Is not controlled by circumstances. Imprisonment 7
If anyone had a reason to let his circumstances steal his Joy it was Paul. He wrote this letter from prison, yet still spoke of having joy.
Selfishness most often comes alive more fully in difficulty?
Joy found in the gospel exceeds bad circumstances.
Keeps the gospel the main thing. 5, 7
Is the gospel central in your life?
Is the gospel being spread the thing that gives you the most joy?
Men is the Gospel central in your life. Do you rejoice most when you see the gospel transforming your family? Are more concerned about winning the lottery, than you are about winning people to Jesus?
Happy when they see the gospel changing others.
3 ways they were partners in the gospel
giving money 4:14-18
sending someone as a practical help 2:25 Epaphroditus.
advancing the gospel where they were.
Is confident in God. 6
Not in self or past results.
Confidence changes your action “If you want to go in the right direction, you need to know your final destination.” Paul Trip How People Change 37
Confidence leads to anticipation and brings joy
“This Joy that I have the world didn’t give and the world can’t take it away.”
Cares for others. 7, 8
Giving yourself away to helping others is the best way to live joyfully.
27 Why do you say, O Jacob,
and speak, O Israel,
“My way is hidden from the Lord,
and my right is disregarded by my God”?
28 Have you not known? Have you not heard?
The Lord is the everlasting God,
the Creator of the ends of the earth.
He does not faint or grow weary;
his understanding is unsearchable.
29 He gives power to the faint,
and to him who has no might he increases strength.
30 Even youths shall faint and be weary,
and young men shall fall exhausted;
31 but they who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength;
they shall mount up with wings like eagles;
they shall run and not be weary;
they shall walk and not faint.
Background
Hezekiah nearly died. God healed him.
39:5 Then Isaiah said to Hezekiah, “Hear the word of the Lord of hosts: 6 Behold, the days are coming, when all that is in your house, and that which your fathers have stored up till this day, shall be carried to Babylon. Nothing shall be left, says the Lord. 7 And some of your own sons, who will come from you, whom you will father, shall be taken away, and they shall be eunuchs in the palace of the king of Babylon.” 8 Then said Hezekiah to Isaiah, “The word of the Lord that you have spoken is good.” For he thought, “There will be peace and security in my days.”
This was not good news, but in God’s story the good news always over takes bad news.
Bad news things are going to change just a little. Another empire is going to over take you.
Have you ever felt like the Lord did not care?
Do you ever feel like giving up? How about just hiding from the world by surfing the Internet, or sleeping, or stuffing head phones in your ears to escape all the drama, the boredom, the blah, difficulties, the heart ache the bad news.
What make you weary? 27
jobs or no job, being a parent, school friends change
The hope for the weary is God 28
not God’s gifts
We want to skip verse 28 and go straight to 29
Those who purposely do sin thinking they can just ask forgiveness later, really worship God’s gift over God.
We should not put godly things above God.
God is Creator of all that happens from beginning to end.
He created everything
But the emphasis is on time – He created everything from beginning to end.
God’s gifts come from who He is 29-31
He is the sustainer of the faint
He is the strength to the weak.
They are weak but He is strong.
God takes the old and makes it new – 27
Good news God is still God and he will make things better in the future.
Jacob to Israel – Gen. 32:22-32
Jacob fears Esau
Summary
When God tears down he does it to build it better than it was before.
When the Lord allows the bad he has a plan to restore.
When he allows the unimaginable circumstances he does it to create something new
When the Lord takes you to the valley of sorrow he does it because he knows there are rivers of joy there, which will lead you to delight in Him as the Everlasting God.
Wisdom should be passed on from one generation to the next. 1 (My son)
Prov. 3:21 My son, do not lose sight of these— keep sound wisdom and discretion,
Prov. 5:1 My son, be attentive to my wisdom; incline your ear to my understanding,
Wisdom is acquired
It’s not something you can go get in an instant.
Wisdom comes through discipline. It comes through daily walking with God. You can’t just go beg God for wisdom when you haven’t been walking with and expect to get it. It’s like going to a job and demanding that you make the top wage when you’re just starting out. Had you been walking with God all along you may have had more or enough wisdom to handle a situation but since you haven’t you don’t.
1. Wisdom is acquired by being disciplined reading of God’s word 1
a person who doesn’t get into God’s word regularly to let God speak to them is like a boy who doesn’t listen to his father.
A person who only listens to the preaching for the word and never devours it himself is a like a baby who has to get spoon fed.
2. Wisdom is acquired by seeking good advice 2
3. Wisdom is acquired by prayer 3
Much of the time we want God to give us a clear word about his will more than we want to be disciplined in seeking wisdom, or walking in the path God has for us.
Wisdom is the gift God gives us…
1. to guard your life.
God gives it 6
Wisdom guards the evil path 7-8 & 12-15
2. to keeps us on the path of His will
Your wisdom or lack of it is an indication of your walk with God or lack of it.
Our lack of walking with God and therefore our lack of wisdom comes from…
1. Our lack of trust in God
2. Our idolatrous heart – We don’t need to be perfect to be happy
We spend more time trying to figure out the will of God than we do knowing God.
God does not exist to make everything perfect in our lives, but to make our relationship with him perfect.
If we have to pray, “God what is your will” about everything, then we are probably not walking with God close enough. If we are walking with God we ought to just know what his will is on most issues we face. Walking with God should be our priority not writing on the wall, or the sand or a dream/vision.
4 Everyone who makes a practice of sinning also practices lawlessness; sin is lawlessness. 5 You know that he appeared to take away sins, and in him there is no sin. 6 No one who abides in him keeps on sinning; no one who keeps on sinning has either seen him or known him. 7 Little children, let no one deceive you. Whoever practices righteousness is righteous, as he is righteous. 8 Whoever makes a practice of sinning is of the devil, for the devil has been sinning from the beginning. The reason theSon of God appeared was to destroy the works of the devil. 9 No one born of God makes a practice of sinning, for God’s seed abides in him, and he cannot keep on sinning because he has been born of God. 10 By this it is evident who are the children of God, and who are the children of the devil: whoever does not practice righteousness is not of God, nor is the one who does not love his brother.
Jesus came on a destruction mission. Christmas is about the destruction of the devil, sin and it’s power over us.
He destroyed the power of the devil over us.
He destroyed the power of sin in our lives.
How did he destroy it when it still exists?
He is still working on it.
What exactly did he destroy? Sin’s power
Am I a Christian, I still sin?
1 John 2:1 My little children, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin. But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous.
1 John 1:8: “If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.”
I don’t think he has particular kinds of sins in view, but rather degrees of rootedness and habitual persistence. There is a point of confirmed sinning which may take you over the line of no return and you will be like Esau who sought repentance and could not find it (Hebrews 12:16-17).
John 5:16-17: “If anyone sees his brother committing a sin not leading to death, he shall ask, and God will give him life—to those who commit sins that do not lead to death. There is sin that leads to death; I do not say that one should pray for that. All wrongdoing is sin, but there is sin that does not lead to death.”
So I can still sin and it’s ok?
The magnitude of this destruction.
Sin is transgression
sin is complete.
Eph. 2:1-2 And you were dead in the trespasses and sins 2 in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air
Sin is captivating.
Rom. 8:7-8 For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God’s law; indeed, it cannot. Those who are in the flesh cannot please God.
you only can’t do what you don’t have the power to do.
Rom. 6:6 We know that our old self was crucified with him in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing, so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin.
our hearts our completely drawn away from the things of God. We celebrate what God does not like and we say the things God loves bore us.
When we explain away sin, we explain away the reason for the season.
Trying to help someone over come sin without Jesus is like life without a heart, like wal without the mart, like jack and jill without a hill, like a victory without a win.
Temptation is not just the inner struggle to do right when presented with the option to do wrong. It is best defined as a test or trial. It is often translated that way.
Jesus’ Temptation
Matt. 4:8-10 Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory. 9 And he said to him, “All these I will give you, if you will fall down and worship me.” 10 Then Jesus said to him, “Be gone, Satan! For it is written, “‘You shall worship the Lord your God and him only shall you serve.’”
Heb. 2:18 For because he himself has suffered when tempted, he is able to help those who are being tempted.
Heb. 4:15 For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin.
Our temptations
They come from our desires.
James 1:14 But each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire.
Matt. 26:41 Watch and pray that you may not enter into temptation. The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak.”
Don’t think your above sin.
1 Cor. 10:12 Therefore let anyone who thinks that he stands take heed lest he fall.
Don’t test God
Don’t pray this and then… put yourself in tempting situations.
1 Cor. 10:9-10 We must not put Christ to the test, as some of them did and were destroyed by serpents, nor grumble, as some of them did and were destroyed by the Destroyer.
Our need to be delivered from temptation
Jesus even told the disciples to pray this way
Luke 22:39-46 And he came out and went, as was his custom, to the Mount of Olives, and the disciples followed him. 40 And when he came to the place, he said to them, “Pray that you may not enter into temptation.” 41 And he withdrew from them about a stone’s throw, and knelt down and prayed, 42 saying, “Father, if you are willing, remove this cup from me. Nevertheless, not my will, but yours, be done.” 43 And there appeared to him an angel from heaven, strengthening him. 44 And being in an agony he prayed more earnestly; and his sweat became like great drops of blood falling down to the ground. [7] 45 And when he rose from prayer, he came to the disciples and found them sleeping for sorrow, 46 and he said to them, “Why are you sleeping? Rise and pray that you may not enter into temptation.”
God and Temptation
Jesus was tempted so he knows what it is like and can help.
God does not tempt us.
James 1:13 Let no one say when he is tempted, “I am being tempted by God,” for God cannot be tempted with evil, and he himself tempts no one.
God provides away to escape temptation.
1 Cor. 10:13 No temptation has overtaken you that is not common to man. God is faithful, and he will not let you be tempted beyond your ability, but with the temptation he will also provide the way of escape, that you may be able to endure it.
2 Peter 2:7-9 and if he rescued righteous Lot, greatly distressed by the sensual conduct of the wicked 8 (for as that righteous man lived among them day after day, he was tormenting his righteous soul over their lawless deeds that he saw and heard); 9 then the Lord knows how to rescue the godly from trials, and to keep the unrighteous under punishment until the day of judgment,
My greatest need is to be forgiven and Jesus proved it at the cross.
The promise of God’s forgiveness is not a license to sin.
Forgiving others starts by remembering that your greatest need is to be forgiven.
Forgiveness is only possible because of Jesus.
Eph. 1:7 In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace,
God’s forgiveness of us is no lite matter. Sometimes when we talk about forgiving others, some get the idea that we should just treat there offense like it does not matter. That’s not true. It matters. Our sin against God matters.
We must forgive others like God forgives us.
Unforgiveness is the absence of love.
“The outcome of our lives is not determined by what happens to us but by how we respond to what happens to us.” Nancy Leigh Demoss Choosing Forgiveness
How we respond when we are wronged often causes more harm than the harm we were caused.
How does responding in anger change anything?
Not forgiving others…
sets us up for more hurt and heart ache.
Opens the door for Satan to get a foothold on our lives.
Keeps us from experiencing the love and forgiveness of God.
