Galatians 5:22-23
22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness,
23 gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law.
Introduction:
How many folks have a dog?
I’ve had several dogs in my life...
One thing about dogs
If they’re outside
When he starts barking
Guess what the neighbors dog starts to do?
Barks back of course
Neighbors dog barking, causes their neighbors dog to bark back
This exchange of barking starts happening
Where they’re all just barking at each other
Its this thing that God has put inside of dogs
This factory installed response
Thats how God made dogs
But God did not create us to be like dogs, did he?
However, we often act like dogs
When someone barks at us, we bark right back
Like we have no control over the situation
Maybe our spouse tosses a verbal hand grenade at us We throw one right back
Maybe a child / Family member / Co-Worker
Whatever the situation, it leaves you frustrated
Maybe leaves you embarrassed
Maybe you said something you shouldn’t have and you need to apologize
But no matter what, those type of exchanges will certainly leave you with a deficit of joy in your life
Life doesn’t have to be that way
In fact
Your ability to produce the fruit of joy in your life
Is dependent on How you think And What you believe
You ability to produce
God’s Spirit is in you, but you have to cultivate that
It’s Fruit of the Spirit
It comes from God’s Spirit in you
But in order to cultivate that
It begins with
How you think
And What you believe
How You Think
You can either set the tone by deciding to have joy in your life
Or you can be affected by something else setting the tone
Someone who lets something else affect them
Is like an offended driver
Unwilling to control your emotions
They allow traffic to dictate if they are joyful or angry
I have made a decision that life is too short
To get mad about traffic, too short for Road Rage
When I was younger I thought that getting mad at traffic
Would somehow make traffic move faster
But would you know it, this is not the case
Now, I am not perfect there are times that traffic still gets to me
But there are people on the road who will just blow up
At the drop of a hat
Someone accidentally changes lanes, or turns...
They are as angry as can be in the blink of an eye
But that is letting traffic set the tone for how you feel / react
Instead of choosing to set the tone yourself
Thats why you have to choose
And be intentional about how you handle yourself
You have to decide, that no matter what is going on around you
You are not going to let it change what is going on inside you
Romans 12:2
And be not conformed to this world:
but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind,
Don’t be conformed to this world
Don’t be shaped
Don’t be controlled by what is happening around you
But be changed by renewing your mind
Change the way you think
This is about developing the Fruit of Joy in your life
When we allow situations or circumstances
Or other people around us
Dictate how we think
Or how we feel (= CONFORM, SHAPE, CONTROL US)
Then we are living outside of what God wants for us
There is always going to be things happening around us
That could cause us to be angry
That could cause us to be sad or hurt
Or could cause us to be jealous
Or could cause us to fear, Or worry
But you can’t be conformed
You can’t be controlled by this world
Or by what’s happening around you
Your Joy isn’t determined by what’s happening around you
But by Who is living inside you!
You must allow the Spirit of God dwelling in you
To develop and produce Joy in your life
Be transformed!
Change the way you think!
Allow faith to inform your fear
That God is control
And I can have joy in the midst of this traffic jam
I can have joy!
Strength
Nehemiah 8:10
...For the joy of the LORD is your strength
Everybody say “The joy of the Lord is my strength”
Somebody ought to say that to themselves first thing every morning this week... “The joy of the Lord is my strength”
I’m going to set the tone!
B’c the Joy of the Lord is my strength
What You Believe
So we know that...
Joy doesn’t come from what’s happening to you
Doesn’t come from the Traffic Report
Joy doesn’t come from how you feel
Joy doesn’t come from what you see
But Joy comes from God’s Spirit living inside of you
Joy is believing God’s promises
It’s a faith thing
Joy comes when you believe God’s promises
Acts 16
Paul and Silas are in the town of Thyatira
They’re going down to where people are praying
16 And it came to pass , as we went to prayer, a certain damsel possessed with a spirit of divination met us, which brought her masters much gain by soothsaying
There is a girl who is possessed by a demon
And this demon is giving her the power to fortune tell,
psychic power -- this is a real thing, even today, demonic powers
She would follow behind and annoy and heckle
Paul & Silas
And one day Paul is tired of this
He turns to her and speaks to the demon
I command you in the Name of Jesus Christ to come out of her
And instantly the Bible tells us the demon left
There are some people here today
That the Enemy may have been picking and prodding
And annoying and heckling and messing with you
It’s time that you speak to it
And say I command you in the Name of Jesus Christ
Get out of here, you have no place speaking in my life
So the demon is cast out
And the business men who owned this slave girl
Were mad b’c she made them a lot of money
They have Paul & Silas arrested
They gave them a good beating
And threw them into Jail
The innermost Jail, and into stocks, chained to the wall
But Joy comes from what you believe
Not from what’s happening around you, not from what you see
You see before Paul was thrown in Jail
He had a vision in v9-10
9 And a vision appeared to Paul in the night; There stood a man of Macedonia, and prayed him , saying , Come over into Macedonia, and help us.
10 And after he had seen the vision, immediately we endeavoured to go into Macedonia, assuredly gathering that the Lord had called us for to preach the gospel unto them.
Paul knew that altho they are in Jail
Altho they had been beaten and in handcuffs
He believed the Word of God, the vision that he saw
That he still had a place that he needed to preach the Gospel to
It didn’t look good around him, it looked bleak for him
But he knew that God still had a work for him
25 And at midnight Paul and Silas prayed , and sang praises unto God: and the prisoners heard them.
26 And suddenly there was a great earthquake, so that the foundations of the prison were shaken : and immediately all the doors were opened , and every one's bands were loosed .
When we know God’s promises we can have joy
Even when things don’t go our way
You have the power to praise God in the midst of any circumstance!
Say, I’m gonna give God all glory, all praise, all honor
And believe that God is for me
And if God is for me who can be against me!
What You See
For too many people
Joy is based on what they see
What is happening around them
We have got to begin to view our circumstances thru the lens of God’s Word
Instead of viewing God’s Word thru the lens of our circumstances
Look at your world thru the lens of God’s promises
The Word of God says
I’m the Head and not the Tail
Says I’m an Overcomer
Says Greater is He who is in me, than He that is in the World
Says Nothing is impossible for him who believes
Says I can speak to the Mountains that rise up in my life
Says I can have life and have it more abundantly
Says that God has plans to prosper me and not to hurt me
Plans to give me a hope and a future
Says He will never leave me nor forsake me
Says He is a friend that sticks closer than a brother
Says I can be healed, I can be set free, I can be saved
And that He is Preparing A Place for me to live in New Jersulem
When you begin to view this life thru that lens
You can have Joy!
1. Focus On Blessings Instead of Problems
Life will always be a mixed bag of blessings and problems
Sometimes work / career is great
But family, maybe extended family there is a problem
Then maybe its flipped
Your car is running great, wife’s car isn’t
Then wife’s car is running great, and yours isn’t
Then both cars are running great, but the A/C goes out
You know what I mean
But focus on blessings instead of problems
And no matter the problems
When you are a child of God,
The Blessings outweigh the Problems!
There’s a story about a guy who trained dogs to race
And every time his dogs would race he would place a wager
on one of the dogs to win
This dog... He wins
That dog... He wins
One day somebody asked him,
How do you do it? How do you know?
He said, well its easy, I always bet on the dog that I fed that week
When you dwell on the blessings, you’ll have joy!
2. Be Grateful
Be a grateful person
Ungrateful people, no matter what they have
Always feel like they’re lacking
They will always think
“If I just had a little more money”
“If my spouse was just a little bit more this way...”
“If my job wasn’t so...”
Whatever area it is, they just don’t feel like they have enough
And when you’re that way, enough is never enough
When you are grateful for what God has done
Its very hard to fear and worry
B’c you’re focusing on what God has already done
And when you focus on what God has already done
You will have faith in where God is taking you
3. Choose Joy Every Day
You’ve got to choose joy daily
You can’t choose it today
And hope that you have it in October
Trust me, somebody or something is gonna come snatch
Away your joy between now and then
You have to choose it every day
Seek first His Kingdom and His Righteousness
And all these things will be added unto you
Choose to seek His Kingdom
Choose to put Him first
Choose to have joy
You know if you chose to spend 15 minutes talking to God
Every morning, at the end of the month it would be over 7.5 hrs
At the end of the year it would be over 91 hours
Psalm 16:11 Thou wilt shew me the path of life:
in thy presence is fulness of joy;
at thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore.
You wanna have joy in your life
Spend time in His presence!
In his presence is joy!
