Message Description

Dr. Kurt Bjorklund continues the 'Ridiculous Joy' series looking at Philippians 1:12-26 speaking about joyfulness in the midst of the adversity we face in life.

Message Transcript

Download a PDF Version

Let's pray together. Father, I thank you just for each person who's gathered at Orchard Hill this weekend, in Butler, in the Strip District, Wexford, the Chapel, and online. Lord, we know that as we gather that some of us come with things going really well in our lives, and others of us come in the midst of a storm or a difficult season. Father, I pray that in these moments together that you would take our gaze and move it towards you, and that you would bring hope to each of us in clarity. Father, if I prepared things that don't reflect your truth, I pray you would keep me from saying them. And if there are things that would be beneficial that I haven't prepared, I pray you'd prompt me even in these moments. We pray this in Jesus' name. Amen. 

I'd like to begin just with a little word association. So, I'll say a word, and I want you just to think about the word that comes to mind when I say the word. Don't yell it out or anything. The first word that I wanted to just say is summer. Summer. My guess is when I say that that, very few of us immediately went to winter coats. You probably had other thoughts, but you didn't think, "Oh, winter wear, that's my thought." If I say the word best friend, what comes to mind? My guess is very few of us had the annoying coworker pop into our head until I just said that and then you're like, "No, those two things do not go together." And if I say the word joy, what comes to mind? My guess is that very few of us would say, "Adversity is what comes to mind. Difficulty." 

We started a series a few weeks ago that we called Ridiculous Joy. And we're studying the New Testament Book of Philippians. It's a letter that the Apostle Paul wrote to the Philippian church while he was in prison. The reason we've called this Ridiculous Joy is because Paul finds joy. The book is saturated with joy in the midst of something that was difficult, in the midst of something that was unpleasant, in the midst of something that didn't make any sense. And it's something that I believe that I need, the church needs, many of us need, is to say, "How do I find joy in the midst of things that don't appear to make sense?" 

Today, we come to chapter one verses 12 through 26, and you just heard it read. And even when you heard it read, it probably felt like it moved in a lot of different directions. But what we see is this is where Paul first begins to address his imprisonment, his adversity, if you will. And so, we're going to talk about finding joy in the midst of adversity. And here's what you know, and that is that two different people can respond to the exact same situation in radically different ways. Some people, when they're confronted with something that's hard, seem as if they can continue to thrive and continue to do well and find joy. And other people sometimes will go through something that is difficult and it seems to devastate them. 

Certainly, adversity is universal. What I mean is that all of us will experience adversity. If you aren't in the midst of it right now, there will come a time because things aren't always as we want them to be. Most of us will live a big chunk of our lives with things not the way that we want them to be entirely. And here's what happens for some people, and that is they'll say, "Well, because I'm going through something hard, because the world is hard, because things aren't the way that I want them to be, it's hard for me to believe in God. I'm not sure I can believe in a God who would let this happen to me." But I'd like to suggest to you that that very idea, that things should be different, is actually a reason to believe in God. Because if you and I are simply a collection of random molecules that come together to form our world, there would be no reason to say things should be better. We're just the collection of random forces at work. 

But if there's something that is preferred, then that shows us that there is something beyond this world that is worth hoping for, worth living for. And so, the very existence of our desire for something different, something better in the midst of adversity and hardship actually points to God. Here's what I'd like to do, is make three statements about adversity today. Each of them will have two parts, a first part which is maybe the typical way that we can see adversity, and a second part of each statement is maybe a spiritual perspective that can help us navigate adversity. 

So, here's the first statement, and that is, we can see adversity as devastating. Now, to be fair, some of us right now are in situations that are devastating. Some of us, when we talk about adversity, it's not just a small storm. We are in the midst of something that we never thought we'd be in the midst of. Maybe we lost somebody way too young. Maybe we are facing a health challenge that we never anticipated and is more significant, more long-lasting than we anticipated or thought we would ever face. Maybe we're in a relationship that has fractured and broken down in a way that we could not have imagined some time ago. Maybe somebody in our family is dealing with an addiction issue that they don't seem to be able to beat. Maybe we're facing a divorce that we didn't want, that we never thought we'd be in the midst of. 

In other words, all of us will at some point have something that could be devastating. And even if it isn't devastating, there are a lot of things that are just annoying and difficult along the way. And so, we could see adversity as devastating. I think it was the deep thinker Charlie Brown who had this observation about hardship. And that was Charlie Brown said this, he said, "I'm afraid of being happy because whenever I get too happy something bad always happens." But here's the second way that we can see adversity. We can see it as devastating, but we can also see it as an opportunity. And this is what the Apostle Paul does, and we see this in verse 12, 13, and 14 of chapter one. He says, "Now I want you to know, brothers and sisters, that what's happened to me," his imprisonment, "has actually served to advance the gospel." 

And this is a word that keeps popping up in Philippians, the gospel. The gospel is a word that means the announcement of good news. This is a word that when Paul uses it, he uses it to say, "This is the sum total of the Christian experience." And sometimes when you and I hear it, the way that we hear it is that the Christian experience is somehow what we offer to God. But the gospel means the announcement of good news, the announcement of what Jesus Christ has done on our behalf. So, when he says, "The thing that has happened to me has worked out for the advancement of the good news of the message of Jesus Christ," what he's saying is, "I have something that is in some ways devastating in my life, but God is using it to tell His story to people in this world in a way that is actually advancing His cause." 

He says it even more explicitly in the verses that follow, verse 13 and 14. He says, "As a result, it's become clear throughout the whole palace guard and to everyone else that I am in chains for Christ." People he would have never been able to have access to talk to about the message of Jesus Christ, he now has access to talk to because of where he is. Verse 14, "And because of my chains, most of the brothers and sisters have become more confident in the Lord and dare all the more to proclaim him without fear." One commentator said about this, that this is an indication that the message of Jesus isn't just to be spoken by ministers but by anyone who claims to be a follower of Jesus. One of the best opportunities that you and I will ever have to talk about the hope that we have in Jesus Christ is when we find ourselves in the midst of adversity. 

If you remember in the Old Testament, there's a story of a man named Job. Job lost almost everything that was important to him in the very opening of the Book of Job. And when you just read through it a little bit, what happens is his wife comes to him and says basically this, she says, "Job, why don't you just curse God and die? Just forget about this God thing." And Job's basic response is, "Should I accept from God's hand good things only, and not things that are hard, things that are difficult?" In that moment, what he was doing was in his loss he was saying, "I have a faith and a belief in the goodness of God that even if it doesn't look like it right now, is worth clinging to." And that is an opportunity to talk about really the way in which God means something to him. 

When we walk through adversity, we can see it as devastating, but we can also see it as an opportunity. And the other opportunity that's here is in verses 15 through about 18 where he talks about the people who preach Christ out of envy and selfish ambition, and others preach it out of good motives. Without reading or taking a lot of time to look at that section, what you see here is that his experience actually was an opportunity to understand his friendships. One of the things that happens in your life and in my life when we walk through a storm is we find out who is really with us in a way that is very rich and very deep when we encounter it. And so, adversity can be an opportunity. 

Now, I recognize in saying that, that if you're like me, and I don't presume that you're like me, but there's a piece of me that even when I say that, I think, "Well, God is a big God, He can proclaim His message without me. I'd rather be comfortable." Anybody else have that thought? But sometimes what God does is He says, "I want you to see that in the midst of this you can be used for something greater." It was Corrie ten Boom, who was a Jewish woman who was living in the Netherlands during World War II when she was put in a concentration camp, who was also a Christian, a follower of Jesus, who when she was put in the concentration camp wrote this in one of her journals, she said, "God has brought me here for a specific task. I believe I was led here to lead the sorrowing and the despairing to the Savior." 

Can you imagine having such clear belief and hope in the message, the good news of Jesus Christ, that you say, "Even if I'm taken to a death camp," that I could say, "this is an opportunity that God has given me to talk about the good news that is so good that it's better than where I find myself."? That is ridiculous joy. And it's a joy that says, "Whatever I'm going through, it may be devastating, but it's also an opportunity." Here's the second statement, and that is we can see adversity as a detour. You know what a detour is. It's where you're trying to go one place and you have to go out and around, and so it feels like a waste of time, just something that takes you somewhere that you don't want to go. 

A few years ago, my family and I went on a vacation out West. We were trying to hit some of the epic parks in the West, and we had gone to Bryce National Park. While we were there, a storm came up and it rained. We got rained on. We got soaked. And when we went to leave, where we had to go to go back to the place we were staying, the road was closed. And so, the police sent us on a detour. And when you're in rural Utah, a detour is not just a little out and around. This was a three-hour detour. It was one of those drives where you're sitting there going, "I have no idea where I'm going. My phone doesn't have GPS because there's no cell service." We were cold. We were wet. We were hungry. We were in one of those moments where we were saying, "This is nothing but a colossal waste." 

There was no fast food. There was nowhere to stop. We got back to the place we were staying, and the power was out, so we couldn't make dinner. We thought we'd try to go out to eat, but the power was out so all the restaurants were closed. And so, we ended up trying to grill spaghetti on a grill. And it became one of the epically great nights of our family's experience together. And here's why I tell you this. Sometimes a detour feels like it's just a pointless expedition, but sometimes the detour can actually become something really good. Sometimes, adversity can just be a detour, but sometimes we can also see it as a pathway to maturity in our lives. 

Here's where you see this in Philippians 1 in verse 19 through 20. Here's what Paul says, he says, "For I know that through your prayers and God's provision of the spirit of Jesus Christ what has happened to me will turn out for my deliverance. I eagerly expect and hope that I will in no way be ashamed, but will have sufficient courage so that now as always Christ will be exalted in my body, whether by life or by death." Here's what he says, "I know that I'm in prison. But because of the prayers, because of what's going on, I believe that I'm going to have sufficient courage to face being executed in this prison if that's what happens, or if I just rot and die here, or if I'm released." 

What he was doing was he was expressing a view that said, "As I'm going through this, I know that God is doing something in me." Sometimes what happens in our experiences, we go through something that's hard, and we just think it's a pointless detour. And maybe, just maybe, God is using it to shape something in us that has far greater significance than we even realize. But sometimes we'll miss it because we're so focused on the detour, so annoyed by the detour, that we can't see what it is that God might be doing in us. 

I found a reference to this a year or so ago. I think I've read this once before. But this is from the Book of Common Prayer in the Church of England about 100 years ago. The reason that this meant something to me is this is so counter to how you and I think today. So, if you're an Anglican living in England, they have this little Book of Common Prayer, and it has prescribed ways to pray at different times. And so, it helps you, prompts you to pray. And this is a service for the visitation of the sick. This is what the Anglican Church in England encourage their people to pray for one another if you ever went to visit somebody who was sick. So, if you went to the hospital, this is what you're supposed to pray. 

The reason I found this so striking is if somebody in your life group came into your hospital room and said, "Let me pray this over you today," you would want to punch them. Because you'd say, "No, no, no, pray for healing. Tell me it's all going to be okay." But listen to how they encourage you to pray. "Wherefore, whatsoever your sickness, know you certainly, that it is God's visitation. And for what cause, so ever, this sickness was sent unto you; whether it to be to try your patience, whether it be for the example of others, whether it be that your faith may be found laudable, glorious, and honorable, to the increase in glory and endless felicity; or whether it be sent unto you to correct or amend in you whatsoever does offend the eyes of your heavenly Father; know you certainly, that if you truly repent here of your sins and bear your sickness patiently, trusting in God's mercy for His dear Son Jesus Christ's sake, and render unto him honorable thanks for his visitation, submitting yourself holy unto His will; it shall turn out for your profit and help you forward in the right way that leads to everlasting life." 

In America, 100 years after this, if things don't turn immediately, we say, "God, where are you? Are you God? Are you good?" 100 years ago, the Christians of England said, "If I am going through something hard, let me pray and acknowledge that maybe God is using this to develop something in me." And do you know that in life, sometimes it's the adversity that you go through that actually shaped something in you that gives you the strength and the ability to do something else that you didn't have before that? So, one of the ways that you and I can have ridiculous joy when we're going through something that's hard is to say, "This is a detour, but it might also be a pathway to spiritual maturity, to me becoming something that I couldn't be any other way." 

And here's the third statement, and that is we can see adversity as defining. The reason I say this is so often what happens is we go through something that's hard, we go through a storm, and we say, "This is my reality. This is what defines me. This is how things will be." One of the reasons for this is in our culture, we tend to think that this life is everything, that this life is the sum total of our existence instead of understanding that it's part of a larger story. But what we see in Philippians 1 is that part of the pathway to ridiculous joy is being able to say, "I can see adversity as defining in part, but I can also see it as clarifying." We see this in verses 21 through 26. Let me just read verse 21. It says this, "For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain." To die is gain. 

And that is a simple statement of the Apostle Paul saying, "As I've been here in this difficulty, in this storm, I've started to see that if I can say, 'To live is Christ,' then to die is gain." And so often what happens for me, for you, is we don't tend to want to think about the brevity of this life. We tend to think that this life is the sum total of our existence. A few years ago, I was working with a church consultant who would come into town and work with me and our team for a little while. He introduced me to a song in a genre of music that I don't always listen to. And then after he had been visiting for a few times, I got a call from the agency he was part of. In another town, when he was visiting another church, he had had a heart attack and died in a hotel room. 

The song that he had introduced me to became popular, it was right as it had come out, it's called Live Like You Were Dying. Here are some of the words. "He said, 'I was in my early 40s with a lot of life before me. And a moment came that stopped me on a dime. I spent most of the next days looking at the x-rays, talking about the options, talking about sweet time.' I asked him, "When it sank in that this might really be the real end, how’s it hit you when you get that kind of news? Man, what do you do?'” And he said, those of you who know it could sing it but don't, "'I went skydiving. I went Rocky Mountain climbing. I went 2.7 seconds on a bull named Fu Man Chu. And I loved deeper. And I spoke sweeter. And I gave forgiveness that I'd been denying.' And he said, 'Someday I hope you get the chance to live like you were dying.'" And then it goes on, he says, “'I was finally the husband that most of the time I wasn't. And I became a friend that a friend would like to have. And all of a sudden going fishing wasn't such an imposition. And I went three times that year that I lost my dad. I finally read the Good Book, and I took a good, long, hard look at what I'd do if I could do it all again.'" His conclusion in the song was that if you realize that this life isn't going to go on and on, that you go skydiving, Rocky Mountain climbing, that you go 2.7 seconds on a bull named Fu Man Chu, and you love deeper. Like that's it. 

Now that's good. But that's not the Christian answer. It's good to say, "I'm going to live in the moment and soak up the good moments of my life here and now," but that doesn't address what Paul addresses here, because what Paul does is he basically says, "To live is Christ. And because I can say to live is Christ, I can say to die is gain." Paul David Tripp in his book about eternity says that when we get a glimpse of eternity, it will clarify our values and renew our hope. And here's why. I'm standing on a stage in suburban Pittsburgh. If you were to draw or take a string and tie it from here to New York City, and I just use that because it's a frame of reference that's easy to think about, and it doesn't really tell the story because the string would go much farther, but our existence is like the pin of a needle on that string. And it goes on and on and on. 

What adversity can do is not merely define something for us, but it can clarify something for us. And here's why I say that this is better than just enjoy a part of your life here and now. It's good. But here's what ridiculous joy does, is it says, "This life is not everything." You see, if you believe that this life is everything, then if you say, "To live is money," then to die will be to leave it to somebody else. If you say that to live is about fame or acclaim, then to die is largely to be forgotten. If you say, "Well, you know what? I know that about money. I know that about acclaim and fame. For me, to live is about my family. I'm going to invest in my family. That's what I'm going to spend my time in." To die is to leave them behind. 

It was Iron & Wine who wrote a song about this and recorded a song a few years back where they're saying about dying, and one of us having to leave the arms of the other. The reality of a family is that however good it is, somebody leaves the equation. I know we don't like to hear that. We want to focus on our family sometimes. But your family isn't ultimate. My family isn't ultimate. If you say to live is work because you have a high drive, you want to achieve, you want to leave the world a better place, to die is to leave your work to somebody else who probably will care a lot less about it than you have. 

And if you say to live is about fun, it's about joy, it's about memories, it's about going Rocky Mountain climbing and skydiving, then to die is to simply leave all of those things in the past. But ridiculous joy can come when you say, "I now have clarity because now I can embrace this life knowing that I was created not just for this life, but for an eternity. And therefore, I can find joy in the midst of my storm, in the midst of my trial, in the midst of my difficulty. Not because of but in the midst of. And most of us, if we really were honest with ourselves, we'd say, "I want to be the kind of person whose joy is not dependent on what's happening around me but can be truly joyful regardless of whatever else is happening. 

And here's part of where this can come from, and that is when we face a storm, we look to see the God who faced the storm or the adversity on our behalf. Jesus Christ went to the cross, a crucifixion, death, taking the weight of sin, facing down the agony of separation from God in order that you and I could say, "I have a standing with the Father that says whatever happens in the pinhead of my life, I know that my eternity is secured, not because of what I've done, but because of what Jesus Christ has done on my behalf." That allows me to say, "There is good news. There is a gospel that's worth more than the storm that I'm going through." 

But sometimes in the lives that we live we say, "No, what I want right now is I want to punch a ticket to heaven, and I want God to help me get through today in a way that will make it more comforting." But ridiculous joy, ridiculous joy comes when we can say, "Even if this is devastating, it's an opportunity. Even if this is a detour, maybe God's doing something in me. And even if this feels defining, this is really clarifying about what's most important." And that is where you and I can find joy even in the storms that we face. 

Let's pray together. I just want to take a moment and pray for those of us who are walking maybe through a storm. So, father we just come to you right now. Lord, we pray for those in our gatherings today, in this weekend at Orchard Hill who are walking through a storm. I pray you'd bring clarity and hope. God, for those who are facing some kind of a health crisis, whether it's theirs or somebody they love, God, I pray that you would bring clarity and bring hope in the midst of that difficulty. Father, for those who right now are walking through a relational hardship where something isn't right in key relationships, I pray you'd bring clarity and hope. 

God, for those who maybe are walking through a legal or a career challenge, something that seems insurmountable, I pray you'd bring clarity and hope. And father, for those who maybe right now are facing a financial hardship, not certain how the ends will come together, I pray that you would bring clarity and hope. And God, to whatever situations are represented here, I pray you would allow us to find joy in the midst of what is hard. Because we know, our lives on this side of eternity will never be exactly the way we want them to be. So, help us not to miss the potential of joy regardless of what is happening. And we pray this in Jesus' name. Amen.