Series: Put the Joy Back In Your Life
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SERIES THEME: Everyone wants to be HAPPY! Everyone wants to enjoy life -- but how can we find this happiness? How can we find this joy?
Joy is the emotional result of right spiritual choices.
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Here’s the question for you this morning: Are you HAPPY? Do you have real JOY in your life?
You know, joy is something it seems like everyone is looking for, but very few find!
The Oxford Press dictionary defines “joy” as “a feeling of great pleasure and happiness.” But I know you’re more interested in finding how you can get it than you are finding out what it is.
Sometimes it seems like the people who seem like they’ve “caught” everything they were chasing after haven’t found joy in it! People who have chased after joy in almost every way imaginable have all said “You can’t find it here.”
Unbelief & Reason -- Voltaire was an infidel of the most pronounced type. He wrote: "I wish I had never been born."
Not in Money -- Just a few years ago, Michael Jackson was the highest paid entertainer on the planet – made millions every year. When someone asked him if he was happy, he said, “I’m the most miserable man alive!”
Not in Position and Fame -- Lord Beaconsfield enjoyed more than his share of both. He wrote: "Youth is a mistake; manhood a struggle; old age a regret."
Not in Military Power -- Alexander the Great conquered the known world in his day. Having done so, he wept in his tent, before he said, "There are no more worlds to conquer."
Not in Popularity - Actress Goldie Hawn is a living legend. Her films have grossed a toltal of over 700 million dollars at the box office. She’s famous for her bright smile and bubbly personality. Some time ago, she was interviewed by a major magazine. The interviewer asked her, “Goldie, you’re always so joyous and happy on-screen. What’s your source of joy?” Goldie said, “I don’t have any joy. That’s my next personal project. I’m going to fly all over the world, and interview famous people, and look for joy.”
Dennis Wholey, author of Are You Happy? reports that according to expert opinion, perhaps only 20 percent of Americans are happy.
I want to suggest to you that joy – the secret of REAL joy is found in the Bible. I want to tell you over the next few weeks, how YOU can be happy.
In this series, we’re going to be looking at the book of Philippians. The book of Philippians was written by Paul to a group of Christians to encourage them in their Christian life. The book of Philippians, although it only has 4 short chapters, uses the words “joy, rejoice, etc.” 17 TIMES!!! This is a letter that is REALLY JOYOUS!
But here’s the weird thing: Who can guess where this letter was written from? PRISON!!! That’s right! Paul, the author, was locked up in a Roman jail for preaching about Jesus. And this was not one of our modern jails where it’s nicer than some houses – these were the old-style prisons, where it was dark except for a little candlelight and where rats ran around on the floor!
You might say:
What is so much JOY doing in a place like that? I can’t even have joy in my nice house and apartment with a car that I can drive and freedom to do whatever I want!
The secret is ONE THING, and I’m going to tell you what it is, and you’re going to hear me repeat it over and over again in the next few weeks:
Joy is the emotional result of right spiritual choices.
Today I want to tell you what the first of those choices is:
To have joy, you have to FOCUS ON WHAT MATTERS.
Let’s read these verses from Philippians:
9 ¶ And this I pray, that your love may abound still more and more in knowledge and all discernment,
10 that you may approve the things that are excellent, that you may be sincere and without offense till the day of Christ,
11 being filled with the fruits of righteousness which are by Jesus Christ, to the glory and praise of God.
Look at what Paul says they need to do:
1. Love God and people. (V. 9)
How many have heard the song “What the World Needs Now/Is Love, sweet love”?
Isn’t it true? What would this world be like if everyone loved God and one another? We’re trying to do that here at our church, and that’s why we hope you feel our love for each other and for you.
I’m quite convinced that there’s not enough love in the world. But if you want your love to abound more and more, then you’ve got to make sure that you’re hooked up to the source of love.
The Bible says this: “God is LOVE.” God is the source of all LOVE – he’s where it comes from! That means that if you’re not lined up with God’s plan for your life – if you’re not hooked up with Him, then you CAN’T love God or people like you should!!!
*HERE’S what I’m going to do all month long: I’m going to give you specific steps that you can do TODAY to get the joy back in your life.
So here’s your first one:
ACTION STEP:
A) Make a commitment today to love God more. Look for ways to obey God, since he said, “If you love me keep my commandments.”
B) Make a commitment to show people that you love them! What would make them feel that you love them?
The next thing that Paul says they need to focus on is:
2. Have a clean heart. (V. 10)
10 That ye may approve things that are excellent; that ye may be sincere and without offence till the day of Christ;
The way this verse should read is something like this: “That you would be able to discern right and wrong...” The word is the same word in Greek that was used for testing metal to see what kind it was – is it really gold? In other words, we need to know the difference between the good things and the bad things.
But not only does he want them to know the difference, he wants them to act on it! He says they need to be “sincere” – that word comes from putting two words together, and it means “examining in the sunlight”. In other words, he says, “know what is right, and then do it so completely that if we examined your life in the strongest light around, we couldn’t find a problem!”
But what is this phrase “...til the day of Christ”? The “day of Christ” in Scripture refers to the day when Jesus will return to judge the whole world – some will go to heaven, and others to hell. But if you’re loving God and people, and you have a heart cleaned by God, then you don’t have a thing to worry about; you can be assured of heaven.
The question is, has your heart been cleaned by God? We all have hearts that are not clean before God – every one of us has done things that we are ashamed of.
BUT JESUS died on the cross to forgive those things, and make our hearts clean, so that they can really be “examined in the sunlight” and not a single problem found!
ACTION STEP: (Something you can do today about it:)
A) Ask God to clean your heart and make you a new person on the inside.
B) Make a commitment to live according to what you know is right.
3. Be useful to God.
11 Being filled with the fruits of righteousness, which are by Jesus Christ, unto the glory and praise of God.
God made you to be useful and make an impact for him. The analogy is like a fruit tree – God didn’t just plant you to have leaves, He has specific things that he wants you to accomplish.
This verse means that to TRULY be JOYFUL – you’ve got to be focused more on what God wants for your life than on what YOU want! You can’t just bear any fruit – it should be fruit of righteousness! It should be right things!
If you want to have real JOY - - you’ve got to live for God’s glory, not your own!
I guarantee you that if you really turn your life to
a. love God and people.
b. have a clean heart.
c. be useful to God
then you’ll begin to have amazing joy!
I want to give you an illustration.
(The picture is even more impacting if you actually had him make a mud pie...) Instead of a “holiday at the sea”, you might use a “vacation at Disneyland” instead – everyone knows what that is these days.
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(Here’s the quote this illustration is based on: I don’t read this quote in the sermon. . . )
Our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition, when infinite joy is offered to us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in the slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.
1. C.S. Lewis.
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You’re probably thinking, “What a foolish kid! He doesn’t know what he’s doing!” You’re right.
But how much more foolish it is for us to go on playing with drink, sex, ambition, money, and all the other mudpies this world has when they have proved that they don’t bring JOY!
All the while, God offers us infinite joy –
– a fresh start
– a clean heart
– the chance to make a difference for Him
The question is: Will you stop making mudpies long enough to listen?
