Complete Joy

And so we’re going to go into a time of prayer. Mr. Harold just wasn’t feeling well and just kind of slipped out just a minute ago. And I’m sure we’ve got other folks in the church and people on your heart and in your family, maybe even you, that are going through some situations right now. Could be a lot of things. Could be relationships. Could be sickness. Could be whatever. And this is a time to take it before the Lord. You know, taking it before the Lord is always, any time is a good time. But we’re going to spend some time right now to do that.

So I want you to bow your heads. I want you to close your eyes and think about some of the things that are going on in our church that are wonderful. And Vacation Bible School, our M-Fuge coming up with our youth. We got some extra spaces. We wanted to fill those up before we go. Pray that youth will just see the need for that. Folks, we’ve just got to get them up there. They’ll have the time of their life. God will change their hearts and minds. And so pray for M-Fuge. That will be coming up July 5th through 9th. And then pray what God’s put on your heart. So let’s just spend some time now with the Lord.

Just being you, I thank you for what we’ve got going on at our church. I thank you for our pastor who’s away this morning. And just be with him and Becca. And let him be refreshed. And I just thank you for his heart and how he loves this church. Father, I just lift up what’s coming up. I lift up Vacation Bible School. Man, it’s an awesome time. Just seeing kids excited about being here. But I just love our teachers who spend time and those that help and cook and just move the kids around and do recreation and teach. Just make loving you fun. I lift up our women’s ministries. I lift up all the things that you’re doing here. Father, thank you. Thank you for giving us a reason to do all this. That we can present you in a way that will just draw people into you.

Now, Lord, we’re about to open your word. So refresh our hearts and minds. Change them. Help us see and know exactly what you would have us to know this morning. And, Lord, when we leave here, we want to be different. We want to think different. We want people to look at us different and then ask why. So, Father, this is your time, so we give it to you. We ask this in the name that’s above every name, the awesome name of Jesus. And all God’s people said, amen.

What you’re going to see next, I’m going to attribute to Buck and Diane. They posted it on Facebook. You know, when you come across a Christian comedian every once in a while, there ain’t many of them out there. And a lot of times you’ll see a comedian and it’ll have a mature audience next to it or an R or something like that. But every once in a while, you catch one. And I just wanted to share that, a little bit of that with you this morning. So, Donnie, if you’ll throw Mr. Johnny W. up there.

Church is a little weird, though. Some churches put stencils on the walls. I’ve noticed that you go into churches, they’ll, like, put stuff on the walls. White people do this a lot. I blame Jim and Joanna Gaines for this culture. You ever walk in the Smith’s house? Live, laugh, love on the wall. What is that? What are you doing? On my wall, I want live, laugh, leave. That’s what I want. Get out. But my church, I’ve been to a church before. My church puts, like, our core values and some scriptures on the walls. I went to a church a few months ago, and they had the Ten Commandments on the wall. And it wasn’t just, like, all together. It was, like, scattered throughout the church just randomly. It’s so weird, the placement of some of these commandments. Like, over the pastor’s office, I swear to you, it said, “Thou shalt not kill.” What happened in the pastor’s office? What do I need to know? One thing I really did enjoy, I got to plug in at my church, you know, more. That was kind of cool. We started working in the nursery. Y’all, anybody work in the nursery at your church? You gotta do it. It’s the best, because these babies cannot rat you out if it all goes wrong. After church, I hand you a crying baby. It’s like, look, maybe I dropped him. Maybe he’s a brat. Like, you don’t get to judge me. This is the Lord’s house, okay? Sticker church. Y’all putting stickers on the kids when you check them in at your church. These big churches do it. We’re tagging these kids like they’re in the wild. It’s weird. It’s a nature study. Sprinkle out some goldfish crackers and track their movements. The pastor had to explain it to me. Johnny, it’s a security thing. It’s got the kid’s name on the sticker, a code at the bottom. Parent gets a piece of paper with that same code. They come back after church, you know, to claim their child, like it’s a coat check or a raffle. Wonderful. And parents lose that piece of paper at my church. I don’t know what your policy is at your church, but I don’t put up with that mess in my nursery. Come back without that paper. I’m like, I’m sorry. We’re keeping him, okay? He works for Jesus now, all right? You knew the ring. That’s my son. I just dropped him off. I’m like, sir, look, okay? Without the receipt, the best I can do is store credit. Then I let him pick out a child of equal or lesser value. We give out so many redheads, y’all. It’s unbelievable. That hurts some people’s feelings. I’m kidding. Redheads don’t have feelings.

It’s so good to laugh, doesn’t it? To have joy. That’s what we’re going to talk about this morning is joy. Let me just, I checked out this week, what happens when you laugh, okay? When you’re happy, okay? When you laugh, this is what happens. It stimulates organs. Laughter enhances your intake of oxygen-rich air, stimulates your heart, lungs, and muscles, and can’t help your brain. Laughter activates and relieves your stress response. A rollicking laugh fires up and then cools down your stress response, and it can increase and then decrease your heart rate and blood pressure. A good, relaxed feeling will come. It soothes tension. It improves memory recall. So for us older folks, it can burn calories. You can, listen to this now. I find this amazing. Watching a funny, about, say, hour and a half movie can burn about 240 calories. If you laugh. It tones diaphragm muscles. It lowers cortisol, which is blood sugar levels. It can boost natural killer cell activity, which is, they now have, have used humor for cancer patients. I’m finding that kind of into, again, it releases endorphins. Women have a, not a big chance, but a smaller chance of even getting pregnant with laughter. So if you’re looking to have a baby. I mean, laughter is just amazing.

Joy is, I mean, I wonder how many got up this morning and go, man, I get to go to church today. Actually, I did. I enjoy coming here. I’m telling you, joy is something special. I want you to understand this. God is the happiest being in the universe. See, we think of God as righteous and holy, love. He can have some wrath sometimes. All those things. But when was the last time you saw God as the happiest being in the universe? And yet He is. When the Holy Spirit comes and enters us at the point of salvation, think about what He brings. Peace, love, joy. He brings that. You have that at your disposal at any time. And there’s a difference sometimes between joy and happiness. But God wants you happy. But He also wants you to also have joy so deeply seated in you that no matter what you’re going through in your life, joy can come out of that. You know, they’re not bad times. They’re hard times. And God wants you to have joy through any time.

So if you’ve got your Bibles, I’d like you to turn with me to the book of Philippians, chapter 2. It’s actually called the book of joy. Don’t know if you remember what? Much went on in the city of Philippi when Paul was there. Remember, Paul was only there about three months. And it was a pretty hard three months. You know, he got there. He was starting from nothing. He found a wonderful woman by the name of Deborah. And, you know, she’s a seller of purple. And they start meeting in her home. They start this church. Good things are happening. But remember one day, Paul’s preaching. And this little slave girl comes up. And she’s possessed. And she can apparently tell fortunes. And Paul kind of gets annoyed by her and casts out the demon that’s inside of her. And after he casts out the demon inside of her, her handlers, her owners are pretty ticked about that. Because their income is just left. And so they take him to town council. And they ended up arresting him and beating him and throwing him, the Bible says, into the inner prison. Now, I’m thinking, you know, there’s prison. And then I’m thinking inner prison. That can’t be good. They put him and Silas in stocks. Stalks. Stocks. Not stocks. Stocks. Put him in stocks. And if you know anything about stocks back then, they’re always at very uncomfortable positions. And they leave them. And what does Paul do? Talk about joy. Paul, they start singing. They’re singing hymns. They’re singing the Psalms. And the Bible says an earthquake comes. And they’re able to escape. But they don’t. Remember the jailer? He’s about to kill himself. And Paul, you know, remember Paul yells out, don’t. We’re still here. They go to the jailer’s house. And they lead his entire family to Christ. So when Paul thinks about this church, and this church has helped him a lot. Paul is writing from Memartine prison in Rome, which is like a death sentence in itself to be stationed there. So he’s in prison when he writes this letter. Here’s what he says. He says, every time I think about Philippians 1-7, he’s saying, I think good things. Every time I remember you, it’s good times. And so then in chapter 2, starting with verse 1, and if you’ll just follow with me. If then there is any encouragement in Christ, if any consolation of love, if any fellowship with the Spirit, if any affection and mercy, make my joy complete by thinking the same way. Having the same love, united in spirit, intent on one purpose, do nothing out of selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility. Many think that this passage we’re reading is basically a paragraph on Christian humility. Consider others as more important than yourselves. Everyone should look out not only for his own interests, but also for the interests of others. So adopt the same attitudes as that of Christ Jesus, who, existing in the form of God, did not consider Himself equal with God as something to be exploited. Instead, He emptied Himself by assuming the form of a servant, taking on the likeness of humanity. And when He had come as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even to death on a cross. And for this reason, God highly exalted Him, gave Him a name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus, every knee will bow in heaven and on earth and under the earth. And every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God, the Father. Paul writes this church. He loves this church. And he’s sitting there looking at, I want you to make my joy complete. I want you to, I want you to have joy. And even in the place where I am at, I want to hear what’s going on in your life, in your church, how you’re changing your location for the gospel and make my joy complete. So how does that happen? See, the one attribute that we can strive for that will make us more like Jesus is humility. We may not like humility. You know, it’s kind of like, well, you got to be out for you. The world says, if you don’t toot your own horn, who’s going to toot it? And God says just the opposite. God says, if you will humble yourselves, I will lift you up. What happens to the proud? You know, after pride cometh what? The fall. So how do we do that? Well, I think He just spells it out for us in here. He does that. He says, we need these things. Number one, we need encouragement in Christ. That’s one reason you come to church. One reason I love to come here is just encouragement. I mean, you guys give me. They just have an encouragement in the church. They need to have encouragement in Christ. You need to have fellowship with the spirit. The one thing that connects all of us, and whether you’re here or you’re at First Baptist Ravenel or you’re at First Baptist downtown Charleston or you’re, you know, First Baptist Dallas, Texas, or you’re on somewhere on the other side of the planet. The one thing that connects us is that inside of every Christian is the Holy Spirit. And you know, they knew that no matter what, there was going to be a fellowship there. That everybody had been through a tough time. Everybody had to humble themselves. Everybody had to sit there and say, Lord, I can’t do this on my own. I need You to come in and change me. And when we have that kind of unity, that fellowship of the spirit, it changes us. And then the last is the affection and the compassion for each other. You know, one thing that’s neat about this church and has affected folks that have visited here is this. They feel like family here. One thing I love about Wednesday nights, I know one couple that started coming here on Wednesday nights, and it was Wednesday nights that changed them. Sitting around the tables, eating together, talking, and then doing Bible study together. Made them want to come on Sunday. There’s just something about having affection and compassion toward each other. Being there for each other in need.

And in the original language of this passage, the words and the verbs that are used here in the original language, the Greek language, it’s almost like they’re saying, this is surely going to happen. Listen to this. We might read it this way. If there is really encouragement in Christ, and there is. If there’s any consolation of love in Christ, and there is. If there’s any fellowship of the spirit, and there is. Any affection and compassion in Him, and there is. Then make my joy complete. By being of the same mind.

You know, when a church, folks, I want to share that when a church gets this right, God can do some pretty amazing things. See, you don’t build a church. Programs don’t build a church. I mean, you can have great programs. You can plan a lot of different things. You know who builds the church? Jesus builds the church. When Peter looked at Him, and you remember what He said? Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God. You remember Jesus’ response? No, flesh and blood didn’t reveal this to You. He says, upon this confession of faith, who would He say? I will build My church, and the gates of hell will not prevail against it. He uses us. We get to be involved. You know, it’s a privilege to be involved in Vacation Bible School. It’s a privilege to be able to come and be together on a Sunday morning like this. It’s a privilege to go out into the neighborhood and make a difference. It’s a privilege to go to our workplaces, and they see such a change and a difference in our lives that they go, why are you like that? I see joy in you. I don’t see them in other people. And unfortunately, there’s a joy in you. I may not see in other Christians. I know Christians. You know, I mean, they look like they’ve sucked out every single dill pickle in the jar and then drank the, you know, the juice. I’m sanctified. Can’t you tell? People should see such a thing of love and joy in our lives that no matter the circumstance, and I’m not saying, like I said, it’s not that we don’t go through hard times. We will. But how we handle them is different than anybody normally notices or anybody ever sees because of who is inside of us.

Now, how do you show that? How do you show that we’re family? Well, there’s four things. Just real quick. There’s one heart. You know, we have one heartbeat with the Lord. There’s one mind. Our mind is being transformed by what we learn and what we see and what God is pouring in. There’s one spirit. We’ve talked about that. What unites us. And we have one direction. We have one direction. And that’s to further the kingdom.

I love what Dallas Willard says. I quote him a pretty good bit. He says, let me tell you what the message of the gospel is. The message of the gospel is not that you get eternity after you die. That is not the message of the gospel. The message of the gospel is that you get to be part of the kingdom of heaven before you die. Do you see the difference? And there is a difference, a big difference. You get to be part of the kingdom now. And that’s what Paul’s telling them. Make my joy complete. And no matter, even if I’m in prison, I can rejoice. Because that’s what it’s about.

See, here’s the last. The thing is, harmony produces happiness. I had a friend tell me, I’ve told Jeremy this. And I had a friend tell me years ago, Al, you can build a happy church. And I want to say something about Sauldam right now. Guys, I want to tell you, even for a Little church, this is a healthy church. I’m not saying we’re perfect. I know better than that. I know me. But we’re a healthy church. We’re a church in harmony. And we got our issues. But I want to tell you, and what Paul talks about is kind of inferring here, guys, I love y’all. I’m looking, all the things I’m hearing about you are great. But I want to tell you, that can go south pretty quick. It can. The guy was involved one time in a church. We were averaging 100 baptisms a year. I was having 65, 70 teenagers every Wednesday night. I mean, God was just moving and changing and doing. And I want to tell you, it didn’t take long, and a few people. And a devil, you know, the world of flesh and the devil, to sit there and go, I’m tired of that mess. It ain’t going down pretty quick. We got to protect that. Paul is telling them how to protect that.

See, harmony produces happiness. And part of that, again, is having humility about who you are with Christ. And I want to tell you, being humble is kind of tough. But the Lord will let you get humbled every once in a while. I read a story this week as I was preparing. I couldn’t believe it. It’s a pastor story. And I hope Jeremy never goes through it. I hope I probably may have come close at times. I’ve done about close to 400 funerals. But this young pastor had done a funeral. And what they asked him to do was, you know, they didn’t have any police escorts. So they said, would you escort, you know, the folks to the cemetery? And he said, yeah, I’d be happy to do that. So he got in his car, and then all cars got behind him, and they got out, and he got onto the road. And so he gets in his car, and while he’s gone, he had a little ways to go. But he turns on the radio, and he’s just listening to the radio and kind of forgot what he was doing. And so he’s heading down the highway. He looks over, and he sees Walmart. And he goes, you know, there’s a few things I need to pick up at Walmart. So he turns into Walmart, and he’s going through the parking lot, and he’s going by the door, and he’s driving. And all of a sudden, he looks at his rearview mirror, and all he sees is cars with their lights on in the Walmart parking lot. You think it’s how humble? We’re not perfect. Pastors aren’t perfect. But I wanted to share with you, God can use our humility. Folks, until we can come to a place where we laugh at ourselves. I want to tell you, there’s Al Smith stories in about four states. So I want to just tell you, we’ve got to come to a place where we laugh at ourselves.

It’s like a symphony. Imagine if we had just like a little band down here or, you know, just the folks that would play music. And imagine the horn section just kind of goes, you know, doggone it. I just add. They need to hear me a little more than usual. Or the guy on the timpani kind of goes, you know, I’m just kind of adding a little bit. I want to add some more. Or the people on the violins go, I’m just kind of blending in. And so all of a sudden, the music goes through. And all of a sudden, they just start playing what they want to play and how loud they want to play it. Can you imagine what that would sound like? But when we come together, it’s amazing what we can sound like before the Lord. It produces happiness.

So how do you do that? How do we come to do that? Well, he talks about it here. Look what he says, starting with verse 3. Do nothing out of selfish ambition or conceit. Never let selfish or empty conceit be your motive. It’s not about you. I love what our director of mission said on the day that we ordained our pastor. He says, it’s always got to be mission over me. What’s the mission of our church? I mean, guys, those of you that have been in the military, think about that. What are you trained for? It’s always mission over you, isn’t it? No matter what branch of service you were in, I was in the army. I understand. Mission over you. Number two, he says what? He says, but in humility. There’s that word again. Consider others as more important than yourselves. Always regard others that way. Boy, tell me we don’t like to do that. Put someone, me? Are you saying, take a back seat? Me, not get the credit? Me, not, it’s not me about me? Everyone look. Verse 4, everyone should look not only for our own interests, but also for the interests of others. Include others. Not just about your own personal interests. Look at someone else. Don’t limit that attention to just you.

I love what Ken Smith, he’s a former coach and he was chaplain at Florida State under Bobby Bowden for about 15 years. He’s still speaking. An amazing guy. He says, when you get up in the morning, you’ve got two questions to ask. Number one, are you going to let God be God or are you going to be God today? What do you want? Are you going to let God be God or are you going to be God today? That’s what we need to do.

And folks, I want to tell you, we got to fight to keep our church like this. We got to fight against disunity. You know, if you hear something, you know, and rumors can start. I’m not saying, and a lot of times things start that, and it’s innocent how they start. But if you hear something’s not true, especially if it’s second or third hand, shut it down. Because then it’s gossip. You know how God feels about gossip, don’t you? The Bible’s pretty clear about that. In Scripture, the Bible says He hates it.

And I know y’all wouldn’t do this, but it’s happened to me. If you got a gripe, and we have legitimate gripes and complaints or questions even. Don’t do it on Sunday morning. I had a lady one day. It’s homecoming. I got the director of missions standing next to me. We’re about, it’s like a minute before we start worship, and we’re about to go out and have worship. And this lady comes, and she just starts nailing me about something that’s happening in the kitchen. Like, I got anything to do with the kitchen. I always tell pastors, stay away from the kitchen. Women’s ministry is in the kitchen, okay? And we just look at each other like, no, not now. You know, your pastor has prepared all week a message. He’s about to, and I’m going to tell you, it’s on his heart. Because 40 years in the ministry, I’m going to tell you, it’s on my heart. Because I’ve got something that I’ve worked on, and I want to share. And you’re just trying to get up to do it. And then someone comes in and just nails you. So don’t do it on Sundays and Wednesdays. Make a phone call. Meet him in his office. Take him out to lunch. Go buy some coffee with him. But not Sundays and Wednesdays.

Or just look at that person and say, well, did you go to that person about your concern? You checked it out yet? Is it a theological or moral issue? Or do I just want to have my way? And then in every church, they have what they call gatekeepers. Every church has a gatekeeper. And gatekeepers are good. It’s been their ministry for a long time. And in some churches, the gatekeepers have people in to help them with the ministry. But many times in a church, you can have gatekeepers that just say, hey, this is mine. Go find another gatekeeper. Let’s see if they’ll let you in. And we’ve got to be good. Because this isn’t our ministry. God allows us to have this ministry. This is His ministry. So just be careful about those kind of things.

And then how we perceive it. I’ll tell you some other things that are blessings in our church is how folks just, you know, there are folks in every church that just smile. I love folks like that. Chairs I used to hate are these chairs. I call them the thrones that sit up on the platform. Yeah. And when I was on staff, I remember being on staff at a church, and I always had to sit in the one to the left. And if I’d had a long week and I was kind of tired, our pastor would be preaching, and I’m trying to stay awake, okay? Not that he was boring. I’m just tired. So we need to be careful. I always tell that to the choir because, you know, when folks come into the church, who do they see more than anybody else? They see the choir. When I was at one of my churches outside Savannah, I had a lady, a young lady in the choir. She was amazing. All she did was smile when she sang. You could just look at her and say, “Man, this gal is enjoying worship. This gal just loves being here. This gal, this is what she does.” And, I mean, what an impression for a visitor to see of your church.

It’s kind of like ushers. Ushers in a church are the first representatives that a person gets to see when they get in their church. We need to be careful. Again, never let selfish ambition be your motive. Always regard others as more important. You include others. It’s important.

So how do we do that? Well, let me just quickly talk about this. He says this: “Adopt the same attitude as that of Christ Jesus.” And then he says, let me tell you what Jesus did. Now, that bar is set pretty high. That’s okay. But if I’m going to say I want to be like somebody, Paul says, don’t be so much like Paul. Remember what you got from me. Use it. Teach it. But if you want the example, this is the standard. The standard is Jesus.

Who, existing in the form of God, did not consider Himself equal with God. Do you not realize what He did with that? Do you not realize that why people thought He was anything but God in the flesh? He was robed in common, ordinary Jewish skin. And He voluntarily gave up the right to live like God, the right to act like God, the right to look like God. That’s what He did. It says it here: “Instead, He emptied Himself by assuming the form of a servant, taking on the likeness of humanity.” What a step down that must have been.

And when He had come as a man, He humbled—there’s that word again—He humbled Himself by being obedient to the point of death, even to death on a cross. And for this reason, God highly exalted Him. Why? Because of what He did. So that at the name of Jesus, every knee will bow, not just on earth, but in heaven and on earth and under the earth. And every tongue will confess who’s Lord? That Jesus is Lord.

So if we’re going to imitate our example, who is Christ, He emptied Himself. He took on the form of a servant, made in the likeness of humanity, humbled Himself, and accepted the most painful and humiliating way to die. Why did He do it? Let me read Hebrews 12 real quick. Verse 2. “We keep our eyes on Jesus, the source and perfecter of our faith.” Listen to these words. They’ve never kind of grabbed me like they have this week. “For the joy that was set before Him, He endured the cross, despising the shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.” For joy. Wow. If you want to have complete joy in your life.

Folks, I want to share this with you. It’s an unnatural way to live. It just is. It’s a supernatural way to live. It’s not natural. See, with humility of mind, you bring glory to Christ. It’s a unifying influence in the church. It’s a service to others. It’s the service to the gospel of the world. See, to want an empty life, you’ve got to fill it with yourself. You want a full life? You empty yourself. It’s an unnatural way of living. But it’s the only way to have a life that’s worth living.

I read a story. I was reminded of a story this week of a… Well, I don’t know if… I actually did some research. In that research, I found out this in New York City. They have 1.7 million dogs in New York. They have 8 million cats. That’ll tell you what’s wrong with New York, okay? Do y’all know the difference between dog theology and cat theology? Dog theology is pretty much… Man, they take me out for a walk. They feed me. They give me water. They pet me. They love me. They hug me. They let me stay in the house. They must be God. You know what cat theology? Gives me water. Feeds me. Lets me go out every once in a while. Grooms me. Talks to me. I must be God. The difference between cat and dog theology.

Well, there’s that many cats in New York. And the problem, it’s not like going to the Cordray’s if one of their animals die and they just go out and bury it. There ain’t no yards in New York to do a lot of that kind of stuff. So they got to dispose of the animal. And it costs some money to do that. In fact, there’s up to like a $50 fee for them to come and get your animal and dispose of it. They’ll cremate it and bring back the ashes to you or something, whatever you want all that. But this one lady decided, you know, I might be able to make some money off of this. So she kind of put out a little, you know, put out little cards and different things that instead of $50 for $25, she would come and get your animal.

And then what she did is she went down to the Salvation Army or the Goodwill store and for a couple bucks bought a suitcase. And so she would get this little cheap suitcase and she would go to the person’s home and there would be the animal. And she would very kind of very in front of them just, you know, calmly and respectfully pick that animal up and put it into the suitcase, close it up. And then there are $25 and leave.

Now what she would do on the way home is she would sit there and take the subway on the way home. She would ride that subway right close to about evening time and sit near the door. And if you know anything about the subways in New York, they’re, you know, they can be pretty crime infested. So she would sit next to the door and then pretend like she wasn’t paying attention. And then when the doors would open, somebody there that was looking to steal something would come by and see her not paying attention, come by, grab that suitcase. And when the door of the train station opened at the stop, would run out. And then in her big voice, she would go, “Stop. Thief.” Now I want you to imagine that guy when he got home.

But imagine how many times we’re picking up the wrong stuff, thinking it’s going to bring us joy. It’s going to make us happy. If I just can get this job. If I can just find this person to bring into my life. If God will just, you know, if He’ll just open this door. If I can just get rid of this sickness. It’s always something.

You do know that God lives in the now. Everything’s now. I am that I am. God wants us to have a joyous life now. That’s what He wants. That’s what He brings to us.

Joy is found in a grateful recollection. Joy is choosing to remember when people do you right instead of when they do you wrong. Joy is choosing to pray for people instead of things we want for ourselves. Joy is choosing to participate in the church instead of hitchhiking as we travel toward our final destination. Joy is choosing to defend the gospel more than caring to defend ourselves.

Paul says when a church comes together like this church was, he says, it’ll make my joy complete even though I’m in prison. Isn’t that the kind of joy you want? Isn’t that what you want to do?

Father, thank you. Thank you for giving us joy. A couple chapters later in Philippians 4, You say these words, rejoice in the Lord always. Again, I say rejoice. Father, You’ve given us a reason to rejoice. You have come into our life and You’ve changed us. You’ve given us a part of heaven that we have before we die. Not when we die. Not after we die. We never do anything alone. Your word says You’re always with us. Always. Your Spirit convicts us of things that hurt us and then gives us life and instruction and always points us to You. You open doors that we can’t. You close doors behind us that would hurt us. And You love us in spite of us. While we were yet sinners, You died for us. My stars. How much more joy can we have? And if there is anyone here, anyone here that does not know You, does not know that joy, that they would do that today. They would bring joy back to You and go to You, the author, the creator of all joy, the happiest being. Lord, help us to think that way with You. Let the world see that, that no matter what the circumstance, they still have a life of joy. We ask this in Your son’s precious name. Amen.