Chris Hodges - The Joy of the Lord Is My Strength
Well, hello church. Who loves Jesus today? Anybody? Anybody? Oh, give God a great praise together, everybody. I wanted to start off in that kind of exciting way because Tammy just did this. My wife did that Women's Conference announcement. I was back there crying, lookin' at my wife talkin' about the Women's Conference anyways, so how many of y'all appreciate Miss Tammy, everybody? I love you so much. It's good to see all of you guys here today. Let me say hello to all of our campuses. We are one church that meets in rooms all across the great state of Alabama and into Georgia. We have the incredible honor to bring this message and all that we are as a church into 26 of Alabama's Department of Corrections facilities.
What an honor that is. And of course, there are people watching online or on-demand later in the week. Grants Mill, help me say the biggest hello you can. Come on, everybody! God bless you, thank you. And before we jump into the message, I did want to give you a few little things about things that are happening this summer. You've already seen these on the "Highlands News," but I wanted to kind of give you a little bit of my two cents on what's happening. Right now, we are halfway through a very short six-week Summer Small Group semester that we have, and I know a lot of you guys are involved in groups. Some of you may not be because of your travels this summer. That's perfectly fine.
The reason why I talk about it is that it ends in three weeks with this incredible day that we call "Serve Day," and it's really the only time all year long that I call all of us to kind of like an all play. Let's all find some type of project, one that you create your own or one that you join among the thousands that we will make available to you on Saturday, July 13. I'm gonna invite all of you to participate in that, and I think it makes a great statement to our communities that we can be the hands and feet of Jesus and just show the love of God through practical acts of service. We do have a separate app for that. It's a Serve app. It's called the Serve app, and the reason why it's a separate app from our normal app is because we've given that app away.
We created the technology, our team did. You paid for it through your generosity, but we've given it away to thousands and thousands of churches globally. On that day, nearly a million people will be serving people all around the world. It's an amazing thing, but the app works where it shows you all the projects, kind of like if you've ever gone on to an Uber app and you've seen where all the cars are, it'll show you where the nearest ones are to you, and you can click on them and find out how many are already there, how many more people they need, what materials you might need to bring, directions on how to get to that place. And so, it really serves you in a great way. But all that said, I just would love for all of you guys to participate in "Serve Day".
Tomorrow, as you already heard, is a wonderful three days, our version of vacation Bible school that we call "Summer Blast". More than 10,800 kids are gonna be ministered to over the next three days by over 4,700 volunteers. Thank you for that, everybody. And again, this is a free event that you pay for with your generosity. All I'm asking is that you would pray like Jesus said, bless the little children. Let's just pray that God moves in an amazing way. Can I hear a good "amen," everybody, right? And then lastly, we did talk about "Motion Student Conference" also. That takes place right before our students go back to school. It's very, very strategically placed for that reason.
We are having historically high registration this year, like off the charts registration for this event. We have opened it up to other churches, but we don't want these other churches, even though we were trying to bless them, we don't want these other churches to take up all the spots for our kids. So we've actually closed registration for other churches so that the very few remaining spots can go to your students. Please register soon. There's only a few left. You're not used to that. Normally, you can register all the way up to the conference. That will not be the case this year. Once again, if we ever do anything that costs money and you don't have it, that's the reason why you're not doing it, not a good enough reason. We would be more than honored to scholarship you so you can attend. Your student can attend that event.
And again, thank you for your generosity that makes that all possible. I wanna make sure you knew all about that, all right? Today, actually, I wanna bring you a message that I was not planning on bringing you. I wasn't even scheduled to be here today, and I just wanted to be in front of you today. I just wanted to stand before you guys and let you know how much I love you, and I'm grateful to God for you. I've had a highs and low week. I actually turned 61 on Friday. Happy birthday to me, everybody, all right, so, yeah. I had a great time with my wife and some of my children who were actually in town. Tammy bought me this jacket. You like it, everybody? It's my jacket, okay, brand-new, never worn this before. Shout out to Chris Mobley and Tuscaloosa Mobley and Sons. And I'm grateful, but at the same time, just devastated by some of the news that has taken place in the body of Christ.
And I've had all these emotions, this extreme sadness. I've had anger. I've had confusion. Then I'm laughing. Next moment, you know, I'm at a birthday party, blowing out candles and happy, and it's just, I've had this wide array of emotions. And just so you know, when I go through something like that, I'm just as human as anybody. It's just, it's hard. There's times where this is just really hard, you know? I'm trying to lead well, and I'm trying to just, you know, trying to serve my family well. And you have all this stuff going on inside of you. I can stand before God and tell you that every single day, every single day, I wake up and before I read anything, hear anything, do anything, before I act, I always get into God's Word, every single day.
Every day, I pray, and every day I worship, and I've watched a miracle take place. There's one thing to stand here and preach to you about what you need to do. It's another thing to go through something and need it yourself, and today, I'm gonna share with you my own journey of this week of just how I process things and what I did. What's interesting is I was already in some studies on the book of Philippians. I've been, I was asked to speak at an event, and they actually gave me a topic and said, "Man, we want you to talk about joy, and I want you to talk about the book of Philippians". And so, I'm already in this study goin' on. And so, I called, we had one of our campus pastors who was speaking today. And I said, "Look, I just, I want to be there. I've got somethin' to say".
And I've got a verse that just ministered to me, and I'm gonna show you how the Lord ministered to me some of the decisions that I had to make in my own heart and my own mind just to keep my joy, right? And this verse just came to mind right away in Nehemiah chapter 8. The whole nation of Israel is in a very bad place. Basically, the temple and the church of those days was in shambles, and the Bible says, the Lord said, "Do not grieve, for the joy of the LORD is your strength".
So the question of the day is: how do you get from a point of anger, and confusion, and sadness, and grief to the joy of the Lord, and what is, even, the joy of the Lord? And I'm gonna tell you what it is. Let me give you the end of the story first. It's a joy that you have available to you in the middle of your darkest days. It's a joy that's available to you that is, listen to me, that is not circumstantial. It's based on Christ. It's a completely different joy. And I'm just telling ya, I'm being very honest with you, I found it this week. I had to say, "Lord, where are you? Help me through all of this," and I felt the joy of the Lord inside of me. It's a different joy than the joy that the world gives. Can I hear a good "amen," everybody, right? You know what I'm talkin' about.
In fact, tomorrow morning, once again, I'm already prophesying it. I'm predicting it. I'm gonna lose my joy. Because tomorrow morning, I have a dentist appointment. Come on somebody, where y'all at, right? I hate the dentist. Now, I love my dentist. He's a member of our church. Shout out to Dr. Burton Gooch, great dentist. I like him, but I don't like what they do, I don't even like the sounds when I walk in the... right away. I just, I can't take all of that. And y'all, when I go in, you know, I'm not tough. I'm not strong. I'm like, I go in the corner where those little beads on the wires, I'm like, "Can I sit here and just do beads over these wires for awh", tapping on the glass, looking at the fish, you know what I'm saying? Like, just it freaks me out in every way. I'm not, my anxiety level goes so high.
And you know, 'cause they lay you back. Come on, y'all. There's sounds everywhere. They lay you back, and then two faces hover over your head. They got masks. There's lights. And then they take that metal object and start scraping one tooth at a time. It's like nails on a chalkboard. I mean, I'm sitting on my hands. I can't hardly wait for it to be over. But about nine or ten years ago, someone introduced me to the wonderful world of nitrous oxide, and so, tomorrow morning when I go in, they'll say, "Hello, Mr. Hodges. Hello, good to see you". They said, "Sir, do you want nitrous once again today"? Well, I said, "Unless you want me climbing these walls and actually maybe harming some of the staff, yes, you might. You might want to do that".
And then, sure enough, tomorrow, I'm gonna tell, I'm gonna lay back and all that's gonna happen to me, and then I'm gonna start breathing deeply. Can I get an "amen," everybody? And then, instead of, "Oh, I can't wait for this to be over," I'm like, "Take your time. This is all right," you know? But then, as soon as I walk out, the effects are gonna have worn off and then everything's a reality again. That's the picture of the world's joy. So a lot of times, we all face, I know, you may be facing your own set of things that we could talk about that you say are devastating to you. You could say, "Man, I have my own problems," in your marriage or your finances.
I've had two friends this week who are dealing with terrible medical diagnoses that I've been in prayer with them about. I've shed tears with them and for them. I have another dear friend who lost her mom this week. It's like we all face different sets of tragedies or circumstances that rob us of the joy of the Lord. The question is, how do you get it when you're in the middle of that? And I wanna share with you three theological truths that are just are true. And with theology, here's the secret, you're gonna have to believe it, like it, theology, the truths of the Word of God, require your faith, not your feelings. So, I'm gonna give you those, and it's gonna be up to you to just say, "I believe this". And I hope you do believe it. Then I'm gonna give you three practical ways to live it out.
All right, let's take the journey. Are you ready, yes or no? Yes? Okay, here's the first one, and that is the first theological truth is that when life seems to be falling apart, guess what, everybody? God is still in control. And you'll have to tell yourself that. Let me say it this way. I tell myself when things happen, this isn't making God nervous. This didn't surprise God. And God is not freaking out, going, "Oh my goodness, I didn't see that coming". No, our God, everybody, our God is still in control, amen?
One of my favorite books of the Bible to teach is the book of Job, and I don't know if you know much about the book of Job, but it actually is the oldest book of the Bible. It's older than the book of Genesis even though it's later in the Bible. Your Bible's organized by types of books, and it's considered a poetry book, so it's in the poetry section of your Old Testament. And so, the book of Job is a guy, the Bible says who's a devout man, who feared the Lord, who the devil just attacked in a great way, attacked so much he lost all of his children, all of his possessions. He lost his health. The Bible says he was covered in boils and sores. He lost everything except his wife.
I just think that's funny. I don't know why that's funny to me. I mean, you think, "Oh, devil, there's his wife". "No, I'm gonna leave her. I know what I'm doin'. I'm just gonna let her stay right there," and... sorry. She was a piece of work because whenever all that happened to him, her words to Job were, "Curse God and die". I mean, she was not a nice lady. But anyway, that's the only thing the devil didn't take was her, but that's a different message. So, you can read about it in the first couple of chapters of Job. And then, for about 35 chapters, kinda hard reading because it's written like poetry, but it's kind of tough reading, but basically, it's 35 chapters of questioning God.
So 35 chapters, they're trying to philosophize of why this happened. We all do this. You would just, "Why? How? If? What if they would of? If they wouldn't have"? So they have 35 chapters of that, and they're questioning God, all right? And finally, God answers. The Bible says he answers out of a thunderous cloud. Go read it. It's fascinating. He answers, and God says, "Hey, you want answers? I'll give you answers, but answer mine first. Where were you when I created the earth? How did I do it? How do I hold the tide back? Hey, tell me how you hang a star. You ever done that? Oh, you surely have because you're so old". I mean, God's saying stuff like this. And then finally, Job answered, and he said, "I am unworthy," in other words, I'm not on your level, "how can I reply to you"? And he says, "I put my hand over my mouth," which is great advice, by the way.
And he goes on to say, in other words, when you think you know something, you don't know anything. Because God's at work in ways we cannot see. Are y'all listening to me? He's got it. "And then Job replies to the LORD: 'I know that you can do all things,'" now, I don't know how you do it. I don't know when you're gonna do it, or if you're gonna do it, but I know you can do it. I'm gonna resolve myself to the fact that you got this, God, "And no purpose of yours can be thwarted". Monday morning, I woke up, and as I told you, God be my witness, I wake up, first thing I do after I get my cup of coffee is I open the Word of God, first thing before I see anything, hear anything, read anything. And it's so funny to me. It's just, what a blessing it is to have the Word of God, it's just right for the right day.
And "The One Year Bible" Psalm on Monday was Psalm 135, "The LORD does whatever pleases him," I can't tell you how this fed me, "The LORD does whatever pleases him, in the heavens and on the earth, in the seas and their depths. He makes the clouds rise. He sends the," if he chooses to send lightning, who am I to question what God is doing? Are y'all listening to me, everybody? And you're thinking, "Well that kind of offends me. God just sends that". He knows what he's doing and God is in control. Amen, everybody. I mean, there are Russian warships around Cuba right now. Iran is making nuclear bombs. We all have our own array of craziness and guess what? God is still in control. And the people who have that theology, that faith, they don't like it. I don't like it any more than you do. But I'm gonna tell you, I got the joy. I got peace on the inside, knowing my God is at work.
You know, years ago, I think about 15 years ago, Pastor Rick Warren's wife, Kay Warren, wrote a book called "Choose Joy Because Happiness Isn't Enough". It's a great book. I highly recommend it. In each of these three theological truths, I'll give you a quote from her book. Here's the first one, and that is, "Joy is the settled assurance that God is in control of all the details of my life". You want joy in your life? It comes from "I don't know what in the world's going on, but I know my God does, and he's not nervous today, and I put my faith in him". Amen, everybody? Here's the second truth. I'm gonna preach us happy today. I wasn't scheduled to be here. I'm gonna preach ourselves happy today, everybody.
Here's the second one, and that is, "When life seems hopeless," like, okay, I'm gonna accept that he's in control, but there's no way to fix this. Oh no, no, no, "God'll work it out". God has the ability to work it out. In fact, let me say it this way. Everybody who's ever been serving God for a number of years, who's had a day, and you said on that day, "Boy, this is a mess, there's no way out of this," and then years later, or months later, maybe even days later, God turned it all around, and you say, "Oh my goodness, God knew what he was doing, and he worked it out". If that's true, say a good "amen" right now. But I couldn't have possibly planted that many people to do that.
That's the testimony of the church, and that's why the church people, faith people, can say things like, "Consider it joy, pure joy, when you face trials of any kind". Well, how in the world you gonna do that? I'm gonna tell you why. 'Cause you know your God's up to something. Because the testing of your faith produces something you can't see now, but it produces something, and the Bible says, "Let it finish its work". Now that's hard to do. It's hard in the middle of it to say, "Okay, I know you're up to something. I know you're gonna work it out, and I can't see it, but guess what, God? 'Cause I'm gonna have some joy. I'm gonna let you work it out. I'm gonna let you work it out". "Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything".
1 Peter says it this way: "Though you have not seen him," like we're... If you ever said, "Where's God? Where's God in all this? Well my goodness, where's God? You know, I don't see God anywhere". I don't know if you ever heard the story about that Russian cosmonaut back in the Cold War that went to space and he was gonna just see if there was a God. He was gonna go to the heavens. He was gonna space walk out into space and see if he could see God. And he got up there, and he floated out in space and didn't see God anywhere, came back in there, reported back to Russia, "There is no God. I didn't see God".
How many of y'all know if he'd have just unhooked that tether, he'd have saw God, right then everybody? It wouldn't have taken long. That's funny, I don't care what y'all say, all right. But we all have those moments, like, "Where are you God"? "Even though you can't see him, love him; and even though you do not see him now, believe in him," and if you do, "you'll be filled with an inexpressible and glorious joy". That takes faith. What faith people do is say, "God, you're in control. You know what you're doing. You're not sweating today like I am. And God, not only that, but you have it all worked out". And the people who believe that have joy on the inside.
"Joy," Kay Warren says, "is the quiet confidence that ultimately everything is gonna be all right". When I was growing up in church, and I don't know if you guys even know this, but the church that I grew up in was predominantly African American, and we sang a lot of black gospel songs. We sang these old choruses, you know, and one of the songs we sang was, "I've got a feeling everything gonna be all right. Oh, I've got a feeling". Come on, everybody. Some of y'all know this song. The rest of y'all thinking that guy is crazy. No, I'm full of joy. I have the joy of the Lord is my strength instead of grief.
Here's the third... I'm trying to help you 'cause we're all goin' face the day. Maybe you're in one right now. And the third one is my favorite, and that is is that when I cannot see God in my situation, guess what, He's still worthy of praise. Look at me, everybody. We are way too, we worship God too much on the condition of how we feel in the moment. "Oh, I like that song. I don't know if I like that song". Listen to me. It ain't up to us. He's worthy of our praise, good day, bad day, raining, sunshine, broke, got money. He's worthy of praise no matter what, and the people who learn how to do that have the greatest amount of joy. I'm trying to help you.
Habakkuk chapter 3, "Though the fig tree does not bud and there are no grapes on the vines, though the olive crop fail and the field produce no food, and there are no sheep in the pen and no cattle in the stall, yet I will rejoice in the LORD," say it out loud, the next words, "I will be". Yeah, I will. Now notice that that is a decision you make, not something you feel. And watch how it ends: "The Sovereign LORD," first of all, he's sovereign. He does what he wants to do. He's sovereign, "He's my strength; and he makes my feet like the feet of the deer," now, that may not make a lot of sense to you. If you're a hunter, you probably know what I'm talkin' about right here. Deer, especially mountain type goats or animals, have real skinny front legs and giant hindquarters.
In fact, in the King James Version, it says, "He makes my feet like hinds feet". The giant hindquarters allows you to scale rough terrain, mountainous terrain, dangerous circumstances so that he doesn't take away the dangerous circumstance, no, no, no, he gives you hinds feet to navigate the circumstance. He gives you, I pray hinds feet over all y'all, said, "I bind you. Don't put that on me and my mountain". No, "He enables me to tread on the heights. For the director of music on my stringed instruments," what does that tagline mean? It means that you find that in the place of worship and worship. You gotta make a choice, everybody, that I'm gonna praise God no matter what.
Now, I'm gonna, you're lookin' at a person who has to make that choice 'cause I'm analytical. I'm wired analytically. I'm wired task, I'm very task oriented. I mean, I dot every I across every T. That's who I am. I'm math-minded. I walk in a room like this and I can see a burned out light before I see somebody I need to say hi to. It's terrible, and I know that. And 25 years ago, Tammy's dad, Billy, who's now with the Lord, he was one of my greatest mentors. He just had the best attitude in the world of any person. And he came up to me one day, and he said, "Can I tell you something that's got a little bit of a challenge, I want to challenge you with something". I'm like, "Yeah, you're my mentor. I can be corrected. Correct me, you know"? He goes, "Now, listen, you've got to get ready for this". I said, "Okay, I'm ready. I got this". He goes, "You have one of the worst attitudes of any person I've ever met".
Well, dear Lord. I said, "Well, I do now". You know what I'm saying? I said, "Are you serious"? He goes, "Yeah". He says, "Just the way you're critical. You're too critical in your thinking. You walk, you got, you're too technical. You've got too much of that". He goes, "I'm gonna help ya". And I probably still have a long way to go. But man, I decided on that day, in fact, it was so funny because about the same time, our kids were very, very little, and we watched a lot of, you know, the children's shows we had back then was either "Barney," the purple dinosaur, or "Winnie the Pooh".
And I'll never forget. I was sittin' with all my little kids when they were just real little, and we were watching "Winnie the Pooh," and I was thinking what a study in human psychology this show is. 'Cause you got this little frantic, nervous, pink piglet, and you've got this know-it-all owl, and you've got this kind of sarcastic kangaroo and you got this very naive Pooh. Everything's fine. You've got this Eeyore that's down the dumps. But brother, you got this other character that shows up on the scene and changes the dynamic of the whole room, and his name is? Y'all know what I'm talkin' about, Tigger. He rolls in, "I'm here"! And then he sings, he wrote a song about himself: "The wonderful thing about Tiggers, Tigger's a wonderful thing. Tops are made out of rubber, bottoms are made out of spring. Bouncy, trouncy, flouncy, bouncy, fun, fun, fun, fun, fun. But the most wonderful thing about Tigger's is I'm the only one. Oh, I'm the only one"!
I mean, he does all this, right? You know what I'm saying? Thank you. I'll be here all day, stop, don't, don't stop. All right, so anyway, all right. Okay, this is an absolute fact. I made a decision that day. I have a long way to go still. But I'm gonna have a Tigger attitude. On both my church office desk, I have a picture of Tammy and then Tigger. It's true. If you came to my office, there's a picture of Tammy, I have a globe for the world, and the Tigger figurine. At my home office, I have a couple of little trinkets in the corner. One of them is actually a cross that's in a jail cell. Reminds me of the persecuted church. It's on my desk right now. Right next to it is Tigger, and it's my daily reminder that joy is not a feeling, it's a choice. 'Cause if you ask Tigger, "You want to go pick apples"? "Sure, that's what Tiggers do best". "You want to go ice skating"? "Sure, that's what Tiggers do best".
I choose it when I come out here. I am not gonna bring to you just, "Oh, woe is me, man". No, I'm gonna bring to you joy, why? 'Cause the joy of the Lord is my strength. And I don't know if you need any strength. I do, and I know where to find it. It's found in my... look at me. It's found in my faith in God, that he's still in control, he's working it out, and even if he doesn't, he is still worthy of my praise. I'm gonna choose, joy is the determined choice to praise God in all things. And if you don't believe it, try it. You tell yourself, "God, I don't know how you got this, but you got this, and I'll probably see you work it out in some way, and even if you don't, worthy is the Lamb. I praise you with all of my heart". Can I get a good "amen," church?
I'm giving you something of value. I'm giving you something that I actually applied to my own life even this week. So as I told you, I'm studying the book of Philippians for a speaking engagement that I have. And I don't know if you know much about the book, but it's what we call one of the prison epistles. So there are four books of the Bible that were written while Paul was in prison. Once again, your Bible is not organized chronologically. It's organized by category of books. So the four prison epistles are in a row: Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, and Philemon. They were all written while Paul was actually in a jail cell. But he was in a jail cell, check this out, because he was on his way to Rome to preach a crusade.
So he probably had good funding. He probably had his worship team. Like, he was ready to go preach a crusade. He was going there to have some fun sharing the gospel to thousands and thousands and thousands of people. And he didn't. He gets arrested, gets flogged nearly to death. He's chained in a dungeon to a Roman guard for two years. He didn't preach a single message. He went there to do that, and all of his plans got interrupted by one of the worst days ever. And then he writes this book called Philippians. And then 16 times in this little four chapter, three-page book, he uses the word joy or rejoice, when all hell was breaking loose in his life, and it gives us this incredible understanding of following Paul as he follows Christ, to see how you can literally have joy in every type of situation.
And I'll give you the three things he gives us just in chapter 1 alone, and the first is, is you have to stop dwelling on what happened. I'm not saying ignore what happened. I'm just saying stop dwelling on it. There is a place, look in my eyes, church, I'm trying to help you right here. There's a place where us fixing something, analyzing something, dealing with something goes to a place of rumination, and depression, and anxiety, and fear that is not of God, and you've got to know where that line is. I'm speaking to some young people. I've been reading a lot about the effects of social media on young people and how the countless hours of things they're seeing on their phones, how it's brought us to an all-time high of depression and suicide. What is that? Dwelling.
And Paul said, "I want you to know, brothers and sisters, that what happened to me," was bad. No, "It actually served to advance the gospel". He had this ability to redirect his emotions from dwelling on it to "I'm gonna think about something else". The prophet Jeremiah wrote an entire book about his bad day. It's called the book of Lamentations. I mean, you can't get more of a sad book than a book that's called Lamentations. And Jeremiah said in chapter 3, "I remember my affliction and I remember my wandering, and the bitterness and the gall.
I remember them well, and my soul was downcast," well, I guess so, "Yet," and I'm calling some of us in this room to a "yet" moment. There's somebody who's been so depressed, so anxious, losing sleep, so worried about something, I'm not asking you to ignore it. I'm just saying we got to stop dwelling on it, "Yet I call this to mind and therefore I have hope: Because God loves me". Maybe that's all I know, but I know God loves me, "And we are not consumed. His compassion's never fail. They're new," by the way, "every morning," which means I'm probably gonna get you good and encouraged for today, and you're gonna need it again tomorrow morning, which is why you're gonna have to get up tomorrow and say, "God, you're in control, you're gonna work it out, and you're worthy of my praise anyway".
And if you don't do that, this message is about good for 24 hours. No, it's new every morning, "Great is your faithfulness. So I say to myself," that's the right kind of rumination, "The LORD is my portion," in other words, I want a bunch of things, but I'm gonna be satisfied with just you as my only thing. If you never give me anything else other than you, you gave me enough. Come on, give God praise if you really believe that. "The LORD is good to those who hope in him, to those who seek him," get up in the morning and read that beautiful Psalm, "it's good to wait quietly for the salvation of the LORD". I'm calling us not to say, "Man, I sure wish. Oh man, that coulda, man". No, "Forget the former things; and do not dwell on the past," why? I'm doing a new thing. I'm gonna bring, "I'm making a way to bring into wilderness streams". I'm just gonna add some life to your life.
Here's the second one, and that is we have to look for the new opportunities. So Paul went to preach a crusade, and he never did a single sermon. Instead, he used his bad day. He goes, "I know what I'll do. I've been trying to get Ephesians done, so I can go ahead and finish that. And I was this close to winning that jailer to the Lord last time that they locked me up, I'm gonna witness to him again". He literally did that. I want to be that person. I want to take the lemons of life and turn it into lemonade.
He says, "As a result," look at it, "it has become clear throughout the whole pal", because I didn't preach, didn't go to Rome and get a crusade, no, "the whole palace guard, everyone else knows I'm here because of Jesus," 'cause he witnessed to him, "And because of I'm chains," because I had one of the worst days of my life, "the brothers and sisters have become confident in the Lord," in other words, everybody else is watching how we deal with our bad days and going, "That inspires me". I love that. I love that. It's people of faith who believe that, "God works all things for the good to those who love him, to those who are called according to his purpose". That's not just great for a picture in your bathroom. That is the truth of the Word of Almighty God. It's true. It's true.
The last one is, is that he adopted this eternal perspective. So he wasn't temporal. I think one of the problems we have is we're so locked into the now, we forget eternity and the light of eternity. 'Cause he says this: "It is true," and he's saying this 'cause they were writing him letters, and they were writing him letters to encourage him, but some were saying, "Oh, and by the way, now that you're in prison, this other church is gettin' bigger. Oh, and this one's even talking bad about you". They were sending him those kind of letters, trying to mess, trying to get him, like prison wasn't enough. He goes, "Yeah, it's true that there are guys out there preaching Christ out of envy and rivalry, and others out of goodwill. The latter do so out of love, knowing that I'm put here in the defense of the gospel. The former preach it out of selfish ambition," so he's saying they're not even good guys, they're not sincere, "supposing they can stir up trouble for me while I'm in chains".
Look what he says next. Like, well first of all I can't do anything about it, and what does it matter? This is in the Greek. It's basically like, "Eh, okay". I just love it. He says, "The important thing is that in every way, either from false motives or true, Christ is preached," what an attitude, "And because of this," I'm one of the happiest people I know, "I rejoice". Why? 'Cause he didn't let those letters that they were writing to him pull him into a deeper dungeon than what he was already in. I love that. I love that a lot. Probably the happiest person I've ever met in my entire life was Tammy's grandmother. We called her Mamaw Hornsby, and she's about 4 foot 7, Cajun as Cajun can be. She'd talk like that, "You know, baby. You so sweet. You so good. Come on, give Mamaw a kiss".
And then she always had this red, red, red lipstick, and she'd bring her lips in. She'd kiss you like that 'cause she didn't want to get her lipstick all over you, although she always did. And she's so funny. When Tammy and I would go visit her when she was living by herself after her grandfather passed away. We'd go over her house, and there would be pictures of just Tammy and me all over the whole apartment everywhere. And I thought, out of all her grandkids, she loves Tammy and me the most. But we went once unannounced, and we found out what grandchild had been there last. She swapped 'em out every time, so funny. But she would not let you have a bad day.
If you ever pouted about anything, Mamaw, she goes, "Oh, Chris, pff, forget about it". And she'd go, "Phew, forget about it". She'd spit on you. I mean, like, it hit you right here 'cause she was so short, you know, but, "Phew, forget about it". She go, "You got the world by the tail. Forget about it". Tammy's dad skipped school in high school one year, and the truancy officer, in fact, they used to have officers just to check attendance like that.
The truancy officer called Miss Hornsby. Said, "Miss Hornsby, do you realize that Billy did not show up for school today"? She goes, "Oh, everybody need a day off once in awhile". Click. I'm not saying we ignore it. I'm just saying we have to choose some joy in the middle of our bad days, right? And you're lookin' at a guy, I'm makin' that choice. I'm not acting like nothing's going on, no, no, no. But I know my God's in control. I know he's gonna work it out, and I'm gonna give him praise whether he does or doesn't. Because joy is real. Real joy, the joy of the Lord is my strength. And God's people said a good amen. Let's pray:
So Father, I'm asking for that joy to be transferred from your Word straight to these amazing people. Because Lord knows what they're facing, the medical diagnosis, tragedy with our children, our marriages, our money, our jobs, God, just our emotions. And I'm asking, God, that these be people of faith who step into that space and choose joy.
With every head bowed and every eye closed, maybe you're here today and you feel a conviction and a drawing to a real relationship with Jesus. Maybe you're already a Christian but you've let it slip away and you want to come back to God. Many of you, maybe in this room, you're kinda kicking the tires of faith. I'm not asking you to join this church, I'm asking you to join Jesus. I'm asking you to give him your life. I'm asking you to surrender the control of your life over to the one who loves you and the only one who can save you. And if that's you, the Bible says you're one confession of your mouth away from that being a reality. And I'm gonna lead you in a prayer, where as long as you believe it in your heart, you can have what you're saying right now. So if that's you, just say these words. Whisper them right there. Send them straight to heaven. Say:
Father, thank you for sending your Son, Jesus, to pay for my sin. Forgive me. Cleanse me from that sin. Jesus, thank you for saving me. I surrender my life completely to you. I make you the Lord of my life. I put my faith in you. I'm gonna live your will, your way. So help me. You're the Son of God who died on a cross and rose from the dead, and I believe. I put my faith in you. In your name I pray, in Jesus's name.
And Lord, together as a family of faith, we give you our praise, amen. Give God all your praise, everybody, amen.