Joy Comes from the Strangest of Places

C. S. Lewis, someone who has had a profound impact on, I think, this generation's Christian thinkers and writers and pastors, spent his life pursuing the concept of joy. You can argue that it was his pursuit of capturing the sensation, capturing the thought, capturing the experience of joy that led him to his conversion to Christianity. As an Oxford scholar, a keen academic, but a staunch atheist, he couldn't shake the pangs of longing for that deep-seated feeling experience of joy.

In his autobiographical work that he wrote many, many years into his life called Surprised by Joy, he wrote about the concept of finding true joy by explaining how elusive it was to him. He writes, "All joy," and he characteristically writes joy with a capital J. "All joy reminds... It is never a possession. It is always a desire for something long ago or something further away or something still to be."

This achingly real search for joy has made C. S. Lewis an influential writer in our postmodern day. Like I said, he's had a profound impact on many Christian thinkers and pastors because he so simply and profoundly touches on the real, deep longings of humanity and finding happiness. This is why I think it is so important for us as Christians over the next coming weeks to talk about this concept of joy. We'll be looking at the epistle to the Philippians, Paul's letter to the Philippians, which has one of its key themes the concept of joy. And so as we as Christians think about it, because we are humans and it is our desire to experience and to understand and to have joy, it's also important for us as Christians who are reaching out (as Brendan prayed for) those around us who are humans as well, who also desire and long for joy.

For us to have an answer, for us to have a reason to talk about this pursuit of happiness. And so it's for this reason we kick off a series on this little book in the Bible, Paul's letter to the Philippians. It's a letter that was written towards the end of Paul's life. Estimates are that it was written about 61 AD. Tradition has it that Paul died at 64 AD or around that time.

At this point, Paul writes to the Philippians while he is in captivity. He is a prisoner for the sake of the gospel as he puts it, and he's writing to the Philippians in an overwhelmingly positive and encouraging way as Paul is reminded of the Philippian church going on with their life. He's just received news of them and he responds in this letter to that. Some of the major themes of the book include the topics of humility. Who can forget Philippians 2, the great hymn almost that he produces about how Christ did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but emptied himself, taking on the form of mankind.

So the topic of humility, but also church unity, how to remain together as a church even in the midst of struggles or pain or suffering. Also then, how to suffer as a Christian. Paul uses his example often throughout the letter as well, how he can endure all of this because of the great salvation that he has been given, but also that he proclaims. But I would argue above them all is the concept of joy. It is just overflowing, overflowing this letter with that happiness, that joyfulness, that thankfulness of Paul.

And so for those of us who are interested in having joy in our lives, I think there can be no better place than by opening up the book of Philippians. And we're going to do that by reading Philippians 1:1-11. Philippians 1:1: "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. I thank my God in all my remembrance of you.

Always in every prayer of mine for you all, making my prayer with joy because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now. And I'm sure of this: that He who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ. It is right for me to feel this way about you all because I hold you in my heart for you are all partakers with me of grace, both in my imprisonment and in the defence and confirmation of the gospel. For God is my witness, how I yearn for you with all the affection of Christ Jesus. And it is my prayer that your love may abound more and more with knowledge and all discernment.

So that you may approve what is excellent and so be pure and blameless for the day of Christ, filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ to the glory and praise of God." So far our reading. So as we begin the reading of this letter, we understand and we recognise a structure that is in place, something that's a bit of a signature element for Paul's writings, his letters. He begins with telling them who is writing to them.

He introduces it as Paul and Timothy tagged by the label servants of Christ Jesus. Then he says to whom he's addressing the letter: to the saints in Christ Jesus who are at Philippi along with the overseers and the deacons. The overseers being the elders. And then another characteristic element, his greeting: grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

Now if you've read a lot of the New Testament and of Paul's letters, they all follow this general proforma. But commentators are quick to point out that there are some slightly nuanced elements to Paul's introduction here in Philippians. Paul addresses not simply the church, but also the elders and the deacons, which is a little bit unique, a little bit different. As we'll see, there is a special note to them. There's a special element where he's also speaking to the leadership of the Philippian church.

There's a theme around church unity and leadership that's being introduced here. Additionally, Paul introduces himself and Timothy as servants of Christ Jesus, but the word used there for servant may as well have been slaves of Christ Jesus. And the idea here is of bonded servitude, people shackled to their task. And that is what Paul plays on: that he is both a prisoner, but he is also a slave to this cause.

He is a slave to Christ Jesus, and so is Timothy as well. And so in some way, again, he introduces the idea of service, servitude to Jesus Christ who is the Lord, a slave of Christ and a slave for Christ. But then we come to the opening remarks, which is the bulk of today's message, which is an absolute explosion of thanksgiving, gratitude, and joy. And here is where we are introduced to that theme right from the outset: joy.

And so if you have already found joy, you may as well go to sleep now. You can tune out, but for the rest of us, we're going to be focusing on this passage. And what we see in the next nine verses is perhaps one of the most helpful explanations of how we can find that elusive search, that elusive concept of joy. And Paul explains in a few words and verses where joy comes from. Where joy comes from.

Three aspects that we're going to explore this morning. The first thing we see in verses one through to five is how joy comes from what you do. Paul begins his letter with the words: "I thank my God in all my remembrance of you. Thus, for always in every prayer of mine for you all making my prayer with joy." Now you can't help but notice from those verses just the all-encompassing, the universal scope of the wording here.

Notice how many times Paul uses the word all. "I thank my God in all my remembrance of you, always in every prayer of mine for you all." Paul gives thanks for the Philippian church with a heart full of joy in every situation as he thinks of them. Now as we'll see, the Philippian church has just sent Paul a messenger by the name of Epaphroditus, who we'll hear about later in chapter two. Along with this messenger, Paul has received gifts, financial support, and perhaps food and so on, basic needs because Paul was a prisoner like we mentioned.

And in those days in the Roman Empire, if you were a prisoner, you didn't have really the luxury of taxpayer-funded food and amenities and so on. So Paul was being physically looked after by his supporters, by the Christians around him. And this is nice, but what Paul has just heard from this messenger Epaphroditus is how well things are going at Philippi in Greece. Now Paul is in Rome. Philippi is in Greece.

It's a completely different country. And Philippi, the church was a small, poor church. Yet their eyes and their hearts had been so captured by the gospel that they had aligned themselves in deed as well as spirit to the work of Paul in declaring, defending, proclaiming the gospel. They were a small church living with a big mission. And this, I think, is why they are supporting Paul, but this is why Paul is so overwhelmingly joyful.

Even as a poor church, he sees this little gift, this little word of comfort to Paul as not simply financial support, but also as a buying into this great mission, which is to declare the good news of Jesus to the ends of the earth. And so Paul is moved and he prays prayers of thanksgiving marked with joy. But this is the interesting thing for us as Christians to take notice of, and the interesting cause of joy. Joy is not necessarily what you experience, but what you do. So often we think joy is something that you arrive at by some sort of extraordinary event.

By pampering yourself—that's where we find joy. Or by taking some me time—that's where we find joy, quiet time away from the kids. Or it is by getting that new shiny gadget. We think that the thankfulness we then get is a response to being joyful.

The thankfulness is a response to being joyful, but perhaps, as in Paul's example here, joy comes from being thankful. Think about it. Those moments of genuine joy you've experienced were probably also tied with a deep and sincere sense of thankfulness. But thankfulness is something that is found completely outside of ourselves. Think about those things that you were thankful for.

No one is thankful for their own heart. No one is thankful for their own personality and, reflecting and thinking, "K. J., you're a pretty great guy. There's so much about your personality that you can be thankful for." Thankfulness isn't introspective. It's usually about something outside of ourselves.

We are thankful for our kids. We are thankful for a Sunday walk in beautiful surroundings. We are thankful for the peaceful tweeting of birds in the morning. Thankfulness is about something entirely outside of ourselves, but that is also the place where joy is sparked—outside of ourselves. C.

S. Lewis writes that joy is therefore a byproduct. He writes, "Its very existence presupposes that you desire not it, but something other and outer." By its very nature, joy is something that isn't found by focusing on ourselves. We most often experience joy when we aren't thinking about ourselves.

When we are thinking of other things or other people. In introspection, Lewis continues, we try to look inside ourselves and see what is going on, but nearly everything that was going on in that joyful moment before now is stopped by the very fact of turning to look at it. The very moment we think, "There it is, joy. I'm gonna grab it," it's gone.

In other words, something about joy disappears when we go back inside ourselves trying to exploit it, trying to bottle it. It's like catching butterflies. When I was a boy, I remember a brief period of time being fascinated with butterflies. I mean, probably every kid is at one point in time. They're so beautiful.

And they're so colourful and their little flapping just looks so joyful and happy. And as they flit from flower to flower, I thought I could somehow secure and exploit that butterfly's happiness by literally bottling it up. And so one day I managed to catch a butterfly and I placed it gently inside a jar. And I thought to myself, "Now I'll be able to enjoy it forever." But I'm not sure if it was stress or whether I had accidentally hurt its delicate body.

The butterfly died within minutes. Minutes. Desperate to store up happiness, I went out to find another one and only managed to find one a few days later. And again, to corner it and capture it, and again, put it in a jar. But after I had captured it again one more time, its poor life also faded along with my happiness.

I had learned, I had learned that butterflies existed for nature and for freedom. And their happy flapping, which had given me so much pleasure, was just a byproduct of their existence. There is something about joy that is the same for human beings. Joy, even though we desire it and we long for it, is not the end itself. It is a byproduct.

Joy is tied to something else and that something is definitely not found in us. Because every time we make it about joy, every time we pursue joy, it disappears. It fades. It delights. And here with Paul, we see a moment of joy attached to remembrance and being thankful.

And so I wanna say the first point this morning for us as a good habit as Christians, as people desiring joy, is to learn how to be thankful. It is to get into a habit of recognising God's good gifts in our lives and by recognising and being thankful, that produces joy in the heart. So if you find yourself without much joy, test it. Test this theory. Go home this week and start focusing on all the things that are good in your life and see whether they will bring joy.

But joy is not so much what you can exploit. It is something that you can do, however. It is something that you can pursue practically by being mindful of good things and losing yourself in order to find something outside of yourself. But secondly, joy comes not from what you do only, but from who we are. Who we are.

In verses six to eight, Paul reminds himself and his church of who we are. He tells the Philippian church they are masterpieces by God's grace. They are masterpieces of God's grace. This is what he writes in verse six: "I am sure of this, that He who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Christ."

The NIV translation puts it this way: "Being confident of this, that He who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus." What's being introduced here is the theological concept of sanctification, the process which literally means becoming holy, becoming a better version of ourselves. The word simply means being turned into saints. What this process entails or means is that once you are saved, once you've put your trust in Jesus, that's not the end of the story.

It's not like we've got our ticket now and we're just waiting until we go to heaven. No. This faith starts changing us. This faith starts transforming our hearts and our minds. Now people do think that "Look, this is the Christian thing.

Just everyone put your trust in Jesus, and then we'll just keep our eyes up to the sky and we'll wait for him to come back." That is the Christian life. Others believe that "Well, I've believed in Jesus. There has been this massive change in my life when I came to faith. Things are just changing left, right and centre.

My whole life is transformed, but then a few months later, you realise, 'Man, there's still stuff. There's still stuff I'm wrestling with. There's still stuff that hasn't changed. Lots has, but there's still issues.' And so we start doubting.

We start thinking, 'Well, maybe I'm only half saved. Maybe the victory isn't quite complete. Maybe I am still a horrible person.' But this is what God says to us here in verse six. You can be confident of this.

You are being made holy. The work I've started in you, I'm continuing in you, and I will complete in you, and I will keep tinkering on your heart until Jesus comes again or you die to be with Him. Don't worry. I haven't quit. So when we become Christians, God places His own nature—the Holy Spirit—inside of us, connects it somehow to our soul, infiltrates our thinking, our heart—however that works—but He is a part of us.

And whether we believe it or not, whether we sense it or not, there is an ongoing power of God inside every Christian who has placed their heart and their hope in Jesus. And that power is transforming us, changing us to become the person we always have wanted to become. Now you'll be able to, through this transformation, to become the humbler version of yourself. It means that if this is true, we can be confident that you will become that kinder version, the more generous version, the more patient person, all those things that Brendan prayed for before: loving, forgiving, and even more joyful.

And this is something that Paul is confident about. Can you say that about yourself? I'm confident of it. I am sure of this, he says, and this produces joy. Now if you are saddened by how far off perfection you still are this morning, if your life is still messy, if you wonder what you have and what you could have contributed to this heartbreak of a life that you have, remember this: that He who began a good work in you will carry it through to completion.

Not just ninety-five percent of the way there. Not just 51% and you do the 49%. He will complete it. He will perfect it in you. The Greek word is to perfect it in you. And so there is hope.

And surprisingly, when that hope is found in us, that hope is not us. We don't therefore go, "Well, now I have it all together. Like, I can put this hope in me to fix it." It's the power of God in us through the Holy Spirit. And so we can find a joy in who we are, but it's not really us, but God in us.

Does that make sense? It is not who we are that joy comes from, really. It is the God who is in us who is transforming us. And so when we find ourselves wrestling with joylessness, hopelessness, stumbling yet again into sin, crumbling yet again under the pressure of the chaos of the world, that sort of life—tell yourself: I am more than this. I am more than this.

I am confident of this. That God who has started something good in me will finish it in me as well. The fact that I sense the brokenness is proof that God is starting to mould me. It's proof that I don't want that anymore. It's proof that something better is happening.

And so joy comes from knowing who we are, or rather, knowing who we are because of the God who is in us. And then thirdly and finally, we find that joy comes from what has been done for us. In verses nine to eleven, Paul explains what sort of thing he prays for when he is praying for the Philippians. Verse nine: "It is my prayer that your love may abound more and more with knowledge and all discernment so that you may approve what is excellent and so be pure and blameless for the day of Christ. Filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ to the glory and praise of God."

Paul prays for love to abound. How? Through knowledge and discernment. Ask yourselves a question: when do I find myself depressed? When do I find myself cranky?

When we forget the good news of Jesus. When we live as though we don't know. Honestly, it's that simple. When are you at your worst? When are you at your most unhappy is when we aren't filled with the knowledge of Jesus, discernment, which leads to not love abounding—the opposite of love abounding.

We think the tiniest things are now the most important. We make mountains out of molehills. Yet being filled with the knowledge of Jesus all the time—and that is what he's praying for all the time—being filled with the knowledge of Jesus Christ. Paul says, allows us to discern the excellent things. The excellent things. Being constantly filled with the knowledge of Jesus Christ makes our lives better.

It helps us discern what is actually important over against the things that are silly, the things that are small, the things that are dumb, the things that are ultimately soul-destroying. So what does this knowledge and this discernment do? Well, Paul says verse eleven, it fills us up with the fruit of righteousness. This is the practical consequence of the good life. The good life.

The Christian life. What is that good life? It is experiencing the sweet spot of walking in obedience to God in every facet of our life and receiving God's blessing in return. That is the good life. That is the sweet spot.

Simply doing His will. Now being obedient to His law, being obedient to His will for our lives, is the fruit of righteousness. It is the actions by which we live. It is the thoughts by which we think. And I think the great explanation or the list of these fruit of righteousness—you could say—is the fruit of the Spirit in Galatians 5.

It is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, gentleness, all those things. But can you see the process starting here? Can you see how it begins? It starts with knowledge. It starts with discernment.

It starts with filling our minds up with what has already been accomplished. This in turn leads to abounding love. Abounding. It means unending. It means overflowing.

You can't keep it in. That sort of love, and that love is directed towards God, to His praise, the glory of God. But I think it doesn't end there because Paul will go on to say this affects how we relate to others as well. Abounding love for others as well. But notice that all of this comes from Jesus Christ.

Verse eleven, that's where it ends. Have a look: "Filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ." It's not the fruit of righteousness exemplified by Jesus. It's not the fruit of righteousness that He demands of you.

It's the fruit of righteousness which comes to us, which is given to us through Jesus. This good life that we enter into is brought to us ultimately, Paul says, by the work of Jesus. His loving death. His life-giving resurrection—it's been for us. The whole thing.

It's all a fragrant offering on our behalf as the judgement of God has been turned away from our brokenness and our guilt, and the righteousness of Jesus has been exchanged and given to us. And this is perhaps the greatest lesson about this joy that we learned this morning. Joy is only possible because Jesus has made it possible. If you're here this morning, not really sure whether you believe in Jesus or not, being unsure whether you are allowed to believe in Jesus, perhaps you're not even sure whether you are truly accepted by Jesus.

I wanna put it this way: You will never find lasting joy in anything other than Him. As human beings, we all know about this elusive thing called joy. And we all know about it because we all know God. Even our non-Christian friends know God. We know joy because we know God.

And as human beings, we all somehow desire that, but only Jesus gives us the option of a permanent access to the joy of God. In fact, in fact, this is ultimately the thing that led the joy-seeker C. S. Lewis to Christ. He realised that joy in itself was never really the destination. He thought it was. He chased it for his whole adult life, but it was never the destination.

It was only the signpost. It was only the signpost pointing to something greater. This is how he puts it: "Joy itself, considered simply as an event in my own mind, turned out to be of no value at all. All the value lay in that of which joy was the desiring."

And that object, quite clearly, was no state of my own mind or body at all. The value of joy, he's saying, is ultimately what we desire. The value of joy lies in what it is pointing to, which is unity with God who is the fountain of all joy. And if you desire joy, to my non-Christian friends, I will say it's because you desire God. And I wanna tell you this morning that Jesus is the one by which we find God.

And I want to invite you, if you haven't yet placed your trust in Jesus, to do so this morning, to be reconciled with God again. I'll be happy to pray with you. If you see someone here that looks like they know something, why don't you grab them and ask them to pray for you? The picture of Paul's joy in Philippians, which we'll continue to explore over the coming weeks, is one of both a steadfast knowledge, a resolute understanding that produces joy, but also a pang of longing, a desire. And that joy, both the steadfast knowledge and the longing for it, is something we experience as Christians. We have a steadfast joy because we have the hope of Christ in us by which we can say, "I am confident of this."

But we also have the confidence or the desire that we will someday, one day, be fulfilled completely, reconciled completely with our God. And so in our daily lives, we experience the pangs of joy available to all because God in His mercy has left signposts behind pointing us to Him. Let's pray. Lord Jesus, we thank you for your Word this morning to us. We thank you for this reality of joy that can be something we can have.

I wanna pray this morning for those of us who, through various circumstances or situations they are facing, have seemingly lost sight of joy this morning. I wanna pray for them that as they hear these words again, as they sense the desire of their heart, Lord, that they may be comforted and maybe even moved to joy by the understanding that they may be confident that the one who has done an amazing work in them by drawing them to Himself, opening their eyes to see You, moving their hearts to recognise You as God, will also be assured of the completed package. There is a time perhaps in our lifetime, perhaps in the next, where everything will be fine.

Where everything will be more than fine. Where everything will be great. And so Lord, I want to pray for those that they may have some foretaste this morning. They will be confident and assured that they may be thankful even in this morning. And out of that thankfulness, out of the ability to remove ourselves from ourselves, to be given the perspective of something greater than ourselves, we will find joy.

Lord, we want to pray for our friends that don't know You. I want to pray for those even here this morning that may have never really had the opportunity, have never been moved to give their lives to You. And I pray for them this morning, Lord, that they may find You, that You may be found by them. I ask, Lord, that You will move in their hearts, that You will draw them to Yourself, that they may also know and experience this confidence, this joy that we have in Jesus. We pray for our friends who don't know You, our family members who have walked away from You.

We pray, Lord, that through our witness to them, they may also be drawn to You. And then, Father, for the rest of us, that our lives may be marked with happiness and joy and peace, the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ. That we may have lives that are overflowing, abounding with love because of this incredible thing that You have done for us. We thank you, Lord, for Your Word this morning.

Pray that You add to our hearts. Remind us of these words in this week and in our lives. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.