Joy in Christ

Introduction

Good morning, Decorary. This is our call to worship. And it’s also a great day to serve the Lord. Time to pause and reflect and let’s prepare our minds for what’s to come. Let’s clear all our worries and concentrate on this worship. And let us sing with gladness, pray with boldness, and preach with truth and power. And accept those things into our hearts. Let’s pray. Lord, we’re happy to be here to worship you today. We’re thankful all for all the immeasurable things you have done for us. We pray, Father, that all things done here are according to your will. Amen. Let’s begin our song service with magnify o magnify. With the absence of many due to the youth weekend, we also have some with us who would not normally be with us, and we are grateful for that.

Certainly invite you to sing with joy this morning. Cry aloud with gladness, our joy in him.

He has been using song to save us now.

Give embrace forever on your hearing. And I allow with blindness, I joy.

Oh magnify I will magnify, oh magnify. Oh magnify. He will bring us to his mind story to present fellowship with him. We will see his wall we will see his news.

Scripture reading this morning. If you want to follow along, we’ll be in the book of Hebrews, chapter 10, verses 14 through 18. Hebrews 10 14. For by one offering, he has perfected for all time those who are sanctified. And the Holy Spirit testifies to us, for after saying, This is the covenant that I will make with him. After those days, says the Lord, I will put my laws upon their heart, and upon their mind I will write them. He then says, And their sins and their lawless deeds I will remember no more. Now, where there is forgiveness of these things, there is no longer any offering for sin.

And it’s this time that we give back to support the work here of this church and the work that it does.

The plates will be passed. You can do that, or put it your contribution in there, or we have a PayPal account, which is on the screen as well that you can contribute to. Would you please bow with me? Our most gracious and loving Heavenly Father. We come to you with hearts full of gratitude for everything that you have given us, for the blessings that we have from you that we enjoy on this earth. We pray, Father, that we would always use them in a way that is pleasing to you, in a way that glorifies your name, and in a way which always keeps in mind that everything comes from you.

Amen.

I think we missed a slide. Before this next song, let’s be led in a prayer.

Let’s bow together.

Almighty Father in heaven, we are thankful to you for the day that you have blessed us with today, for the many blessings that are around us, for all of the physical things that we enjoy in this world. Father, because these things persist from day to day, we sometimes fail to honor you as we should as the giver of all of these, all of these things, the provider of the comforts and the well-being that we experience in this life. We recognize that all of the things in our entire universe are held together by your power. They exist through and because of your will.

They are ill, they suffer poor health, chronic conditions. Father, we ask your blessings upon them. We ask also that you would help us as their fellow Christians to be mindful of their needs, be attentive to the circumstances of those who are around us that we might care for one another in the way that we should.

We recognize that the temporary troubles of this time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that will be revealed. We also recognize there are things in our lives that are not as you would wish, that there are sins that we commit. We honor our own will sometimes above yours. We fail to love our neighbor as ourselves. We pray that you would help us always to be mindful of those things, that in our meditation on your will that we might recognize the things that we need to put behind us, put off as the works of the old man, that we might put those things to death and always be the sorts of servants who would be pleasing in your sight. We’re thankful that we can be forgiven of those sins, that the sacrifice of your son made it possible for us to find redemption, forgiveness, and to work to live sanctified lives in your sight.

Pray that you would help us at times like these and throughout our everyday lives to be an encouragement to one another to lead the kinds of lives that you would have us to lead. Go with us now and bless us through the remainder of our worship service this morning. We pray in Jesus’ name.

He is in our midst. Praise the Lord and shout for joy, for he is in our midst.

Praise the Lord is the Lord and shine for the holy life.

After the lesson, we will sing Christ who lives in me. That will be on the slides only. Before the sermon, let’s stand and sing joyful. We adore thee. Joyful music leaves us sunder in the triumph song of light.

Joyful we are joy.

Our son will be for the wood me to us, son of the sin, drive thou blindness, fill us with the light of day. All thy words around me, and we raise Sars and Angel, Sendrace, you’re mountain, flowering my love, flashing sea, chanting word and flowing fountain, all us to be joys in me.

Ocean that we saw all in love. Teach us how to love me, live us to thy joy Mortals on my forest.

I’ve had the privilege for the past few days to spend time with many of your young people. We had Phil Robertson in town from the Tampa area working with our young people at the youth weekend. And I’ve tried to make a habit over the last few years of giving you a little bit of insight into what your young people are talking about and what they’re working through over the weekend. And this weekend they talked about rejoicing and joy in Christ. I think it was an interesting topic when I first saw that’s what we were going to be doing. I thought that’s interesting for a youth weekend to be doing this, but then the more I thought about it, the more I had kind of ruminated on various reading I’ve done over the last few years.

Just kind of even secular research and things that are done about our culture, and one of the truly sad and depressing things about culture is how much anxiety and depression, sadness is increasing almost at exponential levels among our youth. And in that way, I think there’s no more appropriate topic than to spend hours, six hours at least over this weekend in sessions working through scripture, particularly through the book of Philippians, talking about how you can have joy in Christ, sometimes even through the difficulties that we face, the struggles that sometimes come about. And I love how Phil spoke with in reality with our young people that things are hard sometimes, things get very difficult. How do we deal with that? How do we handle that?

And of course, those of us who are whole older, which is a predominant part of our group this morning, we understand that as well. And we have to wrestle with the realities of the difficulties of life, whether it’s just the stresses of everyday life or maybe the health difficulties that sometimes we encounter, parents as raising our children and the struggles that sometimes come with that. How do we work through all of this and how do we maintain joy in our lives? So I want to give you some of the things that Phil talked about, and they did a lot of breakout sessions as well. And of course, I can’t cover all of this in one session, but I want to give you a little bit of information and I hope that maybe over the next few days you’ll have some time to ask your children some questions.

Ask them some of the things they talked about. And I may even feed you some of the questions they were asked that I actually heard them give great answers on. That would be a place to start to have some discussions with them about their life and about things they can work on and their effort to grow spiritually. And I want to begin this morning with where Phil began with the kids, and that is in Philippians 4 through 7. He actually had them working on memorizing this text over the weekend. So there’s something to mention and to ask them about in the coming days. So let’s read this together. Philippians chapter 4 through 7. It says, Rejoice in the Lord always. Again I will say, rejoice.

Let your reasonableness be known to everyone. The Lord is at hand. Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving. Let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. He started out with them just asking them, what makes you happy? And I could ask the same question to you this morning. What makes you happy? If you just sit and think for a moment about the things in your life that make you happy, what are they? And we may all give various answers. Maybe it’s the sports that we play or the relationships, the friendships that we have. Maybe it’s the comforts of life or the entertainment that we enjoy, or one of the big ones they talked about was food.

Maybe it’s food that gives us lots of joy. They love to eat, and so that was one of the things they discussed. But the reality is that happiness is somewhat fragile. It’s there and then it goes away because it’s based on happenings, it’s based on circumstances, and of course, as you well know, circumstances change. And so when we talk about joy and happiness are not equivalent. They share some similarities, and of course, in moments where we feel happiness, there often is joy connected to that. But what we see in the book of Philippians is that there can be joy even when things aren’t happy and good in our life. In fact, the context of what’s happening in this letter is that Paul is in Roman imprisonment.

Most likely, he’s either in Rome, which is the most likely scenario, or maybe he’s in Caesarea Maritima. Either way, he is imprisoned. And he’s writing this letter to the brethren at Philippi as he’s waiting to have this trial before Caesar. This man has traveled more than probably all of us. Maybe there’s a few of you in here who’ve traveled the world more than Paul, but Paul was a world traveler, and now he’s stuck in a cell. He’s stuck in prison. He can’t visit the churches that he loves. In fact, his reputation is being attacked by jealous preachers, we find in the first chapter.

And yet, this entire letter is an overflow of joy. Joy and rejoicing are found in this book about 16 times, at least in original language. You’ll find it probably at least 14 times in English. This is a, and this is a small book. It’s four chapters. But over and over and over again, he’s talking about joy in the Lord and joy in Christ and rejoicing in the Lord and the things that give him joy and how he wants them to have joy. And so Paul is demonstrating that joy in Christ is possible even in troubling and difficult circumstances. His joy is rooted in his purpose. And it’s practiced in the humility of Jesus Christ and Christ’s likeness, and it’s sustained through persistence. And the ultimate result of that is the peace of God, which then just creates more joy.

It’s a cycle. It’s the cycle that can be created with the right kind of mindset that just continues to feed itself in the right way. Now, of course, that cycle can be reversed, and we get things out of whack and it feeds the cycle in a negative way. And that’s what we want to interrupt and we want to change as best we can. And so I gave you essentially the schematic that Phil worked through throughout this weekend, just using a few words, the words purpose and practice and persistence and then ultimately peace to describe what’s going on in the book of Philippians, but also to help our young people, and we can use this ourselves, to help us understand what it takes to have joy. How do we live with joy even when things aren’t going well sometimes in our life?

1. Purpose: Live With Purpose

The first of these we find in the very first chapter is that we need to be the kind of people who have purpose, who live with purpose, and this purpose is going to produce joy in our life, no matter what circumstances we’re found in. In fact, he talks about this in chapter one and in chapter four both. But I want to turn your attention to chapter one and verse 12. Because sometimes there’s things in our life, there’s circumstances that we look at and we feel very negatively about them. And rightfully so, sometimes. Paul is in prison. He’s likely here under house arrest, so he may not be in the sort of circumstance we always imagine as prison, but it’s uncomfortable. It’s not a place you want to be.

That’s where he’s at. But as he thinks about this more, there’s some things he can say about that actually lead to joy. That he sees in a beneficial way, despite the negatives that are also there. So, verse 12, he says, I want you to know, brothers, that what has happened to me has really served to advance the gospel, so that it has become known throughout the whole imperial guard and to all the rest that my imprisonment is for Christ. And most of my brothers, having become confident in the Lord by my imprisonment, are much more bold to speak the word without fear. Some indeed preach Christ from envy and rivalry, but others from goodwill. The latter do it out of love, knowing that I am put here for the defense of the gospel.

The former proclaim Christ out of selfish ambition, not sincerely, but thinking to afflict me in my imprisonment. What then? Only that in every way, whether in pretense or in truth, Christ is proclaimed, and in that I rejoice.

And maybe he can’t go visit the churches and all of that, but now he’s preaching the gospel to people who are guarding him in the prison. The gospel has become known. Christ has become known even to the imperial guard. To the people of Caesar’s household, those who are maybe in royal positions, or those who are higher up who may have never heard of this, they’re hearing the message of Jesus Christ. Because although Paul is stuck, we might think, the word of God is not chained. It is not held down. Even more than that, it goes beyond that. Now others, and I don’t know how to get into the psychology of all this, but it is interesting that because of Paul’s imprisonment, what he’s finding out is that other people have now become more bold to speak.

Isn’t that amazing? I don’t know why, but for whatever reason, now more people have confidence to speak boldly the message of Jesus Christ, despite Paul’s imprisonment. And yes, there’s people who preach for their own motivations, and there’s some who do it right, but in the end, the message here is that Christ is being proclaimed, and this is being spread even more than it was before. And in all of that, Paul could have been sitting in there in self pity. You know, well, think of all I could be doing. I could be out serving the kingdom. But no, instead, he’s finding out and he’s seeing and he’s recognizing, he’s learning to see how all of this is actually turning out in a beneficial way for the kingdom.

Probably in ways he would have never even thought. And what’s happening in that process, and what we can learn from this is that Paul is realizing that his purpose is still being served. Maybe not in the way he imagined. Not the way he thought it would all happen. But despite that, as he sits and he meditates here in prison and thinks about what’s taking place, God’s purpose for him is actually still being carried out. It hasn’t been stopped. One of the interesting things that Phil mentioned to the kids, and I thought it was super profound, is what if this hadn’t have happened? Now he’s sitting here in prison and he writes this letter that 2,000 years later we are now reading. This letter that was likely sent all over the place, it wasn’t just the brethren at Philippi that read it, but other people read it too.

So while he can’t visit these churches, now something that actually has lasted thousands of years was produced while he’s sitting here in prison. It’s perspective. Sometimes it’s the way we think about the situations that we’re in. And joy is not a function of our circumstances. Joy is a function of our choices. It’s the decisions that we make in the various circumstances in which we find ourselves. And that’s what we’re seeing here with Paul as an example, and he’s going to use himself and some others as examples for us as we work through the book. But that’s what he’s demonstrating here to everyone. He understands his purpose. And because he knows his purpose, he can still rejoice. I don’t know. I think sadly, I think I would have a hard time, at least at first, rejoicing if I was in prison.

That’d be tough. Let’s just be honest. If I got arrested tomorrow and they threw me in prison, that’d be that’d be a tough pill to swallow. I don’t think I’d be very happy about that. But with the right choices and the right perspective and the attitude, doesn’t Paul demonstrate that even in that scenario, a pretty extreme scenario, we can still find joy in fulfilling the purpose that God has given us. Our purpose is to serve him and to glorify him, which he goes into in the next section where he’s realizing, hey, for me to live is Christ and to die is gain. Even if I die in prison, God is just glorified in my body. And if I live on, I’ll just go out and I’ll continue to produce fruit for the kingdom.

Either way, in life or in death, God is glorified, and Paul’s ministry is magnified. In either case, whatever happens for him. Do we understand our purpose? I think that’s the question we have to ask. Are we living for the wrong things? If so, joy will continue to evade us at every step. If we’re living for the success of this life, for we’re living for the pleasures of the moment, for wealth, for the entertainment around us, those things are fragile. They’re here and then they’re gone. And certainly we can enjoy some things in this life here and there, but when we’re sitting sometimes maybe in our darkest moments in the valley of the shadow of death, those pleasures and the things of this life aren’t going to mean a whole lot to us.

And that is our purpose to rejoice, not in all of those things, but as Paul says, rejoice in the Lord, and again I say rejoice. It’s in the Lord that we find joy and that we rejoice, not in the comforts, not that I don’t have any pain, not that I have good health, not that I make a lot of money, not any of those things, because all of those things can go away very quickly. And then what’s left.

2. Practice: Have the Mind of Christ

At one time, those things did not exist. And if we found all of our joy and fulfillment and having healthy bodies, well, then what happens when that begins to go away? Rejoice in the Lord, Paul says. That’s our purpose. And if we can keep our purpose, we can keep our focus on the right things, then we can have joy, even in moments that are not fun, even in circumstances that are not good. And as we move into chapter two, really it’s the end of chapter one. The kind of major theme there is let your manner of life be worthy of the gospel of Christ. Whatever you’re doing, it needs to fit into what’s happening with the gospel. That’s part of our purpose. The part of this is changing our mentality.

And he’s going to use Christ as an example, himself, Timothy, Epaphroditus. These are examples of what it looks like to develop a mind in a way that is practicing day to day that’s going to bring joy. He begins this in chapter two in verse one. So if there is in any encouragement in Christ, any comfort from love, any participation in the Spirit, any affection and sympathy, complete my joy by being of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord in one mind, doing do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility, count others more significant than yourselves. Look, let each of you look not only to his own interest, but also to the interest of others. Now that would be a great message, even if we just stopped right there.

It would fit in with so much else we see within the New Testament about Jesus and about Scripture in general. Just to not be selfish, right? To not be conceited or arrogant, but to live with humility. But now what he’s going to do as he continues on is kind of cross-section this with who Jesus is and what Jesus did. And if we truly want to have joy and complete his joy by living this way, we’re going to live with the mind of Christ. We’re going to practice day to day, trying to be more like him in the things that we do. And so he says, have this mind among yourselves. This is how you do it. Right? You want to be selfless. If you don’t want to be arrogant, if you want to live in humility and look out for the good of others around you, then you live like Christ.

So we have the purpose, which is to glorify him and honor him in the things that we do, rejoice in the Lord, not the other things that go on around us in life. And then the practice, the day-to-day thing is I look at Jesus and I see who he is and what he does, and I’m trying to be like that. He gives us some examples. The key example.

But he couldn’t stay in that form. When he came to be like us, he came in human form, like a servant. He lowered himself, being born in the likeness of men, and being found in human form, he humbled himself by being coming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Sacrificial love. Humility. Selflessness. No, the world tells us if we want to be happy, you go get your own. Right? You fight for the things that are yours. You demand your rights. You make everyone cower to what you want. That’s how you’re really going to find it in life and be happy and have joy. And of course, the result of that is you actually end up empty. You don’t have good relationships. You probably have ruined your marriage.

There’s all sorts of problems that are associated with this kind of mentality in this kind of life. But if we have the mind of Jesus, if this is how we practice day to day, in humility and selflessness. And of course, Jesus is the epitome of all of this, even giving himself his own life, and a shameful and painful death for my good and for your good. That’s why he did it.

The Hebrew writer says it this way, speaking of Jesus, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God. Hebrews chapter 12 and verse 2. I mean, Jesus wasn’t like, hey, this will be fun. You know, that’s that’s not the idea for the joy that was set before me. I can’t wait for this. This is gonna be great. I’m so excited. That’s not what’s being talked about here. But it was the greater purpose of what he knew he was going to accomplish. Right? And that’s why he’s in the garden, and he’s saying, if this cup can pass for me, let it pass. But not my will, but your will be done.

There’s joy in that. There’s joy in accomplishing something of value, encomplishing something of purpose, of meaning. We’ll come back to that thought here in a little bit. There’s joy that comes in knowing that you fulfilled the will of the Lord. And that’s why it’s good say Jesus, who with the joy that was set before him, endured. Now he endured the cross. But I just want us to draw that connection between joy and enduring for a second. There’s not a lot of happiness typically in enduring. When I was younger, we started training for soccer in the summer. we would do five plus mile runs through the woods, and our shoes, he’d say, wear old shoes because our shoes would be muddy and wet, and we would stop to do push-ups, and then when we keep running, it was miserable.

There’s nothing fun about that. Even people who like to run don’t really like that kind of running. It was not very enjoyable. It was cold, actually, because you’re getting wet in the morning air, we would go at like six in the morning. This was just not an enjoyable experience. But why were we doing that? We were enduring that for some greater purpose, right? We knew there’s something coming down the road. We’re going to start playing games. We wanted to have endurance, we wanted to be able to run, and we didn’t want to feel sick in the middle of the game because we didn’t do any conditioning. There was a purpose behind why we were doing that. And part of us enjoyed this process because we all wanted to play soccer.

So there was this element of this that even though the moment was sort of miserable, we’re doing this for some other reason. And the reality is, as I got older, the freshman year was horrible. I don’t remember being as miserable as I was my freshman year. Because you think you know, teenagers, we don’t have a lot here. You think you know, you think you know what things are going to be like, right? And then you get there and it’s nothing like what you imagined, and that’s how it was. And we always then laughed at the freshman freshmen in the following years because that’s how it always worked. But then you kind of learn. You learn in the process, like I would start running on my own and working through this so that when that time came, it wasn’t quite as bad.

Right? And it actually became a little bit enjoyable. It’s all about your perspective, it’s about the choices you make along the way. Developing the right kind of mindset. And when we’re looking at Jesus, we see someone who is humble, who is obedient to the will of God. And sometimes we think that God’s will and his commandments and his rules, oh, they’re so restricting, but in the reality, he’s giving this to us for our own good. Again, it’s it’s just like parenting when we try to instruct our children and we try to give them wisdom and help them. It’s not because we want to be difficult or we want to make their life miserable or we want to make them uncool or any of those things.

It’s that we’re actually trying to help them understand the right boundaries and the things that are going to be best for them in life. And it’s the same sort of concept with God. Be humble like Jesus, be obedient like Jesus. Lower yourself. That’s a hard one. He lowered himself from deity and he came in the form of a servant. There’s not a single one of us here this morning that will have to lower ourselves the way Jesus lowered himself. Again, it’s the pinnacle, it’s the epitome of this sort of mindset, which is why Paul calls us to have this kind of mind. And then he says, as he continues in the next section, do all things without grumbling or disputing. Now he ties all this together beautifully in terms of working out your salvation and all of that.

And they spent a good bit of time, and your kids gave great answers about this. The things they grumble about sometimes that they probably shouldn’t, and all those sorts of things. Great conversation to have. And they correctly identify, you know, the difficulties of things in the past, and now they sometimes complain because they have to load the dishwasher. It’s so hard. You know, they get it. They may not act like it sometimes, but they understand. They gave great answers about this. But it’s just so easy. And the thing is, adults, sometimes they’re learning it from us, aren’t they? It’s so easy to complain and grumble and murmur about things, and we give those Israelites such a hard time about all their murmuring and grumbling and all that.

And of course, they’re going through the middle of the wilderness with no food and water. They have some legitimate things to be upset about and worried about. And the whole lesson for them was to learn to trust God. I don’t remember the last time I was somewhere and I was really worried about actually having food or water for any kind of extended period. And yet I’ve still found a place to grumble and complain at times about stuff. You know, that’s something that needs to change. My mentality needs to be more like Jesus and realizing I need to be selfless. I shouldn’t just be thinking what I want all the time. And I need to be living with gratitude. Complaining is a killer of joy. It puts our minds on all the wrong things.

One of the things that Phil mentioned that I think is actually still helpful for us as adults is he talked about the mind and all the things going on in the mind, and how sometimes when we mess up and we make bad choices or we think the wrong things, we say, I wasn’t thinking.

You were just thinking about the wrong things. And that’s what then leads to poor actions and bad choices. And then lack of joy.

Do all things without grumbling and complaining, he says, disputing verse 14. And then as he works through this, he talks about living in a way that is without blemish in a crooked and twisted generation, shining as lights, holding fast to the word of life. What am I doing to speak truth in the middle of a crooked and twisted generation? What am I doing to shine as a light in the world? It’s not complaining. I know that. Complaining does not convey the truth of God. It doesn’t convey anything that’s really good. Now, there’s a reality that sometimes things need to be fixed, and there may be problems, and we can address those, but just complaining and grumbling really does no good. And it certainly does bring any joy to our life.

And prompting and promoting the things of the world, that’s also not going to bring us any kind of joy of fulfillment. It’s going to be holding fast to the word of life, the things, the truths that we see in the world, the truths that we see in the word, as Psalm 19 shows us, and holding fast to those things. And then notice what he says next. He talks about his own sacrifice and offering. And how this outpouring, this drink offering upon the sacrificial offering of your faith, verse 17, he says, I am glad and rejoice. He’s rejoicing about the sacrifices and the offerings that he’s making. He sees a connection between that and his life trying to be like Jesus. He makes the same point actually later in chapter 3 as well.

And then he calls them. Likewise, you also should be glad and rejoice with me, even if you’re sacrificing, even if you’re making offerings in your life, and you don’t just get to do what you want all the time. All of these things actually are part of what it means to live like Jesus Christ to the benefit of other people. But it involves perspective and it involves shaping our minds to practice life the way that Jesus practiced life. To walk the way that he walked, as John will say in 1 John. And to the extent that we do that, we can have joy even in very difficult and trying times.

3. Don't Let Your Joy Be Taken Away

There’s things in life that are very hard, that are painful even. They hurt. And there’s no denying that. But to say you can have joy in the middle of that doesn’t negate that reality. It doesn’t say those pains no longer exist. You’re never going to feel sorrow or grief or any of that. That’s not the point. It’s a little bit more like what Paul says somewhere else in 1 Thessalonians, we don’t have to grieve like others who have no hope. There’s still sorrow. There’s still grief, there’s still pain, there’s still difficulty in life, but we can face it in a very different way when we rejoice in the Lord. But then there is the danger sometimes that our joys can be stripped away from us. That life becomes so difficult at times that we can allow this mindset to be corrupted to not think like Jesus Christ.

We can lose sight of our purpose and the joy that we once had can be taken away. And so Paul warns about this as well. The dangers that come from the things around us. Don’t let your joy be taken away. And there’s so many ways we could talk about this. This is some of the great discussions the young people had with him. That I think would be good for us to think through and even talk to our kids about.

Number one thing that strips joy from young people’s life. I’ll boil it down to one word. Phones. The phones strip joy from their life. It is addictive. And it’s true for adults too. But they recognize it. But yeah, it’s like it’s like a drug, right? In those dopamine hits that just keep happening when you post something and then you look for the likes and you want to see the attention and all of that, it’s just this thing that brings us in. I’m gonna do a little bit more of an adult example here in just a minute. I know we struggle with our phones too, but I want to give you another one that I think is pertinent. But the reality is those phones, they’re like the dogs.

I know dogs are living animated things. The phones sort of can be like that too, and now we have even AI and other things that are trying to mimic that around us, but they pull us in and they bring us places we don’t need to go. Not only that, but they keep our focus sometimes away from the things that are most important in life, and they just suck the joy out of life around us at times if we’re not careful. They promote the wrong kinds of ideas, they certainly pull people toward ungodly ways of thinking and living.

Inclinations here when he talks about looking out for the dogs. He’s talking about people who are promoting the wrong kinds of spiritual ideas, who are treating us in ungodly ways, and he runs through some things that relate to that, but of course, people are behind the technology too. And so all of this sort of melds together in one, and I think one thing we can ask ourselves, even more maybe than asking our children, because they actually need to see our example of joy and see how we’re living. What is it in my life that is robbing me of joy? Am I willing to ask that question? Rejoice in the Lord always, and again I say rejoice, Paul says, What is it that’s keeping me from doing that?

That’s where I need to begin working. What is it that’s keeping me from rejoicing and seeing joy in life even through trying times? I should be able at some point in my life to shape that into my mind, into my heart, where I can have joy even when I’m imprisoned in some sort of problem and difficulty. Joy comes through focusing in the right direction in the things that we do. Don’t get caught up with the dogs who are trying to push us in one direction or another. They’re scavengers in the ancient world. They’re not seen positively. I know you love your dogs and you see them positively. So you got to think a little bit differently. That’s not how they were viewed in Paul’s day. Dogs are the kind of people who kind of animals who bite and devour, right?

4. Persistence: I Press On

They are scavengers. And he says, look out for those people. They’re a problem. They will suck the joy out of your life. Don’t be like them. But then he kind of changes gears, right? We can get focused on all that and the people we should avoid and all those sorts of things, and that’s all important. But then he gets a little bit more internal with this in the second part of Philippians 3. Just thinking about his own mentality and his own mindset about how he’s going to handle this. And he says in verse 12, not that I’ve already obtained this, right? I’m giving you this instruction. I haven’t figured it all out myself yet. This is the message. I’m not already perfect, but I press on to make it my own.

I’m working toward this end. I’m persistent. I’m going to keep working. I know my purpose. I know the practice of life, but I understand I’m going to have to be persistent in this. I can’t just give up when it gets hard. Verse 13, brothers, I do not consider that I’ve made it my own, but one thing I do, forgetting what lies behind and straining forward that lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. Let those of us who are mature think this way. Have you sinned in your life in a way that still haunts you right now? Where you struggle to forgive yourself for the things you’ve done and the mistakes you’ve made. This is for you.

This message of Paul right here is for you. He says, if you’re going to press forward, if you’re going to understand your purpose and walk this way of life the way you need to, you’ve got to be able to unload some of that baggage from the past. Yes, learn from it, and we have other places that teach that. But here what he’s saying is you’re going to press forward. Forget the things that lie behind. Don’t keep dwelling on all these problems and just beating yourself up and feeling guilty about life in such a way that you can’t even move forward. There’s some straining that has to happen here. Strain forward to what lies ahead. Set your gaze on what’s ahead of you in the future. Not dwelling on all the problems you’ve had in the past.

Don’t let that be what strips the joy out of your life. Yes, we have all sinned and fall short of the glory of God. That’s the beautiful thing about the gospel. We are saved by the grace of God. At the right time, he died for the ungodly and for the sinners. That’s me and you. And there’s not a single one of us that can look in our life and think, well, we’ve got it all together and we’re perfect. Paul’s the same way. He makes that point just before saying this. And so some of this may be learning to let go of the things I hold over my own head. Yes, you got the dogs, you got the people who lead you in the wrong directions, but for how many of us is it actually just our own self-guilt and the things we won’t let go of and how we view ourselves that actually become the real problem in our lives.

Stop carrying around the baggage. And if that involves getting some help from somebody, having some accountability, obviously, those are good things to do. It’s part of that process. Be focused on straining forward to the things that are ahead. Choosing to press is hard. It may be that facing some of those things that we want to let go of is a difficult process. It doesn’t just happen. You don’t say, you know, you’re right. I just need to let go of all those problems. I’m done with them now. Sometimes it involves facing them in a real way and saying, yes, this did happen. It did affect me, and I need to work to get past that. Pressing forward is hard, and it’s tiring. It even hurts. It also involves sacrifices at times, giving up things, giving up friendships, even when we realize they’re negative or they impact us in a bad way or a way that’s not godly, or a way that keeps us from focusing on the mind of Christ.

5. Peace: The Peace of God Will Guard Your Hearts

All of these are part of this process that make us different than people who refuse to follow Jesus. But it’s all part of our purpose. Don’t forget the purpose, which is to serve and to glorify Christ. And it’s done by developing his mindset, not allowing obstacles to keep us from him with persistence. And the result of all of that. Do you want peace? I know you do. That’s what Paul’s trying to lead us to here. All of this, understanding our purpose and the practice of daily life, being like Jesus and the persistence it takes to walk through it even when it’s hard. The result of all that is what he wants us to get to, and that is the peace of God that’s going to guard our hearts and our minds in Christ Jesus.

And so I want to bring you back to this text that we read earlier. And I want you to see how everything that we’ve talked about is actually present, which is why we started here. It’s all present here in Philippians 4 through 7. Rejoice, he says. Here’s the purpose. Your purpose is you rejoice in the Lord, in the things of the Lord. That’s your purpose. That’s my purpose. That’s what we need to be doing. Not all the other things around us and the things that so often we think are so important to life. Some of those things are necessary. We’ve got to work, we’ve got to eat. We’ve got to, but they’re all secondary to what is most important in life. What’s most important is what we’re doing in the Lord and our focus on him and glorifying him in our bodies, all the things that Paul talks about in chapter one.

And so he concludes this with these thoughts. Rejoice in the Lord always. And again, I say, rejoice. Let your reasonableness or your gentleness, the way you live, the practice of your life, let that be known to everybody. Everyone looks at you and they say, This person is trying to live like Jesus. I know they don’t always do it, but I see that’s what they’re trying to do. That’s the goal. That’s what all of us should be working toward. The Lord is near. This is important. This matters for me in my life right now and for you in your life right now. But beware of the fact that there are obstacles, there are anxieties of life, there are problems that come along the way. Don’t be anxious about anything, not because there are no issues to deal with, but because you have the right perspective.

Right? You shaped your nine. We just talked about with the practice. And so because you’ve shaped your mind in the right way, when those anxieties and the difficulties come along, you know what to do with prayer and supplication with thanksgiving. Not grumbling, not complaining, you do it with thanksgiving. Let your request be made known to God, and here’s the result. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. If you are an unbeliever this morning, I want to plead with you to think carefully about this. You want peace in your life too. Everyone does. There’s an element of this that we simply cannot understand. But if we will put faith in the Father and His Son, Jesus Christ, you can have a peace that surpasses all understanding, something that you can’t even describe.

Here’s why. Because when you follow God and you do things his way, now your purpose has aligned with his will. And there’s something about that is powerful that matters in our life if we will do it. And if we start developing the mindset of Jesus Christ and trying to live like him, it will then reduce the problems that we have, even when we face the things in the world, because our anxieties and our cares we can cast upon him, as Peter says. Everybody faces these things. But at least we can face them with the hope of knowing that God knows what’s best for us. We can face and we can walk through life with a with gratitude in our heart. Understanding there’s something we’re working for something better and bigger than ourselves, and something better and bigger than the here and now.

Conclusion

There’s something beyond that. And just knowing that can give us peace and guard our hearts when we’re struggling through the difficulties of life. So, in summary, here’s what the book looks like in terms of joy and how it works. We have to find joy through purpose, which just developed through the practice of our life, being willing to persist to sustain that joy as we live even through difficulties, just like Paul was living through. So that we can have the joy that comes through peace of mind, which just continues to produce all of these things over and over and over. That sounds really easy on paper. But you guys are all old enough and experienced enough, even the little ones around us, they know you go through difficulties and you go through struggles of life, and sometimes we can lose sight of this, and that’s why we need the reminders.

Remember your purpose. Remember to develop the mind of Christ and to persist even when it’s hard. And that is the path to peace. Can we help you this morning? Do you need Jesus Christ in your life? If you don’t have him, you don’t have peace. I can assure you of that. He is the only answer that brings peace to your life. All the rest of it is just passing pleasures, things that are going to fall away, things that aren’t going to mean anything eventually. When you’re laying on your deathbed one day, you won’t care how much money’s in your 401k or what kind of education you got, what school you went to, how many awards you won, none of that stuff will make any difference whatsoever.

All that will matter then is if you confess Jesus Christ as Lord. So why not do it today? Can we help you with that? Why don’t you come now as we stand and we sing?

I’ve been cruising my in Christ, my Lord, I listen to sin through his precious love.

I live for the one who not I live in him.

Yes, he lives on several life in his will for me, and my steps are sure when the spirit I may walk with him.

In further preparation for the Lord’s Supper, we’ll sing Fairest Lord Jesus.

Before we begin, does everyone have the emblems? If not, please raise your hand and one of the men in the back can get it to you. To help prepare our minds for the Lord’s Supper, you know, we think about all the memorials, everything that we go through. A lot of times we set up these times to remember. Last week, you know, we had Veterans Day, we have Memorial Day, we have other instances throughout the year, next week, Thanksgiving. We do that because us being as corporal beings, we forget, we lose focus, our minds wander. it’s been like that way throughout history. You go back and look at your old testament when the Israelites came out of Egypt when they crossed the Jordan, they built a monument of rocks so that their children would ask the questions, why are we doing these things so that they would remember?

You know, God set up the Passover feast. interestingly, the Lord’s Supper that we’re here to remember was instituted at the same Passover feast that was remembering the Israelites being saved out of bondage from Egyptians. We’re celebrating this, we’re remembering this because we are saved from the bondage of sin. As Brent mentioned, Romans 3 23, all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. We’re all in need of this.

Oh well, okay. Romans 5 7, starting in verse 7, you know that at the right time, you know, God saved us. For while we were helpless, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. For one will hardly die for a righteous person, though perhaps for the good person, someone would even dare to die. But God demonstrates his own love towards us, and that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Continuing on, much more than having now been justified by his blood, we shall be saved from the wrath of God through him. For while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of his son. Much more having been reconciled, we shall be saved by his life. And not only this, but we also celebrate in God through our Lord Jesus through whom we have now received the reconciliation.

Other translations say that we rejoice, following up with this morning’s lessons on joy and rejoicing. We rejoice because we have salvation, because Christ died for us. But we remember that it was each one of us that should have died because of our sins. Christ went through being spat upon, being mocked, being ridiculed, being beaten, going through the entire night that he went through, and then hanging on a cross for you and for me, because of what we did. And sometimes we have to remember that we do not lose focus. That is why this memorial is here. That is why we are here to partake of these emblems. So as we do so, I ask that you would think back on the sacrifice that Christ gave for you, for me.

Let us bow for the bread. Almighty God, Holy Father in Heaven, with reverence and awe, we bow before you. Lord, we thank you. We love you. And we thank you so much for your love for each one of us that while we were sinners, that while we are deserving of death, you sent your Son. He was willing to sacrifice his life on the cross for each one of us. Lord, as we partake of this bread which represents his body, we pray that you would bless it as we remember and we focus on that death. Christ’s name.

Let’s continue our thanks. God, we continue our prayer to you. Lord, we thank you for this fruit of the vine, which represents the blood that we know that was shed for each one of us. We know that the only reconciliation that we have is through the blood of Jesus Christ with you. Lord, we pray that as we partake of this fruit of the vine, we will do so in a manner that is pleasing in your sight. Christ’s name is the same.

Edify our youth and help them to make godly connections, which are so important. And somber news today, we must announce that Steve Torno, who was the son-in-law of Mike Morriarty, unexpectedly passed away. He was 47 years old. So and left behind a wife and two children. And to cap it off, Mike’s gonna have surgery on Wednesday. So we certainly need to check in on them. I’m sure they will need our help. Adam Bohanan’s mother had surgery and it went well, but she had another one this morning. Let’s remember them. And good news, Jack Metcalf was baptized last Wednesday, so we have that to celebrate. And I hear that Ernest Eagle and Beckett are our home for the hospital. So that’s that’s good news to end on.

He is my soul, my rights are small, my side and boundless needs to be cycle for the love.

For my side, the savour he will say I live along in weakness and be too seek for in my knee. His power is his way to this I hold my shepherd will be my deep will be all and I shall over I know I am forgiven but you just shore the price that has been paid for Jesus well and suffered for my life and he was raised to overthrow the ray to this I hope my sin has given me Jesus now and ever is my fee for the change of release I can see I am free and not I but rise in me with every breath I want to follow Jesus for he has said that he will bring me home and day by day I know he will bring you until I stand with join me for the road to this I hope my hope is on me Jesus for the war to him when the grace is complete still my lives shall be my life but to price in me to this I hope my hope is on me Jesus for the Let’s pray.

Dear God Heavenly Father, we are so thankful for this day that you’ve brought us together. We’re so thankful for your plan that we can continue to draw strength from each other as we go out into the world and proclaim your word. Father, we with heavy hearts we come before you now asking you to watch over the Moriartys and their daughter the passing of their son-in-law. We ask that you would be with them and comfort them as long as you can.

To be with those that need your guiding hand, Father. Please continue to be with Dina and Ernest and others, Father, as they go through their health trials, that they may be able to be back with us. Father, be with those that have upcoming surgeries these coming weeks. Please watch over Ed. And Father, we’re so thankful for this weekend that you’ve allowed our young people to gather together from all over to be strengthened by your word that their lights may be bright in this world. Father, we’d ask that you would help us to take not only the lessons that our young people have learned, but the lesson that Brent has brought us this morning, that we would find joy in you. Father, please be with those that are traveling back and please keep them safe.

Thank you so much for your son. Amen.