A Joy Unexpected - Part B

Psalm 37 says, the steps of a good man are ordered by the Lord. Oh, how we love that verse.

But let me tell you another part of that truth. The stops of a good man are also ordered by the Lord. Sometimes God says no.

I've had people say, I've been praying for that for months and I've got no answer from God. Yes, you have. No. It sounds like He said no.

That's what it sounds like to me. Well, that's not the answer I wanted. That's an answer. And it's a good answer if God gives it to you. God's no is as important as God's go. God often uses the most difficult and unlikely circumstances to carry out His purpose for your life. Connect with Skip Heitzig today as he continues to look at Paul's letter of joy and helps you understand why God sometimes puts roadblocks in your path that draw you closer to Him. Then stay tuned after the message as Skip and his wife, Lenya, share how you can keep your eyes fixed on the Lord when you face those roadblocks. God will go beyond just keeping us aligned and getting us through it, but He'll freely give us all things. I love that. That's a Father who knows and cares and lavishes.

Thanks, Skip. Be sure to stay with us after today's message to hear the full discussion. Right now, we want to tell you about a resource that will help you live in the power of the Holy Spirit. Counselor, Comforter, Advocate, Helper. These are some of the names for the Holy Spirit found in the Bible. The Holy Spirit isn't a warm, fuzzy feeling.

Or a vague cosmic force. He's a person who loves you, cares for you, and wants to empower you to be everything God calls you to be. Here's Skip Heitzig. I think there's a lot of Christians who have heard the term Holy Spirit, obviously, but they have a very vague idea of who the Spirit of God is and what He's supposed to do in their lives. We want to help you better understand the Holy Spirit by sending you Expound Holy Spirit. A DVD study from Pastor Skip. And for a limited time, we'll also send you a booklet by Lenya Heitzig called Empower, Discover Your Spiritual Gifts. Both resources are our way to say thanks for your gift of $25 or more to help keep this Bible teaching ministry on the air, connecting you to God's life-changing truth. Call now to request your copies of these resources, 800-922-1888, or give online securely.

Now, as we join Skip Heitzig for today's teaching, we're in Philippians chapter 1. Because you're guaranteed life, you're guaranteed liberty, and you're guaranteed, tell me, the pursuit of happiness. We have a country where people are pursuing happiness. The problem is, nobody's finding it.

Two-thirds of Americans claim to be unhappy. They're out looking for happiness, but they are not finding it. Because real happiness, true joy is a better term, is not found by direct pursuit.

It's a product of pursuing Christ and His will. As long as you live for yourself, and try to find peace and happiness and joy for yourself, you'll never find it. You'll be miserable. You'll be hard to live with. It's when you turn from yourself to an alien will, who takes over your life, and you live for Him that you find joy.

The more you do as you please, the less you will be pleased with what you do. But when you say, forget me, I want to serve Him. I want to be a bondservant of Him.

The byproduct of that is joy. Over in England, there's a great spot called Buckingham Palace. Now, Buckingham Palace is one of the center landmarks and places to visit. It's the palace of the royal family. Well, there's a flag that is flown outside of Buckingham Palace called the Royal Standard. The Royal Standard is the flag that is pushed up on the flagpole whenever the sovereign is in residence in the palace. So if the queen's home, the flag goes up.

Or if the king's home, depending on what era of English history we're talking about, the Royal Standard is flown. Think of joy like that. Joy is the flag flown over the castle of your heart when the king is in residence there. It's the badge. It's the sign of a bondservant.

The king is residing in my heart. So that's the pair. That's the author and his associate, Paul and Timothy, the dynamic pair.

But there's something else to notice, and that is the difficult place. Verse 1, Paul and Timothy, bondservants of Jesus Christ, to all the saints in Christ Jesus who are in Philippi with the bishops and the deacons. Now, did you know that Paul never wanted to go to Philippi? At least that wasn't on his plans.

It wasn't on his radar. He went there out of compulsion, not because he said, I want to go to Philippi. Philippi was a Roman colony, not a big deal that he wanted to visit, at least right now. On his second missionary journey, his plan was to go through Galatia. He had already been there before, but then expand northward and southward. That was his plan. But he got resistance.

You know who he got resistance from? God. God resisted him going to the places he planned. God resisted him. Psalm 37 says, the steps of a good man are ordered by the Lord. Oh, how we love that verse.

But let me tell you another part of that truth. The stops of a good man are also ordered by the Lord. Sometimes God says no.

I've had people say, I've been praying for that for months and I've got no answer from God. Yes, you have. No. Sounds like he said no.

That's what it sounds like to me. Well, that's not the answer I wanted. That's an answer. And it's a good answer if God gives it to you.

God's no is as important as God's go. And Paul discovered that. What do I mean?

Well, let me read it to you. This is Acts 16. It said, when they had gone through Phrygia and the region of Galatia, they were forbidden by the Holy Spirit to preach the word in Asia. That's God saying no. So they came to Mysia and they tried to go to Bithynia, but the Spirit did not permit them. But twice God says no.

No. He can't go there, can't go there. So he's flummoxed. He goes to a little place called Troas, which is a cool little beach town.

It must have been much bigger than I visited there. And he, at Troas, gets a vision of a man from Macedonia saying, come over to Macedonia and help us. My friend Raul Reese calls him, the man from Macadamia. But he is the man from Macedonia. And he gets a vision.

This man in the vision says, come over to Macedonia and help us. So he's come from one direction. He tried to go north, tried to go south. He's come from that way.

There's only one way to go. And there's a guy in his vision saying, come over here and help us. So they wake up the next day and they go, I think God wants us to go there. That's how he goes.

Now this is interesting. If you were to have interviewed Paul the Apostle at that time, and you would have said, where are you going, Paul? He would have said, I don't know.

What? You don't know? What's the will of God for your life? He would have said, I don't know.

I haven't got a clue. You? You're the writer of 13 books in the New Testament. Surely you know the will of God.

Not today. All I know is twice I've tried to go places and God keeps shutting that door. But I got a vision from the man from Macedonia. I guess I'm supposed to go over there.

God said no. And to Paul, he's now understanding God's no is as important as God's go because of closed doors. Okay, so he arrives in Philippi. That's the chief city of Macedonia.

Philippi named after Philip of Macedon, the father of Alexander the Great. He gets to Philippi, and I bet he's looking for a man from Macedonia. He had a vision of a man. He's looking around the streets going, I don't see the guy that I saw in my vision. I'm looking over there.

That doesn't look like him. So he goes down to the river, we're told, where women are gathered praying. Why are women gathered praying? They're Jewish women praying by a river because there's no synagogue in town.

None. He often goes to the synagogue. That's where he starts. But there's no synagogue because Jewish law said you had to have at least 10 Jewish men to have a synagogue. It was called a minyan. There was no minyan, so they had no synagogue. Because there was no synagogue, he couldn't go to it and start preaching. So he goes down to the river where women are praying. There's one woman named Lydia who sold purple fabric from Thyatira, and the Bible says the Lord opened her heart to receive the word spoken by Paul. So she comes to Christ because of Paul's presence down at the river, and I'm sure Paul's going, okay, well, we're off to a start. It may not be a great start.

Usually I get a lot more response than one chick from Thyatira down by a river, but there's no synagogue, so I'll start with that. So things go from bad to worse. He ends up getting arrested, beaten up, and thrown in jail. There's sort of an old joke about Paul that whenever he would go to a new town, he would say, show me the jail.

I want to find out where I'm going to be spending the night. He spent a lot of time in jail, a lot of nights in jail. So he's in jail in stocks, stretched out in pain with his buddy, and at midnight they sing hymns to God.

An earthquake happens, the stocks fall from his hands, the doors open. He ends up leading the Philippian jailer to Christ and his family. So we have a chick down by a river named Lydia and a jail guy. Two converts who become the seeds of this church that's going to grow. So Paul leaves, years go by.

Maybe even a decade goes by right now. The church at Philippi finds out Paul's in jail again, this time in Rome. So they send him some money, a love gift, to help support him. He writes a thank you letter.

Philippians is that thank you letter. It's a special relationship of love and he's saying thank you. And as they read it, they discover something unexpected in it. Joy. Joy.

This guy who's had it so bad for so long is writing with such joyful terms. Unexpected joy. Billy Sunday said, if you have no joy, there's a leak in your Christianity somewhere.

If you have no joy, there's a leak in your Christianity somewhere. I know I can hear all sorts of rebuttals. You don't know what I've been through. You don't know who's hurt me. You don't know what circumstances I'm under.

Wait a minute. What are you doing under your circumstances? You see, as believers, we're told to rise above the circumstances. That's where joy is.

And Paul says, we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. Don't get under your circumstances. Get over them.

On top of them. So this dynamic pair, Paul and Timothy, face difficult places with difficult people. So what did they do? In their pain, they found God's purpose. They found God's purpose. So I want to go from the dynamic pair and the difficult place to the divine purpose.

What is that purpose? Well, it's hinted at, at least, again in verse 1. Paul and Timothy, bondservants of Jesus Christ.

Now watch this. To all the saints in Christ Jesus who are in Philippi with the bishops and the deacons. It sounds like they've grown. What started out as a woman by a river and a jailer and his family has grown into all the saints. A spiritual family with spiritual fathers, overseers, pastors, and servants, deacons in this case. The church has grown. So that growth from all of his pain to see a church grow out of that and strong is worth it all to him. Worth it all. I know that because read the next couple of verses.

Let's just take a sneak peek. Verse 3. I thank my God upon every remembrance of you always in every prayer of mine making requests for you all.

He's from the south apparently. Requests for you all with joy. For your fellowship in the gospel from the first day until now being confident of this very thing that he who has begun a good work in you will complete it unto the day of Christ. Here's the key or here's one of the keys of Paul's life and his joy. Whatever negative experience he was facing and I bet I'm talking to a few people who are facing some negative experiences. Whatever negative experience Paul was encountering he was looking for how God was working.

When something bad happened he would think what's God up to? He's up to something. This hurts. This is painful.

This is horrible. What's he up to? That's how he lived his life. Listen when life happens unexpectedly God is moving supernaturally. Paul believed that.

Paul lived that way. There's always two sides of every event in your life. There's the factual side of the event but then there's the actual side of the event. There's the facts, the who, the what, the where, the how and usually I want to know what are the facts? What happened here? Here's the facts but then there's the actual side. The why.

Why did this happen? And so Paul lived his life looking around for the actual side of this event. He knew the facts but what's the actual thing happening? Why is God allowing this?

What's he up to? Where is the will of God found in this fabric of pain and suffering? In this case he'll discover that God uses Roman law, appellate law. He appeals his case to Caesar which gets him on a ship where he almost dies but doesn't. Which takes him to Rome which puts him in jail for a long time but through all that he discovers ah this is the will of God and for that I'm joyful. The will of God how?

Listen and again sneak ahead a little bit. Look at verse 12. I want you to know brethren that the things which happened to me have actually turned out for the furtherance of the gospel. Now you think of that statement.

You know what he means when he says the things that happened to me? Falsely accused in Jerusalem. Thrown in jail in Caesarea. Bad trial after bad trial. Put on a grain ship and taken to Rome.

Locked up in a Roman prison in guards. All those things that have happened to me that sound bad have actually turned out to further the gospel. And as we get into it I'll show you how that happened. So we have 104 verses in four chapters dripping with pure joy. Amazing to think about. A book of joy written by a guy who was once a killjoy has now become the apostle of joy. Now here's how to calculate your life. Here's how to think about your life.

Here's how to get joy in any situation. You take these elements and put them together. You take a dynamic person. By dynamic I don't mean I'm dynamic. It just means I'm saved and filled with the Spirit. That's dynamic. You have life in you.

That's what dynamic means. Take a dynamic person, saved and filled with the Spirit. Place a dynamic person in a difficult place with difficult people but have that person discover the plan of God and the result will be joy. When you discover the plan of God in that difficult place. The joy may be quite unexpected and when it is it's better that way. You go, I can't. I've talked to people.

I don't know how to explain it. This is the worst period of my life. But I have such peace and such joy. Let me close with this story. Tim Hansel writes about an 82 year old man served as a pastor for 50 years. They discovered skin cancer on this man that required 15 operations to maintain him.

82 years old, skin cancer, 15 operations. You're thinking there can't be a shred of joy in this story. Listen. Tim writes this. Besides suffering from the pain, he was so embarrassed about how the cancer had scarred his appearance that he wouldn't even go out. Then one day he was given a copy of my book, You Gotta Keep Dancing, in which I tell of my long struggle with chronic intense pain from a near fatal climbing accident. In that book I told of the day when I realized that the pain would be with me forever. So at that moment I made a pivotal decision.

I knew that it was up to me to choose how I responded to it. So I chose joy. After reading a while, the elderly pastor said he put the book down thinking, he's crazy.

I can't choose joy. So he gave up on the idea. Then later, as he read the Gospel of John chapter 15 verse 11, that joy is a gift. And Jesus says, I want to give you my joy that your joy may be complete. He thought, a gift.

A gift. He didn't know what to do. So he got down on his knees.

Then he didn't know what to say. So he said, well then Lord, give it to me. And suddenly, as he described it, this incredible hunk of joy came from heaven and landed on him. I was overwhelmed, this old man wrote. It was like the joy spoken about in the book of Peter. A joy unspeakable and full of glory.

I didn't know what to say. So I said, turn it on Lord, turn it on. And before he knew it, he was dancing around the house. Picture an 82 year old guy, skin cancer dancing around his house. He felt so joyful that he actually felt born again, again.

And this astonishing change happened at the age of 82. He just had to get out, he said. There was so much joy, he couldn't stay cooped up. So he went out to the local fast food restaurant and got a burger. A lady saw how happy he was and asked, how are you doing?

He said, oh, I'm wonderful. Is it your birthday? She asked. No honey, it's better than that. Ah, it's your anniversary.

No, better than that. Well, what is it? She asked excitedly. It's the joy of Jesus.

Do you know what I'm talking about? The lady just shrugged and answered, no I have to work on Sundays. Right over her head. She didn't get that crazy old man talking about the joy of Jesus. That's how she thought.

But he didn't care, he knew. He felt, he experienced a whole new way of living. The joy of the Lord. Unexpected joy. Unexpected joy.

Well in this case, you can expect joy. If you're filled with life, the life of Jesus, filled with the Holy Spirit, a dynamic person in a difficult place with difficult people, discovering a divine purpose. The result will be joy and the result of this letter, all 104 verses, 103 left, we'll be here a while, will be joy.

That wraps up Skip Heitzig's message from his series Technicolor Joy. Now, here's Skip and Lenya as they share why you can keep your eyes fixed on the Lord when you face life's roadblocks. Today you reminded us that in every negative circumstance Paul faced, he strived to see God working behind the scenes or in or through those situations and that that resulted in joy. So Skip, what can we do to keep our eyes on the Lord during difficult times?

Well, that's a struggle, isn't it? I mean, we all see the situations that are in front of us. The key is to be able to see the Lord over the situation in front of us. And there have been times, frankly, that I have not kept my eyes on the Lord. And I can think of certain specific instances and each time I suffered because I didn't keep my eyes on the Lord. So if I think that there should be a key to that, how do I do that?

There is, I think. I think there's two verses, both found in Romans, and one is Romans 8, 28. Most everybody knows that all things work together for good to those who love God and are called according to his purpose. The other one is a couple verses later, Romans 8, 32, where it says, If God didn't spare His only Son, but freely gave Him up for us, how shall He not then with Him freely give us all things? So, you know, one is a promise of providence, right? God will cause all things work together, He'll arrange things. The other is a promise of extravagance, that God will go beyond just keeping us aligned and getting us through it. But He'll freely give us all things. I love that. That's a Father who knows and cares and lavishes.

I like it. I heard you say recently, God doesn't just want you to survive, He wants you to thrive. And so some of us may be on that survival mode, you know, I'm hanging on by the hair of my chinny chin chin.

Low power, low power. I know, and God wants so much more. So don't let the circumstances cloud your view of the Son. He really is there. He's going to shine through.

He's going to break through in those circumstances. Give your faith a boost by putting your eyes in the right place. Thanks, Skip and Lenya. Well, we hope this conversation inspires you to keep living for Jesus, and we want to invite you to help keep this biblical encouragement coming to connect you and others to Jesus. If these messages have impacted you in your relationship with the Lord, please consider giving a gift today to bless even more people in the same way. Just call 800-922-1888. That's 800-922-1888 or visit connectwithskip.com slash donate. That's connectwithskip.com slash donate.

Thank you. Tune in tomorrow as Skip Heitzig shares from Paul's letter about what it means to you when Paul calls you a saint. Make a connection, make a connection at the foot of the cross and cast all burdens on His word. Make a connection, connection. Connect with Skip Heitzig is a presentation of Connection Communications, connecting you to God's never-changing truth in ever-changing times.