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Podcast 25 - Joy
34 Plays2 days ago
Join us as we discuss where true joy comes from
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Transcript
Welcome Back to the Grove Hill Podcast
00:00:10
Speaker
Hey everybody, welcome back to our time here together on the Grove Hill Podcast. Had a lot of fun doing this, and actually you ran into a few people this weekend at church. You said they actually listened to us. Sweet. Look at there, we got a following of at least three people. Viewers. Fantastic.
What is Joy in Christian Life?
00:00:24
Speaker
Yeah. Hey, I want to touch on something that's a central part of who we are as Christians, as Christ followers. Really, really important. We want to talk about a three little word that carries so much weight.
00:00:35
Speaker
joy um Today we want to talk a little bit about why Christians should have it, why we don't have it, and what we can do to get it back. I think it was you it was talking about today, the earlier staff meeting. You said, you know what, if you run into a Christian who has joy, tell them to remind their faith. That's right. then yeah Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So we run into a lot of people who just don't know what joy is. Yeah. um Don't know how to maintain joy in their life.
00:01:00
Speaker
So let's start with this question. When you hear the word joy, what do you picture? What comes to mind for you? So I think the world's opinion of joy would be like like constantly happy, like happiness. But I think it's more of like ah peace in all things. And so even if things are going bad or wrong, ah you still have a way about yourself that is okay with the outcome because you know that everything's going to work together for the good.
00:01:25
Speaker
There's some people that come to mind. i know you probably think the same thing. There's certain people that they just, you know, they draw to your mind whenever you think of the word joy. But whenever i think of joy, ah specifically, I think of somebody who is steadfast and they have the right filter even when tough stuff comes. yeah It's not the the temporary thing. It's very much so ah steadfast. And I feel like like just along along those lines is stable in emotion, right? Because you could have someone who's experiencing something really heavy and they just crash out like instantly and they stay low. yeah Where other people, they they consider what the Lord might be doing in their life through this situation and they never lose that like hope. They never lose that the demeanor about themselves that says, hey, I follow Christ, it's going to be okay. yeah yeah yeah
00:02:14
Speaker
So a couple of things that joy is not, just so we're clear.
Joy Anchored in Faith: Insights from Philippians
00:02:17
Speaker
Joy is not constant happiness. Hmm. or even an upbeat personality. Those those are good, those are nice, but and they're obviously very attractive, but they're not necessarily joy. Joy is not pretending like life doesn't have bad moments, like that everything always goes your way, or ignoring that you're going through trials. Joy is, as both of you have communicated, it's ah it's a set subtle confidence that comes from knowing who God is and what He is capable of doing in your life regardless of your circumstances. One of the best books in the Bible, talks about it all over the Bible, but one of the best books in the Bible is the book of Philippians. Sure. Joy, as it talked about, Paul tells us this whole story of rejoice in this and rejoice in that and count it all joy and all those kinds of things. And the irony of it is that he's writing this book sitting in jail, writing it in prison. So obviously Paul didn't believe it to be a set of circumstances. It was about something different. It was about really truly being anchored in the Lord in all things. So let's talk about why it's important that Christians have joy.
The Role of Joy During Trials
00:03:26
Speaker
Okay. I mean, obviously the Bible tells us you should have joy, but as we live and walk out our lives in a fallen world, why is it so important that we have joy for, for our existence? uh the world is watching um and if we if they if i say i follow christ and yet my whole life is just misery and miserable and i'm complaining and all those types of things uh it's not an outsider's not going to look and say hey that's what i want right misery right um but they will look at someone who is steadfast uh who who is stable and say man they're going through a lot of things but man they still have this hope and this joy about them through it no
00:04:05
Speaker
i think yeah I think it portrays this thing of longevity. ah that People want something that sticks. um and And a lot of times we just, it's blips, you know, of people's highlights.
00:04:17
Speaker
But man, people want something that sticks and goes the the long distance. And I think that that's what joy is, is something that goes way beyond the circumstance. I heard a speaker recently, he made this great point, i and I really hadn't thought about it this way.
00:04:32
Speaker
The world obviously is watching us. And when we are upbeat and have joy and happiness in all the good situations of our life, that's one thing, but that's not really a demonstration of true joy. That's ah that's more of the happiness angle. And when people desire that,
00:04:48
Speaker
out of us because they see that and us being blessed in those regards, what they're really desiring isn't God, they're desiring the awesome feeling that they see coming out of us. And that becomes an idol. right They pursue the wrong thing. But when a Christian is steadfast and rock solid walking through trials like Paul sitting in prison, they go, you shouldn't be acting that way.
00:05:09
Speaker
There's something different. And they desire God rather than the circumstances. So joy is actually more important in the low points of our lives, more important during those difficult seasons because of the testimony it gives what like God does in a
A Personal Story of Faith and Joy
00:05:25
Speaker
person's life. Right. At eight months old, we found out Noah had to have spine surgery. And it's pretty daunting, right? You're eight months old, one going under, two going under the knife, and then surgery on his spine. And your first baby. And our first baby. And so my wife and I, as soon as we found out, we just said, hey,
00:05:41
Speaker
he's in the Lord's hands, right? Like we can't control this. And so we're going to, we're just going to have peace about this. And I walked into my office at the place I was working at that point yeah and told the ladies, they responded like he had already died. Like that's how their mindset was going into this was just this like burdened, uh, sorrow and this, and I'm sitting there going,
00:06:04
Speaker
i'm a I'm okay, right? Not because of me, but because the Lord has my son either way. And so there's like that, the mindset of um following the Lord and being okay with the outcome changes your whole demeanor. I felt like I was the stranger in that place because i was kind of like, hey, you know, we're going to pray him through the surgery. yeah And they were just like, man, he is sorrow, you know?
Cultivating a Relationship with God for Joy
00:06:31
Speaker
Yeah, I think too on this journey of you know the the world's look in on, hey, what are those Christians going to do? What's going to be their resolve? What's going to be their go-to? And again, I think the consistency, I think it's this matter of we have to look different. And so even as a believer, sometimes we have to remove ourselves from, okay, we got to work on this, work on this, and we got respond like this. no.
00:06:57
Speaker
Just work on this, you know the relationship with the Lord. Sit at His feet. you know Scripture says ah things about the joy of our salvation. right If we're saved and we've been saved from ourselves, from a sinful way of life, that should be motivation enough. For sure. yeah that You were brought from death to life. Yes. that That draws you into whole new modes of living.
00:07:21
Speaker
In a world that has constantly grown angrier and more divided and very anxious, I think joy stands out even more broadly than ever before. And people want to see that kind of stuff. It actually truly is a supernatural thing because you don't do it on your own. yeah you know um people ask me for a long time after the death of my wife and son, you know, how did how did you hold on to your joy? And I'm like, you know what? You don't hold on to joy. Joy holds on to you. You know, you just, you don't have the strength to do it.
00:07:55
Speaker
um it's It's only by the power of the Spirit in you. And I think, Back to our question, you know why Christians should have joy. One of the reasons joy is important is because it's the evidence that you really do have the Holy Spirit. yeah right Because without the Holy Spirit, you're trying to you're trying to do the backstroke in a hurricane. right now That was pretty good. That's a good one. I kind of like the joy holds on to you better. but that'll We all have our favorites. Talk about this.
Joy and the Gospel's Transformative Power
00:08:22
Speaker
The reality of the gospel.
00:08:25
Speaker
Why should that give us such great joy? I think I've touched on it a little bit, but the fact that it changes your your ah destination, um that should be enough. But the joy of the gospel is that it's more than just you. It's more than just just the picture of you, yourself, and you know whatever is in your sphere.
00:08:48
Speaker
And to me, the fact that the gospel can encompass the entirety of the world and walk through all the the horrific things that we see going on in the world, like that God can change the perspectives on all those things. Like that's a great motivation and a hope for myself. Okay. So let's, let's get real honest here.
00:09:09
Speaker
Why is it that so many of our Christian brothers and sisters can't show joy and seem to lack joy? What is it that's going on in their head and their heart that keeps them from seeing it?
00:09:23
Speaker
Crickets? They i wore the wrong pants. They're a little too tight. I think, and and i'll I'll speak... to this and and there's times to where um i get it we're all at varying stages of our faith and sometimes it's hard for me to have expectations on certain people but there are some people that have been in the faith for a long time that are equipped with knowing who god is knowing what god's done for them and they're still sour as ever and it ticks me off
00:09:55
Speaker
Because what right do you have? I mean, God invited you in on this relationship and this walk. You should have no other response than humbleness and sitting at the feet of Jesus. Not saying you can't have an opinion, but my goodness, like to live in the doom and gloom, joy is the changing of a filter in your life. It's the way that you look at circumstances in a new light. And as it brings things into your life, yeah you don't get the things that you used to get.
Challenges to Experiencing Joy as a Christian
00:10:25
Speaker
So let me throw some ideas at you of some things that I think of when I say you know people who who are Christ followers. In fact, I don't doubt that they're Christ followers, but why don't they have the joy? I think one of them is we confuse comfort with joy or blessing with joy. yeah Okay? Speak to that a little bit. what ah oh James 1-2. Consider it pure joy, my brothers, when you suffer yeah trials of many kinds. And it doesn't make sense to our human brain, um but it says because the testing of your faith produces perseverance, right? And so there's there's there's um a positive outcome to everything that we go through as long as we are followers and lovers of Christ. And so in those heavy times, we can still
00:11:12
Speaker
considerate joy, which is an interesting concept for our mind to understand because it's not a worldly mind. And I think that might be one of the disconnects for Christians is, is this Christian heavenly minded? Yeah. Or are they earthly minded? Because I can still proclaim to follow Christ, but still hold on to the image of this world. And then i'm I'm dividing my identity of who I am. And so it's, I think someone who's heavenly minded that says, you know what, this world isn't my home. So whatever I encounter here,
00:11:41
Speaker
So be it. ah my My destination is the presence the Lord. awareness and involvement. like obviously God doesn't want us to be like, you know, like, you know, stay totally ah unaware of the things that are going on, but he's saying, where are you involved? yeah And sometimes that point, you know, i I've hit this the last few months because it's stuck with me. Matthew 6, 33, like, I love a friend of mine who has mentioned this, like kingdom citizenship. Are we looking forward to that? Or are we looking into being involved involved in the citizenship? We are here. Right.
00:12:17
Speaker
We've just got to be more keen on the mindset. The the car, the Yes. Are those things taking our focus? Yeah, definitely. Which those things will steal your joy. It's interesting if you go back and read the 27 books of the New Testament, you can kind of...
00:12:29
Speaker
you can kind of see this theme. It's almost like Jesus knew us. Whoa, really? Yeah. Not only did Jesus talk about it in the four Gospels, but Peter, you just mentioned James, Paul, all talk about suffering, not suffering in spite of joy, but suffering along with joy. Yes. You know, right in the middle of it, 2 Corinthians 6.10, he says, Paul says, i'm am sorrowful, yet always rejoicing. Mm-hmm.
00:12:53
Speaker
And that is so foreign from the normal human concept. Man, when we when we suffer, we we all want to be like the donkey, Eeyore. You know, woe is me, and I want everybody else to feel my pain, and if you don't feel my pain, you're so inconsiderate. And it just, I don't i can't fathom it. yeah I used to be able to, but now I'm looking back and going, man...
00:13:15
Speaker
God's secured so much in my life. i ah Joy gets its brightest effect in the the circumstances that aren't so great. Yeah. It's very good. I mean, back to James, um if if we're heavenly minded, no matter what happens here on this earth, our focus is still yeah Christ, right? And so if our goal is the house and the house gets repossessed or foreclosed, then our that then our joy goes with that, right? Right. But if our goal is heavenly minded and we lose the house, our joy still is our eyes focused on him. Right. And so it's highly possible to have joy through tumultuous situations. um your Your focus just has to be on Christ in heaven.
00:14:01
Speaker
Another reason we, as Christians, don't have the joy we need, constant negativity brought into our lives. Mm-hmm. Social media. Movies. Movies. TV.
00:14:13
Speaker
TV. Friendships. Friendships. That we know are not good for us. um ah you You and I both know several people in our immediate circle who cannot seem to see what God is up to because they're always looking at what man has done. Right. Mm-hmm.
00:14:28
Speaker
and it just they're worried about the future they're worried about their past they're worried about what's happening in tomorrow they're worried about things they don't even know about what what am i missing uh i think fomo fear of missing out is a real thing in this world today causes us to have great anxiety and despair and and the thing is if we if we sit and allow ourselves to soak in that stuff there's no room for the scripture right there's no room for the joy of god um and so i think that's that's a second one a third one David talked about this in his story.
00:14:59
Speaker
Hidden sin in our lives. That sucks joy faster than anything else. yep Because when we know who we should be, yeah but also know who we really truly are, yeah we man we we know what's going on. yeah yeah We know what's up.
00:15:15
Speaker
yep Right. And we see that time and time and again when we walk alongside people, not all the time, but sometimes there are those markers. And as you start to unravel the onion, so to speak, in the person's life, and even in our own life, like there will be things where you will see in in my stage as I look back on my life, maybe I doubted it because in a way I'm doubting the sovereignty of God. And I would say that for some joy suckers out there, that you are going down a path of literally doubting the sovereignty of God. If you're worried and you're so earthly minded,
00:15:53
Speaker
what does that say about you and your connection and relationship with God? To me, there's a disconnect there. yeah yeah And then on the sin problem, back to those conversations we have with people, um it's it breaks our hearts.
00:16:05
Speaker
And we just want people to realize that, man, if you bring those things out into the light, If you make aware of those things so that God can deal with them, ah man, he opens up a whole new amount of grace and forgiveness that can restore to us that joy. I shared this in a sermon before, um but there was ah a s sin in my life and I confessed it before the Lord.
Practical Steps to Cultivate Joy
00:16:30
Speaker
hundreds of times, but the feeling still wasn't going away because I hadn't confessed it to my wife. Right. And I remember approaching that like three weeks period and and Kelly identified it and she's like, Kyle, what's wrong with you? I'm like, nothing's wrong with me. I'm good. Nothing's wrong I'm good.
00:16:44
Speaker
Becoming more ill and more ill and more ill. No no joy, no happiness. I couldn't enjoy anything in life. yeah until the moment that i revealed that to her once i revealed it to her i walked away a different man and not for the fact that things got easier in fact we went through a ah difficult time at that point but the hidden sin was gone now and i could be more real i was able to enjoy life i was able to be happy i was able to have that joy and it all had to do with me hiding something from someone who's really close to me that's good one other one um and we we talk about this off and on in our culture today but it's ah it's become a huge huge problem in so many avenues of life uh our loss of gratitude for what god does do for us interesting you know that entitlement mentality And the funny thing is, bringing in the history here, it goes all the way back. I mean, obviously it goes all the way back through mankind, but here in our country, it goes back to the Constitution.
00:17:41
Speaker
that That thing where it says everybody's got a right to pursuit of happiness, we think that says it guarantees a right to be happy. yeah There's a big difference between the two. Your freedom is given to you so you can pursue things that you think will bring you joy or peace or happiness or stability. there's no guarantee that you're going to be happy. No.
00:18:00
Speaker
There's no guarantee that you're going to have anything in this life. Your rights as a follower of Christ end when you become a follower of Christ. Right. That's what Bible talks about Luke when he says, you you're going to have to lay down your life, put things to death. um So, you know, simple question, when was the last time you thanked God for simple things? Yeah. Sure.
00:18:20
Speaker
including counting it all joy when you face trials. Scripture uses gratefulness or thankfulness in many different ways to solve a lot of different anxiety, depressions that we have. And so if you look at Colossians 4, verse 6,
00:18:34
Speaker
verse six it says do not be anxious about anything but in everything by prayer and petition with thanksgiving present your requests to god and so it's literally saying the the the solving factor of anxiety is to thank god for the things that you do have right and so same thing with same thing with joy uh we can make a long list of things that we wish were better in our life but it's all earthly minded right if it's heavenly minded we can come up with an eternal list of things to be grateful for. And those things, when you focus on those things, bring joy. That's good.
00:19:07
Speaker
Yeah, I probably think of this, um my wife would say, Babe, I love you, but you are like, you contemplate all the time. Like, man, God's done all these things. I mean, I've got this ah picture thing in my ah kitchen now, and it shows all the pictures of like the last 10 years. And not just my family, but you know, the umpteen list of things that I could go down and I'd i probably go down and get a little weepy. And like she's just like, what are you crying about now? But I, man, I'm, I'm so thankful. Like, uh, some of you all that know me, uh, you may be listening to this podcast. You guys know me. I say the phrase I'm good. Um, there's sometimes where I could be a little bit more honest and say things aren't going good. But every time I say that, I say that in light of,
00:19:55
Speaker
I know what's been done for me. like I'm good. good you know i i really am good in the big scheme of things. Alright, so a few minutes left. I'm going to run down a list of a few things here. Practical things on how to cultivate or recultivate joy in your life. You guys feel free to jump in wherever you want to add some thoughts. Number one, preach the gospel to yourself daily.
00:20:18
Speaker
Every single day remind yourself what Christ has done. that's right and if Truthfully, if we're honest, If you had no other reason to be joyful, that's it. Because we do not deserve anything He's done for us. Second thing, guard what you put into your mind.
00:20:35
Speaker
Going back to the whole negativity thing, and I would even say not just negativity, but just sinfulness in general. That also includes, I didn't say when you were talking about it the first time, brothers and sisters in Christ. A lot of times we think, oh, it's my a discipleship group. yeah But that person could be feeding negativity into you. And so it's it's interesting to sometimes we have to address that. yeah So we need to tell those people, hey, and this does not help my joy. I'm trying to focus on the positive things. yeah And here I'm constantly fed negative things. Yeah.
00:21:05
Speaker
i I love telling the story because it's a great example of what you're talking about. In a previous church that I served, we had a small group of women that met. I think it was like eight women. When they started the group, there were two women and they were divorced. The other six were married, I think was the ratio. But the two that were divorced were very bitter and very open in talking about it. and one of the other guys on the staff came to me one day. He said, I'm just going to make a prediction. He said, it before it's all over with, there will be more divorces in that group. And when it was all over with, only one of them stayed removed. The rest of them had divorced. So be careful you surround yourself with. Don't care if they're wearing the I Love Jesus t-shirt. It doesn't make any difference. Be careful of what you're letting in your mind. Number three, practice intentional gratitude. You just talked about this with your picture wall, man.
00:21:52
Speaker
Just remind yourself. yep i love it yeah i love it by the way y'all pj's a pretty grateful guy he is um don't let him you look how thankful he is yeah uh number four we talk about this all the time just about everything we do stay connected to other christians yes stay in biblical community it's really easy when you become that isolated lone wolf christian on your own to talk yourself into believing a lot of things that aren't true. And that's because the enemy is there with you constantly, just hammering those things home. Fifthly, and this is probably one of the easiest to do and most often forgot, find somebody else to serve. yep
00:22:30
Speaker
Find somebody else to serve. When you serve somebody else, you are reminded how much you're blessed. You're reminded of how much you've been given. You're also sometimes reminded it could be much, much worse because when you find somebody who's truly in need, usually it's because they are in a worse position in your mind than you are for yourself. Yeah, i had ah ah someone who helps with a youth group come to me the other day and they're saying there's a lot of drama going on with amongst the students. And they asked me what I thought would be the best, um, resolution to this. And I asked him to do a service project with those students, um, in the community. Yeah. And what it does is it takes, takes,
00:23:08
Speaker
all the focus off of yourself, they're not doing this for me, that is and you're putting it on something else, and then you're serving side by side with one of your brothers and sisters in Christ, totally shifts your mindset from me me, me to somebody else, right? And when we see this condition of somebody else, oftentimes our position doesn't look so bad. And so it kind of just shifts the mindset. Inevitably, and I know y'all seen it being in churches and being a part of these, inevitably when we send somebody away for the first time on a mission trip, they come back and their whole mindset has changed because they're going, oh,
00:23:38
Speaker
this is what you mean about being grateful. Yeah. I love it. Cause I can almost see it coming sometimes. Yeah. Like, especially for the first timers and you know, i they're excited, but you know that they don't know fully what they're correct excited about. And then they come back and they're like, you can't believe this. And it's just amazing to see what God does. And and their anticipation is that they're going to be doing something for somebody else. yes And what happens is God uses the situation to change their heart. yeah And so that heart change is what brings joy in someone's life. Yeah. yeah ah That was a little insider look at ministers.
00:24:14
Speaker
You know, the pullback curtain a little bit. Sometimes we are plotting for you to go on mission trips because we know you need it. And we do. We get great joy and delight because we know when you get off of that plane. Yeah.
00:24:26
Speaker
your world's going to be rocked. It almost makes me tearful just thinking about people that, I mean, just people in our church. First time going on trip, come back, man, when we going again? When are we going again? Yeah. Yeah, it's cool. It's cool. All right. A lot of stuff about joy there. You know, if you need some help, some encouragement in that area, feel free reach out to one of the staff, call the office whatever. We can help you with that process. But the best place to start is to pick up the word. That's right. Just read it and be reminded that when it says, be joyful, it's talking about you. Yeah. Not your friend down the street, not the pastor who gets paid to be joyful, not the missionary who's doing whatever. You, as a follower of Christ, are given that responsibility. This isn't extra credit for a Christian. It's actually a core curriculum for us. Thanks for joining us today. Come back next week and join us for whatever is on our heads.
Invitation to Future Discussions
00:25:14
Speaker
We never know till the last minute many times. hope it doesn't show in our podcast. Click the like button, share it with others, and maybe we'll get up to five or six followers. That's right.
00:25:23
Speaker
All right. We'll see you next week. Bye.