7 Steps to Keep Your Joy in Difficult Times
Notes
Transcript
Handout
We have been plagued by the Covid 19 virus since March and it seemed like it was decreasing and now it’s making a come back.
It’s easy to be frustrated and give up hope that things will ever get back to normal. We have been asked to Physical distance and wear masks again. We are still in phase 2 with many things we have become used to closed.
On top of that, we have young people who are having Covid parties where they invite a covid positive person to attend and then whoever catches the virus first gets the pool. They will need it as the cost of treatment is not cheap.
It’s easy to be overcome by negative thoughts and to spiral into hopelessness and depression. Zig Ziglar used to say,
People suffer from stinking thinking
People suffer from stinking thinking
Bad thinking is harmful to keeping hope … to keeping joy… to being mentally healthy.
7 For as he thinks in his heart, so is he. “Eat and drink!” he says to you, But his heart is not with you.
Stinking thinking will get bad results. Positive thinking will get you good results.
I know we are in difficult times. We have a worldwide pandemic going on and even making a comeback. Now, we have more and better treatments today than we had back in March. We have violent riots going on around the nation robbing people of their homes, their ability to take care of themselves, and their places of work. It’s not an easy time to live.
We are going to look at passage that Paul wrote from prison… a Roman prison. We was waiting the death penalty… to have his head cut off. He had difficult problems.
7 Steps to Keep Your Joy in Difficult Times
7 Steps to Keep Your Joy in Difficult Times
1. Find your joy in the Lord
1. Find your joy in the Lord
4 Always be full of joy in the Lord. I say it again—rejoice!
Notice Paul did not say find your joy in your circumstances… your work… your relationships … money etc. If you do and the circumstances change like they have this year in a big way, you lose that joy and hope. Our joy has to be in something that cannot be taken away from us… our relationship with Jesus.
11 I have told you these things so that you will be filled with my joy. Yes, your joy will overflow!
The joy Jesus gives us remains through the Covid… through job loss… loss of friends and family… We get our joy … our hope… our peace from the Lord.
6 “I am the Lord, and I do not change. That is why you descendants of Jacob are not already destroyed.
God doesn’t change. His love doesn’t change. His plans to bless you do not change.
8 Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever.
Jesus doesn’t change so we can depend on that. We are complete in our union with him..
10 So you also are complete through your union with Christ, who is the head over every ruler and authority.
He will show you the way to hope… to joy.
11 You will show me the way of life, granting me the joy of your presence and the pleasures of living with you forever.
When we remain in the presence of God, we will remain joyful.
10 And Nehemiah continued, “Go and celebrate with a feast of rich foods and sweet drinks, and share gifts of food with people who have nothing prepared. This is a sacred day before our Lord. Don’t be dejected and sad, for the joy of the Lord is your strength!”
The joy of the Lord is our STRENGTH
2. Practice the Presence of God
2. Practice the Presence of God
No one can have a continuous, positive attitude, and joy without a relationship with Jesus Christ…
Secondly, we have to remain in the presence of God.
5 Let everyone see that you are considerate in all you do. Remember, the Lord is coming soon.
This is talking about self control. Let your gentle spirit be know to everyone.
Then he says because the Lord is at hand. This could mean a couple of things… one - that the Lord is coming back soon. Two - that he is right here with us all the time
5 Don’t love money; be satisfied with what you have. For God has said, “I will never fail you. I will never abandon you.”
16 And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate, who will never leave you. 17 He is the Holy Spirit, who leads into all truth. The world cannot receive him, because it isn’t looking for him and doesn’t recognize him. But you know him, because he lives with you now and later will be in you.
How near is the Lord… He is on you and I.
During the time of Stalin in Russia, there was a group of Christians who were caught in a worship service. The secret police counted 30 of them when one of them stepped forward and said, no, there are 31 here … Jesus is here.
Jesus is right here with you too and he will never leave you.
3. Refuse to worry about anything
3. Refuse to worry about anything
Find your joy in the Lord. Practice the presence of God. Then refuse to worry about anything.
6 Don’t worry about anything; instead, pray about everything. Tell God what you need, and thank him for all he has done.
Worry actually means to be divided within yourself. It will pull you to pieces. When you worry, you are divided. It’s like a coin with hope on one side and worry on the other. Sometimes you have hope and others you have fear. Paul is telling us not to worry.
Why would Paul tell us that? several Reasons.
Worry is worthless
Worry is worthless
26 And if worry can’t accomplish a little thing like that, what’s the use of worrying over bigger things?
Worry just doesn’t do any good.
Worry is wasteful
Worry is wasteful
It waste your time and energy.
34 “So don’t worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will bring its own worries. Today’s trouble is enough for today.
He is not saying to not make plans, but he is saying don’t worry about tomorrow.
Worry is wicked
Worry is wicked
32 These things dominate the thoughts of unbelievers, but your heavenly Father already knows all your needs.
When we worry we are more like un-believers than we are like Jesus.
We may not always be able to take care of our families the way we want to, but God will take care of us… look at this.
25 Once I was young, and now I am old. Yet I have never seen the godly abandoned or their children begging for bread.
I imagine that it hurts God’s feelings when we act as if he can’t take care of us.
4. Bring every problem to God
4. Bring every problem to God
6 Don’t worry about anything; instead, pray about everything. Tell God what you need, and thank him for all he has done.
Pray about what??? everything.
Nothing is too hard for God. An old pastor one time said, Can you think of anything too hard for God? He went on to say that everything is little to God.
But don’t just pray about the BIG things, pray about the little ones too. I am tired if hearing people say they don’t want to bother the Lord. He wants to be bothered!
Paul tells us to pray about everything!
ILL - A missionary was in the jungle of Africa and was attacked by a man eating lion. He prayed for the Lord to save him from the lion and he was. He thanked the Lord and went home to the missionary compound to sleep. During the night he had a mosquito that kept bussing him. He would turn the light on and it would hide… all night he fought that mosquito. When he woke up in the morning the Lord confronted him… You trusted me to deliver you from the lion but thought you could handle the mosquito yourself?
That’s where a lot of us fall in. We trust God with the big things but we don’t want to bother him with the small stuff.
He says to pray about everything.
5. Develop an attitude of gratitude
5. Develop an attitude of gratitude
6 Don’t worry about anything; instead, pray about everything. Tell God what you need, and thank him for all he has done.
Thank him for what he has done. People who are not thankful for what God has done for them inevitably lose their peace and their hope.
When we learn to be thankful in the middle of bad circumstances it shows our faith. I have seen people close to death thankful to the Lord. I have seen people get sentenced to prison and thank the Lord for what he has done in their lives… not for bad but for the good God has done in spite of their circumstances.
How can we be thankful IN all things? Because God works for your good in all things.
28 And we know that God causes everything to work together for the good of those who love God and are called according to his purpose for them.
Let’s have an attitude of gratitude.
18 Be thankful in all circumstances, for this is God’s will for you who belong to Christ Jesus.
5. Practice positive thinking
5. Practice positive thinking
You may not like that term, but God says to think positive thoughts.
8 And now, dear brothers and sisters, one final thing. Fix your thoughts on what is true, and honorable, and right, and pure, and lovely, and admirable. Think about things that are excellent and worthy of praise.
My father in law used to always read Norman Vincent Peale’s material on positive thinking. That’s what the Bible tells us to do… focus on the positive.
You have to get control of your thought life. Your mind controls your emotions which control your actions.
3 You will keep in perfect peace all who trust in you, all whose thoughts are fixed on you!
You want peace… fix your thoughts on Jesus.
You may have heard
Sow a thought and you reap a deed; sow a deed and you reap a habit; sow a character and you reap a destiny.
Sow a thought and you reap a deed; sow a deed and you reap a habit; sow a character and you reap a destiny.
It all begins with your thought life. A Study one time said it this way.
What the mind attend to, it considers What the mind doesn not attend to, it dismisses
What the mind attend to, it considers What the mind doesn not attend to, it dismisses
What the mind focuses on it will believe and what you believe you will eventually do. Focus your mind… your thoughts on positive things…
true… honorable… right… pure… lovely… admirable… excellent… worthy of praise
This is why it is vital to have a QT every day.
7. Get busy and stay busy
7. Get busy and stay busy
9 Keep putting into practice all you learned and received from me—everything you heard from me and saw me doing. Then the God of peace will be with you.
Put it into practice. Do it…
22 But don’t just listen to God’s word. You must do what it says. Otherwise, you are only fooling yourselves.
We can’t just sit and listen to good preaching… study the WOG… we have to allow it to change our lives and act upon what we hear.
What the minds attends to it considers…
Stop getting your news from Social Media… most of it’s wrong. Stop watching the news all the time… focus on the Lord and what he says.
ILL - Mussels - crab like creatures. They are difficult to open. Well a parasite will attack the muscle that holds the shell together… then it just opens up and the parasite attacks the animal itself.
That’s what the devil wants to do to you with stinking thinking… with wrong thinking. He wants to paralyze your thought life and then destroy you. He will get you worrying about the virus… about jobs… about riots… about who will get elected to whatever. Once you lose your perspective of the bigness of God, then he destroys your life.
23 Guard your heart above all else, for it determines the course of your life.
Don’t let the devil pry your mind open with things that are not true, not honorable, not right, not pure, not lovely, not admirable, not excellent, and not worthy of praise. refuse to listen to those things.
Listen, you are saved by your faith, but Paul says
10 For we are God’s masterpiece. He has created us anew in Christ Jesus, so we can do the good things he planned for us long ago.
26 Just as the body is dead without breath, so also faith is dead without good works.
We have to act on what we learn. The WOG has to change us.
Impression without expression leads to depression
Impression without expression leads to depression
IOW, you can listen and read and do nothing and you will become depressed and stagnant. Or, you can listen and act on what you hear and find peace that passes all understanding.
9 Keep putting into practice all you learned and received from me—everything you heard from me and saw me doing. Then the God of peace will be with you.
Conclusion
I believe that if you take these 7 steps you will keep your joy … your hope and your peace during these crazy times we are living in.
Salvation
Pray for those who are dejected