Chapter One
The Joy-Stealers
Mark Twain was a professional humorist whose lectures and writings made people around the world laugh and, for a short time, forget their troubles. Yet Mark Twain himself was, in private, a man whose life was broken by sorrow. When his beloved daughter Jean died suddenly of an epileptic seizure, Twain, too ill to go to the funeral, said to a friend, “I have never greatly envied anyone but the dead. 1 always envy the dead.”
Jesus Christ was “a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief.” Yet He possessed a deep joy that was beyond anything the world could offer. As He faced the cruel death of Calvary, Jesus said to His followers, “These things have I spoken unto you, that my joy might remain in you, and that your joy might be full” (John 15:11).
Those who have trusted Christ have the privilege of experiencing “fulness of joy” (Ps. 16:11). Yet few Christians take advantage of this privilege. They live under a cloud of disappointment when they could be walking in the sunshine of joy. What has robbed them of their joy?
The answer to that important question is found in a letter written centuries ago. It was written by the apostle Paul when he was a prisoner in Rome about AD 62, and it was sent to his fellow Christians at the church in Philippi, a church Paul had founded on his second missionary journey (Acts 16). One of their members, Epaphroditus, had been sent to Rome to bring a special offering to the apostle and to help him in his time of difficulty (Phil. 2:25–30; 4:10–20). Paul’s letter to the Philippian church is something of a missionary thank-you letter, but it is much more than that. It is the sharing of Paul’s secret of Christian joy! At least nineteen times in these four chapters, Paul mentions joy, rejoicing, or gladness.
The unusual thing about the letter is this: Paul’s situation was such that there appeared to be no reason for him to be rejoicing. He was a Roman prisoner, and his case was coming up shortly. He might be acquitted, or he might be beheaded! Acts 28:30–31 indicates that he was a prisoner in his own hired house, but he was chained to a Roman soldier and not permitted to preach in public. Paul had wanted to go to Rome as a preacher (Rom. 1:13–16); instead, he arrived as a prisoner. And, unfortunately, the believers at Rome were divided: Some were for Paul and some were against him (Phil. 1:15–17). In fact, some of the Christians even wanted to make things more difficult for the apostle!
Yet, in spite of his danger and discomfort, Paul overflowed with joy. What was the secret of this joy? The secret is found in another word that is often repeated in Philippians: It is the word mind. Paul uses mind ten times, and also uses the word think five times. Add the time he uses remember and you have a total of sixteen references to the mind. In other words, the secret of Christian joy is found in the way the believer thinks—his attitudes. After all, outlook determines outcome. As we think, so we are (Prov. 23:7). Philippians, then, is a Christian psychology book, based solidly on Bible doctrine. It is not a shallow self-help book that tells the reader how to convince himself that “everything is going to turn out all right.” It is a book that explains the mind the believer must have if he is going to experience Christian joy in a world filled with trouble.
The best way to get the total picture of the book is to discover first the “thieves” that rob us of our joy, then determine the kinds of attitudes we must have in order to capture and conquer these thieves.
THE THIEVES THAT ROB YOU OF YOUR JOY
Circumstances. Most of us must confess that when things are going our way, we feel a lot happier and we are much easier to live with. “Dad must have had an easy day at the office,” little Peggy said to her visiting girlfriend. “He didn’t squeal the tires when he pulled into the driveway, and he didn’t slam the door when he came into the house. And he even gave Mother a kiss!”
But have you ever stopped to consider how few of the circumstances of life are really under our control? We have no control over the weather or over the traffic on the expressway or over the things other people say and do. The person whose happiness depends on ideal circumstances is going to be miserable much of the time. The poet Byron wrote, “Men are the sport of circumstances.” And yet here is the apostle Paul in the worst of circumstances, writing a letter saturated with joy!
People. My daughter jumped off the school bus as it stopped in front of our house and slammed her way through the front door. She marched defiantly up the stairs into her room and again slammed the door. All the time she was muttering under her breath, “People-people-people-PEOPLE!”
I went to her door and knocked softly. “May I come in?”
She replied, “No!”
I tried again, but she said it even more belligerently: “NO!”
I asked, “Why can’t I come in?”
Her answer: “Because you’re a people!”
All of us have lost our joy because of people: what they are, what they say, and what they do. (And no doubt we ourselves have contributed to making somebody else unhappy. It works both ways.) But we have to live and work with people; we cannot isolate ourselves and still live to glorify Christ. We are the light of the world and the salt of the earth. But sometimes the light grows dim and the salt becomes bitter because of other people. Is there any way to have joy in spite of people?
Things. A wealthy man was moving into his mansion, and his Quaker neighbor, who believed in simplicity of life, was watching the activities carefully. The neighbor counted the number of chairs and tables and the vast amount of bric-a-brac that was being carried into the house. Finally, he said to the lord of the mansion: “Neighbor, if thou dost need anything, come to see me and I will tell thee how to get along without it!”
Abraham Lincoln was walking down the street with his two sons, who were crying and fighting. “What’s the matter with the boys?” a friend asked.
“The same thing that’s wrong with the whole world,” Lincoln replied. “I have three walnuts and each of the boys wants two.”
Things! What thieves they can be. Yet Jesus said, “A man’s life consisteth not in the abundance of the things which he possesseth” (Luke 12:15). In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus warned against laying up treasures on earth: They are not safe, they do not last, and they never satisfy. Yet most people today think that joy comes from the things that they own. In reality, things can rob us of the only kind of joy that really lasts.
Worry. This is the worst thief of all. How many people have been robbed of peace and fulfillment because of worry? In fact, worry even has physical consequences, and while medicine can remove the symptoms, it cannot remove the cause. Worry is an “inside job.” You can purchase sleep at the drug store, but you cannot purchase rest.
If Paul had wanted to worry, he had plenty of occasion. He was a political prisoner facing possible execution. His friends in Rome were divided in their attitudes toward his case. He had no mission board supporting him and no Legal Aid Society defending him. But in spite of all these difficulties, Paul does not worry! Instead, he writes a letter filled with joy and tells us how to stop worrying.
These, then, are the four thieves that rob us of joy: circumstances, people, things, and worry. How do we capture these thieves and keep them from taking away the joy that is rightfully ours in Christ? The answer is: We must cultivate the right kind of mind. If outlook determines outcome, then the attitude of mind that we cultivate will determine our joy or lack of it. In the four chapters of Philippians, Paul describes four attitudes of mind that will produce joy in spite of circumstances, people, and things, and that will keep us from worrying.
THE FOUR ATTITUDES THAT MAINTAIN YOUR JOY
(1) The Single Mind (Phil. 1). “A double minded man is unstable in all his ways” (James 1:8). Or, to use the old Latin proverb:
“When the pilot does not know what port he is heading for, no wind is the right wind.” The reason many Christians are upset by circumstances is because they do not cultivate the single mind. Paul expresses this attitude of single-hearted devotion to Christ thus: “For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain” (1:21).
In chapter 1, Paul discusses his difficult circumstances and faces them honestly. But his circumstances cannot rob him of his joy because he is not living to enjoy circumstances; he is living to serve Jesus Christ. He is a man with purpose: “This one thing I do“ (3:13). He does not look at circumstances in themselves, but rather in relationship to Jesus Christ. He is not the prisoner of Rome; he is “the prisoner of Jesus Christ” (Eph. 3:1). The chains he wears are “my bonds in Christ” (Phil. 1:13). He is not facing a civil trial; he is “set for the defence of the Gospel” (1:17). He did not look at Christ through his circumstances; rather, he looked at his circumstances through Christ—and this changed everything.
When a Christian is single-minded, he is concerned about the fellowship of the gospel (1:1–11), the furtherance of the gospel (1:12–26), and the faith of the gospel (1:27–30). Paul rejoiced in his difficult circumstances because they helped to strengthen his fellowship with other Christians, gave him opportunity to lead others to Christ, and enabled him to defend the gospel before the courts of Rome. When you have the single mind, your circumstances work for you and not against you.
(2) The Submissive Mind (Phil. 2). This chapter focuses on people, and the key verse says, “Let nothing be done through strife or vainglory; but in lowliness of mind let each esteem other better [more important] than themselves” (v. 3). In chapter 1, Paul puts Christ first. In this chapter, he puts others second. Which means he puts himself last! The reason people aggravate us so much is usually because we do not have our own way. If we go through life putting ours...