I want to talk about Paul, a man who wrote a good deal of what we know as the New Testament in our Bibles. From this man’s mind and heart came pictures, great and eternal illustrations, of how we are to see Christ and His Church.
From this early missionary, pastor and teacher, we learn to view Jesus as the Head of the Church and of us, as members of His Body active and at work in this world. We learn many things from Paul: the necessity of spiritual armor for the warfare, the power of love, and the importance of prayer, just to name a few.
A careful look at Paul’s letter to the Philippians reveals in its tone, a collection of words that is relevant to us today. His writing points us to joy as a practice of life.
Paul was a man who underwent a radical change in his point of view about Jesus. He was not one of the Apostles who walked and talked with Christ during His public ministry on earth. For sure, he came to know of the Man from Nazareth and of the people who had been transformed by the Gospel.
He grew up in the university city of Tarsus, situated in the southeastern part of what is now Turkey. There, he became acquainted with both Greek thought and Roman methods. Added to his Hebrew identity and his connection to the true God, these things made Paul one of the truly unique people in all of history.
At some point, Paul became an unyielding, orthodox follower of the ways of the Law as it was given from God to Moses. He would come to identify himself as a “Pharisee of the Pharisees.” He committed himself to strict rabbinic school led by Gamaliel and entered into a life devoted to the restoration of Israel as a Kingdom and world power with the Temple as its religious center.
Encountering Jesus
This man is introduced to us in Acts 7, a chapter that describes the stoning of Stephen, one of the original church deacons. Stephen, a Jewish believer in Christ, delivered a stinging rebuke to those whose hard hearts kept them from seeing the reality of Jesus as the promised Messiah. Stephen admonished them for they had always resisted the Spirit and ignored the message of the Lord whether the word came from Moses, Isaiah, Jeremiah, or any other spokesmen sent to them.
Stephen’s sermon fueled rage that sparked a mob to seize and beat him. As the attackers gathered and began to hurl rocks, their cloaks were laid at the feet of Paul.
He watched Stephen sink to the dust. He no doubt also heard Stephen as he testified to seeing an open Heaven complete with Jesus standing at the right hand of Glory, ready to welcome His besieged, battered saint. This faithful deacon punctuated his departure with a word of prayer: “And he kneeled down, and cried with a loud voice, Lord, lay not this sin to their charge. And when he had said this, he fell asleep” (Acts 7:60).
Did Paul ever forget that scene? I don’t think so.
For a season, he became one of the chief agents of persecution toward Christians as their movement gained a foothold during the late 30s and 40s of the first century AD. He poured all of his restlessness and agitation into stamping out the spread of the Message of Jesus. He engaged in the forceful suppression of the Way. He delivered believers of Jesus over to jail, scourging, and even to execution.
Then, Heaven opened to Paul. Down came the Light from above. He encountered Jesus en route to Damascus. With him, he carried arrest warrants for any Jew who had come to follow the Savior.
Christ spoke: “Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me? … I am Jesus whom you persecute: it is hard for thee to kick against the pricks” (Acts 9). What were those goads that jabbed at Paul? I am convinced that they were memories of Stephen and how he perished with a prayer for his enemies and killers.
From this moment forward, Paul’s passion for God was turned toward telling everyone about Jesus the Christ, the Son of the Living God.
A Letter of Love and Joy
One of the stops on his missionary journey was Philippi. In Acts 16, Luke recorded how Paul conducted a “beach reach” and discovered a women’s prayer group that included Lydia, a seller of purple, a businesswoman of some means since purple cloth was costly and much desired among the wealthy in Roman society.
Lydia became a believer in Jesus and a supporter of the work of Paul at once. She pressed him to start meetings in her home, and this group grew into the central church in the city.
While Paul was imprisoned, awaiting a hearing before Nero, the Caesar of the Empire, he wrote his Song of Solomon to the saints at Philippi. This, in my mind, is a love letter of the best kind.
The syntax in these sentences is free, wild, and loose. Paul’s giddiness overflows in the fashion of the Bridegroom who gushed “Behold, you are fair, my love; behold, you are all fair. …” (Song 4:1). Of the Philippians, Paul said, “I thank God upon every remembrance of you…For God is my witness, how I yearn and long and desire for you all with the affection of Christ Jesus” (Philippians 1:3, 8).
The pages literally burst with joy as Paul considers the people of this place. The words “joy” or “rejoice” appear at least 19 times throughout the four chapters of Philippians.
The important thing Paul emphasizes is that joy goes beyond feeling. His instruction is that joy is a mind thing. Happiness comes and goes with circumstance and situation. Joy, however, remains because joy comes through thinking with God.
Partakers of Grace
The opening part of Philippians 1 features a string of thoughts he’s having about his beloved flock. He’s a caring shepherd who, while apart from the sheep, sets his mind on the memories of them in order to warm his heart.
The fellowship at Philippi in the Gospel was rich and real from the start, he recalled. There was Lydia, but there was also the jailer of the city. This man’s family came to Christ after he heard the hymn sung by Paul and Silas and it summoned an earthquake that shook the dungeon and rattled off their chains. The man became suicidal until Paul called to him and told him of the Way and the Truth – Life broke forth there and then.
This was all God. Paul possessed a mindset of victory because he constantly considered the power of Christ at work in him and in others.
“And I am 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” (Philippians 1:6-7).
Confidence comes to us as we think in grace. Love abounds as we gain “more and more knowledge” and discernment from the Word and the Holy Spirit. (Philippians 1:9).
To those who may have sorrowed over Paul’s status as a prisoner, he told them to understand this: “the things that have happened to me have fallen out for the furtherance of the Gospel” (Philippians 1:12).
Think God. Think Gospel. Think mission. Think Jesus and take joy.
Be sure of this, Paul wrote to the Philippians, there will be victory through your prayers and the supply of the Spirit. “Christ shall be magnified in me, whether it by life, or by death. For me to live is Christ, and to die is gain” (Philippians 1:21-22).
Even the prospect of death could not dampen the joy in the heart of Paul. What kept his heart and mind was the “earnest expectation and hope” that in nothing he would be ashamed; the life to come would be beyond anything we could imagine (Philippians 1:20).
Thoughts of this expectation and hope are the fuel for our joy. Let us hold fast these promises for He shall hold us fast, and hold us fast forever, “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” (Philippians 1:10-11).
