done with you yet, Christ will continue to invade and advance in your life and in this world, that the best path forward for you is to serve people, and to band together in the work of the gospel.
That joy is found in living in light of and living in the story of Jesus. That joy is found in having our greatest desire be Jesus. Because if Jesus is our greatest desire then we’ll never be let down.
How We Often Live
But that kind of picture isn’t always how we live our lives, right?
Paul’s been advocating for a mutual dependence relationship for us Christians. But the way we often live is self-centered, self-reliant, and independent. We often take our individuality to an extent that leads us broken, alone, and wondering why we have no support in our times of greatest difficulty.
All the while, Paul is saying, that’s not how Christ followers are supposed to live their lives.
But we get glimpses of how powerful this is, right?
We see how amazing it can be when we live the kind of lives that we see in Philippians. We see, in moments, what it’s like to stand firm together, to be of one mind, united by the Holy Spirit, and to contend together for the gospel.
We have fellow Christians in our lives who have truly become family to us and we spur each other on to honoring Christ. We share our struggles with those people, we get raw and honest with them, and we can sense Christ working through them as they contend for the gospel to be advanced in our lives.
Today
But today, we’re coming to a moment in this letter, in Philippians, where Paul is going to show us the way of joy.
He’s been leading to this. And I believe this is the hinge point in this letter. It’s where everything hangs and moves.
We can find joy in the midst of a discouraging world.
But it won’t come through achievements, it won’t come through acquiring more stuff, it won’t come through the promotion you want, it won’t come through the raise you believe you deserve, it won’t come through the politician you want or don’t want in power, it won’t come through any of that.
So let’s see where it will come through.
Philippians 2:1-4
If then there is any encouragement in Christ, if any consolation of love, if any fellowship with the Spirit, if any affection and mercy, 2 make my joy complete by thinking the same way, having the same love, united in spirit, intent on one purpose. 3 Do nothing out of selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility consider others as more important than yourselves. 4 Everyone should look out not only for his own
Here we see Paul appealing to their collective heart.
Appealing to their experience
Paul isn’t simply saying if there is any encouragement, consolation, fellowship, and all the rest as if it might exist out there, but he is appealing to their real-life experience of encouragement in Christ.
That Christ came and died so that you can have life that no matter who you are, what you’ve done, you can experience forgiveness of sins and abundant life in Christ. It’s not dependent on your abilities, aptitude, or your IQ. It’s completely dependent on Jesus and He’s perfect.
So yes, they’ve received and experienced encouragement in Christ. Absolutely.
He’s talking about the consolation or comfort they’ve received through the love of God and the love of their brothers and sisters in Christ. Of course they had been comforted by that.
They’ve experienced the calming, comforting love of God that even though they were enemies of God, rebelling against Him, scheming against Him, working against Him, God loved them anyway.
He’s talking about the fellowship they experience with the Spirit of God. The partnership, the togetherness, the closeness they have with God in a very real way.
He’s talking about what they’ve experienced from God and with God.
He wants them to go back to their experience of salvation and their ongoing experience of communion, of togetherness with God.
He appeals to that and turns back toward how they ought to live in light of that.
Positives vs Negatives
And he does this by giving them two pictures.
The positive picture. And the negative picture.
Think the same way, have the same love, be united in the Spirit, and commit to one common purpose.
This should sound familiar if you were here last week. This is the same idea that he ended chapter one with.
In order for the church to thrive, it must consist of participants instead of passengers. In other words, unity requires us all to be involved.
But then he gives us the negative picture. At least the negative picture to avoid.
And this is where things get really heavy and difficult for us.
In fact, this is where our brokenness and our sinfulness and our constant need for Christ to continually intervene is made clear.
Do nothing: Selfish ambition or conceit
When I was growing up in Waynedale, I remember having this pride that the house I lived in was one of the bigger ones on the road we lived on.
Like elementary age and I’m already operating on the premise of bigger is better.
It was ridiculous. And I look back on that now and I’m thinking, what taught me that kind of measurement. What told me that it was better to have a bigger house than a small house. Which it’s not, of course. But for some reason, my way of thinking told me that to win in life, to do well in life, which I was someone who always wanted to win, meant to have the biggest and best stuff.
And you know what?
Every now and then this depraved, shallow, and sad way of thinking creeps back into my heart.
When we were searching for houses here in Bluffton, the market seemed to largely consist of older houses that needed a lot of work and were very affordable or brand-new houses that were at the top of our budget or beyond it.
So the house we ended up buying was a brand-new one because I’m not a gifted Chip Gaines when it comes to remodeling houses. You don’t want me on your construction crew unless it’s demo day.
But the house we bought was quite smaller than the house we had in Ohio. But it has a full basement that we’ll eventually finish and will allow for us to have some additional square footage.
But here’s the point to me telling you this… Our house is smaller. In fact, it might be the smallest in our little neighborhood. And you know what?
Early on, I found that sitting weirdly in my heart. Like I was bent out of shape that our house wasn’t one of the bigger ones in our neighborhood and I noticed that and I’m like what in the world?!
I had to preach the gospel to myself and remind my achiever, winner heart that NO, you’ve been made new. You don’t need to achieve or win because your identity isn’t hinging to the square footage of your house.
I mean, it sounds so ridiculous when I confess it, but that’s just where I was.
Do nothing out of selfish ambition.
I don’t know about you, but that can be hard to do!
A better way
And this is Paul’s point. Instead of giving in to selfish ambition or trying to one-up people or trying to manipulate people and gain something from them, we need to get the focus off ourselves and off our own perceptions of ourselves and our status and simply try to lift up others above ourselves and use whatever we have to serve them.
Philippians 2:5-8
To put it simply, Paul says (v.5)…
5 Adopt the same attitude as that of Christ Jesus,
6 who, existing in the form of God,
did not consider equality with God
as something to be exploited.[a]
7 Instead he emptied himself
by assuming the form of a servant,
taking on the likeness of humanity.
And when he had come as a man,
8 he humbled himself by becoming obedient
to the point of death—
even to death on a cross.
Do nothing out of selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility consider others as more important than yourselves.
How Jesus entered the world
The Eternal Word, second member of the Trinity, took on the form of a servant and became a human.
And how did he do it?
How did he arrive on the scene of history?
Through a seemingly insignificant teenage girl in a little town named, Bethlehem. Born among animals. Not in a palace.
And who found out first? Not the Israelite Enquirer’s paparazzi. Nope. Just some insignificant, ignorable shepherds.
This is how God works. This is how he does things all throughout Scripture and the incarnation of Jesus, when God put on flesh to live among us is no different.
How Jesus lived
Jesus told people who wanted to follow him that if they were serious, they had better be ready to be homeless because that is what he was.
The Son of Man has no place to lay his head.
He lived simply. He taught people. He served people. He healed people.
When someone came to him who was humble in spirit, he had mercy on them. When someone came to him full of selfish ambition, we see him dealing with them more bluntly.
How Jesus died
And not only did God put on flesh and become a human, embracing the limitations of human frailty, but he experienced death. And not just any death, but death on a cross.
He died in the most humiliating of ways.
Beaten, bloodied, naked, nailed to a cross for all to see. Slowly dying a heart-wrenching, painful death.
That’s the lengths Jesus goes
Paul’s saying, hey, that’s the lengths Jesus goes for us. God put on flesh and not only became a human, but became a servant which in this case means someone who lacked any human rights.
So when Jesus became a human being, fully God, fully human, he left the glory of heaven and came as a man who had no glory, no rights, no recognition, and no reputation.
He lowered himself, he stooped low, in order to deliver you and me.
And because he did that, this is what is in store for him (and us).
Philippians 2:9-11
9 For this reason God highly exalted him
and gave him the name
that is above every name,
10 so that at the name of Jesus
every knee will bow—
in heaven and on earth
and under the earth—
11 and every tongue will confess
that Jesus Christ is Lord,
to the glory of God the Father.
He’s saying, I know that everyone now seems to be bowing down to Caesar/Rome and expressing allegiance to him/them, but a day is coming when every single knee will bow and every single tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord. And that is who we are united to.
Jesus emptied himself, lowered himself, went to death, but in the end he is lifted up and everyone else will lower themselves and confess that he is Lord.
Picture: undercover boss
He’s like the undercover boss who comes out of his corner office in the high-rise and goes to the warehouse and works alongside of his employees, but he doesn’t stop there. He makes himself lower than his employees and at the very same time, he gives away all his salary to those who are at the bottom of the org chart.
Picture: King dying for peasants
He’s like the king who, instead of making the peasants in his kingdom die for him, he comes down and dies for them.
Commentator R. R. Melick said, “The dramatic distance Jesus traveled from the “form of God” to “the death of the cross” dramatically reveals the servant mind that each believer was to have.”
The Creator of the world humbled himself, so how can we be proud? He took the form of a servant, of a slave, so how can we seek to dominate others? He accepted the greatest form of dishonor by dying on a cross so how can we strive after being honored?
All power is in his hand. All glory is his alone. All honor is due to him. And yet he chose to lower himself and become a servant.
Adopt the same attitude as that of Christ Jesus…
This changes everything in our lives:
The way of joy is the attitude of Jesus.
This changes the church
Instead of us seeking to advance our own agenda or to see my preference be brought back or implemented, the church can be a unified people focused pre-eminently on Jesus.
When the church operates in the way of joy—the attitude of Jesus—the church is truly the light of the world, a city on a hill, a beacon of hope for a hopeless world.
This changes spouses
When I’m being a godly husband, it’s when I’m seeking to serve Sara, not be served by her.
And that’s the attitude of Jesus—to lower myself and serve her.
When a married couple seeks to serve each other, what results is a harmony that is foreign to the ways of this world.
Everyone should look out not only for his own interests, but also for the interests of others.
Married people, imagine if you and your spouse did that for each other.
This changes parents
Think about how the attitude of Jesus impacts how we parent.
We’ll be more intentional with them. We won’t choose a distraction over quality time with them. We’ll enjoy them more because you know there’s a difference between loving your kids and enjoying them, right? More on that in another sermon.
But the attitude of Jesus changes how we parent our kids. It tells us that we need to honor Christ in the way we raise them and show them what it means to be a servant of God.
This changes friendships
When we take on the attitude of Jesus in our friendships, think about how much better those relationships are.
Instead of a friendship being built on take-take-take, it’s built on a posture of servanthood toward each other.
That’s when a friendship honors Christ. That’s when we confess our sins to each other because we know it’s a safe place to do so. That’s when friends become family.
This changes how we are as coworkers
Want to do well in your workplace?
Have the same attitude as Jesus.
Give and serve. Work with humility. Do what you said you were going to do.
That kind of thing sticks out in today’s workplace.
This changes how we run our businesses
Christians should be the best people to work for. Why? Because business owners should run their businesses with the attitude of Jesus.
Want your business to thrive? Start with integrity, treat your employees with dignity, respect, and care, and seek to serve them.
Treat your customers with respect and you’ll stick out in the business world.
That’s why Chick-fil-a has ruined every other fast food restaurant I’ll ever have. They’re so much better at customer service than everywhere else that it’s not even close!
The way of joy is the attitude of Jesus.
The Attitude of Jesus Pervades Every Area of Life
There’s a reason our response to God’s grace involves some pretty humbling elements.
Because those who humble themselves will be exalted.
Jesus humbled himself further than anyone else could ever do. And because of that, he is the most highly exalted one. He is the only way to salvation.
One of the hinge points for receiving forgiveness from Jesus is this idea of repentance. It’s when we are confronted with our own despicableness and brokenness and we confess our need for a savior, Jesus Christ.
And sometimes we see people who are on top of the world, come crashing down and that crash is the occasion for them to realize that they are in desperate need of rescue.
Darrell Waltrip
For those of you who are Nascar fans, you probably know the name Darrell Waltrip.
Back in 1981 and 1982, he had two of his best seasons of his career. He won a ton of races and was on top of the sport. But people didn’t like him. He was off-putting to people and it was probably because of his arrogance.
But in an interview he talked about the day his life changed. He had always been someone who wanted to win and one-up other people. It’s the only way he knew. But in 1983 during the Daytona 500, coming out of the fourth turn, he got spun and was involved in a major accident.
He said that he raced in the next two races, but would finish those races not remembering anything at all.
All the while, he had met a minister who was talking to him about Jesus and about three weeks after he almost died in that wreck in 1983, Darrell Waltrip surrendered his life to Jesus.
All that confidence, all that arrogance, all that invincibility, all that self-reliance, that was all shown for what it really was—fragile—when he got in that wreck. And he realized that he needed Jesus.
When he was humbled, he could see the truth.
The way of joy, the attitude of Jesus, salvation, and the christian life
Do you see it?
The way that Jesus endured the cross and acquired our salvation was through humbling himself and taking on the role of a servant.
The way that we enter into that salvation is by humbling ourselves before God’s mighty hand and receiving what we don’t deserve and what we couldn’t provide for ourselves.
The way that God has made a way for us to experience joy is by following the attitude of Jesus—humbling ourselves and taking on the role of a servant.
The way that God wants us to live as his church as his children is through having the same mind, the same attitude, the attitude of Jesus.
Two Things
Surrender to Christ
The only way you’ll ever experience joy in the midst of a discouraging world is through receiving hope, forgiveness, and life through Jesus Christ. He is the only way.
It’s only by going on his way that we’ll ever walk in the way of joy.
God wants to rescue you. He loves you so very much. Will you humble yourself before him?
Will you surrender fully to him? Will you turn away from your own way, your own plans, and your sin? Will you confess that Jesus Christ is Lord? Will you humble yourself and be baptized into him?
Will you surrender to him? He’s ready to receive you into his family.
In humility, consider others as more important than yourselves
This week, if you’re a follower of Jesus, I want us to focus on one question…
How can I consider them as more important than me?
And then act in light of that.
The way of joy is the attitude of Jesus.
