“For to me, to live is Christ, and to die is gain” (Philippians 1:21)

What is your joy?

When we look at Philippians, perhaps the keyword we would think of is “joy”. The question to ask is: where do we derive joy from?

Perhaps we associate joy with our personal accomplishments, when we do a good thing for ourselves: getting good results in school, validation from our bosses, beating a personal record...

This is not something inherently wrong, the Bible does not prohibit us from celebrating ourselves sometimes and feeling the joy when we accomplish something. You work hard for yourself, you get the results you want, you feel joy.

A joy derived from God

However, Paul’s definition of joy is vastly different. 

“Being confident of this very thing, that He who has begun a good work in you will complete it until the day of Jesus Christ” (Philippians 1:6)

We are all good works, personally begun by God. This should already spark some joy in us, having realised that we are crafted, cared for, looked after by God Himself. Our God is good, and He desires for us to be good, starting this good work in us, and “will complete it until the day of Jesus Christ”. This gives us hope that God will continue to work in us, to perfect us, because He loves us. This is a joy derived from God.

A sacrificial joy

All these talk about joy still sounds very individualised, a joy you feel because you gain something for yourself.

As we read on Philippians 1, however, we see Paul describing his joy in spite of suffering and sadness. Despite being in prison, Paul still takes it upon himself to care for the believers in Philippi and to encourage them to also rejoice for him (V26). How can Paul rejoice, and ask others to similarly rejoice when he is faced with such circumstances? Paul knew the heart of Christ, for to him, living is Christ (V21).

In this knowledge of Christ, he also understood the sacrifices Jesus made and the path that Jesus had to walk. Similarly, Paul was willing to suffer and sacrifice for the sake of the gospel, deriving joy from the fact that he was given this grace to suffer for God’s sake. This no longer becomes a self-gratifying joy, but joy that comes from working for God. 

When we are called to serve, when we are called to sacrifice things for Christ, to endure situations for Him, to put aside ourselves for Him, will we be like Paul, to count it all joy?