Sermon Tone Analysis

Introduction

It’s an honor to be here and worship with you all this morning.

God’s Kingdom is vast - it’s always refreshing to spend time with other local churches and be reminded of how we’re all on the same team of glorifying Jesus, proclaiming the Gospel, and making disciples!

Today as we worship and study God’s Word, it is my prayer that we would be encouraged and challenged to walk worthy of our heavenly calling in Christ Jesus.

As we do this, this might require some participation on your part!

How many of you enjoy playing board games?

If you’ve ever played the game monopoly, what’s the goal of the game?

95% of monopoly games seem to never end, but the goal in the end is to buy as many properties as you can and force other people to go bankrupt.

Any baseball fans?

Opening day is coming up this Thursday!

What is the goal of baseball?

To score more runs than the opposing team and win the game.

Anyone like to read books?

What is the goal of reading a book?

It’s not just to “finish” the book but it’s to learn something new along the way.

Many of the things that we do in this life have an end goal in mind.

Goals are good things as they keep us focused on the task at hand but what if we zoom out just a bit this morning and get deep…

What is the goal of life?

Not what is the goal of monopoly, baseball, or reading… What is the goal and purpose of our life as humans?

Psychologists say that our goal is to be happy and to do whatever makes us happy.

Philosophers say that our goal is to acquire more knowledge and not repeat the mistakes of the past.

Politicians say that our goal is to look our for the good of our country.

Happiness isn’t necessarily a bad thing, knowledge isn’t necessarily a bad thing, and looking out for the good of our country isn’t always a bad thing either… But none of these things can be the chief goal of our lives as human beings because they don’t satisfy what our souls need.

The early church father Augustine once shared this, “Restless is our heart until it finds its rest in thee.”

The goals of this world might provide temporary happiness but they fail to deliver on what we truly need.

Our purpose in this life as humans, as the Westminster shorter catechism states, is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever.

I share with my congregation in Salem often that we are here to glorify God, proclaim His Gospel, and make Disciples of all nations.

How can we do these things?

If this is the goal, how do we get there?

Paul gives us a great starting point and subsequent exhortations throughout the book of Philippians and our main text this morning will be Philippians 3:1-11 as we will see that before we can live a life that brings glory to Christ, we must first know Christ.

Before we can reach our goal, we must find our joy in the only One who satisfies our souls.

Let’s read this morning from God’s Word

As we’ve gone through the book of Philippians this weekend for Disciple Now, it’s been incredible to see Paul’s joy dripping from every page, chapter, and verse from this book.

This morning we’re going to dive into Philippians 3 but in order to understand correctly what it looks like to Know Christ and live accordingly, we have to look at the main ideas he gives throughout this letter.

How do we Walk Worthy with Christlike Joy?

Love Your Enemies (1:12-20)

As you think about the idea of joy, joy is significantly different than happiness.

People in our world are often happy only whenever their circumstances are favorable but the moment that their circumstances change, so does their level of happiness.

Joy, on the other hand, is not predicated on our feelings or circumstances, genuine Christian joy is based on a fact that cannot change.

It is not a subjective feeling, it is an objective attitude of Christ’s people.

As one commentator put it, “Having joy is part of being a Christian.”

What does joy have to do with Paul, and specifically, with the book of Philippians?

Of the 104 verses in Philippians, Paul uses the Greek words for joy/rejoice 16 times.

In our world someone who talks that often about joy would be seen as an anomaly of sorts - people would come up to you and ask if you have a problem because you’re overjoyed about everything!

Yet, this is an overflow from Paul’s heart in this letter.

Paul loves this church and Paul rejoices because of what God is doing.

In Philippians 1, though, we quickly learn that Paul isn’t in the best of situations.

He is imprisoned and there are people who are preaching the Gospel out of a position of jealousy and selfishness.

Now, I’m not sure about you but I’ve never been in prison but I don’t think my initial response to my friends whenever I’m in jail would be to rejoice and give thanks to God… It would probably be to complain about why I was in prison or to complain about the quality of food they served, it wouldn’t be to rejoice!

Yet that’s how Paul viewed the situation.

Paul is preaching the Gospel to the imperial guard and he is fervently praying for his beloved friends in Philippi.

Paul doesn’t have time to complain because he is convinced that he is exactly where God wants him to be and that his purpose to glorify God and proclaim the Gospel still stands regardless of his circumstances.

This is a theme that we see throughout Scripture, don’t we?

In the book of Genesis we read of Joseph being sold into slavery and be falsely accused in Egypt only to end up in jail.

Times are hard, yet he continues to trust in God.

Eventually we see this incredible statement at the end of the book

Joseph declares that his brothers meant for evil, but God meant it for good… Not that God simply used it for good, but God in His providence meant the evil action for good.

This is the God of the Bible!

Not a God who reacts but a God who acts.

Paul is convinced that he is in prison for a reason and although there are complications going on, he isn’t taking his eye off of that truth.

The Gospel is being proclaimed and people are growing in their Christlikeness.

It would have been easy for Paul to be upset.

He could have been upset at the authorities for putting him in jail.

He could have been upset at the guards for their constant supervision of him while under house arrest.

He could have been upset at these other preachers who are not preaching out of good will but for selfish purposes… But he stays focused.

This isn’t a natural human thing to do whenever things don’t go our way.

Whenever someone crosses us, common human sense tells us that we need to cancel them and kick them out to the curb.

Yet Jesus offers a different sentiment to our enemies and those who oppose us

In prison, Paul isn’t living out conventional human wisdom which says to hate your enemy, he is loving his enemy and sharing the Gospel with him.

He is rejoicing that Christ is preaching proclaimed even if those proclaiming Christ have an axe to grind against Paul.

His joy remains undeterred.

The first way that we can walk worthy of our calling as Christians is to evaluate our goal in life.

Is our goal to get even and fight fire with fire?

Is our goal to live an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth?

If so, the whole world would be blind and toothless and that sounds like a terrible way for everyone to live! What’s the alternative?

To follow the example of Jesus and later that of Paul and love our enemies and rejoice that the Gospel is being proclaimed.

The next time that suffering comes knocking on your door, remember that you can choose in that moment to rejoice.

That even if the worst thing happens and even if someone betrays you the first chance they get, you’re not in bad company - Jesus and Paul and countless other Christians had the same experiences.

Walk worthy with Christlike Joy.

Live for Christ (1:21-30, 2:12-18)

As chapter 1 continues, Paul makes a statement that stands out to many of us concerning his focus on Christ

Imagine this hypothetical conversation Paul and the prison guards might have had

Paul stop talking about your supposed Messiah, we’ll kill you if you keep it up

That’s awesome - dying is gain

Wait?

You want to die?

Ok, we’ll keep you here and let you live

That’s even better - I can encourage Christians to grow in their faith!

Hmm… Now we’re going to make you suffer

The sufferings of this present world can’t compare with the glory going to be revealed.

It would be a joy to suffer for Christ

Do you see his back and forth with this simple statement?

If he lives, great, if he dies, great.

If he suffers for Christ, even better because he’ll experience joy and follow the way of Jesus who suffered the most gruesome injustice of all.

Paul held firmly to the sovereignty of God in a precarious situation.

Sure, he was in Roman prison, but he was truly a slave of Christ, not Caesar.

Sure, there were those who wanted him taken out, but God wasn’t done with Paul.

As a mentor of mine has put it before, “You are invincible until God calls you home.”

How can we know this?

Because of the sovereignty of our God who rules and reigns for His glory and for our good.