Being joyful disciples - Introduction

Transcript (Auto-generated)

Good morning you can hear me now how good is it to gather together whether it's online or in person to be able to lift your voice in praise and just worship our awesome God together isn't that good doesn't that get you excited isn't that the reason we're here to worship God together so good I want to begin this morning before we dive into the ser I want to ask I need a little bit of help okay I want to ask for a volunteer do I have any volunteers that can give me five minutes of their time here this morning Eli come on up can we give Eli a round of applause we're we're definitely in a Baptist Church there was only one hand that went up when I asked that's okay so is this on I better not speak there we go that's for you sir Eli everyone knows your name now because I I've just said welcome up here live but can you tell us you're still in school so what grade are you in uh I'm in grade seven grade seven so fresh into high school yeah are you enjoying high school uh yeah it's really fun yeah yeah and you've just had holidays what's your favorite thing to do on holidays or just time off in general um well I like to read a lot read a lot yeah um uh like to go to the beach M uh play soccer and stuff so how good yeah that's fantastic so the reason that I've got you up here is between you and me I want to do a little bit of a case study a little bit of a test to try and try and see what happens don't worry this isn't school this isn't School you've already passed okay you've already passed so I'm not going to grade you it's all good okay to begin the test I've got to have a little bit of a confession okay I was driving to church this morning and I was a little bit hungry I like to eat a lot so what I did wor doesn't open until 9:00 so that was no good but I found fresh and saved down the road they they open nice and early so I went in and I got myself a snack because I wasn't sure whether I'd be able to get through the entire sermon without my energy levels fading and I was a little bit H we'll see what happens but now that I'm up here now that I've got you up here okay I'm feeling all right I I don't think I'm going to need the snack my stomach's settled we're good so it's taken up some space in my Bible so I got some chocolates I'd like to give these to you oh they they're for you thank you you're welcome th this is what happens when you volunteer but the here comes the serious part okay and and it's it's no stress okay how does it make you feel when I give you chocolates randomly it makes me feel really good makes you feel really good yeah like makes me feel the um well because these are these are really good they're really good um yeah yeah yeah it makes me feel like uh yeah it makes me feel really good that someone just gave me chocolates yeah would you say that you're happier now that you've got chocolates than you were while you were sitting down there maybe a maybe slightly slightly yeah CH chocolate makes you happy doesn't it yeah yeah that's okay now he here comes the case study this is what we're we're trying to pull apart a little bit let's say I was about to send you down to go go sit down with your chocolates but just before you left my stomach started to Grumble okay my stomach started to go and I started to lose balance I I don't have quite the right amount of energy and I said hey Eli I know I've just given you these but actually I'm going to take those back and and and if if I open this right here and ate them all in front of you during the sermon while you were sitting down there how would that make you feel maybe a little bit sad a little bit sad yeah so that happiness would disappear wouldn't it yeah I'm not going to do that I'm not going to be me these are yours thank you so much that's been perfect you can go sit down give him a round of applause and Eli check with Mom and Dad but from me you're welcome to eat those during the sermon you've earned them now for the rest of us you're probably sitting in the Pew going man I should have volunteered no that that's that's not where I'm going with this you're probably sitting there going where on Earth is Dylan going with this why has he started a sermon with chocolate and giving it away and then pretending to take it back that's just cruel the reason that we're doing this will become clear later well remember that example we're going to come back to it but if you're a teacher or a parent or a student or if your life is somewhat revolving around the school calendar you'll know that we have well truly started term three and for us as a church that's exciting because it means all of our ministri start back up we had kids club for the first time on Friday tonight this week we've got youth group coming back next week kids church is out there this morning how exciting but it also means if you've been coming to kuch baptist for a little while now you'll know that in term three we generally do what we call an integrated study and what that is is it's a churchwide study that we journey through together not only in our Sunday morning services but through all of our Ministries so out there in kids church they'll be going through the same study through Youth and Young adults and kids club and seniors every Ministry that we as a church have will be going through this same study over the term of the over the course of this term and the way that that works is as a partial team we pray we seek God in what he wants the topic to be God for this year where do you want us to look where do you want our attention to be focused and then once we have a topic what we do is we tap people from within the congregation on the shoulder and we say hey how would you like to be a part of this integrated study how would you like to write the study and so for this one coming in term three Dave and I have written a study but every other study which is six of them was written by someone sitting in the pews and the reason that I'm starting all of this is this morning's sermon is very much an introdu uction it's very much a little bit of context I only have one point in this morning's sermon okay one point and that point is going to hopefully set the foundation as we journey through the next eight weeks of study this year the topic that we've come up with the topic that we've been led to do is Philippians being joyful disciples and so over the course of the next eight weeks we're going to be looking at the topics of Joy filled prayer joy in hardships joy in humility joy in obedience joy in the Lord joy in the journey Joy when faced with conflict and anxiety and joy in all things we're going to be looking at these topics as we journey through Paul's letter to the Philippians and as we do so we're going to unpack what it means for you and me for all of us to be joyful disciples so as I said this morning's very much an introduction if you're an EFG leader please do come to our meeting after the service we're going to give you enough booklets to hand out to everyone in your EFG if you're not involved in an EFG term three is a great time to start go see Chris after the service come see me or Dave or anyone at the welcome desk come and get involved because there's going to be a lot of benefit in not only hearing the sermons but digging deeper in a group and don't worry if you're not involved next week when we start the first of these studies officially more booklets will be available in fo you but before we dive into my one point before we look at an introduction to this and a bit of context would you join me as we pray Heavenly Father we thank you that you are good Lord God we thank you that as a church we're able to Seek You Lord God that you've given us within our congregation people gifted and called to just spend time developing a study father God thank you that each study has its own uniqueness as each of us are unique Lord God that together we've been able to put this into one one booklet and Lord God my prayer is that as we introduce this topic of Philippians of being joyful disciples this morning as we journey and unpack this over the next eight weeks Lord would you let this be a fruitful time for each of us Lord God would you grow us lead us and guide us by your holy spirit so that at the end of the eight weeks Lord that we will have grown not only in head knowledge but in practicality in how we are to be joyful Disciples of Jesus Christ Lord we lift this time into your hands and ask that you would bless it in the name of Jesus Christ amen if you were looking closely or listening to each of the topics that I said this morning you will have picked up that every single one of them starts with one word what was it Joy what's that mean do do you ever use a word but then when someone asks you what's it mean you can't Define it without using the same word what is joy and beyond that where does it come from see Joy is a word that we use a lot we often sing about it at Christmas but how many of us have stopped to think about what Joy actually is I suspect I'm not going to ask you to but I suspect that if I was to ask you to Define Joy many of us would make a link we'd be able to highlight a connectedness or a interconnectedness between joy and happiness okay and we do pretty well to do so see I being a good researcher went to Google and Google when you Google Joy brings up all different types of dictionary definitions and most of them have something along these lines this one's from dictionary.com Joy is the emotion of great Delight or happiness there's that link caused by something exceptionally good or satisfying Joy is the emotion of great Delight or happiness caused by something exceptionally good or satisfying so if that's the case then joy in my understanding is kind of like a Next Level happiness okay it's it's sort of that next level so you you've got happiness and that's okay when I had Eli up here I gave him some chocolates and he was happy right imagine how much more happy he would be if I said hey Eli I've actually got Zik's car is full of chocolates it's a year Supply it's all yours like it's all yours the happiness would increase right he'd be like where but what if I said to Eli hey actually I've got an unlimited supply of chocolate for you for the rest of your life little bit more happiness and so if were to use this definition that Joy is the emotion of great Delight or happiness caused by something exceptionally good then lots of good happiness is joy but I don't necessarily like that see I'll bring up Eli again when I gave him the chocolates he was happy what happened when I took them away happiness disappeared and so happiness if it's an emotion a feeling then it can be fleeting we can have it and we can lose it and so if Joy is just next level happiness if it's just great Delight or happiness caused by something exceptionally good or satisfying then that means that Joy is something that we can have and lose I don't like that and I don't think that that is what we mean when we talk about biblical Joy but let's see how this lines up with Philippians what do we know about this what's the context around 61 a the dates aren't exact there's a little bit of buffer not too sure exactly when it happened they didn't neatly put this was sent on such date such time such year but around 61 a the Apostle Paul wrote a letter to the church in Philippi we have that letter in our Bibles it's called Philippians but what do we know about this church what do we know about the church in Philippi if you've got your Bibles there I'll invite you to open up to Acts 16: 6- 34 it gives us a little bit of an idea of how this church got started and it takes place roughly once again dates are a little bit iffy roughly 10 or so years earlier around 50 ad Paul and his company so Paul and Silas they picked up Timothy along the way they went out on what we know as Paul's second missionary journey Paul had heard the Commandment of Jesus to go and make disciples of all Nations baptizing him in the name of the father Son and Holy Spirit teaching them to obey all that Jesus had commanded and he took it to heart this was his second missionary journey he wanted to go out and preach the gospel make sure that everyone had a chance to hear the good news of Jesus and we see in Acts 16 verse 6-7 that his desire was to go far and wide his desire was to go to Asia to preach the gospel to preach the good news and we're not told how we're not told exactly why but we are told that Paul was forbidden from going to a Asia by the Holy Spirit Paul had this desire to go to Asia and yet the holy spirit said no but as we continue to look at what happened we'll read acts 169 to10 it says this and a vision appeared to Paul in the night a man from Macedonia was standing there urging him and saying come over to Macedonia and help us and when when Paul had seen the vision immediately we sought to go into Macedonia concluding that God had called us to preach the gospel to them Paul gets this Vision he tells those who are with him and together they set sail they they go to Macedonia and they end up in Philippi if we look in verse 12 we're told that Philippi was a leading city of the district District of Macedonia and it was a Roman Colony what's that mean for us Philippi was an important city okay and as we continue to read I'd really encourage you read the rest of chapter 16 this week in preparation for the study as we continue to read we see that Paul now in Philippi preaches the good news he shares the gospel and the holy spirit's at work because people respond we see that he shares it not only as a free person but while he's in prison as well he gets put in jail for a night because he rebuked someone who was possessed by Spirit of divination who brought their owners much wealth because she was able to fortune tell and she was following Paul and declaring that what they were saying was true and so what do we see happen we see both in Freedom and in prison Paul preaches the good news the holy spirit is at work people believe in Jesus they're baptized and the church in Philippi is founded the church in Philippi is founded and yet Paul doesn't stick around for too long once he's released from prison he then goes in checks in makes sure everything's all good and he's off to the next destiny ation and so who were the founding members who made up this church originally in Philippi we're told that Lydia a business preached she believed in Jesus she was baptized and she started the church with Paul we're told that the Jailer that was there to keep watch over Paul while he was in prison also was converted he saw that Paul and Silas were praising God in the midst of their chains and he said what must I do to be saved he he asked that questions him and his family are saved and they're a part of this church and it's a little bit iffy we we don't necessarily know about the third one but it's possible as well that the slave girl who had been possessed by a spirit of divination it's possible that she also made up part of this early church and so this is the church Paul comes in he preaches the good news people believe they're baptized he sets them up and then he's off so why is it that 10 or so years later Paul writes this letter to the Christians in the church in Philippi what was the reason the truth is there was probably a range of motivations however as we read through the letter to the Philippians one of them becomes prominent Paul was filled with joy and Thanksgiving he wanted to say thank you to the Christians at the church in Philippi for the generous gifts that they had sent to him and if you know anything about Paul in his letters this is a little bit unusual because usually in in the letters that we have in our Bible from Paul to different churches usually he's got a very clear purpose to address an issue within the church to highlight some heretical teaching that's going on and to defend and commend the Gospel of Jesus Christ and yet we don't see that same purpose that same drive in this letter we see joy we see a thankfulness for the gifts that Paul has received in fact as we read through the book of Philippians we see that the word Joy or Rejoice at least in my translation appears 12 times in only four short chapters that means it's important this is what Paul's going on about and so if Paul's received this good and generous gift then we might conclude if we believe that Joy is truly just good circumstances the next level of Happiness we could conclude that he's just joyful he's really happy he's received this really big gift and life's really good and he just wants to say thank you and say hey I'm so joyful and I want you to be joyful too and that's really great except I haven't been entirely truthful I haven't told you the whole story see as I've unraveled this for us I've kept one key detail out the gift from Paul the sorry the gift to Paul that he received from the Philippian Church it wasn't a celebratory gift it wasn't a hey happy belated birthday or thank you so much for 10 years ago helping found our church we're so thankful that you helped us do this here's this amazing gift we're just so thankful it wasn't that at all in fact it was less of a gift and more of a care package and why did Paul need a care package he needed a care package because he was in prison and Not only was Paul in prison he was waiting to hear the verdict he was waiting to hear the news as to whether or not he would be put to death and so Paul's circumstances weren't all that promising if we were to take that definition from the dictionary that emotion uh that Joy is the emotion of great Delight or happiness caused by something exceptionally good or satisfying then in this situation in this circumstance even if that was true then Joy then Paul's Joy would have been very fleeting in the midst of his trial in the midst of his circumstance he might have received this really generous gift and gone praise the Lord how good I'm really happy because people care about me they've sent me this how amazing is that and yet it wouldn't have lasted and that to me doesn't align with what he writes in Philip Philippians 4:4 he says rejoice in the lord always I will say it again rejoice see I don't think it's possible for joy to be an emotion that is fleeting if Paul is able to confidently write Rejoice always because if it's an emotion if it's fleeting we cannot always be joyful right we cannot always be happy it's an emotion it comes and goes remember when Eli was up here when I gave him the chocolate life was good he was happy when I took the chocolate away he wasn't happy anymore well he probably still was happy but he was less happy he lost some of that happiness right what about in our lives maybe we just got a son or a daughter or a grandchild or some good news maybe we got that promotion and yeah we're really happy but happiness is an emotion what about when work gets really tough and you have a really bad week or there's sickness or death happiness quickly turns to Despair and if Joy like happiness is a feeling then it's impossible for us to be joyful all the time and yet our series title is being joyful disciples I want to make it very clear that we're not saying being happy disciples that is suggesting that we must always be happy I don't think that's biblical we've preached recently on lament and so I want to suggest that unlike happiness joy isn't a feeling instead it's an attitude Tim Macky part of the Bible project he defines Joy like this he says joy is an attitude that God's people adopt not because of happy circumstances but because of their hope in God's love and promise see rather than being dependent on our emotions on our circumstances Joy is dependent at least biblical Joy is dependent on the hope and promise that we have in God and so that's my one point this morning that's my one point if you leave with nothing else have that it's going to be a helpful Foundation as we unpack the next eight weeks worth of studies what is Joy it's an attitude that we as God's people can adopt despite our feelings and circumstances and my hope my prayer is that as we trace this theme of joy throughout the letter of Philippians Paul's letter to this church in Philippi in the coming weeks that myself and you together we will grow in both our understanding and practice of what it means to be joyful disciples would you pray with me Heavenly Father we thank you we thank you for Paul's letter to the Philippians we thank you for the way that you've already been at work in each of the study writers preparing preparing this study for each of us Lord God my prayer is that as we ourselves prepare to go through this study Lord that you would be preparing our hearts Lord God that by your Holy Spirit you would be just preparing us for what it is that you want to teach us through this time father God thank you that Joy is so much deeper than happiness thank you that it's not dependent on how we feel or what's going on around us thank you that our joy is dependent on our hope in your love and your promise which is unchanging which is sturdy which is good Heavenly Father over the coming eight weeks would you help us to grow in both our understanding and practice of being joyful Disciples of Jesus Jesus Christ we pray these things in the name of Jesus Christ amen