We can so easily find ourselves rejoicing in certain events or happenings rather than in Jesus. We can even find ourselves thinking joy is what will come when everything in ministry is sorted. When we’ve got our eldership team, assistant pastor, and women’s worker all in place and everything’s functioning as it should in the church. But Paul is calling the church to a deeper joy that is grounded in Jesus. That has sunk it’s foundations so deeply into Jesus that circumstances can’t shake it.

If we want to step off the rollercoaster we need to change where we are putting our joy. We need to change how we think about joy. So often we think of joy wrongly.  We think joy cannot co-exist with hardship.  That the two are mortal enemies and only one can exist at any one time.
But Paul writes to the church in Philippi because he wants them to know the very real joy of the gospel as they follow Jesus in every day life.  Not because hardship and struggle are absent, but joy in the midst of hardship, struggle and conflict, because they know whose they are, what they are part of building, who they’re being transformed into the image of, and where ultimately their hope is, and his presence with them now is just a tiny foretaste of what will be.
Philippi is a church birthed with joy in the midst of hardship.  Paul and Silas preach and see conversions by the river in Acts 16 but then are thrown into prison for liberating the spirit oppressed slave, but rather than grumbling and complaining about the injustice of it, or the potential harm it’ll do to the gospel, they sing hymns and pray to God, and after a prison break we see the church grow again as the jailor asks ‘What must I do to be saved?’
A riot and a stint in prison aren’t exactly ideal church planting conditions are they?  They’re not the ideal soil to leave a young church in.  But Paul doesn’t create a siege mentality, he doesn’t make it us against them in this letter.  He rejoices as he prays for them(1v4) “because of their partnership in the gospel”.  And in his continuing ministry with them his aim is to see them make progress and grow in their joy in the faith(1v25).  And his letter is written so they follow Jesus fuelled by joy.
This isn’t just a letter about keeping going.  It’s imperatives are important but it’s not get your head down and slog through, it’s follow Jesus fuelled by the joy of being in him.
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Written by T. M. Suffield |
Sunday, November 13, 2022
He is extraordinary, we are not. It’s good to work to do what we do for God—in every arena of life—better than we have done it previously. The true moments where the veil is lifted and we see reality, where we meet with God in his heavenly temple, where we enjoy sacrament are gifted by the grace of God. We cannot create them, but he won’t meet us if we do not engage in the ordinary first.

I wrote a few months back about our preoccupation with the need to be extraordinary. It’s, particularly for my generation, a problem in ministry. It can play havoc with leadership, undermine the ordinary means of grace, and mean that we miss what we’re aiming for.
To take preaching as an example, I am convinced that I haven’t ever preached an ‘excellent’ sermon, if there is such a thing. I’ve preached a few good ones and a bunch of average ones—I preach about once a month these days and have been preaching for fifteen years though not at that frequency the whole time. I know what I’m good at and have a good sense of some of what I’d like to improve on. I haven’t hit ‘excellence.’ Which, since we’re not going to be extraordinary, is just fine.
Except, I think it’s worth aiming for. I reckon most preachers manage a message that’s truly great once or twice in their lives. I’m not talking about the sort of preaching that goes viral, though that does occasionally happen and isn’t a bad thing if it’s happened for the right reasons; rather, I mean the sermon where the preacher knows that they are speaking words as if from God, and doing it well instead of ham-fistedly like normal. The kind of sermon where the congregation knows it too, and their lives are impacted even if they don’t remember a word of it afterwards.
We manage that for one person in the congregation more often than you would think, in the kindness of God’s economy. But I strive for that day where everyone is aware of it. I think that’s important because I know I do not do well at speaking God’s words after himself, which is the core of preaching. I aspire to doing it once or maybe twice in my life.
I think that’s a worthy goal. Of course, that means most times I preach it will be fairly ordinary. Which I’m quite happy with. Or, learning to be at least. The difference between the two is partly my effort—if I put no work in then the elevated preaching won’t ever happen—but it’s primarily God’s gift.
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It is clear that scripture calls us to a higher standard in setting goals. The goals we set as Christians must be in accordance with God’s will and under his leadership. So, in James 4, James is not saying that we should not set goals. What he is saying is that we should set goals and make plans as God leads, but hold them loosely: “Instead, you ought to say, ‘If the Lord wills, we shall live and also do this or that’” (Jam. 4:15). Herein lies the balance of the Christian life: although Paul set Christ-centered goals and developed specific plans to achieve them, he was also sensitive to the Lord altering his plans.

If you knew without a doubt that you could not fail in accomplishing one major goal, what goal would you set for your life?
I have heard this question for years in business circles when the subject of goal-setting comes up. It’s also one I think about between Christmas and the new year as I pray and think through what God wants me to accomplish in the coming year.
For those who have put their trust in the Lord, maybe a better question is, “Should we as Christians set goals?”
Over the years, I have heard many answers to that question. In the recent past, the answer from the church has usually been “no.” I have heard sermons expounding the dangers of fleshly zeal tied to spiritual goals. James is often quoted to support this argument:
Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go into such and such a town and spend a year there and trade and make a profit”—yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes. Instead you ought to say, “If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that” (Jam. 4:13-15 ESV)
Yet today if you google the question, “Should we as Christians set goals?” the search yields about 159,000,000 results, many of which provide detailed instruction on how to make your goals a reality.
Two Ways to Look at Setting Goals
With goal-setting, like many issues, it’s easy to fall into two dangerous extremes.
The first extreme is to choose not to have any goals or plans. These people aim at nothing and hit it with amazing consistency. They claim to always want to be open to the leading of the Holy Spirit, who they suggest only leads people in a spontaneous way. Although this may seem spiritual, they are not really using their God-given intellect to set good goals, plans, and decisions.
The second extreme is when people develop such rigid goals and plans that there is no room for the daily guidance of the Holy Spirit.
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