INTRODUCTION

Alright, good morning. It's good to see each of you this morning. If you guys have your Bibles. Let's open up to the book of Philippians chapter one is where we're gonna be. And that is not Genesis. We've been in Genesis for a while. If you've been with us as a church, but we're taking a pause for the fall and gonna be in a new series this fall in the New Testament letter of Philippians. And just if you're new to us as well, I always encourage you to bring a copy of God's word with you if you're able to. And if you don't own a Bible, we have copies in the back and also in the lobby.

I wanna encourage you to grab one of those and you're welcome to have one of those as a gift from us. So I'm excited to be starting this new series this morning in the book of Philippians. and let me just introduce myself as well. I'm Josh, I'm one of the pastors here, and just glad to have you with us.

So let me start by telling a quick story. if you know much about church history, there was a period of time about 500 years ago called the Protestant Reformation. And this is a time period when those in the church were seeking to bring reform and bring change in the church. And one of the key catalysts in that Reformation period was a man by the name of Martin Luther. And God used Martin Luther mightily in that season.

But Luther struggled at times with sadness and with like prolonged seasons of just despair. And in one of those seasons, his wife category, was trying to figure out how she could help her husband s snap out of his essentially depression. And so she one day dressed the kids and herself in black morning clothes, as if they were going to a funeral. And Luther noticed this, and he asked his wife, he said, Who died? And she said, God died. And Luther objected. He's like, that's impossible. God didn't die. She's like, well, that's the only explanation I can think of for why you're going about life in such a sad state.

And this Luther got the point. And this he kind of chuckled to himself and this helped him to snap out of his despair. So we're starting a new series this morning in the book of Philippians on the topic of the believers' joy The believer's joy.

And I'm not sure if you've ever thought about the subject or the theme, the topic of joy, but my hope and prayer is that this series is helpful to you and encouraging to you as it has been to me. As I've been preparing for this. So I'm really excited for this.

We will get back to Genesis eventually, I promise. But I just want to challenge you with a couple things in this series as we go through this letter in the New Testament. So here's my challenges to you.

My first challenge to you is that you would commit to being a part of this series. This will take us, Lord willing, eleven weeks from now until just before Thanksgiving. So my challenge to you would be to commit to being here every single Sunday for this series.

If you're not able to be here, that you could maybe watch or listen online, but that you wouldn't miss any parts of this series to the book of Philippians. My next challenge to you, and really my request, is that you would commit to praying for this series. That you would that we would all come together and pray and ask God to use this series in your life and in the life of our church.

Because what has to happen is not just words from a stage, but that God would, by his Holy Spirit, would work in our hearts and lives to increase our joy in Him. And then the third challenge I want to give to you is that you would invite. I would encourage you to invite people to this.

This is a really helpful and accessible series to the book of Philippians. And I don't care if you've invited somebody a thousand times, make it the thousand and one thousand. You never know what God might do.

So I would encourage you to invite and encourage people to come and be a part of this with you as we go through this these next several weeks together. So as we start any kind of new book series, I like to answer the question: why? I like to address why are we doing this?

Why are we doing this series? Why are we doing this series now? And I want to give you a couple of quick reasons.

And this is the one that we typically start out with, and there's good reason for it. But number one, we're doing this series through Philippians because we believe that all scripture is God breathed. Amen. We believe that the entire Bible. Bible from cover to cover is breathed out and authored by God. So when we read scripture and when we hear scripture taught and preached, we believe that we're hearing the very words of God.

One of the key verses for this is found in 2 Timothy 3:16-17, which says -

“All scripture is breathed out by God and is profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man or woman of God may be complete, not lacking your anything or equipped for every good work.”

So if you want to know one of the ways or the way that God helps to equip you and complete you, it's by the preaching and teaching of God's word. So the Bible from cover to cover is the very breath and the very word of God. Isaiah 40:8 says -

“the grass withers and the flower fades, but the word of our God will stand forever.”

So God's word is eternal and life-changing and life-sustaining because God Himself is eternal and life-changing and life-sustaining. So that's one of the reasons we do this. And I just want to establish that at the very beginning again is we do this because we believe that all scripture is breathed out by God, or is God breathed.

Here's the second reason we're doing this series right now. Because I believe there's a purpose that God has for us in Philippians that we need. We say this often, but we don't want man's agenda or man's ideas.

We want God's agenda and God's ideas. And God gave us the book of Philippians to build us up and to make us complete. Another verse from Isaiah 55:10-11, says -

“For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven and do not return there, but water the earth, making it bring forth and sprout, giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater, so shall my word be that goes out from my mouth. It shall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose, and shall succeed in the thing for which I sent it.”

So we believe that as God's word is taught and proclaimed, that God will accomplish what he wants to accomplish through the preaching of his word.

And what's awesome about this is it's oftentimes regardless of how good or how not good in our perspective the actual preacher is. I know that doesn't make sense to us, but praise God for this. Right? That God can and will use his word and accomplish what he wants to accomplish even through weak, frail human mediums, proclaiming the truth. I believe God has a purpose for us in the book of Philippians that we need. On a personal note, or on a practical note, I really believe that our church needs this series right now for encouragement.

And I'll be honest with you, even if it's only for purely selfish reasons, I need this series right now. I have personally been looking forward to this and needing this. And I just, I want you guys to know I love the fact, I'm so honored by the fact that I get to spend time studying God's word minding the depths of it to be able to share with all of you. So if there's any other reason, I personally am selfishly looking forward to going through Philippians. Whether you choose to be here or not, I'll be here doing that. And I hope you I hope you'll be here too.

Then lastly, number three, why are we doing this series right now? It's because true biblical joy, I believe, is fuel for the Christian life. Amen. I hope that's one of the things that we learn and take away. We'll talk about this a little bit more later in the sermon, but I hope that we'll understand and realize that that true biblical joy is like rocket fuel for the Christian life. It's really tough to live the Christian life. Life, period, but especially the Christian life, if we're lacking this true biblical joy that only comes from God. I was thinking about that theme or that imagery of rocket fuel, and so I just did a quick little search. I was curious how much of like a space rocket is fuel to just get the vehicle or whatever it is into the upper atmosphere, and roughly ninety percent of the weight is fuel.

Even back to like the old Saturn V rockets, they weighed about five million pounds, and about four and a half million pounds of that is simply the fuel needed to get the object into the upper atmosphere. Crazy, isn't it? But in the same way, I believe that true biblical joy is that same type of fuel that's essential to live the Christian life and to persevere in Christ. It's vital to the life of the believer. So today I'm going to simply argue that there's a massive difference between true biblical joy and temporary shallow worldly happiness that our world promotes. And that this true biblical joy is essential fuel for your life as a follower of Christ.

So, with that said, if you guys would, let's stand together and honor the reading of God's Word. We're going to read Philippians chapter 1, verses 1 through 11, and you can follow along, and then we'll pray together. Philippians chapter one verses one through eleven.

God's word given us given to us through Paul.

SCRIPTURE READING - PHILIPPIANS 1:1-11 ESV

Paul and Timothy, servants of Christ Jesus, To all the saints in Christ Jesus who are at Philippi, with the overseers and deacons: 2 Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

3 I thank my God in all my remembrance of you, 4 always in every prayer of mine for you all making my prayer with joy, 5 because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now. 6 And I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ. 7 It is right for me to feel this way about you all, because I hold you in my heart, for you are all partakers with me of grace, both in my imprisonment and in the defense and confirmation of the gospel. 8 For God is my witness, how I yearn for you all with the affection of Christ Jesus. 9 And it is my prayer that your love may abound more and more, with knowledge and all discernment, 10 so that you may approve what is excellent, and so be pure and blameless for the day of Christ, 11 filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ, to the glory and praise of God

PRAYER FOR THE MESSAGE

And let's take a moment to bow our heads and our hearts before God and pray. So Father, thank you for this time.

we acknowledge and believe that this is a holy moment. God, you know exactly again who's here. And what, you know, every word that's on our lips before we even speak it, you know what we think.

God, you made us. And so, God, by your grace and mercy, pour out yourself and your blessing in this time. And use it from the person who's the most senior saint who's been walking with you for decades to the new believer to the person who's here who is a skeptic, , atheist, agnostic, antagonist to these things, I pray God that you would soften hearts and that you would do what you can, only what you can.

God, we give you praise for it. We know that you will. Thank you in Jesus' name.

Amen. Amen. You may be seated.

THE MESSAGE

So what I want to do this morning for the time that we have together is kind of use this morning as a little bit of an overview of the series. we're not actually gonna get into this section of Philippians that we read a whole lot today. We're gonna give some overview stuff and we'll get into that a little more detail next week.

But I want to lay out where we're headed for the series. So I want to share with you four things related to biblical joy that are kind of the baseline as we start thinking about this topic of joy. And I do want you to know that the book of Philippians is not only about joy.

It's about a lot of other things, but one of the main themes of Philippians is the theme of joy. So here's the first thing that I want you to know and to wrestle with this morning: is this that number one - Joy is God's desire for every believer. Amen.

Joy is God's desire for every believer. He wants you to put your faith and trust in Jesus Christ and He wants you in Christ to be filled with joy. I'm not sure what picture you have of God, but it's really important that you know these things about God. He desires for you to be filled with joy. Jesus said this in John 15:11. Here's what he said -

“These things I have spoken to you, talking to his disciples, that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be (what?) May be full.”

So God's desire for you as a believer is that his joy would be in you and that that joy would be full joy. I mean sign me up, right? This is good. So this causes us to wrestle with the question, what is true biblical joy? Like we have to make sure we understand what we're talking about. Like if the lions lose today, they're not going to, but if they do. So true biblical joy in the Lord is vastly different than what we maybe classify as shallow superficial happiness that our world promotes. So here's a definition we're gonna build onto and build off of in this series.

Definition: how I would define true biblical joy is Joy is this. True biblical joy is a supernatural, deep-seated gladness that is dependent upon Jesus and not dependent upon circumstances.

This is the difference. Worldly joy or worldly happiness is oftentimes based on external circumstances and they're always changing. But the believer's joy is centered around Jesus, who is unchanging. So true biblical joy is not based on circumstances.

What's fascinating about this letter to the believers in this town called Philippi is being written by a man named Paul. And in the present moment, Paul is not sitting high on some like mountain top resort. Paul is sent in a Roman prison, chained to a Roman guard.

So Paul's writing to the believers in Philippi, and he's chained to (literally chained to) a Roman guard 24-7. Talk about lack of privacy. And he's writing to the believers, rejoice in the Lord, have joy.

So this joy that Paul's talking about is centered on Christ and not on circumstances. True biblical joy is not based on even an internal state of mind. Secular philosophers would argue that joy is like an internal state of mind that you find within yourself. You're your own source of joy. Let me just ask, how's that working? Right? How’s that going?

So our joy is not found from within ourselves as we're the source of it. It's not found from external circumstances, which are changing and temporary. Our joy as Christians, as believers, is found in Christ. God desires for us to be filled with joy. Galatians 5:22-23 List what is known as the fruit of the Spirit. But the fruit of the Spirit is love. Love, what's the next one? Joy.

Now I'm not saying that these are listed necessarily in order of importance, but love's a pretty big deal, right? That God's spirit produces genuine love in the heart of a believer, and then the very second fruit is joy. That one of the things that the Spirit produces in believers is joy. There's a training tool, a teaching tool called the Westminster Shorter Catechism. The very first question of the catechism is this: what is the chief end of man?

And the answer is this. Man's chief end is to glorify God and enjoy him forever. I'm not sure if you've ever considered the enjoyment of God. Maybe your view of God View of God as this mean grumpy grandpa. But God desires to be enjoyed and He's worth enjoying. Amen.

We get to enjoy God. We get to enjoy all of God's goodness and all of his mercy and all of his grace and all of his blessings. What he's prepared for us now, we get to enjoy, and also eternally for those who are in Christ.

I want you to consider this: that for the believer, all things are moving toward eternal joy and happiness. Author Jerry Bridges said “Christian joy is essentially the enjoyment of God, the fruit of communion with Him. Jesus is our joy.”

If you have Christ, you have the source of true biblical joy. Joy doesn't come from external circumstances, like I mentioned, and even from within yourself. Otherwise, we're always chasing this next thing that will provide joy, but joy comes from Christ. Amen.

So I was texting with a friend of mine who's also in the same doctoral program that I'm in right now and I was texting him to ask him like how his schoolwork is coming. And he texted me back and he said he said, Well, I just got injured playing pickleball. It's possible you can get injured playing pickleball. but he said actually it's it turned out to be a blessing because it means I have a lot more time to write right and work on his schoolwork. So God's will for you is that you be happy and joyful in him.

So this leads us to the second kind of foundational piece for this series, number two, that true biblical joy is always possible in the life of the believer. I recognize you may want to push back, and that's good. The reason that true biblical joy is always possible in the life of the believer is because God is the source of our joy.

The believer is able to have joy, I would argue, 24-7, because our source is unchanging. Now, does this mean that you always have to walk around with a smile on your face? And that you'll never struggle? No. Let me ask you a question. This causes us to drill down our definition a little bit more.

And feel free to answer at risk of getting the answer wrong, okay? So - Is joy an emotion? Is it a feeling and emotion? Okay, yeah. So anyway, so let me press on that a little bit.

Is joy an emotion? The answer is yes. You experience joy, don't you?

Yes. You do. But is joy only an emotion? No. So think of it like this. Think of love.

And this is where I believe our world and culture gets these things wrong, gets love wrong especially. Is love an emotion? Yes. The answer is yes, okay? Don't worry. you're fine. Yes, love's an emotion. You feel the emotions of love. But is that all that love is? No. No, there's a part of love that's commitment and care. So sometimes you will experience the emotion of love and sometimes you won't experience that. Our culture thinks that's all love is. But love is so much more than an emotion. Same thing with joy.

Joy is an emotion. You sometimes experience the emotion of joy, sometimes you don't. But true biblical joy is that long-lasting, deep-seated gladness in your hearts, whether you feel emotions of joy or not, that is stable and constant.

Now I don't want to set the expectation that I think that we're all gonna do this perfectly. But I just want us to know as Christians that we all have access to the true source of joy, which is Jesus Christ, and therefore always have the ability to be joyful. This is why writers like the writer of the book of James can say, “my brothers, consider it pure joy when you face trials of many kinds.”

Consider all of it joy because you're in Christ.

This also doesn't mean the absence of sadness and struggle. It doesn't mean they're gonna walk around all the time saying, I'm just blessed. So there's a great verse in 2 Corinthians 6:10 where Paul says this “we go about as sorrowful, yet always rejoicing.”

It's possible to have two different types of emotions simultaneously. Did you know this? So I was away recently working on some of my schoolwork and I got a text from my mom that my only remaining grandparent passed away. She was a step-grandma. My grandpa remarried after my grandma passed away, and got this text from my mom, and we knew that this was coming. And as I read the text message, there's simultaneously a sadness and a joy. She lived a great, healthy, long life. She was a believer in Jesus Christ. So as I'm reading this, there's a sorrow and sadness of her passing, but also a great joy. She just received a promotion. She's with Jesus. So it's you can experience both at the same exact time, can't you?

Yes.

So that inner gladness is always possible for the believer, and it can be a constant source of encouragement and delight for the believer in Christ. Paul's in jail writing to the Philippians, he's full of joy as he reflects on his connection to Christ. So, good news. Who cares about the lions if you're in Christ?

Number three, true biblical joy is essential fuel for the Christian life. Here we return to this theme.

I'll be honest with you, this has been a big one for me the past couple of months. This joy that is only from Christ is essential fuel for the Christian life. Without this joy, you will lack some of the essential strength for Christian living and perseverance. Can you guys relate to this? Can you relate to going through seasons where you lack joy in the Lord and everything's a chore and a challenge? There's this really small little verse I think is amazing in the book of Nehemiah, Nehemiah 8:10 which says the joy of the Lord is your what? Strength. The joy of the Lord is your strength. Somehow Nehemiah, by inspiration of the Holy Spirit, connects the idea of true biblical joy with Joy with strength for the people of God.

There's another example in the New Testament when Jesus is sending out disciples. So Jesus had originally the twelve disciples and the number of disciples are increasing. And at one point he sends out what are known as the 72. 72 disciples. Jesus sends out and says, I want you to pray with people. I want you to proclaim the good news. And they come back and they tell Jesus all these amazing things that happened. They're like, Jesus, you'll never guess what. We prayed with people and we cast out demons and it was awesome. And Jesus' response to them was, Behold, I gave you authority to tread on serpents and scorpions and over all power of the enemy, and nothing shall hurt you.

But Jesus said this afterwards, He said, Nevertheless, do not rejoice in this that the spirits are subject to you, but rejoice that your names are written in heaven. So like don't get caught up in all these crazy spiritual experiences. I want you to have your joy rooted in the fact that your name is written in the book of life. Amen.

So I mentioned this writing trip that I was on recently and I feel guilty but I will confess I was able to go up to Mackinac Island for a few days. I don't know if Mackinac Island or not, but the fudge is awesome, so it was worth it.

But I got to go spend some time there for a few days writing and studying and if you're not familiar, there's no motorized vehicles allowed on the island. So it's all either horses, walking, or riding bikes, which was awesome. It kind of slows things down, right, as you would imagine. One of the newest controversies on the island is e-bikes. What do you do with e-bikes? Right? So they they've landed at a place where there's certain classes of e-bikes. There's some that just have throttles and that's kinda that's for sure cheating. So they said no to that. But the kinds where you have the pedal and then the electric motor assists that a little bit, those are allowed. So I had the opportunity to ride an e-bike while I was there for a lot of the time and it was awesome. So the purists who ride bikes, they don't like e-bikes, but if you've ever ridden one, it's really fun. So you pedal a little bit and you feel superhuman because this electric motor is assisting, you know, you're what you're doing. So it just feels amazing. I think that's what joy does in our life as a Christian. That the joy of the Lord is our strength. It helps to sustain us. So true biblical joy is a Joy is essential fuel for the Christian life.

And number four, I believe that true biblical joy must be fought for. True biblical joy is not automatic. This has been one of the biggest eye-openers for me the past few months.

I realized earlier this year that I had a faulty view of joy. I assumed joy was something that either happened to me or didn't happen to me, and that I was completely passive in the entire matter. Like, I'm just going along throughout life, and if I experience joy, like there's nothing that I can do about that. Or if I don't experience joy, there's nothing that I can do about that. But I believe that is wrong. Of the nearly 20 times that Paul That Paul uses words for joy in the book of Philippians. Some of them are nouns, like something you possess and have. And many of them, 12 out of the almost 20, are verbs. Meaning that there's some action that can be done. Meaning in many cases that it's actually a command. Rejoice. Rejoice.

One of those is Philippians 4:4, one of the more well known verses in Philippians. Philippians 4:4, which says rejoice, key phrase, where? In the Lord. How often? Always and again I'll say it rejoice. There are things that you can do and that you must do to foster and cultivate and increase even your feelings of joy in the Lord.

Following the commands of God produces joy, time with the Lord and His Word produces joy. Fellowship with other believers produces joy. These are all things that increase our joy. To me this is really important, isn't it? You're not just passive in joy, you have to fight for it.

There's also things that kill your joy. Sin kills your joy. If you want to know how to kill joy in your life, continue to live in repetitive sin and hidden secret sin. It will it will drain the joy tank. You wonder what else kills joy is comparison. Comparison kills joy.

So a couple things we can do. We get to choose joy. We can choose joy.

Now, what I'm obviously not saying is you can choose the emotion of joy, but you can choose joy. Psalm 118:24 -

“This is the day that the Lord has made. Let us rejoice and be glad in it. Or I will rejoice and be glad in it.”

Imagine starting your every day off with this verse.

This is the day that the Lord has made. I will rejoice and be glad in it. So we can choose joy. We're commanded to be joyful. If you're looking for a memory verse, 1 Thessalonians 5:16, two words. “Rejoice always.”  You just memorized a verse today. Like pat yourself on the back.

Be joyful about that, right? Rejoice always. Again, Philippians 4:4 “rejoice in the Lord always. Again, I will say it, rejoice.”

Paul from a Roman prison with a Roman guard strapped to him. He's like, Hey, what do you think about this? Is this line good? Is this gonna work? He's like, go you can try. I don't know. That's not exactly how it went, but Augustine, one of the early church fathers, said in a prayer fashion, said to God, “God, command what you will.” Like it's your prerogative to command what you. We would object and say, God, how can you command love?

How can you command joy? But Augustine said, “God, command what you will” but then he added this “and grant what you command.” God command what you will, but grant also what you command.

You can pray for joy. God grant me the joy that you say you made me for and that you want me to have. God grant me this joy.

David, when he was recovering from his sinful adultery with Bathsheba and repenting before God, he prayed this in verse 12 of Psalm 51. He said, Restore to me the joy of your salvation. What happened to your joy?

I've explained or shared my story a lot from this stage. Just again as a reminder, if you haven't heard, I grew up in a Christian home. My dad actually preached here a couple weeks ago, which was a great privilege. I was actually on my riding trip on Mackinac riding around on the e-bike when he was here preaching. But I grew up in a great Christian home and I heard the gospel from a very young age. I heard that God is good and created all things good, but mankind rebelled against him and our sin separates us from him.

God is loving and gracious and sent his son Jesus to die on the cross. That those who put their faith and trust in him for forgiveness of sins, your sins are forgiven, payment is paid for by Christ. And I remember at a very young age, somewhere around age five, by God's grace, I remember praying with my mom and asking Jesus to forgive me of my sins. And I remember giving my life to Christ. And the one thing that I remember, the one overwhelming emotion that I remember from that moment is an overwhelming sense of joy. One of the things that we do here quarterly is we have membership classes for those who want to make Evident Church their home in a more official way.

And so the second class meets in our living room. One of the things that we do is we have people go around and share their two to three minute testimony. We bribe them with candy and then they share. They share then we reward them with candy. But anyway, I shouldn't have told you that. That's insider information.

But the overwhelming thing. Now people get to Christ in different ways. God opens up eyes in different ways or through different means. But the common theme is that when a person gives their life to Christ knows that they are forgiven of their sins through what Jesus Christ has done, the common emotion experience is joy. Joy. For the believer, everything is moving in the direction of eternal happiness and eternal joy.

So I'm not sure what time you guys got up this morning, but on my way to church this morning I was driving from west to east on 26 mile road and I got to see an amazing sunrise this morning. And it was really, really amazing. You know, this the sun was kind of coming up over the clouds and there was a lot of fog. It was pretty foggy. So it created this really amazing unique sunrise. And you know, sunrise is like that you get to marvel at the colors and at the variation and sometimes there's sunbeams coming and it's just it's amazing. But we wanted to take a picture of it, and the picture just doesn't do it justice, does it? and for a minute I was kind of sad about that. But then I thought, you know, it's probably a good thing that you kind of just have to experience it. But it gives us a glimpse, a picture gives us a glimpse. And the things that we get to enjoy here now are just simply glimpses of the reality that is ours in Christ to come.

There's an another parable, I'll share this and I'll close, but you guys have probably heard this parable before, it's the parable of the talents. Jesus tells this parable of three servants that he gives a certain amount of money to, and they're the steward that well, and and some of them do well with it, some of them don't. But the those who steward it well who come back to him, you guys all know the line.

Jesus says, What he says, well done, what good and faithful servant. I entrusted you with this, you were faithful with it. There's another part of it that we don't often think about, and Jesus says at the end in the parable, Jesus says, Come and share in what? In your master's happiness. It's actually the same Greek word for joy. Come and share in your master's happiness, your master's joy.

Let me ask you, where is your joy? And how would you rate your level of joy today? Whether you're here and you're a believer or you're not a believer on a scale of one to ten, don't have to answer out loud, that'd be kind of awkward, but don't do that. But as you think about it, how would you rate your level of joy today? And are you experiencing true biblical lasting deep-seated joy?

Joy that isn't tied to changing circumstances. Can I just plead with you for a second? And this is to myself as well. Joy that isn't tied to the stock market. And joy that isn't tied to the price of gas at the pumps. And joy that isn't tied to again what happens this afternoon with sports. But is your is your joy tied to true lasting deep-seated gladness that only comes through Jesus Christ? My encouragement to you is that you would look to Jesus Christ. He is your source of joy.

He is your joy. Let me just give this little caveat, please don't pursue joy. Pursue Jesus as the source of your joy.

Pursue Christ and you your joy will increase. Okay, let's do that. Let's pray.

CLOSING PRAYER

Jesus, thank you for today, and thank you for the privilege of having access to your word. Thank you, God, for being the God that reveals yourself. Thank you for your kindness, and I pray, God, that you would encourage you one of us today.

Again, you know exactly where we're at and what we need. And I pray, God, that we'd have great anticipation and great excitement for what you're going to do by your spirit through this series through Philippians. God, even this morning, I pray that you'll begin to fill again each of us with your joy.

Not always relying on the emotions of it, but just having this calm gladness in our hearts because of Christ. Jesus, I pray that you'd be our focus and but Lord please forgive us for being connected to so many of the things that we have wrongly tried to attach our joy to. God make us glad in you and only you.

We thank you in Jesus' name. Amen.