Leverage Point #5 - Joy Comes through Confidence in the Future: Philippians 1:19-26 - Philippians: Joy Leverage

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Difficulties happen in our lives not because of some cause and effect based on your sin, but God's building you into a wholehearted worship reward.

And he does that through hardship.

How many stories are you, Raman?

Everything has been going my way.

I'm a millionaire.

Man, I'm doing great on the stock market.

I feel so close to God.

I don't even never hear that.

What you hear is I found out I have cancer.

And God hasn't dealed with cancer.

God's been closer to me than he's ever been in mine.

At The Road, our vision is to raise up wholehearted disciples of Jesus Christ.

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We hope you are encouraged by today's message from Pastor Teacher Steve Holt.

Well, we are in the book of Philippians, and if you have your Bible, would you turn to Philippians?

Or if you have your phone or your iPad, turn to Philippians.

We've been talking about the leverage of joy.

And this leverage of joy is available to everyone.

It's possible that in all of our lives we can be more than we've been, deeper than we have been, more powerful than we've ever lived, through the power of the Holy Spirit working through joy.

And the book of Philippians is a manifesto on joy.

You could almost say that it's Paul's personal journey and how to live out joy.

So we've been looking at verse by verse through Philippians on this issue of joy, and we've talked about a personal relationship with Christ is the starting point, intimacy with Christ, having an intimate knowledge of Christ, moving from the holy place to the holy of holies, working a relationship with Christ by which we can share our heart with Him, know Him, and experience Him in our life.

We've talked about connection with people is a leverage point of joy.

When we connect with others, we have a leverage of joy.

We've talked about joy comes through dynamic growing love, that God calls us to grow in love.

And we believe that the fruit of the Spirit is an example of that.

Where Paul says that the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, self-control, that love and joy open the gate into all aspects of God's power and anointing in our lives.

And then last week I talked about joy comes through being in Christ.

And we talked about what it means to be in Christ, to have Christ in you, the hope of glory.

And I'll just say this about the marriage getaway.

My thesis for the marriage getaway is that the greatest thing you can do in your marriage is be spirit-filled yourself.

The greatest thing you can do in your marriage is for you to be walking in the power and the anointing and the strength and the joy of the Holy Spirit.

You get two spirit-filled people together, hello?

Oh my goodness.

I mean, we talk about unequally yoked.

So many marriages are unequally yoked, the Bible says.

That's the idea that there's this one oxen that's strong and vibrant, and then there's a little oxen right next to it that can't hardly pull anything, and so one's pulling the way all the time.

That's the way most marriages, most Christian marriages, are someone pulling the whole thing.

And a lot of times it's the women.

The women are pulling that marriage spiritually.

And I say, men, if you want to stay that way, you are so in the wrong church.

Because we're going to challenge you to be leaders of your home.

Like you are at work.

A lot of guys, it's amazing to me how many guys are such great leaders at home and they become just passive little wimps.

Uh, I mean, leaders at work and passive little wimps at home.

Right?

All the men go like this if you know what I'm talking about.

The rest of you are liars.

I mean, the reality is that that's what we struggle with.

And so how do we grow in that?

Well, we grow, first of all, through a vibrant, intimate walk with God.

And that's on you.

And so I just gave away the thesis of my first talk, the marriage getaway.

Because when we become filled with the Holy Spirit, hello, God's joy and power begins to flow through us, and it does affect our home.

So turn your Bibles to Philippians chapter 1, and we touched on this last week, but I want to bring it home again today, where Paul is suffering.

Philippians 1 · chapter mention

He is suffering, he is in prison.

Verse 19, and here's what he says: For I know that this will turn out for my deliverance through your prayer and the supply of the Spirit of Jesus Christ, according to my earnest expectation and hope that in nothing I shall be ashamed, but with all boldness, as always, so now also Christ will be manifested in my body and magnified in my body, whether by life or by death.

For to me to live is Christ and to die is gain.

But if I live on in the flesh, this will mean fruit from my labor, yet what I shall choose I cannot tell.

For I'm hard pressed between the two, having a desire to depart and be with Christ, which is far better.

Nevertheless, to remain in the flesh is more needful for you.

And being confident of this, circle confident, confident of this, I know that I shall remain and continue with you all for your progress and joy of faith.

Here we go again.

Joy of faith, that your rejoicing for me may be more abundant in Jesus Christ by my coming to you again.

Church, leverage point number five is this.

Joy comes through confidence in the future.

Joy comes through a confidence in the future.

A confidence that God's in control, a confidence that God is sovereign, a confidence in his power, a confidence that he's going to work through these issues if you'll keep pressing into him.

Paul really had that.

If anybody should have been depressed and despairing, it's Paul and he is exuding confidence here.

He has a confidence in the future.

Henry Nowen captured Paul's heart when he wrote, Each day holds a surprise, but only if we expect it can we see, hear, or feel it when it comes to us.

Let's not be afraid to receive each day's surprise.

Whether it comes to us as sorrow or as joy, it will open a new place in our hearts, a place where we can welcome new friends and celebrate more fully our shared humanity.

Paul had a confidence in the future.

Even in the midst of his suffering, he had this confidence that God was working out something authentic in his life, even through the struggles that he was going through.

So, where did that confidence come from?

Well, I see four things here that Paul talks about that gave him a confidence in the future.

Because, man, if there's anything that drives us to despair, it's the worry and it's the frustration that we actually have a worse future in front of us.

Nothing gives us greater confidence and joy than to believe something positive and powerful is going to come in the future.

So here's how Paul found this kind of confidence in the future.

Look at verse 19.

For I know.

Now, uh know in the Greek is oida, it's certainty.

So Paul has a certainty about what he's about to say.

He has this confidence, he says, I know.

And if he were using our vernacular and say, Man, I'm certain of this.

I know this is gonna happen.

I am certain that this, meaning his imprisonment, meaning his suffering, will turn out for my deliverance through your prayer.

Men and women, prayer from others for you, gives us confidence in the future.

Do you have people that pray for you?

You need people praying for your business.

You need people praying for your marriage, you need people praying for your personal life.

I have personal intercessors that pray for me, and if I wasn't a pastor, I would have personal intercessors praying for me.

Paul had people praying for him, he believed in, he believed in the power of prayer.

We have seen this especially in parenting, church work, mission work, personal, that when people are praying, something supernatural occurs, and I don't get it, and I can't explain it exactly.

I remember one time talking to a Korean pastor about the 24-7 prayer that was going on.

He said, every major church in Korea on Friday night prays all night.

And many of them pray 24-7 all through the week.

Seven days a week, there's some kind of prayer happening in their churches.

And I asked him when I was in Seoul one time, I said, So what do you think is the difference between the American church and the Korean church?

And he said, prayer.

And I said, What is it about you Koreans that has driven you to such a passionate prayer?

He says, He said this.

He said, Steve, we don't have to understand it like you guys do.

He said, You guys are so cognitively messed up, he said, that you have to always have, you have to understand it.

We're okay with the mystery of prayer.

We just see what Jesus says about it, and we just do it, we don't ask a lot of questions about it, and then miracles occur.

And so, church, you know, sometimes we don't, we can't understand the magnificent mysteries of God, of his supernatural, miraculous power, and how they work.

We just know that Jesus commands us to pray.

And when he commands us to pray, things happen.

It's interesting here that Paul is actually quoting Job, Job's reply to Zophar, when he said, This also will be my salvation.

You see, what Job was saying in his deepest time of despair about Zophar is that it really isn't my sin that has caused me to be in this place, but it's my salvation.

Do you realize, church, that sometimes you haven't done anything wrong?

You're following Christ and hard things happen.

We talked about this last week.

Difficulties happen in our lives, not because of some cause and effect based on your sin, but God's building you into a whole heart, a worshiper and warrior.

And he does that through hardship.

How many stories have you heard?

Man, man, everything has been going my way.

I'm a millionaire.

Man, you got I'm doing great on the stock market.

I feel so close to God.

I mean, you don't ever hear that.

What you hear is I found out I have cancer, and God hasn't healed the cancer.

And God's been closer to me than he's ever been in my life.

God uses suffering and God uses hardship in our life to form Christ in us, and sometimes it's really, really difficult.

A few years before writing the book of Philippians, Paul had written in Romans.

And in the book of Romans, he said, all things work together for good to those who love God and are called according to his purposes.

All things work together for good for those who are called according to his purposes.

Are you called?

Are you called according to God's purposes?

If you are, God is actually causing all things to work together for good.

And that should be a confidence that God gives you of a future that's going to be powerful and magnificent and greater than anything you've seen before.

To the Romans, here's what Paul wrote.

In writing to the Romans, Paul wrote this.

Now I beg you, brethren, through the Lord Jesus Christ and through the love of the Spirit, that you strive together with me in prayers to God for me.

Sounds so selfish.

He's so selfish.

Paul's so selfish.

He is eager for the Romans to strive together with him in prayer for him.

Because God loves earnest people who believe in the power of prayer and ask people to pray for them.

He says to the Ephesians, praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, being washful to this end with all perseverance and supplication for all the saints, and for me, for me, how selfish.

And for me, that utterances may be given to me, that I may open my mouth boldly to make known the mystery of the gospel.

Church.

If your marriage is in shambles, if you're personally, you're hearing stuff today, and man, I've got to get a breakthrough.

I don't know how to get a breakthrough.

Find two or three believers that'll pray for you, that'll covenant to pray one minute a day for you.

Watch what God will do.

Ladies coming through from the breakthrough advance, find two or three ladies that'll pray for you to pray for God to continue that breakthrough that he started.

You men in the fall who went to the breakthrough, went through the advance.

Get two or three men to pray for you.

Paul is adamant that there be breakthrough in his life, in the preaching of the gospel, and in his own personal life, that God would reveal himself to him.

Because Jesus has said, Ask and it shall be given.

Seek and you shall find.

Knock, and the door shall be opened.

That's from Jesus.

Jesus loves violent people.

When they're asking about John the Baptist and who he was, was he Elijah that was to come?

It was Jesus who said, since the days of John until now, the kingdom of heaven suffers violence, and the violent take it by force.

Be a violent believer.

Be a violent lover.

Be a violent forgiver.

Be a violent embracer.

Be a violent lover of others.

Go after God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength.

Your neighbors yourself.

God will bring breakthrough.

So he talks about prayer.

And then he says, and, verse 19 again, the supply of the Spirit of Jesus Christ.

Secondly, Paul has a confidence in the future because he believes, and here's what the word means, provision.

He believed that the Spirit would give him all the provision he needed for whatever he had to face.

Are you convinced of that?

Because he will.

If you'll start getting that breakthrough and getting people to pray, and you start praying and start the day in prayer, God's going to give you a supply of the Spirit that's exactly what you need.

Well man, if you only knew my story, my dad and my mom and stuff I went through and my background, past marriage, abuse, PTSD.

Yeah?

You know what?

I know one, I know one God who knows better than you what you've been through, and he'll supply everything you need to get through it.

But you gotta believe it.

You've got to believe it.

And Paul believes that.

He believes the Spirit is gonna speak through him.

He believes the Spirit's going to guide him.

He believes the Spirit is gonna give him supernatural peace.

When I was going through my most difficult time four years ago, I remember waking up in the morning and going on prayer walks, and I cannot explain it to you, church, except that I had the peace of the Lord.

And it made no sense circumstantially.

And I knew that people were praying for me.

I knew that the saints were praying, and there was a supernatural provision of the Spirit through their prayers.

Verse 20.

According to my earnest expectation and hope that in nothing I shall be ashamed, but with all boldness as always, so now also Christ will be magnified in my body, whether by life or by death.

For to me to live is Christ and to die is gain.

But if I live on in the flesh, this will mean fruit from my labor.

Yet what I shall choose I cannot tell, for I'm hard-pressed between the two, having a desire to depart and be with Christ, which is far better.

Nevertheless, to remain in the flesh is more needful for you.

Thirdly, Paul had a confidence in the plans of God even through suffering.

Let me say that again.

Paul had confidence in the plans of God even through suffering.

Paul wasn't certain of what God's plan was for him, whether life or death, whether he would live or die, or whether he would succeed or not, but here's what he was certain of God's plan.

Now listen to me.

You may not be certain of God's plan for you, but you can be certain of God's plan.

So God is working something out.

And he is working something out that could be the most amazing testimony that anyone could imagine through your life.

Through your little life.

Through your little snivelly life.

Through my little snivelly life.

Nobody cares about my life, except my wife and my kids.

They like me.

And you guys like me some.

But I wasn't born yesterday.

I'm not irreplaceable at anything.

But you know who thinks you're precious?

Who thinks I'm precious?

Who thinks you're beloved?

The one who created you.

And he just thinks you're awesome.

And he really wants you to experience joy.

And he really wants you to experience everything that he created you for.

He made your DNA.

He put those cells together.

He made some of you engineers, and he made some of you mathematicians, and some of you are good speakers, and some of you are wonderful, awesome moms, and some of you are counselors and nurturers and mechanics, whatever it is.

It's God's design.

That's your DNA.

Don't you want to know everything that He has for you, what that plan is?

Because when we become convinced of that, sometimes there are times in our life where we just feel like giving up.

Paul told the Romans this for none of us lives to himself, and no one dies to himself.

For if we live, we live to the Lord, and if we die, we die to the Lord.

Therefore, whether we live or die, we are the Lord's.

For to this end Christ died and rose and lived again, that he might be Lord with both the dead and the living.

So Paul is saying, I don't know what to do because my life is Christ.

That he would be magnified with my life.

There's no verb here.

To live is Christ, to die is gain.

No verb.

You can literally say that he's saying, live Christ, die gain.

Live Christ, die gain.

So if I'm gonna live for Christ.

He's going to be magnified in my life.

If I die under Christ, he's going to be magnified in my life.

One of the greatest freedoms we can experience is breaking off the fear of death.

That's when you get dangerous.

You're dangerous when you don't care whether you live or die, but you're going to live while you're here for Christ.

And so for Paul, his life was Christ, and to die was even better because he'd be with the one that he was serving on earth face to face.

Men and women, my job as a pastor and all of our pastoral staff here, our biggest responsibility is to magnify Christ in you to be joyful and happy.

That's our goal.

That you would be joyful and happy.

So joyful and so happy in Christ that when you're going through suffering, you can continue to be joyful and happy.

That's amazing, but that's what God does.

And that's what this man is doing.

This is not God.

This is just a regular guy.

His name is the Apostle Paul.

He's just Paul, who's discovered the secret of joy, even in the midst of suffering.

Two words.

Let me give you two words.

Gain glory.

Two words, gain and glory.

If I gain, he looks glorious.

If I lose, he looks glorious.

That's what Paul's life was, church.

We've got a number of folks in here that are battling cancer.

Looks like they may die.

And they're radiant.

They're radiant.

They're radiant because to live is Christ and to die is gain.

You get around a believer that's dying in Christ, they're radiant.

You get around a non-believer that's dying, it's awful.

It's despair.

It's dark.

To live is Christ, church, to die is gained.

Paul's saying, look, okay, I want to go, but if I'm not going to go, then I'm going to make you guys as joyful and as happy, and I'm rejoicing over you with the joy of faith as I can.

So Jesus is going to be magnified either way.

2 Corinthians 1, Paul says, Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.

The Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our tribulation, that we may be able to comfort those who are in any trouble with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God.

For as the sufferings of Christ abound in us, so our consolation also abounds through Christ.

I think what he's saying here is that we weren't there.

We're coming up to Passion Week in a month.

Easter.

And we are going to walk through the Passion Week similar to some of the chronological events that occurred at the crucifixion of Christ, the resurrection of Christ.

We're going to have a few things that you can attend that will provide you with that opportunity because you weren't there.

We weren't there.

We weren't there.

And Paul's saying, you weren't there.

To the Corinthians, he's saying, and now to the Philippians, you weren't there.

You did not see, I wasn't there.

The flagellation with the bone.

And the and the steel lead balls that would just rip the flesh off Christ.

39 lashes, which many, if not most, died just from the lashings.

And so what he's saying in Corinthians, he's saying, look, I'm completing in your eye, by looking at me going through suffering, what we never saw with Christ.

My love for you through the suffering I'm going through for you is to show you an example of just how much Christ loves you and the suffering that he went through.

So, church, suffering is a part of this life.

Nevertheless, to remain in the flesh is more needful for you.

And being confident of this, I know that I shall remain and continue with you for your progress and joy of faith.

That your rejoicing for me may be more abundant in Jesus Christ by my coming to you again.

And so forthly and lastly, Paul had a confidence in the progress of the gospel.

That with or without him, the gospel was going to go forward.

With or without him, whether he lived or died, the gospel was going to go forward.

He was not irreplaceable.

He knew that.

And church, you that call the road your home, if God were to take me home this week, I'm confident in the progress of the gospel.

In 1956, five young men in the prime of their lives, all with young families and children in each family, made a decision in Ecuador to reach out to a bloodthirsty, savage tribe called the Aka Indians.

They studied their movements and flew in together and reached out in love to the Akka Indians, dropping gifts off in the small plane that Nate Saint would fly.

No one had ever reached the Akkas.

And by the way, Akkas is not the proper name of the tribe.

Akka is actually a pejorative term in Quechua, which means savages.

Their real name was a Harani people.

Some of you may have seen the movie The End of the Spear, which captures this story, or you may have read Elizabeth Elliott's Through Gates of Splendor or Shadow of the Almighty.

Within a couple days, the wives lost contact with the five young men.

Authorities went in and found them all speared to death.

Nate Saint, Jim Elliott, Pete Fleming, Ed McCauley, and Roger Eudarian.

Their sacrifice galvanized a generation of young people.

And a lot of you young people in this room may not even know this story.

And I I would just challenge you to go and read about it.

All of us that are over 50 know this story.

And so as a young kid, University of Georgia, just got saved.

I don't know how I got a hold of the book, Shadow of the Almighty, but I started reading the journal entries of Jim Elliott.

And God spoke to my heart to go to the mission field.

And for the next 14 years, that's what I lived for was preaching the gospel around the world.

So we went into Eastern Europe, smuggled Bibles there, and then many of you know spent much time, eight years in Japan.

It was Jim Elliott who said, one is no fool who gives up what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose.

One is no fool who gives up what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose.

You're not in control of your life.

He is.org.

If you are walking through a difficult time, we want to pray for you.

Go to the road.org, click on the ministries tab, and go to our prayer page to send us your prayer request.

Thanks again for tuning in today, and be sure to listen to the next edition of The Road with Pastor Teacher Steve Holt.