Month: March 2020

All of us, to one degree or another, are experiencing having things taken from us.  Things we have come to value, love, and maybe take for granted.

• A visit with friends at our favorite coffee shop or restaurant
• A gathering of believers in worship at our local church
• A paycheck
• A predictable future

I’m convinced that we aren’t at the end of that experience… at least not yet. Certainly some are sacrificing and feeling this more than others. A family in our church, the Moodys, experienced the painful separation of husband and father Evan who was deployed by the military to serve in one of the virus hotspots as a member of the medical team.

We don’t yet know where all of this will end. Some (ME!) are asked to stay at home due to age (ME!) or vulnerable health. But really, that’s a small sacrifice to make. Some will face some very hard days ahead. We can’t predict what it will be or who it will happen to. But we can predict how we will react to it should that time come.

We have a choice. A choice as to our attitude through this whole crisis, and personally… internally… a choice moment-by-moment how we are going to respond.

May we choose joy. I’ve tried to remind you in sermons and in other things I’ve written that, as followers of Christ, we are “infected” with a much more contagious agent than the coronavirus. Joy is catching. Joy is more contagious than ANY virus ever created. Joy is the only antidote to fear, and depression, and self-pity.

When Paul wrote, as he did in many places, that we are to “rejoice in the Lord,” he did two things:

(1). He wrote, in the Biblical language, with an imperative voice meaning it’s a command. We are commanded to be joyful! That means that joy doesn’t wait for our feelings to catch up. Joy controls our feelings, not vice-versa. We are commanded to be joyful.

(2). He showed us that joy is a choice we make, regardless of difficult or even austere outward circumstances. A Roman prison cell, an enforced lockdown, is a strange place to write about having joy, and yet he rejoiced!

We choose joy. We don’t know what God is doing in all of the things happening to us, but we know HE IS DOING SOMETHING! And so we rejoice in what God IS doing in this, not because it’s pleasant now, but because we will understand God’s purpose in it. And it will be a cause of joy.

We choose joy. We can still pray. We can still worship. And we CAN choose joy because of the promise of what lies ahead, not because we’re having such a great time now. And we can rejoice because we know the One Who is in control of this…

…loves us.

“Rejoice in the Lord always, and again I say, REJOICE”

It’s a strange time, and one that is testing each of us… our nation, and even the world, to the breaking point. An enemy has landed among us, like some alien force from a science fiction movie, and it’s great weapon is invisibility. We can’t see it.

The effects? Oh we see plenty of those. Empty parking lots at malls, restaurants, and churches. Full parking lots and shopping carts at grocery and big box stores, filled by fearful people. We see the stock market plummeting, the President floundering to know what to do next, and the medical system brought to its knees with overflowing patient need. This enemy is relentless, merciless, and all too real.

But yet invisible. How do we fight an invisible enemy? One we can’t see with our eyes, and one which can invade and assault our bodies through an airborne droplet or an infected surface or doorknob.

Yet as Christians, we should be the most familiar with unseen realities. We have been redeemed by a God we cannot see. We have been filled with a Spirit we cannot know with our eyes. And we have a Savior Who, “Having not seen Him, yet we love Him.”

And yes, we and this entire world are afflicted by a spiritual enemy we cannot see. Our adversary, like a roaring lion, roams about unseen in this world “seeking whom he may devour.” We never see him coming.

So how do we defeat these unseen foes? We are in a spiritual war as Christians. At all times. We are constantly barraged by “the flaming darts” of the evil one. The Bible is clear. We are either casualties in this war, or we are taking up the armor of God and standing firm in it.

We defeat the coronavirus threat with the same invisible weapon we use to defeat the enemy of our souls: Prayer. As the Christian prays, the enemy flees. As Christians across America and, in fact, across the world… fall to our knees and cry out to God the enemy will fall. Every time.

While we are “socially distancing” at home, or at least away from the fellowship of believers for a time, use this opportunity to wield this invisible weapon against the enemy.

Don’t let fear overwhelm you. Don’t let the icy grip of the devil choke out the vitality of your prayer life. Get on your knees. Ask God for grace and deliverance for us.

And though unseen, the “effective, fervent prayer of a righteous man (or woman) will avail much.” Let’s unleash the unseen against our invisible enemy… whether that enemy is a microscopic virus… or Satan himself.

THE SECRET OF CONTAGIOUS JOY
Finding Joy in the Hard Places
(Philippians 1:11-21)

Few of us would expect to find joy locked in a prison cell for being obedient to God, and awaiting a death sentence. Paul’s location (as he puts it “the thing that have happened to me”) gives a lot of credibility to his words. When he shows us how he finds joy, even in the hard places, that gives us encouragement in “the things that have happened to us!”

FINDING JOY IN SPITE OF TOUGH CIRCUMSTANCES (vv12-14)

“I want you to know, brothers, that what has happened to me has really served to advance the gospel, so that it has become known throughout the whole imperial guard and to all the rest that my imprisonment is for Christ. And most of the brothers, having become confident in the Lord by my imprisonment, are much more bold to speak the word without fear.”

It isn’t a stretch for us to see that we have entered into one of the toughest seasons most of us have ever experienced. And I’m not just referring here to the NCAA or NBA seasons being cancelled or Disney World closing down. People are frightened. They are confused. They are lost and if they don’t know the Lord, they have nowhere to look for help.

If you’re listening this morning as a believer, then you can say with Paul, that in spite of our circumstances:

1. We know God allows nothing to happen for us without a reason. Paul looked for the Divine purpose in everything happening to him.
2. We know that things happen TO US so that God can make things happen THROUGH US. What was Paul’s optimism? That “the whole imperial guard has heard the Gospel.” Paul didn’t want to be in prison, even as you don’t want to be stuck in the prison of your tough circumstances. But he saw that, even through the inconvenience and difficulty, he God was using him to share Jesus with those whose job it was to be tethered to him by a chain. They learned that this Jewish prisoner they were guarding was really the free one, and they were the prisoner, and they knew he was imprisoned for the Gospel and was not a criminal.
3. We know that as much as this ride we’re on feels like a downhill bobsled ride with no brakes, God is in control even of this. This is the time for us to answer the hard questions. “Where does my confidence really lie?” “What am I trusting in for my resources and provision?” “Who am I really looking to as my strength?”

We find joy when we realize that our tough circumstances have a purpose, that God isn’t going to waste a moment of what we’re going through, that HE is in control of everything happening right now…GOD IS GREATER…and we need to begin asking this question: What is God wanting to do THROUGH ME in this time as we wait out the coronavirus; as things are happening around us and TO us that we cannot control?

WE CAN HAVE JOY IN SPITE OF DIFFICULT PEOPLE

“Some indeed preach Christ from envy and rivalry, but others from good will. The latter do it out of love, knowing that I am put here for the defense of the gospel. The former proclaim Christ out of selfish ambition, not sincerely but thinking to afflict me in my imprisonment. What then? Only that in every way, whether in pretense or in truth, Christ is proclaimed, and in that I rejoice.”
This is also a tough one. All of us have experienced a person, or multiple people, who have just made it their mission to make life harder for you. Maybe it’s an unsympathetic boss at work, or an annoying co-worker, or someone who says unkind and untrue things about you online, or an irritating neighbor. We will all encounter difficult people in life.

John Ortberg has a book he entitled, “Everybody’s Normal ‘til You Get to Know Them.” Everybody’s got a little dysfunction in them; well… some have more than others… and it’s tough if the difficult person in your life is your mate, or a parent, or even a child.

So I’m not going to give you three simple steps in how to pray that person out of your life…they may be there to stay. Paul was continually hounded by people whose mission in life was to frustrate his. Let’s be honest. Those people can suck the joy right out of you, can’t they?

In some settings, Paul had to deal with Jewish teachers who were jealous of his success, or angry at his teaching that disagreed with theirs. Some thought they were doing God a favor. Clearly they were enemies of the Gospel.

But I think it was a lot tougher on Paul to deal with those who claimed to be on his side. I heard of a guy who was permanently injured in a game when he was tackled by his own teammate. You can brace yourself from a hit by the opposing team. But when it’s coming at your blindside, from a person wearing your uniform, you can’t get ready for it.

Paul was being tackled by those who claimed to be on “Team Jesus.” But he chose joy. Let me offer a paraphrase of what he said:

“So what if some preach Christ with wrong motives? Furthermore some may be overly impressed with themselves. Who cares? What really matters is this: Christ is being proclaimed…and that thought alone intensifies my joy! All the other stuff, I leave to God. “

Now Paul never allowed the message of the Gospel to be compromised. He said in Galatians,

But even though we, or an angel from heaven, should preach to you a Gospel contrary to that which we have preached to you, let him be accursed. As we have said before so I say again now, if any man is preaching to you a gospel contrary to that which you received, let him be accursed. (Galatians 1:8-9)

God is able to accomplish His purposes even through people we may see as difficult. And even though we may not rejoice in that troubling person, we can find joy knowing that the Gospel can go forward in spite of them!

FINDING JOY IN SPITE OF UNCERTAIN OUTCOMES

“What then? Only that in every way, whether in pretense or in truth, Christ is proclaimed, and in that I rejoice. Yes, and I will rejoice, for I know that through your prayers and the help of the Spirit of Jesus Christ this will turn out for my deliverance, as it is my eager expectation and hope that I will not be at all ashamed, but that with full courage now as always Christ will be honored in my body, whether by life or by death. For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain.” (vv 19-21)

Paul truly didn’t know how the situation he was in was going to turn out. There were no lawyers representing criminals in jail cells in Rome. Paul could be set free…or he could face the executioner’s axe.

I think by far one of the most frustrating things for many of us in dealing with this virus crisis is the uncertainty of it all. How long are we going to have to wait? Will someone I know be infected? Will I? What about my job? My business? My children? My future? The economy?

And no one can tell us the outcome. All the entities we have come to depend on in times like this: government; economics; health care; nobody seems to know what to do.

So clearly the government can’t save us; our money can’t save us; the medical community is overwhelmed. But it leaves a big question that needs to be answered: What are you really trusting in?

Paul could say, “For me, to live is Christ…and to die is gain.” In essence he was saying, “If the worst-case scenario, physically, happens to me it won’t be a loss, but a gain.” That’s confidence, folks. That’s trusting Jesus above everything else. He was saying, “Don’t cry at my funeral. I haven’t lost…I’ve gained everything!”

If I live on physically, I live for Christ. If I die, I go to live with Christ. Either way, you win. Either way, there is joy.

So where is your confidence and ‘earnest expectation’ today?
For me to live is….______________? And to die is…____________?

Will you think about that for a moment with me? How would you fill in those blanks? For me to live is…money? Fame? A relationship on earth? Success in business? And if that is how you would honestly fill in the blank, then how would you fill in the second? “To die is……

If nothing else, this coronavirus gives us opportunity to truly ask ourselves some hard questions. Where does your trust lie this morning? Is it in something that death can take from you? Or do you know a relationship with Jesus that makes life worth living NOW, and death no longer something to fear, but something that will bring gain?

It’s time to think hard about these questions folks. Until we have this settled, something like the threat of this virus will continue to terrorize you and rob you of joy.

1. We can choose joy in our difficult circumstances if we know Christ.
2. We can choose joy in spite of difficult people if the Gospel is being proclaimed
3. We can choose joy in spite of uncertain outcomes in life is Christ is our life, and our victory. Even death is gain!

“Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life? And why are you anxious about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is alive and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? Therefore do not be anxious, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For the Gentiles seek after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them all. But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you. Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.”

Matthew 6:25-34 ESV

1. Read twice daily:  Once in the morning and once in the evening.
2. Read it to your children.  Every day.
3. If you choose to watch the media, read before and after each broadcast.
4. Believe what you read.  This is God’s Word.
5. ‘Nuff said.