Joy - Week 2

Hey, Go Church family, Pastor Julie here.

I am so excited to be with you in week two as we talk about joy and faith.

And I'm even more excited to be in a room filled with amazing people.

I've got Laura here with me.

Hi, everyone.

We're so excited that Julie is with us today.

I'm here with Pastor Matt Hattubah.

Hey, everybody.

And Gilbert.

Hey, everyone.

Praise God.

I'm trying to be loud because this is joy.

And we're trying to be deliberate about celebrating.

Joy is our nature.

Absolutely.

Joy is our nature.

And we want to learn how to walk in it, how to never suppress our joy, but how to always

increase in the nature of God in our lives.

You see, there's so much that God has put in us and there's so much that God has transformed

us into.

But we could live our whole lives, never enjoy those things, never walk in those things and

never really get to know who we are, you know, get to know who our our true nature is.

So this is what we're doing.

We know we're looking at the second fruit of the spirit, the second character trait,

the nature trait of God in us, and we're learning why it's so important and how we're going

to use the nature of God in us to change our lives and change the world.

So this is part two.

So this is week two out of three weeks of our series called Joy.

This week, we're going to talk about joy in faith.

But before I do that, I just want to recap.

I want to talk about the purpose of the series, and I want to talk about what we've mentioned

so far.

So the purpose of our series is this.

We want the Go Church family to actively participate in the joy of the Lord during the Christmas

season.

This month, we'll be looking at joy by nature, joy in faith, and joy in action.

So if you notice, joy by nature is love, joy in faith is grow, and joy in action is go.

Joy is not a feeling, but it is the outworking of the nature of Christ, which we are called

to live by.

A walk in joy is a walk in victory.

I love that.

That's so good.

We want to walk in victory.

Yes.

And in order to do that, we have to allow the nature of the victor to come out.

So what did we talk about last week?

Just to quickly recap, we talked about the fact that in a nutshell, joy is not an emotion,

and joy is not something that you can lose.

Joy is only something that you can suppress, but really it is the identity of a born again

believer.

It is the nature and the character of God in us when we said yes to Jesus.

Joy is our character because it's God's character.

God is joyful, and his presence is fullness of joy.

God sits in the heavens and he laughs.

Jesus was anointed with the oil of gladness.

The Holy Spirit, when he comes upon us, and when he comes to live in us, and when he fills

us up, we are so joyful that we risk looking ridiculous to the world.

We risk looking drunk to the world.

That is something we see in Acts chapter two.

That is something we see in Ephesians chapter five, verses 18 and 19.

So this week, we're going to talk not only about the nature of God, which is experiencing

the unconditional love of God, but we're going to learn how to grow in that love.

We're going to learn how to see, how to experience joy, and how to connect our joy to our faith

walk and what we really have hope in.

So the first question I do want to ask is, how does joy come?

Obviously, we know that joy is already present when we were born again.

So it's not like we lose it or it appears or whatever.

But when I say how does joy come, I mean, how do we increase in joy?

How are we able to allow that joy to flow more freely?

And the answer, because I like answering my own questions, that's why I'm on a podcast

and not necessarily in a girl group.

But I actually want to read John chapter 15, verses seven through to 11.

John 15 · chapter mention

If you notice, this is familiar to us because we read this last month in our Pray Like a

Champion series.

So just allow me to read this through.

John chapter 15, verse seven.

John 15 · chapter mention

If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, you will ask what you desire and it shall

be done for you.

By this, my Father is glorified that you bear much fruit, so you will be my disciples.

As the Father loved me, I also have loved you.

Abide in my love.

If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father's

commandments and abide in his love.

These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may remain in you and that your joy may

be full.

Wow.

Praise God.

It's a lot there.

Yes.

I mean, in all of these chapters and John chapters 14 through to 17, I call it the Lord's

John 14 · chapter mention

Epistle to the church because there are some precious things that Jesus is saying and he's

not saying it from the perspective of the old covenant.

He's saying it ahead of his death and burial and resurrection.

He's saying it expecting to walk into his new ministry, which is the high priestly ministry

in heaven, whereby he's always praying for us.

He's always revealing his blood to the Father on our behalf.

He's always interceding and helping us and bringing our words before the throne of God

and allowing us to move forward in the things that he has in store for us.

He's saying these fantastic things and here he says, we talk about abiding in him and

him abiding in his words abiding in us and when there's that free flow of unity between

us that we can ask for whatever we want.

The Father is glorified because we receive those things that he has in store for us.

So he's talking to us really about our union.

He's talking to us about the nature of God.

He says specifically that if my words abide in you.

And then in verse 11 he says that these things I have spoken to you so that your joy may

remain in you and that your joy may be made full.

So we see that joy increases when the word of God speaks to our spirit.

The joy increases when Jesus spoke and Jesus is revealing in all the fullness of God the

promises of God towards us.

So you notice that it's very similar to how we receive faith because faith comes by hearing

and hearing by the word of God.

But just in the same way joy increases when we hear the word of God when the word of God

abides in our hearts.

When we're able to really not just think with our minds but have a revelation in our spirit

of that word of God for me.

So let's examine why those two things are connected because that's exactly right.

There's a proportionality there, right?

Faith comes when I hear God's word.

Joy increases when I hear God's word.

Why?

Because joy is the evidence that I believed.

I love when I was reading through these notes that you prepared, I love that statement.

Joy is an expression of my confident expectation that what God said he will do.

And this is a critical aspect for us to first see and then second for us to monitor our

self.

You know the Bible again and again says that we are to take heed unto our self.

In other words, I shouldn't be really looking about you, I need to take a close look at

me.

And if I'm not excited about something, that means I don't really expect it to happen.

If I expect something is going to happen and it's a good thing, then you're going to identify

some expressions of joy about me.

And that statement of this passage here that you just read in John 15 is critical for us

to recognize that joy will act like a meter that I can identify, do I believe what he

said or not?

Yeah, that's really good.

And with what you're saying, I actually want to read Romans chapter 15 verse 13.

Romans 15:13

It says this, now may the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing that

you may abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.

So much hope and believing and joy and you know, what does this all mean?

This is there's so much here.

Let's go back to this first part.

Now may the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing.

Yeah, so that's that hope there.

That's not wishing.

Yeah, that's right.

That's confident expectation.

That's right.

So find expectation.

Exactly.

Absolutely.

We see that joy is connected to hope and faith and those components, it's not a great word

to define them, but those, you know, those things are connected and work together.

And we see what Pastor Matt was saying about joy being a meter of where your faith is right

here.

You know, the God of hope will fill you with all joy and peace in believing.

So when you are believing, you will have joy and you will have peace manifesting in your

life.

So not only is it somewhere deep down as the nature that we've been talking about, but

it will start revealing itself and showing itself.

And we start, we start walking in those things and we start visibly seeing those things in

ourselves when we have faith.

So faith really brings those things out of us.

And I want to go back to what Pastor Matt just said about hope.

Hope is not, you know, wishing or the way we really use it in the English language.

Hope is, Bible hope is a confident expectation of a good end.

So an expectation that this belongs to me, you know, an expectation that even though

I don't see it, I know it's mine.

And I know that that promise or that confidence is because God promised it or because God

is doing it.

So hope is connected to God's promise, which belongs to me, but I don't see right now.

And faith is defined in the Bible as the substance of things hoped for.

So faith is basically what takes hope and pulls it into the now reality.

And joy is connected to both of those things.

And I want to, I really want to present an illustration, which I presented in two years

ago in the message.

And it just helps us think through these different elements to see how they're connected.

So let's say, you know, I was sitting with Roy two years ago and we were discussing this.

Roy really likes guitars.

I mean, this is something he's very passionate about.

And he, you know, he likes electric guitars, acoustic guitar.

So I told him, let's say, you know, we're sitting here, but I told you that I had bought

you the electric guitar that you wanted and it's upstairs.

How would you, how would he react in that moment?

So happy.

He should be right.

Yeah.

But, but he's never seen the guitar.

But he knows that it's upstairs.

But he's not touching it and playing it.

But he knows that he knows that he will.

So like he's confident that what I said measures the reality, right?

Like it is a measure of reality.

So the fact that the guitar is his and it's upstairs, spark something in him.

Right?

So like there's a, there's a response to the hope.

So a lot of, that's the thing.

A lot of believers mix faith and hope up and like, you know, faith will do something to

your hope or faith will do something to hope.

But you know, a lot of, a lot of believers just have hope in something, hope that, you

know, this belongs to me and I will see it at some point in the future.

And in this illustration, so the guitar belongs to Roy and yes, he, he, he receives the fact

that this is a gift.

This is his, my word is true in that situation.

And so he can go up anytime and get his guitar.

Nothing's stopping him.

So in this illustration, faith is the action that he's taking to go up the stairs.

So step by step by step by step, this is the walk of faith because he still takes another

step.

He still doesn't see it.

It takes another step.

He still doesn't see it.

You know, there, there are a few, you know, there's, there's a big staircase between

him and the guitar, but he keeps walking in the right direction.

So faith constantly, consistently takes you in one direction.

Yeah.

Because he believed.

Yeah, that's right.

Because he believes.

So he's consistently going up in, in that one direction.

So faith is the spiritual action that leads to the material result.

And it is something that we consistently do.

So faith is not a one time event, a one time action.

Faith is a walk and faith is something that we do on a regular basis.

Now where does joy fit in?

Joy is, is to me, the way I see it, joy is the bridge between that hope and that faith,

because to go from hope to faith, you need strength.

You need to go up the stairs.

You need to keep exercising your faith.

So joy is the force, the power that will help you exercise your faith.

And the Bible tells us in Nehemiah chapter eight, verse 10, that the joy of the Lord

is your strength.

Yeah.

You know, it doesn't say that the strength of the Lord produces joy.

It literally says that the joy of the Lord is my strength.

So when I choose to walk in joy, then I am choosing to walk in the strength of the Lord.

Yes.

It's a great, it's a great story because you can see some great, it's really, this

is an allegory.

Yeah.

It's, you can see the necessary elements and the two things that I want to kind of highlight

is in order for, in this case, Roy to first be in a place where he's willing to take the

action to go upstairs and receive, take his gift.

And then second, for him to, for us to see those expressions of joy of him like hopping

up and down and clapping his hands and saying, yay, yay, yay.

You know how he is.

Sorry, Roy.

So the thing is, in order for us to see that, it starts with he must believe that what you

say is true.

Yes.

And if he says, yeah, whatever, I know, I know him.

He's probably saying something just to make me, you know, get me excited and he's just

going to let me down.

And that's really how a lot of people treat the Lord because they don't know him.

And they say, oh, I don't know if he'll do these things for me.

Maybe I haven't been good enough.

Maybe he's actually trying to teach me a lesson by keeping things from me.

And none of that can be found in the word of God because that's not what he's like.

But if we don't, if we don't know him, we can't receive from him because the way we

receive from him is by faith.

And so the faith is that action in the allegory that you tell.

Faith is the action that gets you out of the chair and walks up the stairs.

Joy is the strength to keep going.

Everybody that's listening to this podcast has probably already woken up this morning.

But very few, very few of you spent most of your time this morning digging through your

drawers looking for like $50,000 because you don't believe it's in your in your drawers

between your socks.

The thing is, our actions reveal what we believe.

And so joy is an evidence that I have accepted something that I do not yet see as being true.

God's word is true.

But I know I believe it when I get excited about it.

When I have those expressions of joy.

And that is a measure.

And we can see this clearly in Jesus.

Hebrews chapter 12 verse 2 says that for the joy set before him, he endured the cross.

Hebrews 12:2

And coming back to you know the difference between joy and happiness, the cross is not

a place of happiness.

It's a place of sacrifice.

But the Bible says that Jesus went to the cross in joy.

And that gives that that should encourage us because that means that we can go through

places of hardness and through times of sacrifice in joy.

Joy of what?

Something set before us.

And in the case of Jesus, the thing that was set before him, the promise that was set before

him was Gilbert and Laura.

He was so confident that what he would do on the cross would affect you.

He gladly with joy, the strength, it wasn't the nails that held Jesus to the cross.

It was the joy of the Lord in the confident expectation that the work that he was doing

would affect you.

Praise God.

Praise God.

Yeah.

And that same joy is at work in me.

Yes.

That's right.

I want to pick up on something that you were saying about the place of happiness or the

place of joy.

And I want to emphasize that point because we, you know, a lot of time when we say rejoice

and you know what, you might come to one of the believers gatherings and we all get excited

and we take a decision to rejoice, it's like, okay, they're just, you know, they're just

putting it on.

You know, they're just acting like it.

Yes.

That's exactly what the Bible says.

The Bible literally says put on joy.

That's right.

And that is a New Testament practice.

Yeah.

And I want to mention the fact that this, so this is the fact, Jesus could have responded

to what's in his soul, which is probably sadness.

You know, I'm sure he was tempted to fear.

I'm sure he was tempted to, you know, you know, have these, these thoughts about what

he was about to go through and what this is going to feel like.

And hey, he was in a body, right?

I mean, this is something that was a lot of pressure on him.

We saw that when he was praying in the garden prior to that moment, but he didn't respond

to the situation with a soul-based response and emotions-based response.

For the joy that was set before him, he carried it through.

So the joy of the Lord was his strength in that moment to be able to fulfill the mission.

And this is my point.

Sometimes you might react in a negative way and that's a soul response.

And sometimes even though you don't feel like it, you can respond to the situation with

joy and that is a spiritual response.

So we need to disconnect the idea of rejoicing from an emotional response.

This is, like I said, you know, last, in the last podcast, joy produces emotion, but it

is not an emotion.

You know, it is a spiritual nature that we're allowing to come out of us.

And that spiritual nature, when it is flowing, produces strength.

And when it is flowing, allows our faith to manifest.

And we're quickly running out of time on this podcast and we don't want to take a lot of

time.

I do want to say two things.

Before I get to the Bible illustration, this is the one thing I want to talk about.

I want to just point out real quick the letter of the Philipp, you know, the letter of Paul

to the Philippian church.

And in this short letter, Paul talks to the church from a jail cell.

You know, we've already explained the context in the last couple of months.

But then he's talking to a church who's facing severe economic difficulty and they're going

through a lot themselves.

He's going through a lot, they're going through a lot.

And in that letter, he keeps saying, rejoice.

I think he says rejoice 27 times in four chapters.

Praise God.

Yeah.

And yeah, he says rejoice and other times when he doesn't say rejoice, he implies rejoice,

you know, where he's talking about praising and he's talking about just the thankfulness.

And there's so many elements to that.

And what I do want to point out is I want to encourage you just in your own time, this

is not a discussion that we're going to have in Girl Groups, but go through that letter

and look at it from the perspective of where they are in the natural and then understand

what is happening in the spiritual.

And I want to read just this one, one portion of scripture as an example of what I'm talking

about.

And this is in Philippians chapter one in verse 18, starts in the second part of verse

18, Paul says this, and because of this, I rejoice and yes, I will continue to rejoice

because I know that through your prayers and God's provision of the spirit of Jesus Christ,

what has happened to me will turn out for my deliverance.

Glory to God.

So he's saying I rejoice, I will rejoice, I keep rejoicing because I know that whatever

has happened, I know that you guys are praying for me and I know I'm getting out of this

mess.

I love that.

Yeah.

So let's make that practical.

A spiritual response to bad news, a spiritual response to a difficult situation is to rejoice.

Yep.

Let me say that again.

A spiritual response to bad news or a bad situation is to have or make expressions of

joy.

So what are expressions of joy?

Praise God.

Hallelujah.

Yeah.

So praise in my mouth out loud, laughter and dancing.

If you see a child, children make great examples of joyful behavior.

At Christmas time, they unwrap the gift and they get up and they dance around.

They are doing what?

They are rejoicing.

They are being joyful.

They are expressing gladness.

When I get Christmas cookies that Julie makes, I express gladness.

There's an expression of gladness that rejoicing is the appropriate spiritual response because

it demonstrates that I have an expectation that the situation which is bad is going to

change because I have promises from God.

Yes.

And I believe them.

And so the most spiritual thing that I can do when I get bad news is to fill my mouth

with laughter.

Not wait for the situation to change because when the situation changes, then I can have

happiness.

But I can have joy before I see a change.

And that joy releases the strength of the Lord.

Yes.

So with that light, let's go back to the main scripture.

First Thessalonians 5 verse 16 through to 18.

1 Thessalonians 5:16

Rejoice always.

Always.

Pray without ceasing in everything.

So in every situation, in every bad situation, not because of every bad situation, but in

every bad situation, give thanks.

Because this is the will of God and Christ Jesus for you.

I'm not giving thanks for the bad situation.

I'm giving thanks for the answer to the bad situation.

And that answer lives in me.

He lives in me.

The greater one lives on the inside of me.

And if I believe that, it will affect the way I act.

And the way you'll see how I act is on my joy meter.

Praise God.

So the second thing that I wanted to mention in closing, you know, we love closing.

On this podcast, we close a few times.

Paul closed Philippians like three times.

You see?

So I do want to point us to the illustration.

Finally brethren.

I want to point us to the illustration that we're going to talk about this week in our

grow groups.

And what we're going to do is something a little different.

We're not actually going to read a passage of scripture.

Well, actually, we are going to read a passage of scripture.

We're not reading an illustration or stories per se.

But we're going to read a psalm together.

And that is Psalm 27.

There are only 14 verses.

It's not a very long read.

But I encourage everyone in their grow groups to read this passage of this psalm together.

And we're going to look at the context of the psalm.

You know, we're going to look at King David, who wrote this psalm.

You know, was he going through something at the time?

Was he?

Why did he write this psalm?

You know, why did he write the things he did in that psalm?

How does he respond to the bad situation?

And what was he expecting to come out of the bad situation?

So basically, the revelation in the main scripture, 1 Thessalonians chapter five, verse 16 through

to 18.

How did King David apply it to his situation?

And what can we take from this?

And how can we apply what King David did to our lives?

Really we're going to look at Psalm 27 and learn how to meditate in scripture and learn

how to respond to a situation through scripture and in the way that the author of the co-author

of the scripture, that I say co-author because David wrote, but then really the Holy Spirit

wrote.

And so we're going to take that time and really enjoy ourselves and see ourselves in Psalm

27.

Yeah.

Verse 11, teach me your way, O Lord, and lead me in a plain path.

You know, how many of you have ever come to a place of decision?

I'm not sure what to do.

What should I do?

I don't know what to do.

Well, we can just take the 27th Psalm and put it into practice.

This is an opportunity for us in our grow groups to meditate on the word, to chew it

up and take the nourishment out.

And we turn this into a rejoice, rejoicing and a joyful prayer because these are promises

that show us his will.

Teach me your way.

Lord, I thank you that the teacher lives on the inside of me.

The anointing that I have received of you abides in me.

And you teach me, you tell me which way to go, you show me which way to go, and you lead

me in a plain path.

Your path is plain before me.

So I always find myself in the center of your will.

I always make the right decisions because you're in me.

I thank you that I don't go to the left or to the right, but I move forward in your plan.

And I am not touched by the wicked one.

The wicked one touches me not.

No, I stay right in the center of your will.

Lord, I thank you that you are leading me even now.

I might not know everything, but I know you.

What am I doing?

I just took one verse out of the 14 verses in Psalm 27, and I put it in my mouth.

You prayed like a champion.

I prayed like a champion.

Amen.

I ate on for the podcast last week.

Last month, I should say.

But yeah, this is a chance for all of us to do this in our grow groups, dig in and put

the word of God to work in our mouth.

And when we pray like that, if we believe it, we'll know it because of those expressions

of joy.

And so when the thought comes, I don't know what to do.

Ha ha ha.

I do know what to do.

I know exactly what to do because the knower lives on the inside of me.

That's right.

Yeah.

Yeah.

You know, we've experienced these moments where as a congregation, we just start laughing

and laughing and laughing.

My spirit's just celebrating and the promises of God in my brain is like, what are you doing?

And the reality is that, you know, my my spirit knows things and my brain needs to catch up.

Yeah.

And the more you release what's in your spirit, the more your brain can catch up.

You know?

That's right.

Everybody should take some time and just dance and laugh in your bedroom by yourself.

That's very spiritual.

That's right.

And it is a good practice and a way to grow strong in faith because it releases the strength

of God in our daily life.

That's true.

Well, we could keep talking about these things, but I'm looking forward to the Grow Group

discussions and putting this word in your mouth.

And if no one told you yet today, we want you to know that we love you and we're praying

for you.

God bless you.

Thank you for listening.

Go Church Beirut is your place to love, grow and go.

We want everyone to experience the unconditional love of God.

Grow in His love and go with His love to the rest of the world.

On behalf of the entire Go Church family, we wish you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New

Year.