Gospel-Based Joy

I recently went to a retreat for leaders that focused on serving the Lord from joy. It stimulated me to further meditation on Paul's letter to the Philippians.
There is an emphasis in Philippians on joy. And there is an emphasis on the gospel. People tend to pick either joy or the gospel rather than connect joy and the gospel.
Joy is a deep seated happiness, a sense of privilege, wealth, and security—a mindset that is focused on how much you have been given compared to how little you deserve. It is the realization that you have everything in Jesus Christ and you will be able to get through anything with Jesus Christ. This joy is accompanied by contentment and peace rather than complaining and anxiety.
The gospel is a message of salvation, an advancing movement, a cause. Paul uses the term “the gospel” to refer not only the good news of what God has done in Jesus, but it is a way of life in community (1:27). The gospel is not only a message of how to be saved, but how to live from God’s resources how to be set free from every bondage. It is not just how we begin, it is how we go forward The message of the gospel should shape every attitude and activity in the Christian community.
What is the connection between joy and the gospel? Joy is the result of living for the gospel and living from the gospel. Those two things together bring about joy. Paul models both and calls upon them to rejoice the way he does.
Examples of living FOR the gospel: 1:5-8 4:3; In 1:20-25, Paul describes his commitment to suffer for the advancement of gospel (“to exalt Christ in my body by life or by death”). To live for the gospel is something he does just when he is speaking it, but in every way—choices to pray, to say no to self, etc. Living for the gospel includes sharing your faith, but is not limited to that. It is rejoicing together in community that embodies the message (1:27; 2:2). It is humility, the laying aside of selfish demands and self-glory (2:5-7). It is discerning opportunities from God in your circumstances (1:12).
Examples of living FROM the gospel: 1:2 & 4:23; 1:11; 2:13; 4:4,9; 4:19. In chapter 3 Paul shares his story of how he started to live from the gospel and how that led him to live for the gospel. It is a grand description of turning from religious idolatry. It was a grand repentance.
3:1 He rejoices in the Lord (not in circumstances or things He gives you). Before he knew Christ,
his righteousness was a barrier (3:2-6). Self-righteousness, that is. Good things done for self-glory.
When you are not living from the gospel, you living from what Paul calls “confidence in the flesh,” which is a performance identity. And when you don’t rejoice in the Lord, you rejoice in self. Your identity is built on who you are in the eyes of people. You matter if you are respected. The results of your performance makes you OK. You are secure if you are in control.
Is this you Paul is describing? I know it is me. And I don’t mean only before I became a Xian.
After Paul repented, he lived from the gospel with a righteousness that comes from God.. (3:9) Living from the gospel means living by grace, putting confidence in the resources of the gospel, being satisfied in God Himself. When you live from the gospel, there is nothing you must prove, nothing you must defend, nothing you must have, no one you must look down on.

My next post will draw out some implications of from living from and living for the gospel.