Joy That Holds When Life Shakes

We trace how joy becomes strength when centered on Jesus, not on circumstances, rituals, or personal standing. Paul’s words in Philippians 3 lead us from repentance to celebration, away from legalism, and into a learned practice of rejoicing that endures hardship.

• joy contrasted with happiness and grounded in Christ
• Nehemiah’s call to celebrate after repentance
• guarding joy from legalism and joy thieves
• Paul’s resume counted loss for knowing Jesus
• rejoicing as a learned, repeated habit
• pressing forward and releasing the past
• practical rhythms that protect inner joy

Transcript

Joy As Strength In Philippians 3

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Philippians chapter 3. All it does is make you just set the alarm on your stove. That's all it does. That's all it does. Okay, I'll be done now. I'm done. Rant over. Philippians chapter 3. By the way, I shouldn't let that steal my joy, should I? Today I want to talk to you about your joy. Our joy is in the Lord. And the Bible says that the joy of the Lord is our strength. And if you give away your joy, you give away your strength. Listen to what the apostle has to say in chapter three of this little epistle to this church in Philippi. Let's read the first six verses. Finally, my brethren, rejoice in the Lord. To write the same thing to you, to me indeed is not grievous, but for you it is safe. Because I'm going to say something over and over again to you, and I don't mind it. It's not a bother to me, but it's something that you need. It's going to help you be safe for me to remind you of this. Namely, about maintaining your joy. He says, beware of dogs, beware of evil workers, beware of the concision, for we are the circumcision which worship God in the spirit, and rejoice in Christ Jesus, and have no confidence in the flesh. Though I might also have confidence in the flesh, if any man think that he have whereof that he might trust in the flesh, I have more, Paul says. Not that I would brag, but if I was gonna brag, Paul says I would say it like this. Circumcised the eighth day of the stock of Israel. That means I've been I've been straight, I've been good, I've been in line since day one, since the get-go, I have been in line with the Hebrew law. I'm of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of the Hebrews. As touching the law, I'm a Pharisee. Ain't nobody kept the law like I've kept the law, Paul says. Concerning zeal, you want to talk about zeal, enthusiasm, excitement? I have been persecuting the church. Touching righteousness, which is in the law, I have been blameless, is what he says. Can I tell you, your joy has got to come from Jesus? Or else it's going to be short-lived. I didn't say your happiness, I

Rejoice Versus Happiness

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said your joy. Look with me in verse 1 at what the apostle pleads with them for. Now, when you see the first word there, finally, my brethren, you might be tempted to think, well, this is just another preacher, which I think he's a Baptist, by the way. You know those preachers sometimes they say, now finally, and then there's 25 minutes left in the sermon. You go, that liar did not have 20. He did not finally. That word in the Greek it means additionally. Let me emphasize something for you, something heavy for you, namely joy. Finally, my brethren, rejoice in the Lord. What is it to rejoice? It is to do it again. Re being the prefix of joy. Do it again. Stir it up. Think about it. That's part of the reason what we're doing here this morning. We are singing songs about the goodness of God to remind ourselves that we can rejoice in his goodness. That in Christ alone he's my cornerstone. Nothing else will do. I've got to have Jesus. That helps me to dig up that old truth and say it to myself and sing it to myself to rejoice in Washington. From whence all salvation cometh. No, we can't do that, can we? I mean, just think if you're a Toronto Blue Jays fan, I'm sorry, guys. You win, you lose. Our joy has got to come from the one who can give it and to where it can never go away. Happiness has to do with our happenings, our personal, immediate circumstances. If things are good, then I'm happy. If things are not going good, I am unhappy. Joy is different. Even when life is falling apart, I'm able to say, On Christ, the solid rock, I stand. All other ground is sinking sand. My joy is firm. My joy is right here. By the way, where that phrase that we get that from, the joy

Nehemiah’s Model Of Joy After Repentance

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of the Lord is my strength. That's from Nehemiah chapter 8 and verse 10. They had brought the people back out of exile, rebuilt the walls, and Ezra had opened the book to read the Bible to the people for the first time in generations. And they heard the word of the Lord, and conviction gripped them. And they were falling on the ground, they were tearing their clothes, somewhere even hurting themselves, as though somehow that penance would be pleasing to God? To punish themselves for their sins. They had not been observing God's word, and they finally realize it when Ezra, the man of God in Nehemiah 8, opens the book and begins to preach and make clear the word of God. And the conviction of God falls, and the people they fall at and they cry and they weep and they wail. And listen, there's a time for conviction, and there's a time for mourning over sin, and there's a time for repentance at the altar where we confess. But I want to tell you, we don't stay there. It does nothing in terms of God's view of you and in God's sight that if we were somehow bludging ourselves over and over again, that's not a fruit of the spirit. Did you know that seriousness is not a fruit of the spirit? But joy is a fruit of the spirit. Yes, there is that moment where we repent and we even we even may weep and sorrow and be poor in spirit, but we don't stay there. We come from there and say, But Jesus and I am forgiven and can be saved and can stand before God clean and unafraid. I told a young man last week, I said, we stand unsaved over the flames of hell, standing on a snowflake. The wrath of God is right and true and just and coming. Now, if you believe that, that's terrifying, and I do. That's real. But God, who is gracious and mercy, wherewith he hath loved us, has given himself for us. For by grace are you saved through faith, and he comes and he takes us out of harm's way, pouring the wrath of God on himself on the cross. There I go from repentance and seriousness to great joy. And so that's what Nehemiah says to the people. He says, Get up, get up off the ground. They were hurting themselves, they were sorrowful, and he says, The joy of the Lord is your strength, not the sorrow of the Lord, the joy of the Lord is our strength. So Paul says here to this church in Philippi, Oh, thank you. So he said to them, Go your way, eat the fat, and drink the sweet, send portions unto them whom nothing is prepared, for this day is holy unto the Lord. Neither be ye sorry, for the joy of the Lord is your strength. He goes, We're going to celebrate. Wouldn't it be awful if you came to church every Sunday and it was just dirty rotten sinners? I mean, I am. It's true. I'm a child of the king. When he sees me, he doesn't see me as I am, he sees me covered in the righteousness of Jesus. Right? I'm gonna go to bed tonight, and he's not gonna go to bed. I'm gonna go to sleep, he's gonna watch over me. And all of the things that are swirling around in my head, I'm gonna give them to him, and I'm saying, I'm going to bed, you handle it, and I'm gonna go to sleep. There, I can rejoice in that. A couple things about your joy. Joy is more about what happens on the inside than what happens on the outside. Amen. Would you agree with that? Joy is it's an internal possession, not an external possession. In fact, you'll know if you've got the joy of the Lord when the external, I mean, just falls apart. And somehow there's strength within

Joy Despite Rome, Prison, And Threats

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you. What is that? The joy of the Lord is your strength. I remember at the passing of my father, and as a long, drawn-out thing, and it was just so difficult, it was so hard, and it was so slow, and there was such sickness and such pain and such discomfort and all of that. And people would say, How are you doing? I thought, I think I'm doing okay. And I don't know how I was doing okay. And I could ask my family, we could you go back and do it again? Absolutely not. Of course we could. I don't see how. It's just that God was floating us along, and his joy was in our hearts, and it gave us strength. If you've got joy from God, then you've got strength. Look what it says there in verse 2. The joy, rejoice in the Lord always. I write the same thing to you. It is not grievous for me, but for you it is safe. Verse 2 says, Beware of dogs, beware of evil workers, not canine bow wow dogs. Beware of the concision. Beware of these things. Point number two, not only is joy something that happens on the inside, as untouched by the outside, joy is something that is to be protected. Let me tell you, church, you've got to protect your joy. You gotta protect your joy. You gotta remind yourself of the goodness of God, or else it will get damp. It will, and if the joy goes away, what else goes with it? The joy of the Lord is my if the joy goes away, I'm also gonna lose my. That's exactly I want you to see those things go hand in hand. That's why the apostle writes to them. And they're in tough situations. I mean, they're literally under Roman rule, a Christian church, first century Christian church, under the authority of Nero, and he was brutal. I mean, it was awful. There were no human rights. It was just absolute brutality across the empire. They took what they wanted, they taxed what they wanted, there was no representation, they showed up, and whatever they said, that's what you had to do. Paul is telling them you can have joy no matter what Nero does, because joy is something that happens on the inside, not what happens on the outside. I mean, Paul knows, he's pretty well aware at some point here, they're gonna lead him to a thing, and they're either gonna burn him alive or they're gonna cut his head off. And by the way, how does this book begin? How does this church even get started? Paul is in prison in Philippi, him and uh what's the other guy's name? Paul and Silas, and they are at midnight praising the Lord, singing. It had to be so annoying, right? We're trying to go to sleep, and these guys are in here just howling, I mean, and laughing and rejoicing in the Lord, and a great earthquake comes and opens up the how can you rejoice chained to a wall on the ground in prison with rats and cockroaches everywhere? I don't know, except they might be Christians. Paul was like the most joyful person. He was untouched, he was unfazable. He had strength that came from joy. You better quit preaching, we're gonna put you in jail. That's cool. I'll just convert all the guards and stuff. You better not. We will, we will, we will, we, we will, we will cut your head

Protecting Joy From Legalism

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off. That's cool. You know, to for to die as to die as gain, to live as Christ, that's cool. Whatever you want to do. You couldn't mess with his strength, you couldn't mess with his joy because he had a firm grasp on his Jesus. He tells the church, joy is what happens on the inside, regardless of what happens on the outside. By the way, church, I don't know what your life is like right now, but I can tell you that what you need is Jesus because this world goes in a downward trajectory toward the book of Revelation. It's gonna be bad. It's gonna be bad. But for us, the things of this world, they don't matter like they matter to everybody else, do they? Joy is about what's on the inside, not what's on the outside. Joy is to be protected. Look what he says in verse 2 and 3. He talks about these dogs and these evil workers, beware of the concision. What he's talking about is these Judaizers. These are Hebrew Jews that hated the Christian church. They hated them because they left Judaism to become Christians. And they at one time had followed all the laws of Moses and they kept all the feasts and did all the things, and now they're saying we have freedom in Christ. And he came not to abolish the law, but to fulfill the law. So does the law have to be fulfilled? Absolutely. Can I fulfill it? No, I cannot. Can Jesus? Yes, he did. Every bit of it. Every bit of it. And so they're not keeping these things. And they're saying, you're not right with God because you didn't, you know, you didn't fast, you didn't feast, you didn't tithe, you didn't, you know, you you walk down the street on the Sabbath, you, you, you're you're well, what does he say there? You're uncircumcised. Golly. By the way, if your religion, if your relationship with God is Jesus plus something else, you're gonna lose your joy. You're gonna lose your joy. It's Jesus plus nothing equals everything. Amen. Beware of those that will tell you you're not doing church right or or or Jesus right if you don't do it my way. I think we should do it the Bible's way. I think we should, if it's not in the Bible, throw it out. I made some of you uncomfortable there. That's okay, you'll get over it. You see, these Judaizers, they were putting burdens on people. This is why Jesus comes to them, the scribes and the Pharisees and the Sadducees, and he calls them vipers, he calls them dogs. He says, You are like beautiful headstones over tombs, and you look wonderful on the outside, and your wonderful dress, and but on the inside you're full of dead men's bones, there's no joy, and there's no strength. Why? Because on the inside there's no Jesus. You see, if we're not careful, legalists will steal our joy. You're not a legalist, are you? You know who was the first legalist? Eve in the garden. She's the one that started making up rules beyond what God had said. God said, Adam and Eve, you can have the whole place, it's yours, take care of it, work it, improve it. There's one tree, don't eat out of that tree. It's the only rule. The serpent comes and beguiles and seduces Eve and By the way, she had joy before that. He comes and he goes, you know, there's there's there's more that you're not experiencing that God's withholding from you. Yeah. Did God really say? Check it out, Genesis chapter 3 and verse 3. Did he really say, Let's put God's word into question here? Let's put his character into question here. I don't know if he really knows what he's doing here. Instead of doing things his way, let's do it a different way. That's the first step to joy heading right out the door.

Learning Joy By Losing Self-Reliance

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And Eve goes beyond what she should have. You see, it was, and I, and it was Adam's fault too. It was Adam's fault. He told her what God had said, and she says to the serpent, We're not supposed to eat out of this tree. That's what God said. And then she goes beyond. That's what legalism is. It's going beyond what God has said, making up additional rules to make yourself feel more superior and more holy and more self-righteous. Right? Me and David, by the way, he's in Detroit this morning preaching at a church, David Sileti. He's gonna do a great job. And I showed him this hilarious song, it's a bluegrass song, and it says, If your hair's on your ears, then there's sin in your heart. We had a good laugh at that, you know. Because he had that, but he's got a great haircut now, and that's not why he got a haircut. I didn't tell him to get a haircut, but it looks really good. His haircut looks really great. If you're here Wednesday, you saw him, it looks really good. But I said, David, maybe backslid, son. Your hair's on your ears. There's a lot of that, isn't there? I've had people tell me I'm inviting my son to church, but he's got all these tattoos, and I told him, I said, you gotta cover him up and get a haircut, and then I want you to get in church and give your life to Jesus. What's wrong with that? It's backwards. That's what it says in 1 Hesitations chapter 9, verse nothing. That's what that's what we do when we get outside of God's word. And we start micromanaging and pointing fingers. You don't look like me, and you're not doing like me. Do it like Jesus. He says, beware, these guys, these dogs, they will steal your joy. In the first century, nobody had dogs. Nobody liked dogs. They were flea-bitten, they were diseases, and they were scoundrels. They would just run around and they were thieves. They were just wild, and they were just survivors, and they would literally just jump up on your window where there's a pie cooling, if you can imagine the cartoon version, and they would steal your food and run away. That's what it was. It goes, these guys are here and they're not here to bless you with anything. They're here to take from you. Beware. You'll try to pet them and they will bite you. You say, What is wrong with them? They don't have any joy. Beware of people who don't have no joy, they'll hurt you. Isn't it wild how misery loves company? That's exactly right. So our joy has to be protected from legalists outside or legalists inside. You know, you you can do that too, right? You could do that too. I've been falling so short. I've been doing I've if I could attend church more often, if I could give more, if I could sing better, if I could, you know, if I could blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. None of that's in there. And you can steal your own joy. You can forfeit your own joy

Pressing On: Jesus As Our Prize

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by being a legalist just like these juderizer dogs. Joy is about what happens on the inside, not what happens on the outside. Joy is to be protected, and joy is to be learned. Let me just encourage you: if you're lacking joy this morning, perhaps it's a it's a learning process. Look at what he says there. Verse 7, what things were gained to me, those I counted lost for Christ. Remember what I read to you from verses 5, 4, and 5 and 6, where Paul gives his pedigree. If you want to boast, if you want to talk about, you know, I can boast. I was a I was a Hebrew, I was a Sadducee, I was, I memorized the Bible. Paul literally memorized Malachi to Genesis. It's that's it's that much right there. Memorized. Anyone else? Yeah, me neither. Me neither. By the way, are you doing good in your Bible reading? Are you are you working hard at your Bible reading? I'm proud of you. I'm proud of you. These D groups have helped us to develop a habit of Bible reading. And that's that's that's all it is right there. You can't survive without your Bible. You gotta read your Bible. One guy in my D group this morning, I said, Did you do your reading? He said, Well, I did some reading, but it it wasn't the D group reading. And I said, Nah, I think you're lying. He goes, Yeah, but I found my Bible this morning on the way to on the way to D group. I said, That I believe. But it's progress, find it as opposed to having it lost. This is what we've got to do. Paul says, I've memorized every single bit of it. And if you think when you say open to Philippians 3, I have no idea, and I gotta look back here in the beginning of the Bible, in the index, and find out what page it's on. God bless you. That's what you need to do. No one shows up and knows all this stuff. It's a slow process here. It's a big book. We're giving ourselves to the book, so please be patient with yourself. And if you don't do your D-group reading, show up anyways. Show up and tell the truth. Okay. Our joy is to be protected and our joy is to be learned. He says, of all the things that I have counted gain, my my pedigree, my my education, my career, I had been a persecutor of the church, and after that was all good. Look at what he says in verse 7. But what things were gained to me, I counted loss for Christ. The things that I thought were important, the things that I was really banking on, the things I was really stacking up, saying, These things matter, I realized none of those things mattered. None of those things, none of those things from verses four, five, and six, none of those things gave Paul any joy. They might have seemed like some kind of purpose in life, but they did not give him any fulfillment and any joy. That's why he says, I count all of them but loss for Christ. Yea, doubtless I counted all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus, my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things. And I do count them but dung, that I may win Christ. All that stuff. I it's been a waste, it's been and I looked up that word in the Greek, the word dung, and it means dung. This and be found in him. This is what Paul says. All that stuff. I give it all back, give it all away. What gives joy? Not the Judaizers, not the outside happenings. I'm learning, I'm learning that my joy comes from Jesus. Here's two sentences I want to give you today, right? Number one, the joy of the Lord is our strength. Here's a second one. Ready? Jesus is the strength of our joy. Jesus is the strength of our joy. To what degree do you have joy is going to depend on to what degree you have Jesus. And there's a lot of things that can take his place. There's a lot of things that we can trade him out for. Nothing will surpass having Jesus in our lives. Us older folks, like how I did that, us older folks. You got to learn a little bit to find out what's not important in this life. I was young, I had my first car. I thought it was like cool to put like neon lights in the engine bay of a 1994 Ford Escort. It was Cayman Green. It's a hatchback, stick shift. You know, a real race car. Four-cylinder. I put a Flow Master 40 series muffler on there. It sounded like a really big lawnmower. And I thought it was so cool. And I put money and time and effort, and now I look back and go, it was so dumb. But you grow up. Like Paul grew up, and he says, All that stuff that came before, I count it lost. It's been nothing. What does matter, Paul? What was really significant? What was helpful?

Prayer For Renewed Joy

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Jesus was helpful. Take the whole world, just give me Jesus. Jesus is the strength of our joy. The joy of the Lord is my strength, yes, but Jesus is the strength of my joy. Let me read to you from verses 10 on down through verse 14 here as we begin to land this plane in closing. That I may know him in the power of his resurrection. That's what Paul wanted. And the fellowship of his suffering and be made conformable unto his death. If by any means I might attain unto the resurrection of the dead. Not as though I had already attained. He goes, I want to be humble here. Not that I have already gotten there, or either we're already perfect, but I follow after. If I may uh apprehend that for which I am apprehended of Christ, can you raise your hand and say, I have been apprehended of Christ? I have been, I have been arrested. I belong to him. I was a slave to sin. But I am now a slave to Jesus Christ. I have been bought with a price. And Paul says, I want to apprehend that which has apprehended me. Isn't that a cool play on words? Pastor said the phrase earlier. He said, Do you remember the day when Jesus broke into your life? Wasn't that wonderful? That's what some of you need, by the way, is Jesus just come in there and get you, and that's what you need, little rebels. But here's the thing. Behold, I stand at the door and knock. I wish you would come with a holy SWAT team and just take us all. He says, I stand at the door and knock, and if anyone hears my voice and open the door, I will come in. I will come in and sup with him, and he with me will have this communion, this relationship. That's where joy is found. Jesus is the strength of our joy. Look at what he says in verse 14. I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling in Christ Jesus. I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of Christ Jesus. This is what Paul is doing. Here he is in jail, an older man, a mature believer. And he says in verse 13, Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended, but this one thing I do, one thing I can tell you, I am forgetting those things which are behind, and I'm reaching forth unto those things which are before. And maybe you need to do that this morning. Maybe you need to cut yourself loose and cut yourself some slack, but all the places that you have missed the mark all the way thus far and just leave it all back there. Or maybe, like Paul, you have been building and laying this great foundation that only comes to find out it doesn't mean as much as you thought it did. Cut it loose, drop it back there, and from here we are gonna say, give me Jesus, take the whole world, take everything I've got. If I have Jesus, I'll have enough. Are you convinced of that this morning? Take the whole world, take everything else. If I have Jesus, I'll have enough. I'm telling you, it's true. I don't know that you believe it, but I know it is true. Everything else will be a big fat letdown in this life, including myself. Don't put your hope in me. I will, I'm trying to increase your joy, but I might one day ruin some of your joy. Jesus is the strength of your joy, and the joy of the Lord is your strength. Let me pray for you. Father, we do give you praise for the joy that is to be protected, the joy that is to be learned. How we can encourage ourselves with the goodness of your word and of who you are. We thank you, Lord, that joy is what's happening on the inside. It's a gift. It's not affected by what goes on on the outside. Father, would you strengthen your people this morning? Lord, there are folks in this room who are weak. And the devil has had a heyday with them this week. And they've stumbled and fallen, they feel like failures. Father, I pray, Lord Jesus, that you would give them joy as they come back to focus on Jesus, to apprehend that by which they have been apprehended. Lord God, would you give us a better view of the Savior today? Help us to see our sin, yes. Father, help us to see the Savior. Help us to see his grace. In Jesus' name. Amen.