Leverage Point #12 - Joy Always Overcomes Worry: Philippians 4:1-9 - Philippians: Joy Leverage

You're listening to the road, Pastor Teacher, Steve Holt.

I would say that one of the great signs of maturity is when things come our way that we have no answers for, or we don't know how to handle, that we could get down on our knees.

Because it must have been filtered through your hand.

What do I need to learn from it?

But God, I give it to you, and I ask you, Lord, to move in a mighty way in this situation.

At the road, our vision is to raise up wholehearted disciples of Jesus Christ.

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We hope you are encouraged by today's message from Pastor Teacher Steve Holt.

Turning your Bibles to Philippians, chapter 4.

Philippians 4 · chapter mention

We are this week and next week going to finish up the book of Philippians.

And it's been a series of love.

I've shared with you from the perspective of this diagram up here many times.

I'll just briefly say again that the thesis of our study of Philippians has been that joy, the leverage of joy, makes everything in life easier.

And so, as you see, if I were to push this fulcrum closer and closer to where the weight is, it's easier and easier to lift.

I can just lift this with a finger because of the way a fulcrum and a lever works.

And my thesis is that the more you and I learn to work, live, have relationships in marriage, dating, enjoy, then the more when struggles come our way we can handle it.

You know, some people just cannot handle problems.

And if you're one of those that struggles with anything that comes your way that's a problem, and you just continually find yourself in depression or despair, I want to challenge you.

There is another way.

There is a kingdom way, and we're finding with cancer, and we're finding with colds and with headaches and with diseases, this is what neuroscience are finding, is that the more we understand joy, the more we understand healing.

Now that's just in the scientific community, they're understanding that.

That when when we walk with worry and we let stress take over, it actually increases negative chemical reactions in your body that cause you to have your immune system brought lower and lower and lower to a point where you get sick.

So a lot of times people who worry incessantly about things are also constantly having headaches and sickness and things like that.

And they're just finding that out in science that it's true.

Well, if anybody, if anybody in Scripture should have been worried and stressed out, it's the Apostle Paul.

When Paul got saved, when he gave his heart to Christ, history would tell us, tradition tells us, that he left his family.

We know in the book of Philippians he's in prison.

We know that he's been beaten times outnumbered.

He couldn't even remember how many times he's been beaten, to the point of being left for death in a couple of occasions.

If anybody should have just been a mess and bipolar, it would be Paul.

And yet, in the book of Philippians, he gives us a secret to joy that no other book in all of the Bible so covers so well.

Anybody struggle with stress, raise your hand.

The rest of you are liars, you know you do.

So I want to talk about the power over worry, the power over stress in our life through joy.

And I wanted to begin with this.

Um, back in 1998, I interviewed my grandmother.

She was 91 years old, and I interviewed her because she was always so happy.

My grandmother, who died at 95, was just one of the happiest people you'd ever meet.

And I just wanted to interview her about what I the interview was what are the most important life lessons?

And she gave me about 12 to 15, I can't remember exactly.

There's actually, they're posted in our house.

But three of them related to stress and stuff.

So I thought I'd just read these before I get into Paul.

Make the most of what comes and the least of what goes.

That a great line.

Make the most of what comes and the least of what goes.

I don't worry about too many things, she said.

Even at 91 years of age, I don't have those worry lines around my eyes.

And then she said this: keep laughing at life.

Being all stressed out and worried does no one any good.

Try being all worried and singing at the same time.

You just can't do it.

So I love my grandmother Lucille.

I can't wait to see her in heaven.

So look at Philippians chapter 4.

Philippians 4 · chapter mention

Lessons, I'm going to call this lessons from Paul on a joy that overcomes worry.

Joy that overcomes worry.

Philippians 4.

Therefore, my beloved, my beloved, note that, underline that, highlight that.

Longed for, brethren, longed for, brethren, underline that.

My joy and crown, so stand fast in the Lord, comma, beloved.

Man, does he love these people or what?

I implore Uodea and I implore Sintici to be of the same mind in the Lord, and I urge you also, true companion, help these women who labor with me in the gospel, with Clement also, and the rest of my fellow workers whose names are in the book of life.

Here's the first point.

What I see here, and this is so crucial, is have joyful relationships in your life.

Paul loved the Philippians.

He says they're calls them beloved twice, longed for brethren, and then there's even a problem with these two women, Eodea and Sentiki, are having some kind of problem, and he's saying, get it worked out.

Get it worked out.

Get it worked out because you need joyful relationships in your life if you're gonna have joy overcoming worry.

We need relationships, men and women, not just our family, but also some other relationships outside of our life that are joy givers, not joy suckers.

Now there's joy suckers.

You guys know that?

There's joy suckers that will just come up to you like a Hoover, a spiritual Hoover vacuum, and as soon as they come up to you, they just turn that vacuum on and they just suck all your joy out of you.

You need a few of those.

Probably good first to have a few joy suckers.

But if that's the if that's the rim you live in, you're gonna just be stressed out all the time.

You've got to have joy givers.

Men and women, we need people in our life that when we're around them, they they give us faith, they give us hope, they give us joy.

And Paul had that.

And I think what he's saying to Sentiki and Yodia, I love this, he says, I implore Uodea and I implore Sintiki to be of the same mind in the Lord.

So listen, synergy of purpose.

Then he asks them in verse 3 to work out their stuff, a conviction, a commitment to reconciliation.

Let me say that again.

I think joyful relationships have to have a synergy of purpose and a commitment to reconciliation.

If you don't have a synergy of purpose, you're gonna be all over the place.

And if you don't have a commitment to reconciliation, you're not gonna work out your differences.

You hear what I'm saying?

Here's what they're finding.

Reading a book right now called The Life Model on Relationships.

Experts say the most powerful force in the life of a two-year-old is the desire for joyful relationships.

Some neurologists say that the most basic human need is to be the sparkle in someone's eye.

The sparkle in someone's eye.

Now, some of us didn't have that.

Some of us didn't grow up in a family where we were the sparkle of someone's eye.

But you need somebody in your life who you are the sparkle in their eye.

And if you're not married, then it's gonna be a best friend.

It's gonna be somebody who believes in you.

You need that, folks.

We need that.

This church is built on relationships.

Our men's ministry, Worshiper Warrior, is built on having blood-stained allies in your life.

We need someone in our life who it's a you're the sparkle of their eye.

And if you're not for your spouse, you need to tell them, I need to be the sparkle in your eye.

Because Steve said so.

Because I think it's in the word.

Here's what I know: if you don't have that, you're the sparkle in Jesus' eye.

And you're his beloved.

He calls these saints in Philippi His beloved twice there in verse 4-1.

But he's saying that because he's experiencing the belovedness of the Father toward him, and you can experience that too.

As part of what I'm going to do on Sunday night, I'm going to talk about how do we get into the str how do we get our roots of our life into the streams of living water so we experience Jesus as our beloved, and that we experience what he already says about you, that you're his beloved.

You're his beloved.

I don't care how many mistakes you've made or how much you've messed up.

He is a God of second chances, third chances, and fourth chances.

That's grace.

That's what grace is.

There's always a second chance.

There's always a third chance.

I posted something on Facebook yesterday, I believe, about who you give your heart to.

You can look it up and see what I said.

And then one of my, an old friend of mine, used to be on staff with me when I was pastor at Mountain Springs.

Said, you know, Steve, you used to say this, I've never forgotten it.

I'm glad he said he never forgotten it because I had forgotten it.

He said, You said, I won't believe what people say about you as long as you won't believe what people say about me.

Really hard to carry a grudge, really hard to be bitter.

If you want to be someone who walks in joy.

In the book, The Life Model, five doctors wrote this book.

I quote, those who get healed from trauma are those individuals who have authentic, joy-producing relationships that can build joy and strength into your life.

Building joy through life-giving relationships is the most often and the most often the first part of all recovery.

So people coming out of trauma need to have joy-filled, life-giving relationships.

Number two, look at verse four.

And this is actually the theme of Philippians.

Rejoice in the Lord.

Always.

Again I say rejoice.

Rejoice in the Lord.

Say it with me.

Always.

Again I say rejoice.

It doesn't say rejoice in your circumstances.

It doesn't say rejoice in your crummy marriage.

It's not saying rejoice in your cancer.

It's not saying rejoice in whatever it is that's so hard to rejoice in.

He's saying, take your eyes off that and rejoice in me.

Rejoice in the Lord.

What he has done.

That may be why I like the hunting fish.

Nobody knows that I like to hunt fish, right?

So we were bear hunting a week ago.

But there's something about solitude, and there's something about silence that causes me to rejoice in the Lord better.

Because I'm not thinking about stuff.

I can't get self-service with the kind of places that I go.

And I just think about God and it makes me happy.

I get happy in the wilderness.

I'm a happy wilderness man.

Only thing I don't like about that old movie Jeremiah Johnson, he seems always so sad.

You know, it's like, dude, but you're in the wilderness.

You get to be a wilderness man.

Be happy.

Rejoice in the Lord, gang.

Rejoice in the Lord.

He says, always.

It must be possible if Paul said always.

Richard Warmbron, Romanian pastor tortured for his faith in Romania and his belief that communism and Christianity were incompatible, continuing to preach the gospel under atheistic rule in Romania back in the 60s and 70s.

Said this.

There I was, alone in my cell, cold, hungry, and in rags.

But I danced for joy every night.

Sometimes I was so filled with joy that I felt I would burst if I did not give it expression.

Imagine that.

He was the one who was the founder of Voice of the Martyrs with great ministry, remembering the martyrs across the globe.

He rejoiced in the Lord.

He wasn't happy to be in rags and to be hungry and to be cold and in a prison cell.

He was happy to be a Jesus disciple.

He was excited that he was under the blood of Christ.

He was excited that through his life God was going to do something good.

Something awesome was going to come out.

He saw miracles.

If you've read his story, he saw people healed, he saw people delivered.

He was a mess to the communists while in prison.

Because he just kept bringing the kingdom, bringing the kingdom, bringing the kingdom under the worst of conditions.

You may know that in Eastern Europe at that time, for you that remember, Romania was one of the worst in the persecution of Christians in the church.

And Richard Wombron lived it out in a powerful way.

Delight yourself in the Lord, and he'll give you the desires of your heart.

Delight yourself in the Lord, and he'll give you the desires of your heart.

What does that mean?

I don't think it means I need to start delighting so I can get the desires of my heart.

That's the way a lot of Christians, I mean, I listen to him and I go, that's really what you're saying.

It's I'm going to delight in the Lord so that I can get the desires of my heart.

Now here's what I think it means.

I think you don't even know what the desires of your heart are until you delight yourself in the Lord.

You don't even know what the desires of your heart are until you start delighting in the Lord.

In other words, you don't even know what's good for you.

I know I don't know what's good for me, but when I start delighting in the Lord, I start to discover new desires because in delighting, he starts to put his desires into my heart, and then he gives me those desires.

Isn't that cool?

So first, you need joyful relationships.

Second, rejoice in the Lord always.

Look at verse 5.

Let your gentleness be known to all men.

The Lord is at hand.

Vulnerability.

He's saying, be vulnerable.

Let people know your worries.

Let people know your struggles.

I believe vulnerability is one of the greatest routes to healing that God has given us.

It is the most misunderstood and one of the most missed in the church of anything else.

I mean, psychology's discovering better than the church how powerful vulnerability is.

And if there's any family or any group where we should have discovered this a long time ago, it's the church.

And he has.

Paul has 2,000 years ago.

He's saying, look, let your gentleness be known to all men.

In other words, let people know of your worries.

Let people know of your struggles.

Men and women, we need that, especially you men.

Because we're so cool and calm and strong and independent.

Everybody knows that except your spouse.

Because here's what I know about men is when you look in the mirror, you see weakness.

And you see shame.

And so you cover it up with all these things that we do.

We bluster, we brag, we pose, and we pretend.

I'm telling you, if we can break that power, you can walk into wholeheartedness like never before.

And that begins with vulnerability.

Vulnerability with other men, women, vulnerability with some other women in your life, where you can share.

So you're not carrying that.

You're not constantly carrying that.

Let's quit playing the game of this world.

And let's start walking in the kingdom processes that God has for us.

Vulnerability.

Interesting that a national task force studying how students grow in their faith.

This is a really interesting insight.

A national task force studying how students grow in their faith found that the single most important factor is having authentic relationships with a godly teacher, parent, or adult where they can share their heart.

Don't miss that.

That's important for Ethan and Deborah, that's from Ryan and Amanda, those that are working in the youth ministries of our church, that they begin to develop relationships with godly pastor, a godly teacher, a godly parent, godly adults.

It's interesting, I just saw something that Anna, my daughter, sent me this week, which was a statistic on millennials and stuff, and it was in it, I can't remember it exactly.

Anna might remember it better than me, but it was something like 81% of all of those in their 20s want relationships with their parents as one of the most important things in their life.

So you may think that when they go to high school that you're not valued anymore, and it's now peers, that's not, that's actually not true.

That our kids are longing for relationship with us, not only in the early ages, but even as they grow older.

They want that relationship.

So I want to challenge you as parents that you would be open enough to the vulnerability of your kids as they're growing up so they can share stuff with you.

If they're struggling with porn, if they're struggling with uh drugs, if they're struggling with um masturbation, if they're struggling with some of these areas like that in their life, that they can come to you and talk about it.

Not their locker mates on the baseball team.

You guys hear what I'm saying?

Go like this, if you hear what I'm saying.

Because that vulnerability builds trust.

Now, if you hammer them, if you then hammer them, then that's not good.

But learning to have grace and love for them, just like you would want it in your own life.

Be anxious for nothing.

One of our famous, probably most popular verses in the world.

Be anxious for nothing.

We all read it, but we don't, we just don't do it.

Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving, let your request be made known to God, and the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds through Christ Jesus.

Number four, take your worries to God in prayer with a thankful heart.

Super hard to do.

Super hard to do.

Really hard to do.

Very difficult to do because we just get those worries and we get those stress points right in our face, don't we?

And to be able to pull back and say, I'm gonna take it to prayer.

I'm gonna take this to prayer, I'm gonna pray for that person, I'm gonna pray for that issue with a thankful heart is a sign of great maturity.

It really is.

I would say that one of the great signs of maturity is when things come our way that we have no answers for or we don't know how to handle, that we could get down on our knees.

Say, God, I don't understand all this, but I'm gonna thank you for it because it must have been filtered through your hands.

What do I need?

To learn from it, but God, I give it to you, and I ask you, Lord, to move in a mighty way in this situation.

Start practicing that, and peace will come.

Practice that and peace will come.

I love the story of Paul and Silas in Acts.

About midnight, Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns of praise to God.

Remember, they're in prison, and the prisoners are listening to them, and suddenly there came a great earthquake, and the foundations of the prison house were shaken, and immediately all the doors were open and everyone's chains were unfastened.

There's something powerful about taking praise and taking prayer to the Lord in the midst of a situation that seems impossible.

We'll know that the Holy Spirit's really coming upon the road when we start having a few earthquakes.

We need a few earthquakes around here.

Because that same God who did that, he could do it again.

He could do it again.

And as we started worshiping him and we start giving him our concerns and our worries, God wants to shake the fourth dimension.

That's what I think happened.

I think it was a fourth-dimension shaking that affects the three-dimensional world.

It was a fourth-dimensional shaking through prayer and praise that shook and took and was felt in the three-dimensional world.

Man, wouldn't that be exciting?

That God, God, we want to be a church that's shaking the fourth-dimensional world so that the three-dimensional world is affected by it.

That's what worship's all about, gang.

When we get done here and we go into worship, may the worship of Michael and his team shake the fourth-dimensional world as you are gathered into it and it affects the three-dimensional world.

I believe God gave me a word for our afterglow time.

And I'm going to wait until afterglow at the end of the service to share it.

But God is going to shake the fourth dimension in praise and worship today that's going to affect some of you in this three-dimensional world.

It's the power of prayer, it moves mountains.

Finally, brethren, verse 8, whatever things are true, whatever things are noble, whatever things are just, whatever things are pure, whatever things are lovely, whatever things are of good report.

Think he's trying to make a point here?

If there's any virtue, if there's anything praiseworthy, and in my Bible, I've underlined, meditate on these things.

And the things which you've learned and received and heard, and you even saw it in me, these do.

The God of peace will be with you.

Meditate on these things.

Lastly, renew your mind with beautiful things.

Boy, what could happen in our lives in the area of joy if we meditated more often on beautiful things?

Beautiful words from people, people who loved us, people who care about us.

Maybe even saying thank you.

I mean, guys, most of you don't even know what it takes to just pull off a Sunday service.

90% of everything that happens around here is not by paid staff.

It's by people who just came and they set up communion so beautifully, and they have all the food out there, and everything's beautiful and clean, and on and on I could go, and your children are being watched, and the youth stuff's gonna happen this week because of people who just are beautiful.

They're just beautiful people.

Nobody gets paid for Outlier University.

These guys are teaching.

They're just beautiful people.

And you're beautiful.

Look to your neighbor if you know them or not and say, I am beautiful.

Say it again.

Say, I am beautiful.

Say it again.

I am beautiful.

You are, you're beautiful, you just don't believe it.

People who can't walk in thinking about beauty are usually people who don't think they're beautiful.

You are, and there's so much in each one of you that was uniquely crafted by God before the foundation of the earth that he placed in you that nobody else has.

And I'm not talking about just your outward appearance, I'm talking about your inward heart and your talents and the way you think and your ability to memorize and your ability not to memorize, and your ability to work with stuff with your hands, and your ability not to work with stuff with your hands, the ability to think ahead, to think to plan, strength of your body, strength of your soul and your mind.

It's all given by God.

You're beautiful, you're a son and a daughter of the kingdom.

And we let worry come and just eat away our immune system, and it's killing us, it's killing us in our country.

We gotta stop that.

There has to be a difference in the church.

There should be a difference in the church, there should be a difference in kingdom living.

We should be different than everybody else.

That our life is our witness, not just our words.

But the way we conduct our relationships of loving our neighbors, ourselves, and and even loving our enemies, being able to reconcile.

I love John 15.

John 15 to me is one of the best passages in Scripture.

Jesus said this, Abide in me and I in you, as a branch cannot bear fruit of itself unless it abides in the vine.

So neither can you unless you abide in me.

And so prove to be my disciples.

Just as the Father has loved me, I have also loved you.

Abide in my love.

Now listen to this.

These things I have spoken to you so that my joy, so that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be made full.

Let me repeat that.

I've said all this.

And he and I can read you the whole John 15, but he's basically saying, abide in Jesus, abide in the word, abide in godly relationships, love, and you'll have joy.

You'll have fullness of joy.

Fullness of joy.

Fullness of joy.

So then he says, All these things I've said to you, that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be made full.

Not just joy, but fullness of joy.

Man, I want that.

I want to be healthy mentally, emotionally, physically, and spiritually, and everything in science, everything in the medical community, everything in the Bible says that's true.

Jesus wants you to be walking in abundance.

He wants us thinking well.

He wants creativity all through his church.

The best artist in the world should be coming from the church.

The best and most powerful entrepreneurs should be coming from the church.

The best doctors, the best mechanics, the best engineers should be coming from the church.

Because we're tapped into the power and the anointing and the work of the Holy Spirit in our minds and in our hearts.

And yet the opposite is often true.

Because what we've done is we've hammered people and hammered people that it's all about your outward behavior.

No, it's about your inward heart transformation.

God can take care of the outward behavior.

So we walk around going, oh, and pointing fingers and stuff, and it's like, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait.

Calm down.

That's only a symptom of something.

That's only a symptom.

That's like a person's got cancer and they have lesions on their skin because of the cancer, and then we treat the lesions on the skin.

That's stupid.

We go after the cancer, don't we?

That's inside.

You can't see that.

So that's what demons do.

So, God, I believe in this day and age is bringing forth kingdom work that could affect cities for God.

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