In the magazine Christianity Today there was a little quip that said 'Some people think it's difficult to be a Christian and to laugh. I think it's the other way around. God writes a lot of comedy it's just that He has so many bad actors.' Well, not Paul the apostle. He was able to see a humorous element in how things happened to him that brought him joy in his life. You know, there's a question that you have asked, everybody asks this question: "How can I be happy? What things in life will bring me joy?" There's another question that we entertain from time to time. It's about our future: "What will happen to me in my future?" We all ask that question. Unfortunately, when we think of our future we usually gravitate toward the worst possible things that could happen. And unfortunately we tie both of those questions together. Sort of like this: "I will be happy if everything works out my way in the future. If things go well for me, I'll be a happy person. But, if things don't go my way, if bad things happen, some kind of personal loss, I'm going to be very miserable." There's a problem with that line of thinking. If that is true, we have a problem with Paul the apostle- who had very difficult circumstances and in the midst of them writes about such compelling, outrageous joy.
How could he? Three possibilities: He's a nutcase, possibility number one. And being in a mentally deluded state, he'd be happy anywhere. Second possibility: he's lying through his teeth. He's really not joyful, it's just the nice Christian thing to say. Third possibility: he's on to something. And we ought to find out what that is because in places where we least expect it, certainly in Paul's situation, he has this incredible joy. Rejoicing, joy is one of the themes of his entire letter to the Philippians. It's a theme that runs like a thread throughout every chapter. I want you to notice how often it's mentioned. Verse 3 of chapter 1: "I thank my God upon every remembrance of you, always in every prayer of mine making request for you all with joy." Look down at verse 18: "What, then, only that in every way, whether in pretense or in truth Christ is preached and in this I rejoice, yes and will rejoice." Look over at chapter 2, verse 17. It gets more bizarre: "Yes, and if I am being poured out as a drink offering on the sacrifice and service of your faith" in other words, if I die because of my imprisonment during this stay in prison, if that even happens, "I am glad and rejoice with you all for the same reason you also should be glad and rejoice with me." Chapter 3 verse 1: "Finally, my brethren" And any time Paul says that you know it's really not finally "rejoice in the Lord." Chapter 4 verse 4: "Rejoice in the Lord always again I will say rejoice."
Couple years ago I sat in my office with a man who was very wealthy. In fact, he was a multimillionaire several times over. And yet, he was so miserable. He was so unhappy. I think back to another time when I had my arm around an alcoholic -- miserable, a drug addict on another time -- miserable, unhappy. I remember the evening I had a conversation with a prostitute who came. A woman who had sexual escapades every night of her life- she was suicidal that night, she wanted to end it all. Life was not worth living -- she was miserable. I think of the times I've met with powerful people from the political realm or business realm, who at that point weren't happy, but miserable. Now, I think you get my drift. If happiness depended upon money, power, sex, drugs -- these people should have been the happiest people on earth. They weren't. Because that's not where happiness comes from. By the way, joy we might say, is different from happiness. Happiness goes up and down. Happiness depends on the happenings. Your circumstances. Joy is pervasive, it's deep, it's constant. Even when things are not going your way, like what Paul's going through. C.S. Lewis once wrote these words: "Our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling around with drink, sex, ambition -- when infinite joy is offered to us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mudpies in the slum because he can't imagine what is meant by an offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased."
Let's look at verse 12 of chapter 1, down to verse 14. "But I want you to know, brethren, that the things which happen to me have actually turned out for the furtherance of the gospel. So that it is become evident to the whole palace guard and to all the rest that my chains are in Christ. And most of the brethren in the Lord had become confident by my chains are much more bold to speak the word without fear." Paul is in prison. No reason at all, earthly, typically, outwardly, why he ought to be a happy person. And yet that is one of the themes of this letter and certainly that's part of what we just read. He's in one of life's worst situations.
Paul the apostle, and if you've read many of his letters you know, was never one to lick his wounds, was he? He never sent out invitations to come to his personal pity party, held in honor of himself. He also would rise above it and see something different in it. The reasons for his joy were not just in his circumstances. We want to find out today what made this guy tick? How could he have, in this situation, the kind of joy that's all over this letter? To find out why, we have to follow a progression. We need to understand what Paul's passion was. What drove him. That's the object of his joy. Then we have to see Paul's predicament. What challenged his joy. And then, finally, God's plan in the midst of all this, which is the reason for his joy.
Could it be said that spiritual maturity can be measured by what it takes to steal your joy? Think about that. Spiritual maturity is measured by what it takes to rob you of your joy. So ask yourself, "How easily is my joy taken away -- by what?" With that in mind, let's look at Paul's passion. And I draw your attention to verse 12, two words at the end of the verse: "the gospel". The gospel. Those two words sum up what drove Paul the apostle. Everyone who has ever read anything written by this guy, whether its Romans, Corinthians, Philippians, whatever, would understand and agree that Paul was a driven man. He was a true Type-A personality. He was focused in life. He knew what he was after, he was highly motivated. And generally, people like that are very successful people. They never say die, they never say stop, they go after it with full gusto. Everyone has a passion of some kind. A master passion, we could call it. It's not a hobby, it's a preoccupation. It's the big enchilada. For some people, it's their occupation, their position in life, their profession. And they'll go after that with such a zeal and a fervor that unfortunately, the rest of their life will suffer. They'll put even family on the back-burner just to achieve their position. For others it's money, for others it's sexual -- whatever, it could be a lot of different things. A person's passion in life.
Paul's passion is summed up by these two words: the gospel. The revolutionary message of Jesus Christ. Just to show you how much the gospel was on his mind, look again at some verses. Verse 5 he's thanking God "for your fellowship in the gospel from the first day until now". Down 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." Verse 12: "But I want you to know, brethren, that the things which happened to me have actually turned out for the furtherance of the gospel." Verse 15: "Some indeed preach Christ from envy and strife, some also from good will. The former preach Christ from selfish ambition, not sincerely, supposing to add affliction to my chains but the latter out of love knowing that I am appointed for the defense of the gospel. What then? Only that in every way, whether in pretense or in truth, Christ is preached." Look at verse 27: "Only let your conduct be worthy of the gospel of Christ so that whether I come and see you or am absent, I may hear of your affairs, that you stand fast in one spirit, with one mind, striving together for the faith of the gospel."
That's only in this chapter. In all of Paul's writings, Paul mentions his drive, the gospel, 72 times. That's a lot. That was his joy. That was his passion. The gospel. Now Paul is writing from Rome to a group in Philippi. Before he went to Rome, he wrote these words to the Roman church: "As much as is in me, I am ready to preach the gospel to you who are in Rome." That's passion. With everything in me, I'm ready to go for it. Same book, Romans 15, he says, "It has always been my ambition [that's his passion] to preach the gospel where Christ has not been known." Now, why was the gospel Paul's passion? He was an educated guy. He knew several languages, he knew history, he was very well-cultured, he was a Roman citizen with a Greek background, schooled in Judaism. Why was the gospel his passion, especially since this was the guy that tried to eradicate the gospel from planet earth? He was hunting Christians from city to city, forcing them, he said, to blaspheme. He hated the gospel. He said in Galatians 1: "I persecuted the church of God and I tried to destroy it." How is it that the chief antagonist of the gospel becomes the chief protagonist for the gospel? How does the number one opponent to Jesus become the number one proponent? How?
The answer is: the gospel. The gospel changed his life. He had an incredible experience on the road to Damascus, he had a conversation with Jesus, he surrendered his life. The gospel changed him. And ever since that day, it became his passion to preach it. By the way, unless you have experienced true conversion, the gospel will never become your passion. It only becomes the passion of those who have seen its effect in their lives, as it did with Paul. Shortly after I gave my life to Jesus Christ, and I was fumbling through trying to witness to somebody, they interrupted me and they said, "How do you know you're saved?" I said, "Well, I know, it's easy because I was there when it happened." I know the change that happened in my life. Ask my friends. Talk to my family. Because Paul saw such a revolutionary change, because of the gospel message in his own life, it became his own passion and joy to share it.
He wrote to the Romans these words: "I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ for it is the power of God to salvation for everyone who believes." Paul the apostle would have agreed with General William Booth, the founder of the Salvation Army, who said: "Some men's passion is for gold. Some men's passion is for art. Some men's passion is for fame. My passion is for souls." So was Paul's. His passion was the gospel. Paul loved its message, Paul loved its effect to convict a heart, Paul loved its ability to transform a life. So, the gospel was his object of joy -- it's what made him happy.
The second in this progression is to look at his predicament. If his passion is the gospel then he's in quite a predicament because his joy is challenged. Notice verse 12: "I want you to know, brethren, that the things which happened to me" Circumstances. What happened to Paul was what we would say was very drastic. He's writing this letter from a Roman prison to the church at Philippi. Because he's in prison, his ability to fulfill his passion has been cut it seems. I mean, if his passion is to freely spread the gospel, now he's in prison -- this is a problem. If that is his joy, and he cannot fulfill his passion, how can he have joy? He's in quite a predicament. Paul is where he always wanted to be, sort-of. He's doing what he always wanted to do, kind-of. That is, he's in Rome and he always had a passion to go to Rome, but this isn't quite what he expected. Seeing the four walls of a prison isn't what he had in mind. He wrote to the Romans and said, "I want a prosperous journey by the will of God". That's not what he got. This is what he got: After Paul's third trip, his missionary journey, he went back to Jerusalem. He was involved in a temple ceremony. While he was in the temple, he was falsely accused by a group of Jewish patriots, they mobbed him, the Romans arrested him, he was shipped off to Caesarea by the sea for two years in prison, went through three trials. Mistrials- they heard his case three times, finally Paul saw it was going nowhere, he said "Forget it. I appeal to Caesar." He had the right to do that as a Roman citizen. That simply meant he would now stand before Caesar himself and appeal his case -- which means he has to go to Rome. He goes to Rome by boat, not the Love Boat, a cargo boat, and then a slave boat. And they get shipwrecked on the way. And after many trials and many problems, he finally makes it to Rome in chains, almost killed at sea. So, he always wanted to go to Rome, and he got there -- but this is not what he had in mind. He planned to take a missionary journey, he comes as a convict. What does that mean? Simply means that this maverick, wild, free-as-a-bird entrepreneur and evangelism is caged. He can't go out and plant churches, he can't go out and encourage churches, he can't disciple people like he used to do. He's constrained. His passion has been cut, he's incarcerated. Incarceration of any kind is a challenge to your joy, right? Whenever you're limited, you're restricted, your plans are cut short, what's your reaction? "Rejoice in the Lord, I didn't get what I wanted"!? No, it's usually, we grumble and we complain, "God, why did you let this happen?" Nobody likes confinement. Nobody likes limitation. For you, it could be a job. You feel like you're changed to that crummy job. "I have bills to pay, I can't get out of it, I need to work, but it's miserable." You might feel changed to a relationship. What you thought would be freedom, you feel like now is a chain. You might be chained to responsibilities. You're at a point in your life where you have to care for somebody- it requires a lot of your time, a lot of your energy. You feel like a prisoner. And you are tempted to see yourself as a victim. To say things like, "I can't have joy, I'm not fulfilling my passion in life. I'm doing this now!" Somebody once said, "God speaks to us through the regularity with which he disappoints our plans." We don't like when God talks that way to us. But He speaks regularly as He disappoints our plans.
Now Paul is about to say something very revolutionary here in the next few verses. It is so revolutionary, few of us live, including myself, like what he talks about. And he shares it from a philosophy. Paul's philosophy in life was based on Romans 8:28: "And we know that all things work together for good to those that love God and are the called according to His purpose." It's a great verse. Hard for us to believe, though, isn't it? Be honest. Wouldn't it be a lot easier if the text said: 'and we know that most things work together for good'. And we know that ok, there's a few things that work together for pretty good, but the word 'all' is comprehensive- everything works together for good if you love God, if you're called according to His purpose. That means the good and the bad stuff that you don't like- God uses it. The best illustration that I can think of of this is in chemistry, there are certain elements that are poisonous by themselves, but in combination, they're a blessing. Sodium and chlorine. You don't want to ingest them by themselves. It's poison. Put them together, you have sodium chloride- that's salt. And you use it on your food, it becomes a blessing, it's palatable. And so it is with Paul's life and it can be in our lives.
God has a plan for you. God has a plan tailor-made for your life. The problem is, God's plan for your life isn't always your plan for your life. And so you've got your plans made, you're going in that direction, you've got a passion and then God interrupts your plans, throws you a curve ball, says, 'uh-uh.' Does something different. What's your reaction? "I can't believe God would allow that to happen!" I mean, that's typically my reaction. We're disappointed, we're disillusioned, we can become bitter. And yet we've asked God to direct us. "Lord, my life is Your life, do whatever will please You." And then God says, "Alright." And then we find out how dishonest that prayer was. We're like the couple who goes to the architect and says, "We'd like you to plan a house, draw out a house for us." And so he does and finds out that the couple already has a house in mind, quite different. They just want his sanctions- they don't want his plans, they just him to say 'hey, your plans are great.' Listen, God has editing rights over your life. As the film is rolled, God can say 'Stop!' Splice, splice, 'Put this in.' He can write the script. Paul recognizes that God has that power and so, that brings us to the third component of this progression: God's plan.
This is the reason for Paul's joy. If Paul's passion, his object of joy is the gospel being spread, but he's in a predicament, his passion seemingly is cut off by incarceration. He says in verse 12, "But I want you to know, brethren, that the things which happen to me have actually turned out for the furtherance of the gospel." Verse 12 opens up, "I want you to know." The words 'I want you to know'- it's an ancient phraseology, an ancient construction meant to draw attention to a truth he's about to lay out. He's saying in effect, "OK, you Philippians, I want no misunderstanding on what I'm about to say." Why? Because they probably saw his imprisonment as one of the worst possible things that could happen. 'Oh, no! They arrested Paul, he's in prison, he's in Rome- this is horrible!' "I want you to know, brethren, the things that have happened to me have actually turned out for the furtherance of the gospel." The word furtherance by the way means a forward momentum in spite of obstacles, dangers or distraction. It was a word used of soldiers who were advancing and had to clear away obstacles like trees and underbrush to advance. So Paul is saying that his imprisonment was no obstacle to the advance of the gospel, in fact it cleared the way for the gospel.
Three ways in which he mentions it does. First of all, Paul's imprisonment furthered God's plans for the Roman soldiers. Verse 13, "So that it has become evident to the whole palace guard and to all the rest that my chains are in Christ." This is what I figure happened. Don't know for sure, but it's quite possible. I can picture the church in Rome, before Paul gets to Rome as a prisoner, and the gospel is going through Rome making a lot of in-roads. But, perhaps they were praying something like this, 'Lord, you know the gospel's going out but there's this whole segment of politics, Caesar's household, the praetorian guard, the palace guard. And these people, they don't get a chance to hear the preaching of the gospel. If there's some way for you to reach the palace guards, Caesar's own household, with the gospel- Lord, just reveal that plan to us.' Then Paul ends up in Rome and guess who guards him? The palace guard. Greek word- the praetorian guard. The elite- like the CIA or the secret service. And notice that he mentions his chain in verse 13, "my chains are in Christ". The word 'chains' that he refers to is a short chain, a chain with a wrist cuff on one end and one on the other. Paul was chained on either side to a soldier. Twenty-four hours a day in four shifts of six hours, Paul always had two soldiers by his side. Around-the-clock incarceration, no privacy. Which means, they'd have to listen to Paul. For six hours at a time. Now, the visual: imagine being chained to Paul the apostle, for six hours, knowing the kind of guy he was. Have you ever had the experience of trying to introduce people to Jesus only to have them very disinterested and maybe even walk away? They couldn't walk away. They were chained to him. Paul took advantage -- he saw them, literally, as a captive audience. In Acts 28, it is the story of Paul coming to Rome as a prisoner and it tells us that Paul was a prisoner. But he had his own apartment, his own room. He was chained to soldiers, but it was the kind of situation under house arrest where people could visit him, he could talk to them, he could teach them Bible studies, he had the freedom to write and dictate letters even though he was chained to soldiers. F.B. Meyer, in his commentary, draws this picture for us: "At times the hired room would be thronged with people to whom the apostles spoke the words of life. And after they withdrew, the sentry would sit beside Paul, filled with many questions as to the meaning of the words which this strange prisoner spoke. At other times, especially at night, soldiers and the apostle would be left to talk. And in those dark, lonely hours, the apostle would tell soldier after soldier his own proud career in his early life- of his opposition to Jesus Christ and his ultimate conversion. And he would make it clear that he was there as a prisoner, not for any crime, not because he raised a rebellion or a revolt, but because he believed that He whom the Roman soldiers had crucified under Pilate was the Son of God and the Savior of men." There he was, a prisoner- a far cry from the freedom he once had to wander about, to establish churches and encourage people. A far cry from what he thought it would be like when he got to Rome. But, he's reaching a segment of the population that they probably thought were unreachable.
And I can even picture some of those soldiers asking to trade-off with some of the other soldiers just to get their shift. 'Hey, listen, Paul was really on to something and I know it's time for me to switch but, can I just take your shift? Can we trade?' Philippians 4:22, he's sending his greetings from Rome to the church at Philippi and Paul says, "all the saints send you greetings, especially those who belong to Caesar's household.' Saints belong to Caesar's household? Yes! Some of them got saved by those chains. So Paul's imprisonment furthered the gospel to the captive audience. The soldiers.
The second thing it did was further God's plan for the Roman citizen, the rest of Rome. In verse 13: "it became evident to the whole palace guard and to all the rest" Who's the rest? We piece all the Scriptures together and we infer 'the rest' is not just people in Caesar's household (the praetorian guard, the palace watchmen), but the rest of Rome. Since Acts 28 tells us Jewish leaders came in and talked to him, and other groups of people came in and listened to Paul, Paul was able to reach, even in an incarcerated state, many of the people throughout Rome. The rest. Acts 28:30-31: "For two whole years Paul stayed there in his own rented house and welcomed all who came to see him, boldly and without hindrance he preached the kingdom of God and taught about the Lord Jesus Christ." Do you understand that? That Paul's longest period of incarceration were his most fruitful years of ministry. His imprisonment brought blessing. Hey- the palace guards are getting saved, the rest of Rome that comes to hear me gets to hear the gospel. And, this is the great part, the Roman government's paying for it! I think God is interested in economy. Think of it: Paul always wanted to go to Rome -- that's an expensive ticket. God said, 'OK, Paul. I'll get you to Rome and I'll have Rome pick up the tab. You'll go on their boat (granted, it's a cargo boat and the second one'll be a prison boat, you'll have a shipwreck- but you'll get there). Won't cost you anything. And then, for two years, they'll put you up. They'll take care of you. And you'll get to share the gospel on their expense.' Now maybe you're thinking things like, 'Well, I could never go to the mission field, I don't have enough time with my restrictions to go to the School of Ministry or to be involved in that kind of evangelism, I'm stuck with this job, I'm stuck with these responsibilities. But, do you know what? Whatever place of limitation or incarceration you are living in, they can become your greatest point of furthering the gospel. If. If that's your passion. If it's not your passion, then when bad things happen you're just going to get very bummed out all the time. Because that's not your passion. Your passion is somewhere else. But if your passion is Paul's passion -- I want to further the gospel, I want to find out why I'm here in life, I want to be God's tool -- then you'll start seeing things like this, limitations, incarcerations, as perhaps a point for God to do a new thing.
Finally, verse 14, it also furthered God's plan for reluctant saints in Rome. "And most of the brethren [these are brothers and sisters in the Lord] having become confident by my chains are much more bold to speak the word without fear." Evidently, a lot of the Christians in Rome had lacked courage. They didn't want to talk about God. Because of all the problems that it incurred. When Paul got to Rome in Acts 28, the Jewish leaders came in and said 'Hey, did you know that this sect called Christianity is spoken against everywhere?' The leaders were probably saying, 'I'm not going to speak for Christ if it's going to put me in jail, everybody's speaking against it, Paul's in jail because of it.' Until they saw Paul in jail what that could do. Praetorian guards are getting saved, Rome's coming to hear him at his Bible studies. And they started thinking, 'If God can use him in prison, God can use me out of prison.' And so what happens? They're able, through their jobs, wherever they live in Rome, to speak God's Word, the gospel, and speak to people that wouldn't come to hear Paul's Bible studies. So the gospel is really making in-roads in Rome because of Paul's imprisonment and that encourages the church to speak up.
Also, you should know, that while Paul was here in Rome for two years, imprisoned with guards, he wrote some books. Not only Philippians- he wrote a letter to Philemon, the epistle to the Ephesians, and the epistle to the Colossians. God was doing some of His greatest work while he was a jailbird. He had a true prison ministry. And then he was released, tradition tells us. And later on, recaptured by Caesar Nero and then, he was killed. Before his death, 2 Timothy, he writes these words: "I suffer trouble as an evildoer even to the point of chains but the word of God is not chained." That's the summation of this experience. 'I'm chained, but you know what I learned? God's Word isn't chained. Even in my limitation, God can do great things.' So instead of seeing those two guards as a nuisance, I mean, think of it, a guard every six hours, one on either side for two years? No quiet time, no solitude. Instead of seeing them as a nuisance, he saw them as a mission field. He looked at his disappointment as God's appointment. God's up to something- this could be really cool. And the gospel was furthered. It's very much like another Bible hero named Joseph who was also imprisoned. His brothers threw him into jail. He was taken to Egypt, he was falsely accused, put into prison again. But he rose to be the second in command in Egypt. Toward the end of his life, when his brothers finally meet up with him again and they think, 'Oh, he's gonna really be ticked off when he sees us.' And they're probably wincing as Joseph is going to lower the boom. But Joseph looks at them and says, "As for you, you meant this for evil but God meant it for good." That's the Romans 8:28 principle.
Do you feel chained to something? Imprisoned? Again, it could be to the home. Maybe you're a housewife, maybe you quit a career, now you've got children, you don't have the freedom you once had. You think, 'Man, I'm really tied down. I can't fulfill my passions in life.' Susannah Wesley had 19 children -- that's a chain. Two of her boys, John Wesley and Charles Wesley, shook the British Isles with their evangelism and started a great revival. That chain paid off. Maybe you're changed to a lousy job. Maybe you're chained to a sickbed. Four walls of that room is a prison. Or maybe, you're an actual prisoner in jail. What good could ever happen here? Martin Luther translated the Bible while he was in prison. Pilgrim's Progress was written by John Bunyan while he was in the Bedford jail. Those places that we think are the greatest limitations and restrictions can become the greatest period of effectiveness for God. Written by the great Max Lucado in his book The Applause of Heaven:
"'I have everything I need for joy!' Robert Reid said. Amazing, I thought. His hands are twisted, his feet are useless, he can't bathe himself, he cannot feed himself, he can't brush his teeth, comb his hear or put on his underwear. His shirts are held together by strips of Velcro. His speech drags like a worn-out audio cassette. Robert has cerebral palsy. The disease keeps him from driving a car, riding a bike, going for a walk. But it didn't keep him from graduating from high school, or attending Abelin Christian University from which he graduated with a degree in Latin. Having cerebral palsy didn't keep him from teaching at St. Louis Junior College or from venturing overseas on five mission trips. And Robert's disease didn't prevent him from becoming a missionary in Portugal. He moved to Lisbon, alone, in 1972. There, he rented a hotel room. He began to study Portuguese. He found a restaurant owner who would feed him after the rush hour and a tutor who would instruct him in the language. Then he stationed himself daily in a park, where he distributed brochures about Christ. Within six years, he had led 70 people to the Lord, one of whom became his wife, Rosa. I heard Robert speak recently. I watched other men carry him up in his wheelchair to the platform. I watched them lay a Bible in his lap. I watched his stiff fingers force open the pages. I watched people in the audience wipe away tears of admiration from their faces. Robert could've asked for sympathy or pity, but he did just the opposite. He held his bent hand up in the air and he boasted, 'I have everything I need for joy!' His shirts are held together by Velcro, but his life is held together by joy."
What are your restrictions, your limitations? What would you describe as your place of incarceration? And what will you do about it? Will you wallow in self-pity and say I just can't? Who would have ever thought that that Roman prison experience for Paul would become some of the most fruitful years where he could reach Roman soldiers, Rome, and embolden the church? Paul's room became a fulcrum with which he moved his whole world- and that guy had joy. He wasn't one of God's bad actors. He had true joy, because his passion was the gospel.