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Welcome to our look at Philippians chapter 2 and daily drive-time devotions.
We're on our fourth day of the look at this chapter, verses 19 to 25. Sort of a
shift today, we've been talking about finding joy in our growth and the gifts
that God has given us at that place of who God has made us to be, our potential,
living out our God-given potential.

As we go to verse 19, Paul begins to talk about some of the people that he had
worked with and served with. And I'd like to, as we look at this last part of
the chapter, focus in a more personal way at what it has to say to us about who
we work with and the kind of joy that we can have in our regular work life. How
can you have joy on the job?

Our work, our job is one of those places where you're either going to every day
of your life lose joy or find joy. We'd all agree with that. And if you can't
have joy on your job, you really can't have joy.

Why? Because we spend the majority of our time at work. I know people who act as
if they can't have any joy in their life until they retire.

What kind of life is that? Instead of joy on the job, for a lot of people it's
worry at work. What kind of life is that?

We've got to find a way to live differently. It's got to be better than the
comic strip guy Dilbert's laws of work. Maybe you're familiar with these.

His laws of work for finding satisfaction in the job. Four of them were, number
one, if it wasn't for the last moment, nothing would get done. Number two, keep
your boss's boss off your boss's back.

That's where you'll find joy in your job. Number three, everything can be filed
under miscellaneous. That's satisfaction at work.

And then number four, when you don't know what to do, walk fast and look
worried. Well, that might be good for a comic strip about what you'd expect, but
what does God have to say? You might be in a work situation that's a daily drain
on your joy.

Truth is, you'd like to quit, but you can't. Even if not one thing changes at
your workplace, there are some things that you can do. These verses talk about
those things.

You may not be quite that desperate, maybe not quite ready to quit, but you'd
like to have some more joy in your daily experience at work. How does that
happen? Well, remember, Paul had a job.

If he'd had a business card, it would have said apostle, or it might have said
bond servant of Jesus. He had a job. He was serving other churches.

He was helping other churches to grow. And remember, Paul didn't work alone.
There were actually a group of people that worked with Paul.

Just a brief list of those that Paul worked with, he worked with Barnabas and
Luke and Silas and Titus and Iodia and Syntyche and Lydia and Tychicus and
Aquila and Priscilla. He had this group of people that worked with him in the
job that he had. Paul led a work group that changed the Gentile world in only 20
years.

Here's the question. What made it so effective? And also, what made it joyful?

Obviously, he had joy in what he did. He talks about joy all throughout this
passage. As he talks about the people that he worked with and working
relationships in these last verses of Philippians 2, I want to draw out of those
six keys to help you to enjoy your work.

Even if you can't escape your place of work right now, how do you enjoy where
you are? You don't have to wait for a transfer. There's some things that you can
do right where you are to begin to transform your attitude towards your place of
work.

I'd call this six ways to find joy in any job. Maybe not enjoy any job, but six
ways to find joy in any job. Number one, take a genuine interest in others.

You can't work selfishly and joyfully at the same time. So number one, you have
to take a genuine interest in others. In Philippians 2, verses 19 to 21, Paul
says, "I hope when the Lord Jesus will send Timothy to you soon, one of his
fellow workers, that I also may be cheered when I receive news about you.

I have no one else like him who takes a genuine interest in your welfare, for
everyone looks out for their own interests, not those of Jesus Christ. " Timothy
was a strong partner of the Apostle Paul. Paul had helped him begin in his
faith, and he'd become sort of a father to him in his faith.

He was to help Timothy as he began churches, but earlier in their partnership
together, Timothy actually traveled with Paul as they did ministry together. And
in that, Paul discovered that Timothy was a unique individual. He didn't care
about his interests.

He cared about the interests of Christ. It's interesting to me that everyone
either lives in Philippians 2, 21 or Philippians 1, 21. Philippians 2, 21 is
looking out for our own interests.

Philippians 1, 21 is to live as Christ. And I live in one of those two places.
Timothy was a "to live as Christ" kind of guy.

And he had an interest in people that could transform even the most mundane work
into an opportunity for joy. Now the question here is, how do I get the focus
off myself? That's where joy comes from in any job.

How do I get the focus off myself? And the answer is, you become a manager of
the interests of Jesus Christ. It has always been amazing to me that with the
effectiveness of Paul's message, of his ministry, that he did not have a totally
loyal group of Christ followers around him.

There were some people who disappointed him. There were some people who didn't
follow through. There were some people who looked out for their own interests
and not the interests of Christ.

Oh, he always had people around him who were doing ministry with him. But there
were others who betrayed him, disagreed with him, separated from him, went off
to do something different from him. And this statement, "All the others care
about themselves and not what matters to Jesus," I don't know about you, but
that statement does two things to me.

First, it causes me to want to be the one person who cares about what matters to
Jesus. If there's only one, like Paul said, Timothy was the only one, I want to
be that one. But this statement also causes me to not only want to be the only
one, it causes me to ask the question, "What can I do with my life and the way
that I serve that will encourage others to care about what matters to Jesus as
well?

How can I encourage? How can I be an example of living for the interests of
others and not just my own interests? " One of the ways is to ask, "What could I
see Jesus doing in the lives of the people around me at my place of work?

" All over the world in large cities, there are American embassies, a little
piece of America looking out for American interests in that city, in that
region. The truth of the matter is, you are an ambassador for Jesus Christ,
appointed to your place of work to look out for the interests of Jesus. You are
the Jesus embassy at your place of work, and when you begin to see that, it
changes your attitude.

It might answer the question for you, "Why is God leaving me here? I've prayed
to not work here any longer, I'm not finding satisfaction here. Why is God
leaving me here?

" It might just be for the people that you work with. Sometimes who you are with
may be as strategic for making a difference as what you're doing in your job.
Say to yourself, "Today, God has sent me to be a minister to, an ambassador to,
and you fill in the name.

" Then you watch how the joy begins to flow again. You become someone who is
concerned about the interests of others. That's one of the ways to find joy on
any job.

A second way that I would draw out of these verses is the decision to associate
with the experts. That's one of the ways to find joy in what you're doing.
Verses 22 to 24 of Philippians 2, "But you know that Timothy has proved himself,
because as a son with his father, he has served with me in the work of the
gospel.

I hope therefore to send him as soon as I see how things go with me, and I am
confident in the Lord that I myself will come soon. " The truth is, you work
happier when you work well, and Paul says, "Timothy is a guy who works well. "
There's nothing quite so frustrating at a job as knowing what could be, what
should be, as knowing you could do it better, but you just can't seem to figure
it out.

One of the keys to working well is working smart. Some smarts can come from
books, but nothing beats personal experience beside a master workman. Timothy
had experienced that.

Much of the ability that he had gained that's being expressed here had been
gained as he worked alongside the master worker, the Apostle Paul. I think of my
personal experience in being able to work alongside of Rick Warren for a couple
of decades now, the things that I've learned, the ways that I've grown, the
feeling that I had of being able to more effectively make a difference in
people's lives. That's associating with the expert, somebody who has learned,
and then you learn from them.

I hope that I can teach somebody else something, that you want to pass it along.
There's something about learning from somebody else and then being able to pass
it along that creates joy in your life, because you feel like, "God's working
through this. I'm doing this well, using the gifts that God has given me.

" So you associate with the experts, and you be aware of the interests of
others. Then there's a third thing that you and I can do to experience joy on
any job, and that is you improve your relationships. Every job includes a
relationship.

Even Batman had his Robin, even the Lone Ranger had his Tonto, even Pinky had
his brain, I threw that in just for some of you. Well, Paul had Timothy, and
Paul also had Epaphroditus, and they had this incredibly valuable working
relationship. Verse 25 says, "But I think it necessary to send back to you
Epaphroditus, my brother, my fellow worker and fellow soldier, who's also your
messenger, whom you sent to take care of my needs.

" Now who was Epaphroditus? Epaphroditus was a member of the Philippian Church
who had risked his life to carry an offering from that church to Paul in prison
in Rome. It had become so valuable that Paul had kept him there to serve him
while he was in Rome.

But Paul is saying, "Here, now I'm sending him back to you. I'm sending him back
to you because of all the value that he has for the church. " And as he talks
about Epaphroditus, he uses three phrases that remind me of how to improve
relationships.

He says, "He's my brother, he's my fellow worker, he's my fellow soldier. "
Brother, the concern of a brother. Fellow worker, the effort of a laborer.

Fellow soldier, the fight of a soldier. Brother, you care about those you work
with. Did God know where he was sending you when he sent you to your work?

You may not have known you would be there, but God knew you would be there. And
he put you there to be a believer, to be a light. I love it when I hear an
unbeliever say, "I love to work with Christians because, I don't know, they just
bring an enthusiasm to the office that other people don't have.

They bring a joy and a peace and a perspective. " But you know what I hate? I
hate it when believers say, "I love to work only with Christians.

" We have all eternity to do that. And if you think, "Oh, I'd like to go work at
a church somewhere that was just Christians. " Well, let me tell you, that's not
perfect because we're all human beings.

And we have all eternity to hang around just Christians. Why not see God's
opportunity to work in the place where you are? We're also fellow workers and
fellow soldiers.

We have an opportunity to work together in a way that improves our relationships
together. Now, working relationships often fall short of genuine relationships.
They're often fake.

They're often phony. They're often all about office politics and getting to the
next rung on the ladder. And what I'm encouraging here in order for you to
experience joy in your place of work is be different, be a light, be somebody
who is more concerned about other people than those at your place of work.

Be somebody who is more concerned about what happens in people's lives than
what's happening in your own life. And when you do that, it's an amazing thing.
God often blesses you for that in ways that are far beyond your comprehension.

Work for other people to be the best they can be. Work for your relationships to
be the best they can be. But also work for you to learn the most you can.

And as you do that, God's going to work through you in your place of work to
make a difference in this world. I'd like to stop right now and just pray for
your place of work. Let's pray together and just say, God, you know where I'm
working and you know my feelings about it.

Feelings of joy and excitement or feelings of boredom, feelings of I don't even
know what I'm feeling you might be thinking. But right now just say, God, for
right now, this moment today, you've placed me in this place and I pray that I
would allow you to use me. Help me, God, not to be so concerned about just my
own interests, but also the interests of others.

Help me, God, not just to stay stuck where I am, but to have the humility to
learn from others. And help me, God, not to sink to the level of the way
everybody else does relationships at my office. Help me to think about how you
might relate to the people that are around me and how in some way I could relate
to people like you.

Let them see you. Let them see your light. God, I pray for my place of work and
I pray you'd use me there.

I pray you'd bless that place and bless the people that are there. And I pray
that you'd help me to begin to find joy on my job and I ask it in Jesus name.
Amen.

Well, tomorrow we're going to finish our look at how to find joy at your place
of work as we look at verses 25 to 30 in Philippians chapter 2.