Philippians is often called the "joy letter." Paul uses the noun "joy" five times and the verb "rejoice" eight times, and the entire letter exudes an attitude of joy. We might expect Paul to be vacationing on some Greek island, relaxing and enjoying himself. Instead, he is imprisoned in Rome, chained to Roman guards, awaiting trial and possible execution for a crime he did not commit! This highlights the profound difference between Christian joy and the definition of happiness that much of the world ascribes to.
In the English language, "happiness" derives from the word "happen" or "happenstance," and refers to the pleasant feelings that come from favorable circumstances. I usually feel happy on vacation because I am where I want to be, with the people I like being with, doing the things I like to do. There is nothing wrong with this – happiness is a blessing from God. But since happiness is dependent on favorable circumstances, it is extremely fragile in a sin-filled world. Pursuing it is therefore not a wise goal for your life.
"Joy," as it is used in this letter, is not just a feeling, although it involves your feelings. It is related to peace and hope – a deep-rooted sense of well-being that God grants us as we trust in Him (see Romans 15:13). Therefore, it is entirely independent of your circumstances, and you can have it even when you are unhappy (see 2 Corinthians 6:10a).
What does it look like to trust God in this way? We get one answer to this question in 1:12-18a . It is important to understand the theological truth implied within the details of this passage: God is sovereign over our adverse circumstances – specifically, He is able to advance His purpose (see Ephesians 1:11,12) and our good through them (see Romans 8:28). Because Paul trusted God’s sovereignty, he looked for God’s sovereign activity in his wrongful imprisonment. And when he saw glimpses of this, it gave him joy.
Paul’s gracious acceptance of his experiences mentioned in 1:12 shows how well he understood God's purpose to involve the progress of the gospel – spreading His message of salvation through Jesus' followers to people who do not yet understand or believe it. This is not about arrogant people forcing others to submit to their opinion; rather, it is about humble people sharing God's good news to others.
A picture of this is when one beggar finds food, and instead of hiding the source, they tell the other beggar where they too can find the food they need. . This is the heart of biblical Christianity: Humanity is infected with the lethal disease of sin. God, in His deep love for us, has provided the antidote through Jesus taking on death; for our sins He is offering this antidote through people who have already received it and can testify to its effectiveness.
Because God is sovereign, He can create opportunities to spread His message even in terrible circumstances. Note how Paul saw this in his circumstances:
God gave Paul unique opportunities to share this message through his imprisonment (1:13). The Roman imperial guards to whom he was chained became his captive audience, and they spread the message to other guards. The "everyone else" in this verse includes the many people who visited him as he was under house arrest (see Acts 28:30), and the people at his legal hearings.
God also used the news of Paul's example to strengthen the Roman Christians to share this message (1:14,15b,16). While they may have previously been too afraid, thinking they were better off staying quiet about their faith in the gospel to avoid getting arrested like Paul, his example gave them courage to share the good news, just as God gave courage to Paul in similar situations. Their love for Paul motivated them to share in his sufferings in this way.
God even used the impure motives of some of the Roman Christians to spread this message (1:15a,17). Certain Roman church leaders evidently felt jealous of and threatened by Paul's presence in Rome. When they heard that Paul had been sharing the gospel with so many people, they evidently stepped up their own outreach in order to compete with Paul's popularity. This motivation is not right, which is why Paul critiques it.
Before considering ourselves as more righteous than those Roman believers, we must evaluate our own hearts. We must ask ourselves questions such as, “Do I only share Christ with others for the sake of boasting? Do I invite people to look good or gain more relationships?”
God does not justify this behavior; however, He does graciously work to communicate His message of love to others, even through our impure motives. His ways will always supersede our imperfections and impurities!
Paul, like us, was not perfect in his ways and motives; yet God used his letters to advance the gospel. Those letters –specifically Philippians, Ephesians, Colossians, Philemon, and 2 Timothy – have influenced people to come to faith in Christ for many years, well beyond Paul’s time of spreading the gospel. Think about the impact of these letters and how many believers have been spiritually established, strengthened, and revived by these letters. Paul would likely be filled with joy today if he knew how God used him and the words he wrote. His imprisonment, which his captors intended to prevent the spread of the gospel, has actually been used by God to increase the spread of its progress. As Paul sees how God is confirming His sovereignty, he rejoices (1:18a).
There is an obvious application for all of us who belong to Christ: We have the same message Paul had. We have the same privilege of sharing it with others. We have the same God who is sovereign over our adverse circumstances, and is working through them to produce opportunities to share the message. And we have the same opportunity to experience joy as we see God doing this through us.
There is more modern day story that parallels Paul’s, in regards to how earthly intentions often do not align with God’s perfect plan:
A Russian Jewish doctor was imprisoned in the Soviet prison-camp system during the 1950's. Somehow, in this miserable place , he came to faith in Jesus as his Messiah. Forced to serve in the prison infirmary, he began to protest against the mistreatment of his patients – arousing the ill will of the guards. One day, as a fellow-prisoner was regaining consciousness after surgery, this doctor felt prompted to talk to the patient about his new-found faith in Jesus. The next morning, the doctor was killed by the guards, but what he shared made a deep impression on his patient. A short time later, he came to faith in Christ and shook the world through his books, which exposed the evils of Soviet communism. His name was Alexander Solzhenitsyn. He also knew the joy that comes from trusting God's sovereignty in this way, which is expressed in one of his poems:
How easy for me to live with You, O Lord!
You grant me the serene certitude
that You exist and that You will take care
that not all the paths of good be closed.
Atop the ridge of earthly fame,
I look back in wonder at the path
which I alone could never have found,
a wondrous path through despair to this point
from which I, too, could transmit to mankind
a reflection of Your rays.
And as much as I must still reflect
You will give me.
But as much as I cannot take up
You will have already assigned to others.
What about you? You are not imprisoned, but you have adverse circumstances. How might God be working through your adverse circumstances to give you opportunities to share your faith?
Ask God to open your eyes to see how He is working in your life through these circumstances.
The Bible has a lot more to say about God's sovereignty over our adverse circumstances. For those called to God’s purposes, we know that He is always concerned with working for our good (Romans 8:28).
God works through our adverse circumstances to persuade us of our need for Christ. We naturally trust ourselves and other idols we think we can have control over to make life work out how we want it to. Left to ourselves, we would stubbornly live our entire lives this way, and then descend to hell when we die.
But God pursues us through His deep mercy; He works especially through adverse circumstances to show us that we need to come to Him. In his book The Problem of Pain, the author C.S. Lewis writes, "God whispers to us in our pleasures, but shouts to us in our pain. Pain is God's megaphone to rouse a deaf world".
You may be thinking that this means Christianity is a crutch for weak people and that is precisely it. We are all finite, contingent beings. We all need a crutch and we all use crutches to get through life. The question is not: Will I use a crutch? It is: Which crutch is strong enough to bear the weight of life in this broken world? Only the God of the Bible and His Son Jesus Christ. Let us lean on this good and perfect crutch.
Once you come to faith in Christ, God works through our adverse circumstances to transform our character to be more Christ-like Romans 5:3-4 gives us the lens we need to see God’s work in all kinds of difficult circumstances:
The Canadian theologian J.I. Packer writes,
God sovereignly advances our personal welfare through adverse circumstances in many other ways: "We should not be . . . too taken aback when unexpected and upsetting and discouraging things happen to us now. What do they mean? Why, simply that God in His wisdom means to make something of us which we have not attained yet, and is dealing with us accordingly. Perhaps He means to strengthen us in patience, good humor, compassion, humility, or meekness, by giving us some extra practice in exercising these graces under specially difficult conditions. Perhaps He has new lessons in self-denial and self-distrust to teach us. Perhaps He wishes to break us of complacency, or unreality, or undetected forms of pride and conceit . . . Perhaps His purpose is to draw us closer to Himself in conscious communion with Him; for it is often the case . . . that fellowship with (God) is most vivid and sweet, and Christian joy is greatest, when the cross is heaviest. Or perhaps God is preparing us for forms of service of which at present we have no inkling."
This profound and mysterious truth challenges us to look at our adverse circumstances in a different way.
The more we trust God in this way, the more God will show us glimpses of how He is doing this. And the more glimpses we see, the more joy we will have!
