Mix Tape | Week 2 | Pastor Benton Cole | Five Lakes Church

Uh, recently I was going through some closets here at the church.

I felt a little like Indiana Jones, looking for the lost artifacts in the depths of church closets.

Uh, this is one of the gyms that I found the entire Bible, new king James version on audio cassettes, gold embossed.

No, there's only a Genesis through Ruth.

There's many more of these boxes, but you know, I was listening to these tapes.

I haven't seen one of these tapes around for a long time, but these used to be a thing that was around quite a bit.

And we would have mixed tapes.

I would record off the radio and they'd have a variety of different artists and genres and songs.

You never know what would come next on this mix tape, but you knew they would all bring value.

They'd all bring good things.

They were all things that I enjoyed and we trade them around as well.

This sermon series that we're in, we're calling mix tape.

And the idea is we're hearing from different voices, different topics, but every topic is rooted in the scripture relevant to life.

And we pray.

We'll add value to your life today.

Our big idea is this, that the joy of the Lord is the strength of your life.

The joy of the Lord is the strength of your life.

Nehemiah eight 10 says the joy of the Lord is your strength.

You I've thought about this a lot over the last year, the last year, dear, our circumstances have not been conducive to consistent joy, right?

About all the challenges of COVID and of politics and of racial tensions and all the things going on around us.

It's almost as though the world, we're here to steal joy as opposed to give it.

And yet God has called us to rise above that and to continue to be joyful people regardless, he said, the joy of the Lord is your strength.

Now I've been pondering this for a while.

Even the last year we put out, we put out a discussion guide for life groups.

That's available for you on our website.

If you'd like it this summer, I'm doing a series of devotionals on this topic that are dropping on Tuesday mornings on our YouTube channel.

But I've been thinking a lot about this.

How do we experience a sense of consistent joy?

How do we find the joy of the Lord in a more profound way and avoid living joyless lives?

So what unpack that for a little today, I have three thoughts for you today and encourage you.

If you have the service guide or you're online, you can get the sermon notes as well.

You're welcome to take some notes today to encourage you to do so thought.

Number one is this happiness is driven by outward things.

Joy comes from within happiness is driven by outward things.

Joy comes within happiness is a fleeting emotion.

It's anchored in things and experiences.

Give an example.

When, uh, for many years I drove smaller or compact cars.

I'll tell you what, the day that Lindsay and I got our minivan.

Yeah, I know not everyone gets excited about minivans, but man, I love my minivan.

If you put the seats down in the back, it becomes a truck, sort of you put the seats up, you can get about 18 people in there.

I mean, it was awesome.

We got us really excited about it.

It drove happiness within us.

It was a thing.

Experience will also bring happiness.

Lindsay, I love having people in our home for dinner and whether it's family or friends.

I mean, we love cooking a good meal and then being able to sit around and have discussion and talk.

There are things that make us happy, but happiness is a fleeting emotion because it is anchored in those things and experiences and things and experiences by nature quickly fade, right?

That meal is amazing as it is.

It's once in gone and we'll never recreate the exact atmosphere, the exact conversations, the exact quality of the meal, whatever it is that made that a special moment, it will live on in our memories, but it fades pretty quickly.

My minivan, as much as I loved it, when I got it today, 11 years later, it does not drive the same level of happiness within me to get into it.

Believe it or not, kids can be messy, right?

It is not what it once was.

Happiness satisfies for a moment, but never for a life.

And sometimes we end up chasing happiness as opposed to joy.

Sometimes we end up chasing those things to experiences versus something more inward you'll hear.

Sometimes people will say, I just want my kids to be happy.

Now don't get me wrong.

I hope my kids are happy too.

But if my whole parenting strategy is built around, I just want them to be happy.

That's a terrible parenting strategy, right?

Because they get everything they want and nothing that they need.

See when we chase those things, those, those outward things that bring happiness.

Sometimes it can short circuit our discovery of a lasting joy because our focus becomes on all the stuff that's around us rather than the spirit who is within us.

Now, joy is a little different than happiness.

I think happiness is a part of joy.

I don't want to separate those too much, but joy is different decidedly, different than happiness, because it's not driven by those externals.

It's not driven by all the things and all the experiences rather it's discovered internally.

Scripture talks about joy is one of the fruit of the spirit.

This is in Galatians five, starting verse 22 and 23.

But the holy spirit produces this kind of fruit in our lives.

Love joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.

And what Paul's saying here is that when you, when you choose to believe in Jesus Christ, as your savior, the holy spirit comes into your life and then fuels these good things in your life brings them forward.

But man, I wish it just happened automatically.

Like I didn't have to do anything.

And all of a sudden, I just pray to believe.

And all of a sudden these things, all of a sudden magically kind of appear it doesn't often happen that way.

The word that that Paul's using for fruit here in a couple other places, he translates that same word.

Very literally as fruit.

I don't have these verses on the screen, but in first Corinthians nine, seven, he writes what farmer plants a vineyard, and doesn't have the right to eat.

Some of its fruit or second Timothy two, six hardworking farmers should be the first to enjoy the fruit of their labor right now a gift can be given, but it also has to be received.

A fruit can be served, but it also has to be eaten, right?

There's a, there's a give and take here.

And God's blessing is to offer us joy.

But our responsibility is to take him up on that offer.

Now scripture throughout a lot of times, we think about happiness or joy Morrison emotion that we have scripture talks about it more as a choice that we make first Thessalonians five says always be joyful, never stop praying.

Be thankful in all circumstances for this is God's will for you who belong to Christ?

Jesus it pause there for a second.

How many of us think at some point, man, I wonder what God's will is for my life.

He gives us some clue here, right?

Be joyful, never stopped praying, be thankful.

And I think it's interesting when we think about being thankful.

Well, we think, well, I can write a thank you note.

I can tell someone thank you.

I can express my thanks in various ways.

It's a choice I can make.

When we think about being about praying, we think I can pray in the morning when I get up, I can pray at eight in the evening.

When I go down, I can pray throughout my day in my car or different places I can stop to pray.

I can have, I can pray continuously.

But then we think about being joyful.

Well, that's just something that I feel.

What if we looked at it more as a choice that we made, regardless of circumstances, James, one, two, consider it pure joy.

My brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, he said, you're going to find yourself various situations, all kinds of circumstances, including trials.

Hey, you know what?

Consider a pure joy.

When you're in that trial, make the choice, make the decision Psalm one 18.

This is the day the Lord has made.

We will rejoice and be glad in it.

We will rejoice.

This is the day he's made, regardless of what else is going on around me.

This is the day he's made.

So I'm going to choose to rejoice and be glad I'm going to tell myself what I'm going to experience today, how I'm going to encounter the things I encounter.

Now, here's the thing.

Joy is consistently offered to you as a fruit of the spirit.

But I also realize that it's inconsistently received, at least looking around me.

I don't see that all Christians live with consistent joy all the time.

And so how do we go about making that choice?

What does that actually look like in life?

Here's why number two is that outward obedience activates an inward joy outward obedience activates an inward joy.

Now I have a disclaimer and a promise for you here.

Here's the disclaimer, obedience to any new standard is rarely easy.

At first, regardless of what you do, obedience to a new standard, a new rule, a new way of doing things is rarely easy at first.

And for those who it looks easy.

Usually it looks easy because they've done the hard work already.

We bring this to life.

I was hanging out with some, some parents recently and our kids were all running around and it was getting to a certain point in the night.

And I looked at my watch and I brought my kids together who are, uh, fourth grade and seventh grade said, Hey, it's time to just start getting ready for bed.

[inaudible] and they went okay.

And went in the house

Quickly, became aware of the conversation that was happening around me had stopped.

And the other parents who were there looking at me going

[inaudible] how did

You do that?

What kind of Jedi mind trick is going

On here?

[inaudible] and

I said, well, you don't want, you don't see as all the work it took to get here.

And they were like, yeah, you just got good kids.

I said, no, you didn't see when Lindsay for the first five years of their life brought out what she called the keys to obedience.

And we talked with our kids over and over and over again about these keys to obedience.

Now, initially there were like 10 keys to obedience.

It quickly became three because that was easier to remember.

But we said, we would ask our kids, how do we obey?

And the answer was we obey immediately cheerfully and without complaining.

And we'd say, what does immediately mean?

Cause that's a big word for a four year old and they'd say right away for year after year after year, we did the hard work of being consistent with that and teaching them into that way.

And for year after year after year, they would wrestle against it.

And sometimes they do it and sometimes they wouldn't, but we eventually, we got to a place where this is how we operate our family to the point where now we've got a great relationship and that our BDS ends up fueling joy, right?

Because we get the joy of having our kids actually hear an instruction like that gateway for bed and they actually do it.

That's awesome.

And they get the joy of not having parents that are consistently ticked off, right?

It fuel that obedience fuels a sense of joy, but it's difficult at first.

Give me another example more recently here, uh, throughout my life, I'd never had an opportunity to do any kind of strength training.

And so a couple of years ago, I pulled aside a guy here in the church named Marcus who knows a thing or two about this and, and met him at the gym and said, you know, basically teach me, help me here.

And I, I'll never forget walking into the gym.

And I look out and all this equipment there and I'm thinking, what is all this stuff?

Marcus very quickly helped me understand these are torture devices.

I couldn't walk for the next three days.

Try to sit down and try to go upstairs.

That was walking down steps backward, just to try to hit down the steps.

Obedience to a new standard was challenging at first.

And yet as time went on, I began to get a little stronger.

I think the same is true.

When we walk into church and we start understanding things of God, we walk into church and we go, what is all this stuff like?

I, you know, I'm so I'm going to be in service every single week.

I'm supposed to read my Bible every single day.

You tell me I'm supposed to tie there or sing or serve or share being community with others.

Be committed to certain things that I'm not really committed to right now be about community that's happening around me.

You know, I'm kind of an introvert and I'm not so sure about all this new people here at first.

Things are challenging.

At first things are difficult, but what we, what we learn is when we start to, to be obedient to the right things, it fuels a joy within life that did not exist there.

Otherwise.

And this isn't just by chance.

This is by God's design.

See the, if that was the disclaimer, the promises, this, that outward obedience to the ways of Christ will fuel a sense of joy within you because it's how God designed you to live.

This.

Isn't a guarantee from me.

This is a promise from Christ himself, John 15.

He says this, when you obey my commandments, you remain in my love just as I obey my father's commandments and remain in his love.

Now, why is he saying this?

Why is he saying, Hey, obey my commandments.

Just because it's right.

Just because it's good.

Just because it's what you should do.

No.

He says, I've told you these things so that you will be filled with my joy.

Yes.

Your joy will overflow.

He said, if you do these things, if you obey my commandments, you live in the way that I've created you to live.

Suddenly you're going to set yourself up to experience a joy.

That's not just yours.

That's not manufactured by the world or outward circumstances, but you're going to experience my joy within you.

And you're going to experience it to an extent that it's going to overflow from you.

Now, what Jesus is saying here is that obedience enjoy operate in a cause and effect manner, right?

We're we're obedient.

And we experienced joy, which fuels obedience.

Then we experience joy.

And when you're obedient to God, then you experience a joy from God, God, these things build momentum right here.

It takes some time.

Like I said, when we're adjusting to a new set of standards and a new way of living, it's not always easy at first take the topic of tithing when Lindsay and I were young married, we did not have a lot of finances.

And it was a difficult decision to even give what happened was we gave a little bit and then we realized, Hey, that actually felt kind of good.

That brought a little joy.

So we continued to give, and then we realized, Hey, God's actually continuing to meet our needs.

There's some joy in this developing.

So, so we continue to give and suddenly we see, Hey, I'm actually kind of getting excited about the things that are going on here around me.

I saw a bunch of people got baptized the other week and scripture is being teased and preached.

You know what?

Let's try tithing.

Let's get 10% of our income to the church.

And we set that up.

And as we continue to tie those, we continue to be faithful in our giving.

It fueled a sense of joy within us.

We started trusting God in some new ways, just personally, practically.

And we started to see what it was doing to make a difference in the kingdom of God, which just ignited something within us.

CFO, BD to God means pursuing a measure of holiness means applying his standards to your life.

And if joy amounts to some measure of happiness, only deeper and more consistent, then your pursuit of happiness or your pursuit of holiness actually drives your pursuit of happiness.

Your experience of happiness will be found in that pursuit of holiness, where you pursue the things that are holy.

You pursue obedience to Christ.

You pursue purity, you pursue faithfulness and suddenly a fuels, a sense of joy and happiness within your life.

Again, it takes some time to get rolling, but when you build momentum in that, then your life starts to overflow with a sense of that.

So how does this work?

I mean, a lot of these things, when we start talking about obedience, some of them are geared for me, but a lot of them are geared for other people.

When we talk about giving or we talk about serving and environments or being in community with other people, a lot of the things that Christ calls us to be obedient in are actually not geared for me, but geared to help others.

So how does that end up fueling a sense of joy within me?

I'd suggest this a great way to discover great joy is to be a catalyst for great joy in someone else.

Try it sometime you, you do something for someone else and you watch them light up.

You watch it, watch it shift and change their life suddenly.

I mean, he can't help, but make us happy.

It can't help, but fuel a sense of joy within us.

And we don't always get the privilege of seeing that.

We don't always have the privilege of knowing exactly how that pans out, but I'm watching it happen.

I was talking to someone recently was sharing about an experience that they'd had here at church.

They, I, I did not know this person.

They tracked me down in, in Kroger, but they said, you'll never believe this.

This is some things were happening in my life.

And I wasn't sure what to do with it.

And a friend invited me to church and I went to church and you'll never believe this pastor Micah was preaching on the exact same thing that was going on in my life.

How did it, how I don't know how that happened.

And here's the difference it made in my life.

And I've been watching it online ever since COVID.

And now I got family members watching with me and things are snowball.

Well again, that person that invited this person to church, right?

I don't know whether or not they know that story or not.

I don't know whether or not they know what progressed from that moment on, but I know that their invite was a catalyst that God used to create joy in someone else.

And we'll wake in a sense of who is God, the direction that you, that you receive from God, when you're willing to, to allow that in, when you're willing to receive that obedience, it then reflects to those around you.

And the more that you, that your decisions that are driving your sense of joy, the less your circumstances end up changing your set, your experience of it.

Let me say it a different way.

The more your joy is determined by your decisions.

The less it will be swayed by your circumstances.

You start to make the right calls, make the right decisions, make these decisions driven by obedience and suddenly find yourself experiencing a joy.

That's not driven by circumstances, but it's driven by, by choices.

Now, earlier we mentioned the verse.

I mentioned the verse right at the beginning of the message, this from Nehemiah eight, that the joy of the Lord is your strength.

Now that sounds really good.

The joy Lord is your strength, but sometimes we can cherry pick verses out of context.

So let me bring some context to what's happening there.

When this is delivered, the joy of the Lord is your strength.

This, this versus deliver.

This message is delivered right on the heels of a span of time, where God's people have been in exile and captivity.

They've been away from Jerusalem.

They've been away from home and they're coming back to the city of Jerusalem and it's destroyed.

Walls are torn down.

The temple is destroyed.

Homes are in disarray and they go, they set about it in the book of Nehemiah to rebuilding walls in them face of continuing opposition, as just as they complete the walls, they break out the Bible, those first five books of the Bible and they start reading.

And as they start reading, what they realize is that as bad as the physical destruction was around them, as, as bad as the physical brokenness, they were experiencing the spiritual brokenness was there as well because they realize our lives.

Aren't reflecting the things of God within me.

And so they start weeping and repenting and coming back to a place of faith and saying, how do we be obedient to the things of God it's in that context that these verses come Nehemiah eight, nine to 10, then Nehemiah the governor, Ezra, the priests and scribes and the[inaudible] who were interpreting for the P for the people said to them, don't mourn or weep on such a day as this for today's a sacred day before the Lord, your God, this is the day the Lord has made.

And Nehemiah continued go and celebrate with rich fee with a feast of rich foods and sweet drinks and share gifts of food with people who have nothing prepared.

This is a sacred day before our Lord don't be dejected or sad for the joy of the Lord is your strength.

This idea that the joy of the Lord is your strength was not delivered out of ignorance of context and circumstances.

It was delivered in the midst of physical brokenness.

It was delivered in the midst of emotional brokenness.

It was, uh, it was delivered in the most mist of spiritual brokenness to a people who needed God desperately.

And he's saying, you know what?

As you turn, as you become obedient to the things of God, don't stop the, the stop the morning, start applying the word of God, your life and let the world let the joy of the Lord be your strength.

People began to exp follow God's instruction and experience his joy.

And the reality was that this, that outward drunk couldn't shake their inward joy.

When it was anchored in obedience to God in your life, outward junk, can't shake your inward joy.

When it is anchored to obedience in God, things may be tough around you, but there's a God within you.

Who's bigger.

Who's stronger.

Who's faithful.

And whose joy can fuel your own.

Here's a closing thought for you.

I thought number three, the joy of the Lord brings strength to transcend your trials.

The joy of the Lord brings strength to transcend your trial.

Transcend means to surpass the limitations of something there surpass limitations of something you're truly difficult.

Times may call and trials in your life, tend to bring you to the end of yourself in one or more ways, bringing it to the end you to the end of yourself.

Emotionally.

I just, I don't know how to navigate this.

I don't know how to process this.

I don't know what to do with it.

Maybe it's financial.

I don't know how ends are going to meet in this situation, walking through it trial.

And I just don't know how, how I'm going to make ends meet or how I'm going to pay that bill, how I'm going to make that case commitment happened.

Sometimes he can bring us through the end of ourselves.

Vocationally got these job responsibilities.

I'm not sure how to do, or I've lost a job in Metro.

It comes next, or I've got this new job, new environment, new people, new, new bus, new seat on the bus.

I'm trying to figure out.

I just don't know exactly what to do with it.

Sometimes the trial we're bringing it to the end of yourself.

Relationally.

I thought this was a relationship is going to be something that it turned out not to be.

I remember dating a girl in college that I was sure it was going to be my wife till she wasn't got dropped on my head.

And I thought, Lord, this is not what I got in this for this.

Isn't where I saw this going.

Someone a trial will bring us to the end of ourselves, spiritually.

God, I don't know I'm seeking you here.

I don't know what to do with this.

And I, this doesn't, I don't know how to reconcile what's happening around me or what you're allowing by what I'm experiencing here.

Extended bring us to the end of ourselves.

And when we come to the end of ourselves, we tend to deal with that in one, a couple of ways.

I watch a lot of people do that a lot.

When it comes to the end of ourselves, some of us will deal with it with stoicism, right?

As quietly as possible, this little emotion is possible.

We pull back from the people around us and say, don't look at me, I'll handle this on my own.

I'll take care of it.

Don't don't fret.

Don't worry.

I got this.

Or on the floor side, sometimes we deal with it with, with a sensationalism instead with complaining as loudly as possible.

We will all know somebody like this, right?

Who wants us to know every last little thing about every last little organ going on within them?

Who wants us to know every last reason for something that's happened or, or, and we just externally just project a whole bunch of stuff on everybody and anyone who will move and listen here, you're going to hear everything that's going on this bad around them and how they're at the end of their cells.

Most people will deal with things with either stoicism or a sense of sensationalism, but God opens up a third door for us.

That third door is to walk through trials with joy, right?

Not ignoring and not making too much of, but walking through things in a way that your content, where you're satisfied, where you're unflappable and door, number three gets opened by the joy of the Lord and the hope of your salvation.

So your greatest joy today will come from knowing that greater joy lies ahead.

Hebrews 12 puts it there this way.

It says, therefore, since we're surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside and every weight and every sin, which so closely, and let us run with endurance, the race that's set out for it.

Looking to Jesus, setting your eyes, sending your focus, setting your mind, setting your hearts, setting all the, you are on Jesus.

Who's the founder, but not just the founder, the Perfector of your faith.

Who's not going to let you go in the midst of any trial that you walk through.

Who's not going to leave you on your own, but it's going to receive you and empower you to walk through it.

Looking at Jesus, the founder, and perfecter of your faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross.

[inaudible] the shame and is seated at the right hand of the three God.

Now, what was the joy set before Jesus?

Well, it was the hope of salvation.

It was the hope of heaven that we can know as well through placing our faith in him.

But the joy set before him was also you and me, the joy set before Jesus was this idea that you will one day be United with him and sharing in his joy as your, before God, the father mighty covered by his grace, empowered by his spirit and experiencing a joy that goes beyond circumstances and beyond whatever the world can generate and beyond whatever your flesh can manufacturer something only the spirit can bring into your heart and your life.

If the joy set before Jesus enabled him to endure this, the scorn of men, and to be nailed to a cross and to die for our sins, what might the joy set before you empower you to experience today?

What new set of circumstances, what new relationship, what new financial hardship, what new trial might his joy help you to walk through?

Not with, uh, not with, not without confidence, but with a hope under grief, who you are and how you're living with a joy that, that flies in the face of every other reason that you have, where the world looks in on you and goes, what in the world do they have to be happy about right now?

And yet they see in you, the joy of the Lord, think about this via author named Buchanan.

He says all the moments of joy we can imagine and think about the moments of joy you can imagine.

They stack up.

When you think about it, if you took a moment to write them down, if you take a moment to reflect those moments of joy could stack up all the moments of joy.

We can imagine a child coming into the world, rain after the drought, a doctor's report that there's no cancer.

Even finding max at the top of the stairs, wagging his tail.

When you come home, each of them, all of them are little glimpses of heaven.

The joy we feel at those moments is the smallest foretaste, a mere touch on the tongue.

The faintest echo a whisper, grazing the ear of what we will experience in Technicolor and surround sound in heaven.

It will be infinite joy without taint or disfigurements dis sustained for all of eternity, infinite joy without taint or diminishment sustained for all eternity, ponder all the things that are possibly good and awesome in this world.

And they still will pale in comparison to the hope that's set before you in heaven.

So my encouragement is this today, let the joy that set before you ignite the joy, that's set within you to overcome the trials that surround you.

What happens when you live this way?

And I say, when, because it is a decision that we make when God's people choose to live this way, what it does is infuses your life with strength.

It gives you strength.

It gives God glory, and it lets the world around us know that there is a God who is good and loving and able to meet you in the midst of whatever circumstances you're in today.

Choose to pursue the joy of the Lord.

There'll be expressed and fuel through your obedience to Christ.

And I pray that you will discover that the joy, the Lord is the strength for your life.

I pray.

This is encouraging to you, and I hope that you can walk out of the day, choosing joy, remembering those things in your life to be joyful about and allowing that hope of heaven to fuel a sense of excitement for all the lays ahead.

Your best days from now to that day are always ahead.

Let's pray, Lord.

I'm grateful for you for your presence in my life for a joy that you've set within me of salvation and the hope of heaven to come.

And I just pray that it is as we walk through days as Christians, that you would infuse in us a sense of joy that would transcend our, our experience of trials.

That is we're obedient in the little things that you praying much.

Lord, I pray it for, for a strength to, and maybe a knowledge today of where you're calling us to be obedient.

Are there some areas of life right now that they aren't matching up well with what your teachings are?

I pray that you would help us to know where to start, where to be obedient.

And I pray that our obedience would fuel joy and that joy would fuel obedience and obedience.

So it fuel joy and then joy full, more fuel, more obedience.

And in that process, Lord, we discover your joy as our strength to navigate life.

More than that, I pray you discover, help us to discover your joy within us as our strength to navigate life.

Lord, we love you.

And in these moments here, we choose to praise.

We choose to ooze to be your people filled with your joy and walk through our lives in Jesus name.

Amen.

Just staying with us.

I'm going to ask our prayer partners to come forward.

And this is a moment where we are choosing to praise.

We're choosing to close our service, not just with empty words, but with a spirit of joy and gratefulness for who he is and what he's done.

Let's worship him.

Choose to cry

To cool, or[inaudible] nothing can stand again.

I choose to pray.

So[inaudible] when my heart is heavy.

[inaudible]

Our prayer partners will continue to be here for you.

If anything's on your heart, anything on your mind in a, whether it's related to this or not, whatever that is, our prayer part is, would love to pray for you as we close our service.

But let's close with this thought from Romans 15, verse 13.

Romans 15:13

Now may the God of hope, fill you with all joy and peace and believing that you may abound in hope by the power of the holy spirit.

Go in peace and enjoy amen.