The Joy and Freedom of Serving [Part 1]

Pastor, author, and Bible teacher, Alan Wright. Paul is saying he has tremendous confidence and trust in the Lord. He trusts that God is going to set him free.

But he's saying essentially, if God doesn't set me free, I'm still going to praise him. I want you to rejoice with me. That's Pastor Alan Wright. Welcome to another message of good news that will help you see your life in a whole new light. I'm Daniel Britt, excited for you to hear the teaching today in the series Unspeakable Joy as presented at Reynolda Church in North Carolina. If you're not able to stay with us throughout the entire program, I want to make sure you know how to get our special resource right now. It can be yours for your donation this month to Alan Wright Ministries. As you listen to today's message, go deeper as we send you today's special offer. Contact us at PastorAlan.org or call 877-544-4860.

That's 877-544-4860. More on that later in the program. But now, let's get started with today's teaching.

Here is Alan Wright. You ready for some good news? Your problems don't define you. What God has done in Jesus Christ defines you. The predicaments and ails and travails of this world are not what defines who you are. God does that.

And that changes everything. We're in Philippians and we are today in chapter 2. This is one of those instances where perhaps in your English translation, you may have a division of verses that starts a little bit differently than what I'm going to read today. Translators, when they are making decisions about putting subheadings in sections of Scripture, those are just interpretive decisions. And so it varies from Bible to Bible in effort to kind of help you read Scripture in sections. But I think most scholars agree that this section of Scripture in Philippians 2, instead of beginning at verse 19, should begin at verse 17.

And it actually extends through the first part of the first verse of chapter 3. So there I am, Philippians 2 verse 17. Paul writes, even if I am to be poured out as a drink offering upon the sacrificial offering of your faith, I am glad and rejoice with you all.

Likewise, you also should be glad and rejoice with me. I hope in the Lord Jesus to send Timothy to you soon so that I too may be cheered by news of you. For I have no one like him who will be genuinely concerned for your welfare, for they all seek their own interests, not those of Jesus Christ.

But you know Timothy's proven worth. How is a son with a father he has served with me in the gospel? I hope therefore to send him just as soon as I see how it will go with me.

And I trust in the Lord that shortly I myself will also come. I've thought it necessary to send to you Epaphroditus, my brother and fellow worker and fellow soldier, and your messenger and minister to my need, for he's been longing for you all and has been distressed because you heard that he was ill. Indeed, he was ill near to death, but God had mercy on him and not only on him but on me also, lest I should have sorrow upon sorrow. I am the more eager to send him therefore that you may rejoice at seeing him again and that I may be less anxious. So receive him in the Lord with all joy and honor such men, for he nearly died for the work of Christ risking his life to complete what was lacking in your service to me.

Finally, my brothers, rejoice in the Lord. Former chaplain of the Senate and Presbyterian pastor Lloyd Ogilvy once was speaking at a conference where I was and he mentioned that years ago he was at a conference where everybody on day one was given a little button and the button said I've got one, you've got one too. And so everybody was wondering what is it that everybody had. I have one, you've got one too. And it wasn't until the middle of the conference that the leadership finally revealed the answer is a problem.

Everybody's got a problem. In fact, Ogilvy said sometimes he would just test it out by maybe seeing somebody you hadn't seen in a long time or acquaintance and be talking. He'd say, say, how did that thing work out? Or might just say, how's everything going on that situation? And he said nine times out of 10, instead of somebody going, what are you talking about?

They go, oh, how did you know about that? Yeah, well, let me tell you what's going on with that. Because at any given time, right, I've got one, you've got one too. We've got problems. All God's children face problems. Life has problems. Sometimes you've got a lot of problems.

Sometimes you don't have as many problems, but we've got problems. I had a problem this week and that was I had spent time in this text. And this is a text that is part of a discipline of just going right through Philippians and looking at each and every verse of this epistle. But after spending a good bit of time studying this, I learned that I could teach you a lot about who Timothy is and his servant heart. And I could teach you something about what the context was with Epaphroditus and what was going on with that and how wonderful these guys are as good servants. And I just started thinking this is going to be one of those messages that is about Epaphroditus was a good servant. Timothy was a good servant. You ought to be a good servant. Oh, blah, blah, blah. And I'm just going, Lord, I'm a gospel preacher, not a good advice giver.

And there's a big difference, isn't there? Coming to a text and just coming up with a moralistic message. Timothy was a good servant and faithful to Paul. Epaphroditus was a good servant, traveled all that distance, got really sick. And yet here he was such a wonderful, such a wonderful, faithful servant. Hold these people in honor. When you serve, you'll be held in honor as well.

Let me give you three key ingredients of being a good servant. No, I just not going to do that. I'm not going to ever preach at all. I just don't want to preach something like that because the gospel is a message of good news of what God has done for us in Jesus Christ. It is an announcement that is accompanied by power.

It says of itself that the power of God rests in the proclamation of this astounding gift that has been given, the power of God poured out through the resurrection and the giving of the Holy Spirit in our lives so that we might be transformed from the inside out, destined to change the world, seated with Christ, blessed with every spiritual blessing in him, empowered by the Holy Spirit to do the same things that Jesus has done. And I got a text that's talking about Timothy and Epaphroditus and what good guys they are. And I'm like, I'm going, what am I going to do with this? Until finally, I go back and forth, back and forth. And it's now, I mean, I'm running out of time this week. And my wife is in the bedroom reading.

I go in, I just throw myself down the bed. I said, honey, I got nothing. I said, read this text. What is there in this text?

Show me where the gospel is this text. And so she reads it a couple of times and she said, you know what you need to do? I said, what? She said, you need to expand your text.

The kids were in later. I said, kids, I got nothing. What's going on?

They said, dad, just change your text. And I'm sorely tempted to just like, no, I'm going to go over something juicier than this. We need something. We need a word from the Lord. But I said, no, I'm just going to stick with this text. There's a word on every page of scripture for us.

And I kept going, what is it? And finally, she said, you know, when I read this, Paul has got some real life stuff going on here, doesn't he? I said, yeah. And he's kind of like, and he rejoices anyway, doesn't he?

I said, yeah. And I started, I went back and read it with new eyes. And I came to this conclusion, at least this is a word the Lord has for us today. This is an autobiographical section of this wonderful epistle where basically, if you ask the question, what is Paul talking about here?

It finally dawned on me. This is the apostle full of the Holy Spirit, soaked through and through with the gospel. This is Paul talking about his problems. This is how you can talk about your problems. I want to talk to you today about the relationship of our problems and our praise. Because there's a lot of confusion, I think, for Christians in this matter.

And in going through this, we'll talk about what's really going on with Paul. Kind of make fun of some of the ways that we try to deal with our problems or talk about our problems, especially as Christians. And look at the deep, rich gospel answer to this. So this message has become how Christians talk about their problems in the context of their praise.

That's Alan Wright, and we'll have more teaching in a moment from today's important series. Have you ever thought that joy is a delight reserved for those who have no problems? Or have you ever assumed that some people are just born with a joyful personality?

If so, get ready for some good news. Joy is a fruit of the Spirit available to all in Christ, no matter the circumstances of life. Though Paul was in jail when he wrote his epistle to the Philippians, he spoke of joy 16 times. No matter what you're going through, you too can discover the secret to unspeakable joy as Pastor Alan Wright leads you through a life-building exploration of Philippians. When you make a gift to Sharing the Light Ministries today, we'll send you the new CD album, The Secret of Unspeakable Joy, as our way of saying thank you for your partnership. Your gifts are the only way we are able to continue broadcasting the message of grace all over the nation. Happiness may rise and fall with happenstance, but joy is ever-present in the Spirit.

So become a partner today and discover joy like never before. We are happy to send this to you as our thanks from Alan Wright Ministries. Call us at 877-544-4860. That's 877-544-4860. Or come to our website, PastorAlan.org.

Today's teaching now continues. Here once again is Alan Wright. Lou Holtz was the one I heard say it, probably wasn't original with him, the famous football coach. He said, don't talk to anybody about your problems because 90 percent of people don't want to hear it and the other 10 percent are sort of glad you've got them. It is an old joke. It's irreverent and so it's about preachers. Therefore, it gives me permission to tell it, but it's a caricature and I'll tell you why I'm telling it.

It points out some of the caricatured ways that we might deal with our problems. An old joke goes something like this. These three preachers wind up in hell. One of them was one of these doomsday preachers.

It was always preaching guilt and shame and sin and doom. And the other preacher, one of them was a televangelist and the other was one of these just positive thinker kind of preachers. And they all find themselves in hell and the devil got frustrated with them because he came to the first guy, the doomsday guy, and he overheard him just saying, well, I don't feel bad about being here because like I always said, this world's going to hell and now here we are. The devil got frustrated with the televangelist because he realized the televangelist had raised so much money he bought an air conditioning system. And then as the joke goes, he comes to the positive thinker and the devil's frustrated with him because this guy's just walking around going, it's not hot and I'm not here.

It's not hot and I'm not here. Something like that. But it kind of paints a little picture of the caricature of some of the ways that we can try to use our praise and our faith to deal with the problem in a wrong way. This is not the way Paul does. I mean, one, I first I might call it trying to use your praise to sort of promote the problem. You know, this is where you've met people like this.

It's almost like they thrive on a crisis or enjoy somehow talking about what a wretched sinner they are or somehow exist by the continued sharing of their problems such that it's not a mere form of honesty, but it is more of a way of life to just think about, talk about the problems, the problems, the problems, the problems. And as we get older, our bodies sometimes have problems. And when I was a youth pastor, my very first job, a senior pastor I worked under, and he was talking to me about visiting with people. And now that I am becoming older, I'm allowed to say this, that he said, beware of the organ recital. You know what the organ recital is. We've all done this. Well, how are you?

Well, I don't know. My kidneys are kind of messing up. Heartbeat's funny. Having bladder control problems. I mean, you know, you're going to go through all our organs. I mean, it's like somebody asks you, how are you? Doesn't it go through your mind?

Like what answer do you want right now? And so that's what I'm talking about here is that there's a little part of what Lou Holtz says is right. Nobody wants to just listen to all our problems all the time, but we have to be able to walk in the light as he's in the light. And so there has to be a place where we talk about our problems.

So the first is I would say some people think of their opportunity to speak of problems as a way to promote those problems. And there are a few Christians that I have met over the years that they seem to act like they're more spiritual because of the things they suffer through, right? Yeah, Jesus suffered. I'm suffering.

Let me tell you how much I'm suffering. And yet when you do this, haven't you found it to be true? The things that you talk about and talk about and talk about and think about and think about and think about you magnify. Well, the second way that some people talk about their problems is they'll use their praise to pretend they don't have problems. So if the first person is promoting a problem, the other is pretending it doesn't exist.

How are you? You know, I'm talking about the way Christians can talk about it. I mean, we can just be so like going through hard things, but it's just camouflaged with our language. It's so spiritual. Well, praise God. I'm praise God.

Everything is just fine. Praise God. Hallelujah. Praise God.

Well, I know. I thought I heard you fell and broke your hip. Well, praise God. I got another hip.

But I heard you're gonna have to have a total hip replacement. Yeah, praise God. Praise God.

Get me a new hip. That'd be wonderful. Praise God. That's just wonderful. But I heard that your dog died. Well, praise God. Dogs go to heaven too. Praise God.

We didn't need that dog anyway. Pray. At some point you're like, come on.

Are you a real? I mean, I want to praise God too, but at some point can we just be honest with each other? We got some problems. We can talk about those problems, right? So there's one caricature and that is promote the problem.

There's another caricature and that is pretend you don't have the problem. And there's one other way sometimes you'll see Christians that will try to act about their problems and that is to think that they can prevent their problems. Have enough praise. Have enough faith and you can just prevent these bad things from happening to you. And this is tricky because, beloved, I believe that praise has some power to it. When Joshua walked around the walls of Jericho and on the final day, according to the instructions of the Lord, let forth a shout. I know it was God that brought down the walls, not the shout, but that was a picture of praise, wasn't it? And there is a way in which when you praise God in the midst of your adversities, there are some walls that come down. So this is tricky for me to talk about because on the one hand, I want to say your praise has power to it in the midst of the things you go through, but it is not to say that somehow your faith and your praise is a magic wand that makes you into some sort of sorcerer who can control things. We are Christians.

We are not witch doctors. We are children of God, of a loving Heavenly Father, but He is in charge and our praise has a power of breaking through many of the strongholds and deceptions in our lives, but it doesn't mean that God has given you, therefore, some capacity to be able to avoid having problems because if that were the case, Paul wouldn't still be in prison and talking about his problems. If that were the case, Jesus wouldn't have said, in this world, you'll have trouble. No, we're going to have problems in this world and our praise in relationship to those problems is something that is very powerful, but that praise doesn't prevent us and make us immune from having those problems.

There's, in other words, nothing in the word that says having a positive attitude will make your life subject to no problems, but having the positive attitude in Christ and praising God will make a difference in the midst of your problems. So what's going on with Paul? Because Paul's here and he's not promoting his problems. You can barely tell he's even talking about his problems and he certainly is not thinking that he doesn't have any problems, that he could somehow just deny it all or as if he's got some kind of power in himself to just make them all go away.

He's more real than that. What's going on with Paul here? And as you look closer at this text, he's in prison and we think he's probably in Rome. And just to remind you the incarceration of Paul is because of an event that happened way earlier in Jerusalem in which he wasn't even guilty of anything, but he's waiting to hear the verdict and will he be released or will he potentially be executed? So the first thing you understand about Paul is that he is aware that this could end up resulting in his death and that's why he says at verse 17 and 18, if I were to be poured out like an offering, what he's given an image of there is that there's a chance that he might have to die, but if he does, even in that, he sees it as he's going to be worshiping God. And elsewhere in Philippians, Paul talks about the possibility of dying. It's very interesting in this epistle that's all about joy, he's not afraid to talk about death because what he's saying is essentially this, he's saying I trust I'm going to be able to send Timothy to you soon and he says at verse 23, I hope therefore to send him and verse 24, I trust in the Lord that I shortly myself will also be able to come. What he's saying is I believe and I'm trusting God that I'm going to be set free from this prison, that I'll be able to send Timothy and that I myself will see you again. But he's also saying, but even if I'm poured out like an offering, still rejoice with me and rejoice in the Lord.

So he's talking about his problem of his imprisonment, but you see how he's speaking of it here. He's speaking of it in the context of the ultimate assurance of being with Christ and that pervades the whole Philippian epistle. When he says I hope to be able to send Timothy to you soon, he's talking about his dearest friend in the whole world. We know that Timothy was a believer from early on in his life. He was influenced by his believing mother and his believing grandmother.

We don't really know much about Timothy's father, but Timothy is a colleague, a partner with Paul, and he's like a spiritual son to him. Alan Wright placing a bookmark here as we continue in the joy and freedom of serving this teaching when we pick up next time. Part of our series, Unspeakable Joy, and I encourage you to stay with us.

Alan is back in a moment with additional insight on this for your life and today's final word. CS Lewis said, no soul that seriously and constantly desires joy will ever miss it. In other words, joy isn't an elusive dream reserved for a select few who have no problems or for those who were born with a joyful disposition. Actually, joy is a fruit of the spirit available to all in Christ. No matter what you're facing, you can have the joy of the Lord in the midst of it.

The apostle Paul did, though he wrote his epistle to the Philippians while imprisoned, he spoke of joy 16 times. Alan Wright's newest CD album, The Secret of Unspeakable Joy, takes you chapter by chapter through Paul's explanation of the secret of joy in Philippians. When you make a gift today to Sharing the Light, we'll be delighted to send you the new CD album as our way of saying thanks for your partnership.

Become a partner today and discover the secrets of unspeakable joy. We are happy to send this to you as our thanks from Alan Wright Ministries. Call us at 877-544-4860.

That's 877-544-4860. Or come to our website, PastorAlan.org. Alan, we talked about it before, there is joy in serving. And sometimes we get those things confused, but really it's when you have been given the freedom and you're just saying, I have great pleasure and joy in serving Jesus.

It really is something until you've done it and walked with Jesus, you don't experience it the same way. Well, I mean, it's part of the great principle that Jesus said is more blessed to give than receive. And the fact of the matter is that in the very act of giving of our lives, in the very act of serving, we are being blessed. And we're learning today about the freedom that comes with self-forgetfulness. The greatest joy in life is not when we're all absorbed about our own situation, but when we can be free from that. That's really when we're at our best. That's when we're really at our most joyful. And that's what we're learning about.