The Joy of Serving

Introduction

Is when you start talking about how things were when I was a kid. When I was a kid in North Alabama, manners meant everything. We even had classes at school, public school, on manners. They were called etiquette classes. I couldn’t spell it, but I was forced to learn it. And we were taught, as young men and young ladies, how to be gentlemen and ladies. And I was taught things at a very early age that are still ingrained within me. I was taught at that time that a gentleman always extends his hand to another man to shake hands. Now in COVID times that maybe became a fist bump or a wave, but I was taught you extend your hand and you give a firm, we were even taught how to shake hands.

Good firm handshake. But I was also taught in that era that a gentleman never extends his hand to a lady. And so don’t think that I’m rude today, ladies, if I don’t reach out to shake your hand. Now, if you extend your hand, I was taught to accept that hand. But never force a woman to shake hands was the way I was taught. We were also taught, and I know this was a very regional thing, but we were also taught that we never spoke to an adult by their first name, or at least by their first name alone. This may have been just a local thing that we did, but we were taught to say Mr. or Mrs. or Miss, as the case may be, and then the person’s first name.

And you may be taught to say that with a last name. And so as a child, I would say Mr. Tom, Mr. John, Mrs. Jane. That’s the way we were taught. Mr. and Mrs. and the first name. I’m going somewhere with this. When I was a kid, my mom occasionally would babysit the preacher’s kid. And the preachers had at that time had three children, and the youngest was a little boy by the name of Andy. He was just barely out of the toddler stage. Kind of that preschool age. And mom was keeping little Andy one day, and my mom loved to shop. And so if she was going to babysit you, you were going to town and going to the store. And so she took little Andy to the store.

And Andy had been taught the same etiquette that I had been taught. And so he called, or at least he tried to call my mother Mrs. Marie. That was my mother’s name. Mrs. Marie. But he being young couldn’t exactly articulate Mrs. Marie as clearly as that.

And so he started screaming in Kmart at the top of his lungs. Misery. Misery.

And everybody thought he was saying misery. And we kind of feel like that sometimes, don’t we? We just want to cry out. And maybe we want to cry out misery. Because sometimes that’s a part of life. We talked in our Lord’s Supper talk this morning about life being full of emotions and a wide myriad of emotions. And we’re talking about the Christian life in our series on the book of Philippians. And so would you join me in Philippians chapter 2 is where we want to be this morning in Philippians chapter 2. Maybe put your finger or your bookmark or a pencil there. We’ll be looking at some other text of scripture, but we’ll always be coming home to our text in Philippians chapter 2. In this epistle where Paul should be crying out misery.

Because the last several years of beatings and stonings and imprisonments and shipwrecks and mistreatment, even by his own brethren, has now resulted in him being placed in what he would call chains. We talked about that last week, remember, in this Roman prison.

At the hands of his prisoner.

But he writes these four chapters, crying out to his brethren and to his Lord. Rejoice. Joy. At least 19 times in this short epistle. He says, Joy. Rejoice. I think we found a role model in dealing with the miseries of life and being able to see joy in them. Now I want to pause here and add a disclaimer in this sermon and actually this whole entire series of sermons. When we’re talking about finding joy in our lives, we’re talking about applying the Christian principles that God has given us to do such.

Paul found joy in his fellowship with his brethren. And remember the two lessons we tried to draw out of that. First of all, please, please, please be the joy in your brothers and sisters’ life. Secondly, please seek to find the joy in being a part of this fellowship. And then we finished up chapter one and talking about joy and adversity, that we said we can view it as an obstacle or an opportunity. Paul was in prison, but he says, you know what? These prison guards are getting the gospel preached to them. Now, if that’s not a glass half full kind of guy, I don’t know who he is. We talked about suffering to service, that his suffering had actually led him to serve his Lord and his brethren.

And we talked about doubt or trust. He trusted in God to deliver him from these miserable circumstances, even though he was finding joy in them. Now, if you’ll join me in chapter two, that idea of suffering to service continues in chapter two. Chapter two is rather lengthy. We have 30 verses. Remember, there’s only four chapters in this book. Thirty of those verses in those four chapters, one whole chapter deals with the idea of serving one another. And I want to emphasize that to you in this context. That in an epistle, a short epistle about joy, about one fourth of that is going to be talking about serving others. Do you see a connection? Do you see the connection between joy and service? Now that might be counterintuitive to what the world and our own selfish inclinations might be telling us to do.

1. Servanthood Is Something God Expects and Demands

Joy or happiness is not found in serving you. Joy and happiness is found in you serving me or me going out and serving myself, taking care of number one, and maybe in that pursuit of me trying to find happiness in this life by serving number one, I might look out, I might have to actually step over you and step on you to get what I want out of this life. But Paul says, no, that’s not how the child of God finds true joy. True joy is going to be found in serving others. He starts out here by telling us that servanthood, being a servant as a child of God, is something that God expects and God demands of his people. Have you turned in your Bibles there to Philippians chapter 2?

Let’s read together. Therefore, if there’s any consolation in Christ, if any comfort of love, if any fellowship of the Spirit, if any affection and mercy, fulfill my joy by being like-minded, having the same love, being of one accord, of one mind. Let nothing be done through selfish ambition or conceit, but in lowliness of mind, let each esteem other better than himself. Let each one of you look not out for his own interest, but for the interest of others. Paul commanded them to be united. Be of the same mind. Be, my new King James says, being of one accord. Literally, that means being joined in soul. That we are joined together. And so this unity is enjoined upon us, this idea of seeing one another as not just a fellow human being, not just as a fellow believer, but seeing one another as the oft-repeated biblical illustration that we are family.

There’s something that binds us together. There is a kinship there. There is this likeness in soul and spirit and faith and in love.

And it’s high time that I quit giving lip service to the idea of unity and service and actually start practicing. To actually start doing it. Even if it means like our Lord getting our hands dirty by washing somebody’s feet. And so he says, be united. Now, many times when the New Testament says to do something, there’s a little bit of an undercurrent there that maybe you’re not doing it. And so I’m going to tell you to do it. A parent doesn’t tell a child, clean your room when the room is spotless. You usually say clean your room when the room needs clean. And so sometimes, not always, but sometimes when the New Testament says, do this, the audience that he’s saying, do this to needs to be told that.

We’ll read later in this book in chapter 4 and verse 2 that there were two women in the congregation who maybe weren’t doing this. And so he implored them to be of the same mind, much of the same language here, to be united. It didn’t seem that there was any moral issues or even doctrinal issues between these two ladies, because Paul was never hesitant to point that out if that was the case. We read between the lines, we’ve got to be careful when we do that with scripture, but if we try to do that carefully, it may seem that it was just kind of maybe a personality conflict here that was at least threatening the breakdown in unity in the congregation at Philippi. And so Paul spends a whole chapter in saying, this joy that I’m talking about is to be found in service.

2. The Enemy of Unity

Hold your finger there, and let’s go to James chapter 4. I want to talk about the enemy of unity.

The enemy of unity is found in James chapter 4, verse 1. The enemy of unity are the best friend and ally that a conflict has ever had, is mentioned in James chapter 4 and verse 1, where he asks the question, where do wars and fights come from among you? Now, let’s pause there. Can we not infer that the audience that James is writing to was having problems in this area when he says, you’ve got wars and fights among you, where does that come from? He goes on to say, do they not, this is James 4, verse 1, do they not come from your desires for pleasure that war in your members? Why are they conflicts among you, James says? It’s because of your selfish pleasures. It’s because of you wanting to be number one and to push your own selfish interest and get your way and do things your way rather than what Paul is going to tell us here in Philippians chapter 2.

And so James tells us and identifies the source of conflict, the enemy of unity. And in Philippians chapter 2, Paul is going to tell us the solution to that. And so, first, like with any condition that needs to be addressed, we need to identify it. If there’s conflict, if there’s problems, James says, it’s because you’re being selfish. You’re only concerned with your own pleasures, your own desires, your own interests. And so what’s Paul’s remedy to that in Philippians chapter 2? Look not out for your own interest, but for the interest of others. Now that’s a verse we could all have quoted by heart. We might not have remembered where it was, but we could have quoted that, couldn’t we? Look not out for your own interest, but for the interest of others.

3. Our Lord and Savior: True Humility

But it’s one thing to be able to quote it. And to even print it out and hang it on the wall. Or write it out and put it on the refrigerator or bathroom mirror. And it’s a whole nother thing to actually do it. Paul says if there’s to be unity, and if there’s to be joy, it’s going to be found in you being selfless. And then, of course, famously, go back to Philippians chapter 2. Who does he use as our role model in this idea of unity through service, through humility? It’s our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Now, if this was a Bible class, I might ask, open up the floor and I might ask you, what one attribute do you think of and attach to Jesus?

And someone might raise their hand and say love, and it’d be hard to argue with that. Someone else might raise their hand and say mercy or grace. Yes. But Paul here says, and Jesus himself would say, that one word that should come to mind when we think about our Lord is humility. True humility. I know you know these verses, but let’s look at them again, would you? Verse 5, let this mind be in you. Be of the same mind. Don’t look out for yourself, but put others first. Let this mind be in you, which was in Christ Jesus, who being in the form of God, did not consider it robbery to be equal with God. That needs a little discussion, doesn’t it? The King James and the New King James didn’t consider it to be robbery.

That’s a little bit of an awkward translation. And some of the newer translations maybe do a smoother job of that. What did the idea here of robbery is the idea of selfishly snatching something and holding on to it? And so he didn’t consider being in the form of God something to be selfishly snatched and held on to. I’m not giving this up. It’s mine and you can’t have it. That elite status, isolated and insulated and separated from sin and temptation and pain and suffering that plagued this world was something that Jesus was willing to let go of. There’s the key to service, isn’t it? What is it that you’re selfishly white knuckled hanging on to? Could be your money. Certainly might be your time and your energy.

But Jesus had so much and so many reasons to selfishly cling on to what he possessed. But he let them go. And so he did not consider it something to be grasped a hold of. Verse 7, but made himself of no reputation, taking the form of a servant and coming in the likeness of men, and being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death, even to the death of the cross.

That’s where it has to start. And because of that, he says, therefore, God has also highly exalted him, verse 9 says, and given him the name which is above every name. That at the name of Jesus every knee should bow of those on earth and those on the earth and those under the earth. And that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father. Because Jesus humbled himself, the Father exalted him. That reminds you of the story that Jesus told about your approach when you go into a dinner party, that you don’t find the chief seats, you sit down here in the humble places. Let somebody else elevate you. That’s what our Lord did, and that’s what we move.

4. Salvation Is Connected to Servanthood

God will take care of your needs. God will exalt you if you’ll humble yourself and serve. And so to understand what humility and service truly are, we just have to look at Jesus. Now, when we turn in our text to verse 12, notice Paul hasn’t changed subjects.

And us attaining that salvation. This isn’t a separate chapter. This isn’t a separate discussion because he begins verse 12 after having spent 11 verses talking about humility and service and unity.

Based on what we were just talking about with our Lord being an humble servant. Therefore, my beloved, as you’ve always obeyed, not as only in my presence, but now much more in my absence, work out your own salvation in fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you both to will and to do his good pleasure. Salvation is connected to servanthood. Work out your own salvation. What he’s saying there is he’s not working out independent of God, but independent of Paul. I don’t have to be standing over your shoulder, reminding you to do your homework, Paul says. Take some initiative, some self-discipline, some drive, we would say, have some gumption and do what you need to do. Work out your own salvation in my absence with fear and trembling.

And we look at that passage, and we may want to say, what Paul is saying here is that you need to study the scriptures, believe, repent, confess, and be baptized so that you might be saved. Or Paul might be saying, you need to quit this sinning, living like the world lives and doing all of these things of adultery and drunkenness and all of those kind of things. Put that aside, work out your own salvation. And absolutely all of those are essential to our Christianity. But in this context, when Paul says, when you want to work out your salvation, get on your knees and wash somebody’s feet. You work out your own salvation by not seeking your own interest, but seeking the interest of others. Let’s not make some arbitrary, artificial list of salvation issues.

That are these are things God’s going to grade us on on the judgment day, but these others aren’t that important. Paul says your humility and your service to God through serving your brethren is working out your own salvation. And we do this, verse 14 do all things without murmuring and disputing. This idea of murmuring or complaining is the idea of a selfish complaining or an unbalanced criticism about small matters or an impatience towards something that we might not understand. That’s murmuring. Complaining or disputing there in verse 14 is the idea of arguing, of rationalizing. And so service, if it’s true service, has to be done from the heart. It has to be genuine. It has to be free of grumbling and complaining. And so he says, servanthood is commanded.

5. Three Individuals Held Up as Examples of Service

It’s a salvation issue. Work out your own salvation by seeing to the interest of others. And now this servanthood’s going to be exemplified or shown. In the last part of this chapter, Paul is going to talk about three individuals who can be held up as examples of service. The first one is Paul himself. Look with me. In Philippians chapter 2, verse 17. Yes, and if I am being poured out as a drink offering on the sacrifice and service of your faith, I am glad and rejoice with you all, for the same reason you also be glad and rejoice with me. Now that’s poetic Old Testament language of being poured out of the drink offering. Paul says, if my death is kind of like an offering in the Old Testament, then I’m being sacrificed on the altar of the service of God.

In other words, Paul says, if I die here, I’m going to be glad. Because I died in service to you. Paul didn’t cry out misery. He cried out in joy. Because if I die, I died serving you. And that’s good enough. That’s me working out my own salvation, Paul might have said. And so Paul teaches us to serve with joy. The second one he talks about is Timothy. Look in verse 18 or 19, excuse me, but I trust in the Lord Jesus to send Timothy to you shortly, that I also may be encouraged when I know your state. For I have no one like minded, that is like Timothy, who will certainly care for your sake. For all seek their own, not the things which are Christ Jesus, but you know his proven character, that as a son with his father, he served with me in the gospel.

Timothy teaches us that service brings togetherness. Paul says, I’ve got nobody like my son Timothy, because we’ve served together. Do you see how this ties in with the context of this chapter? Unity through service. You want to increase your unity? Serve. Paul shows us if you increase your joy, serve. You want to increase your unity? Serve. You’ll be united with those whom you serve. But Paul and Timothy also tell us if there’s somebody in the congregation here that you don’t know that well. Or maybe even somebody in the congregation that you’re estranged from. Partner up with them and go serve. Unity through service is the illustration of Timothy. And now the third one, it comes from Philippi itself, and that’s Epaphroditus. Look beginning in verse 25.

Yet I also considered it necessary to send to you apaphroditus, my brother, fellow worker, and fellow soldier, but your messenger and the one who ministered to my need, since he was longing for you all and was distressed, because you had heard that he was sick. For indeed he was sick, almost to death. But God had mercy on him, and not only on him, but on me also, lest I should have sorrow upon sorrow. Epaphroditus was that messenger who came from Philippi to come to Rome where Paul was in prison and brought a gift from Philippi to Rome. And somewhere, we don’t know all of the details of this, somewhere along that journey, Epaphroditus got sick. And not just sick, Paul says he almost died. But you know what Epaphroditus didn’t do?

Conclusion

He didn’t turn around and go back home to mama’s house and drink ginger ale and eat saltines because he was sick. He kept going to Rome, risking his own life, gambling with his own life. Why? So he could serve. So he could serve Paul. And so Epaphroditus teaches us and shows us that service often comes with sacrifice. And that’s okay. To be willing to spend and be spent in the service of the Lord. Service leads to unity. And service brings joy. Well, we have our marching orders. We don’t just say it. We don’t just preach it and sing about it. What will you do today and this week to bring about joy and unity in your life and in the life of this family here? Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, without grumbling and complaining, by serving one another.

We talk about salvation. We may be talking to those who’ve never rendered obedience to the gospel. There may be some in our internet audience who are wondering about what it takes to be a Christian. If you’re out there somewhere listening, that please reach out to us. We’d love to study. It doesn’t matter where you are in this country or this world. We’d love to study God’s word with you. But if you’re here this morning and you know you need to render obedience to the gospel, that you need to be equipped to serve, then why not obey Him this morning? Why not rejoice and have the angels in heaven rejoicing with us this morning as you come as together we stand and as we sing?

So our sin.