When I was in my middle school years, my family, we took a trip out west from Ohio where we lived. We drove all the way to California. And on this trip we saw amazing, beautiful landscapes, vistas, incredible things. But there is one natural wonder that still in my mind stands out. It's rooted deep in my heart, this vision of this thing we saw. It was the great sequoias, the giant sequoia trees of California. If you've ever had the opportunity to see these trees, you know what I mean. They are majestic. They are gigantic.
As I stood among them, walked among them, I believed in my middle school mind that this must be the place where real giants dwelled. That was the size and scope of the setting. I remember looking up at the one particular tree, General Sherman. This is the largest of the giant sequoias. It is one of the largest living trees on earth and one of the largest trees to have ever existed on earth, we believe. It stands at over 270 feet tall. It is over 100 feet around at its base. And as we stood there looking at it, the forest ranger told us something amazing that has stuck with me. He said that if a giant sequoia grows on the right ground, if it grows on a level ground and therefore the tree itself is balanced when it grows, a giant sequoia can go on living and growing forever. Indeed General Sherman is thought to be between 2,300 and 2,700 years old. These trees can go on living and growing forever.
But if a giant sequoia is planted begins to grow on a slanted ground, a bad ground. And then when the winds and storm come, the tree will fall down.
Last week Dave got us started on a new sermon series in Paul's letter to the Philippian church in Philippi. And Dave highlighted that this letter is one of its central themes is resilient joy. Joy amidst circumstance. It is a letter written out of prison. And it is astoundingly a letter that even in the midst of that circumstance is overflowing with, brimming with beautiful, resilient joy. A joy that cannot be bound. Dave help me noted that this joy, this resilient joy is so beautiful in our world because our experience of joy is often fleeting. It is often not resilient. We face circumstance and the bubble of our joy bursts. Joy that maybe we knew just a moment before seems to vanish and flee.
Well of course we should never expect that in this fallen world our joy would go on unabated that would be constant and always with us. In this broken world we have times of lament and sorrow that are right and good. But I also hope that in reading Paul's account of resilient joy that something would stir in our hearts, something would awaken, a desire would awaken to grow in this path of resilient joy. As I read Philippians I want to sit at the apostles' feet. I want to draw close to him. I want to listen to his words. I want to know what Jesus gave him that allowed the joy that he knew to go on persisting through circumstance in the midst of difficulty. I want to know that kind of joy.
This morning we are going to consider the second part of Philippians 1 verses 12 through 26 that we've just heard read. In this text we'll see that joy is a lot like a giant sequoia. If it is planted on the right ground, a level stable ground, there is no reason why our joy can't go on living and growing more and more stable and strong, go on living and growing forever. But of course if our joy is planted on an unstable ground then when the wind of circumstance blows it will fall down.
I invite you to turn with me to Philippians 1 verses 12 through 26. Let's read along together. As we start to dig in here, one thing I want to just get out of the way of our thinking is a kind of circumstantial thinking when it comes to joy and when joy departs. This is probably a familiar idea that we've heard the idea that joy is not rooted in circumstance. But I think for all of us when joy leaves us in these times when joy seems absent, often the way that we default to think about that is through the lens of circumstance. We say, well why am I not feeling joyful? Well, it's because this thing happened to me. This thing has occurred in my life and so I'm no longer joyful like I was. And what Paul wants to orient us to, again, using this sequoia metaphor is that the ground that your joy is planted in is what matters. The wind and the storm is going to come either way. The ground that your tree is planted in is what matters.
Later in Philippians, Paul will write this, I have learned in whatever situation I am to be content. I know how to be brought low and I know how to abound. In any and every circumstance, I have learned the secret of facing plenty and hunger, abundance and need in any and every circumstance. The question is not whether or not circumstances will come into our lives. The question is where is our tree of joy planted? And so that's the question that Paul's going to ask us and he's going to ask it to us through this text in a few different ways.
Because he asks these questions, I want you to imagine actually being there with Paul, being there in prison with him in your mind's eye to take yourself to that place, sit at his feet and listen to the questions he asks. His first question is this, is your tree of joy planted in the ground of your own effectiveness? Is your tree of joy planted in the ground of your own effectiveness? Paul of course, we read his story in Acts, we read his letters. Paul was clearly an effective guy. He was involved in so many missionary efforts. He was planting churches. He was preaching the gospel and engaging the Greco-Roman culture around him. He was organizing the gathering of funds for the alleviation of the poor. He was all the while spurring others to do as he was doing. His life seems constantly on the move, constantly effective.
He cuts an impressive figure as a leader. But now these winds of circumstance are blowing and Paul has been put in prison. His circumstance is that his effectiveness has been cut off. Some scholars think that this imprisonment probably lasted as long as two years. For two years, Paul was not effective in the way he was used to being effective. If his tree of joy had been planted in the ground of his own effectiveness, is that if that is where his joy grew out of? Only in this circumstance you would find a man despondent. But that of course is not what we find. Instead he's reveling. He's reveling in what? In the ongoing effectiveness of Jesus.
Look at verse 12, I want you to know, brothers, that what has happened to me has really served to advance the gospel. Notice he doesn't say advance my work or my ministry. So that, he continues, it has become known throughout the whole imperial guard and to all the rest that my imprisonment is for Christ. And most of the brothers, having become confident in the Lord, by my imprisonment are much more bold to speak the word without fear.
What is Paul reveling in? He's reveling in God's ability to make a way where there was no way to be effective in the most unlikely circumstance. And not because of what Paul was doing, but because of what had been done to him. He had been constrained and limited and he's reveling in saying, look what God is able to do. Even when our effectiveness is cut off, is cut short. He points to Christ's effectiveness, to the advancement of the gospel. And he even points amazingly in this text when he is limited to the effectiveness of others. Other people are becoming bold, they're preaching the gospel, he's pointing to other people.
Now we should probably think, just because it would have been on brand for Paul, that he was still being diligent in sharing the gospel and making as much as he could of the opportunities he had of sharing his faith in Christ with the guards around him. But he doesn't say that. He doesn't emphasize here his effectiveness. He points to the effectiveness of Jesus.
We need to be freed up of the burden of our own effectiveness. We need to be freed. It needs to be taken away, this idea that what matters in my circumstance, in my work, in my communities is what I can do. What I can pull off, what I can make happen, the impact that I can have. Jesus' impact is what is going to make a difference in your life, in the lives of your friends, in the lives of your community, in the lives of your family. That is the ground of joy. The ground that the joy can grow out of that is stable and strong. If you root your tree of joy in the ground of your own effectiveness, it will fall down. Paul invites us to move our tree into this more stable ground.
We now ask his second question there in that prison cell. Is your tree of joy planted on the ground of what others think of you? Is your tree of joy planted on the ground of what others think of you?
I don't think any of us can probably answer that question with an immediate and emphatic no. We are all susceptible and looking to others, queuing off of others for our validation, for our worth. I want to know that part of this is a healthy part of being human. It's part of how we're made. We are communal animals. We want to look to others to know what it means to live and to flourish. When it's functioning in a healthy way, that's a beautiful part of life to share and to know others' approval and validation.
When it becomes unhealthy, when others become the ones who arbitrate our worth, who tell us when and when we are not valuable, when we notice in ourselves that feeling of, you know, I haven't, someone hasn't praised me in a while. I want someone to notice me, to notice that I'm worth it. We might think and begin to know that our tree of joy is planted and that ground is growing out of that ground.
Paul ministered in a context. He ministered to people who knew so well what it meant to be thought badly of. They were intimately acquainted with the reality of social condemnation of others looking at scans of them. They belonged to a group, Christians, who were despised and rejected as outsiders, as heretics, as dangerous people, both by the Roman culture and also by the Jewish culture. They were already outsiders.
For the Philippian Christians and for Paul, this situation was made worse by the fact that he had been thrown in prison in a highly stratified honor-shame culture that was what Roman culture was like. Being put in prison was a deeply shameful thing. From the lowest rung on the ladder, they had been demoted down. Their leader was in prison. Their friend was in prison.
But then Paul tells us in this section of the letter that the situation had gotten even worse, that people had stood up publicly and though proclaiming Christ, they were doing so from selfish ambition seeking to harm him, seeking to bring him down a peg. Certainly this pile of circumstances seems more than enough to rob anyone of their joy. To be seen and despised so openly in public, we would imagine would rob anyone of their joy. But how does he respond? How does he respond to these public adversaries?
Look at verse 18. It's amazing. What then? Only that in every way, whether in pretense or in truth, Christ is proclaimed. And in that I rejoice. In that I have joy that Christ is proclaimed. It's an amazing response. You see, Paul cared more about the reputation of Jesus than he did about his own reputation. He cared more about what others thought of Jesus than what others thought of him. And because of that, he was glad for people to hear about Jesus, even if that message came through the words of someone who in the next breath was going to malign him. He was insistent. His life was aimed at the glory of Jesus and not his own glory. And that vision of Jesus' glory, what he sought after was so holy and engrossing to him that he just didn't seem to care.
We can almost see this in this letter almost more vividly by what's not there. Consider that in this situation, we would imagine someone of Paul's stature writing to his followers to be telling them, you know, we got to get on it. We got to get those political wheels turning. Let's undermine those people. Let's go after them. Let's accuse them. Let's fight them publicly. But he doesn't say that. He just says, Christ is being proclaimed, and in that I rejoice.
There's a freedom here. Paul is relieved of seeking his own glory, and so he can rest in the seeking of Jesus' glory. When we're freed of that weight, when we're freed of seeking our own glory, we are often emboldened. And when our vision is on Jesus' glory, we're often emboldened and strengthened to pursue the work and the words of the gospel. Can you imagine what it would be like to be freed of the perception that others have of you? What it would be really like to walk around in the world and be a free person who has your eyes set on Jesus and you care what he thinks of you? Can you imagine what kind of boldness you might have? What kind of energy and love you might show to your neighbors? What kind of radical acts of kindness you might pursue? What kind of words you might share?
It's amazing that when we're freed of others' perceptions of us, often in this boldness, in this free living that we can have, it's amazing that often those people who we used to care so dearly about their opinion of us. That opinion can actually begin to change. They can begin to see something else in us. They can begin to see the beauty of Christ showing through our lives.
In preparation for this morning, I came across a story of a woman who was involved in a house church ministry in an Asian country. The Asian country was kept anonymous for security reasons, but it told this amazing little story of her faithfulness that I think exemplifies just what I'm talking about. This is what I read. When she was in her 20s, one sister who had since gone to be with the Lord was put in prison. She shared the gospel. She prayed for fellow inmates, some of whom were healed. She cast out demons and generally worked for the improvement of the prison context.
One day the warden came to her and said, we don't understand what you are doing, but we are going to take you to another prison so you can do the same things they are. Would it be like to see Jesus' glory shown so powerfully through our freedom and boldness of love that others would look at us and say, I don't know what you are doing, but it's good. It's beautiful. I want more of that to be happening in the world. I don't understand it, but I want more of that.
This can only come, this posture can only come if our tree of joy is transplanted out of the ground of our own glory and is transplanted into the ground of Jesus' glory. We can be people whose joy grows out of seeing and knowing Jesus' glory and pursuing that glory in the world.
And now Paul has one final question for you. Again, we are in his prison cell and he looks you in the eye and he says, is your tree of joy planted in the ground of making and following your own plan for your life?
Is your tree of joy planted in the ground of making and following your own plan for your life? So many of us in this cultural context have grown up from such an early age being fed the message that what it truly means to be alive, what it truly means to flourish, have a good life, is to determine your own plan, to fix your own course, to end proactivity and power, to grab life by the horns and say, I'm going this way, and then to rest at nothing to see that through.
To this context, Paul's example again powerfully speaks, Paul was someone who had had plans for his own life. He was a descendant in the first-century Jewish culture of his day. He was on his road to greatness, to great things. He was trained under the best rabbi under Gamaliel. He was part of the ascendant group, the Pharisees, zealous after the law, pursuing he was on his way to be one of the primary leaders of his people. And he must have relished that. He must have taken joy in thinking about that path that almost seemed preordained, like he was just walking down it, until Jesus ruined his life. He ruined his life in the best way possible.
Jesus took that zealous young man, that man who had plans for his life, was heading in a direction. Jesus stepped into that life, and he struck him down. He blinded him on the road to Damascus, and he taught him what it truly means to live. What it truly means to live.
Paul entered into the school of Jesus, and Jesus taught him that to have true joy is not to have your own plan, but to know Jesus' plan for your life. To live in a posture of holy resignation, freed from your own ambition, in that unhealthy way, freed from your own powerful seeking of what you want, and to be resigned, to be freed, to learn from Jesus his path. And Jesus had an amazing path for Paul. He had an incredible path, a hard path, a path full of trial and difficulty, but an incredible life.
Paul got the opportunity to sit in the front row and see the work of the gospel breaking into people's lives. He got to see people awaken in the depth of who they were, to know the love and care of God for them. He got to see whole communities transformed, families transformed. He learned in this school the day in, day out trusting of the plan that Jesus had for him, the year in, year out trusting of Jesus' plan for him, that in this circumstance, in that prison, he is able to say this: Yes, and I will rejoice. For I know that through your prayers and the help of the Spirit of Jesus Christ, this will turn out for my deliverance.
He doesn't know how, he's in prison, but this will turn out for my deliverance, as it is my eager expectation and hope that I will not be at all ashamed, but that with full courage, now as always Christ will be honored in my body, whether by life or by death. For to me, to live is Christ, and to die is gain. To live is Christ, and to die is gain. What good are my plans, Paul says? I have discovered the secret of being content in all circumstances. I have discovered the truth of Christ, of being in Christ, of having my life so firmly rooted in his life, my desire so firmly formed by his desires, my plan so firmly formed by his plans, that is life, he says. That is what it means to come alive, to have our lives taken up into Christ's life.
Paul's joy was unbounded because he had planted his tree of joy in the life of his Savior, who was unbounded. Paul knew in the depth of his person, maybe more than he knew anything else, that Jesus had died and had risen again, that death couldn't hold him. That person who had encountered him on the road to Damascus was supposed to be in death's tomb, in prison, chained by death. But he wasn't. He was free. He was unbound, and Paul had encountered him, and he had learned the truth that to become alive, to become a truly joyful, full, whole person is to put your life in his life. To live is Christ.
What would it mean for our tree of joy to be planted in that ground, to be planted in the reality of the risen Jesus, to know that our plans can be surrendered to his plan because he is both the one who knows us better than we know ourselves, who knows our desires, who knows our giftings, and who is also the one who is powerful enough to see us through any circumstance? Do you know that that is Jesus who you have planted your life in?
If you are a Christian here today, that is who you have planted your life in, the one who loves you and knows you so completely, he knows the path of life that is the best one for you. You can surrender to him. You can do that without fear because he is also the one who is powerful enough to see you through any and all circumstances.
Paul invites us from his prison cell to know that we can plant our tree of joy in Jesus' effectiveness, in Jesus' glory, and in Jesus' plan for our lives. And friends, if that is where we plant our joy, if that is the ground that we plant our joy on, it can be like a giant sequoia. It can raise up glorious and majestic into our old age and on into death and into eternity. That joy that we experience in a fleeting way from moment to moment in little bits and tastes, those are the crumbs of the banquet that we will experience. That joy in Jesus, planted in Christ, will go on growing, becoming more stable and strong, and go on living forever.
May it be so. Amen.