• Philippians Chp 3; Verse 1...Rejoice in the Lord...For me to write the same things to you is not tedious, but for you it is safe. 

 

• Paul does not say joy in your health, joy in your success, joy in your wife, joy in your husband, joy in your kids...He says, rejoice and joy is in the Lord. 

 

• You see joy is a supernatural delight in God and God's goodness.  It is our birthright as Christians. 

 

• The angel who announced Jesus' birth to the shepherds said, “Do not be afraid.  I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all people.  Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; He is Christ the Lord.” …Jesus said in John 15:11, “I have told you this so that My joy may be in you and that your joy may be full or complete.”  In John 17 Jesus prayed to the Father “that they may have the full measure of my joy within them...” 

 

• Joy is the birthright of all true believers.  It was joy that Paul wished to see in the little congregation at Philippi.  It is the joy that comes only from a life focus on Jesus and His love.  You see the world can only offer happiness.  And happiness is sweet.  It feels good, its seemingly satisfying, it’s pleasurable and most folks spend their whole lives pursuing happiness.  The problem with happiness however is that it is fleeting...

 

• Happiness is our translation for the Latin word fortuna, and it is closely related to chance.  If things happen to work out in a way that we approve, we are happy.  If they do not, we are unhappy.  Therefore happiness is circumstantial, but joy is not.  Joy is an inner quality of delight in God and it is meant to spring up within the Christian in a way totally unrelated to the adversities or circumstantial happenings of this life. 

 

• The very source of Joy is God the Father.  How’s your joy today?  Can you think back to a moment in which not everything was going your way, yet you had joy?  That joy, has its origins on the throne seat of the most high.  Joy is present in heaven.  Joy is everlasting...yet we waste so much time, effort and sweat equity chasing after earthly happiness just to fall short in the end when we find ourselves needing more...needing another happiness fix...

 

• In Isaiah 55 we read “Everyone who thirsts, Come to the waters; And you who have no money, Come, buy and eat. Yes, come, buy wine and milk Without money and without price. Why do you spend money for what is not bread, And your wages for what does not satisfy? Listen carefully to Me, and eat what is good And let your soul delight itself in abundance...For you shall go out with joy, and be led out with peace; The mountains and the hills Shall break forth into singing before you, And all the trees of the field shall clap their hands.

 

• Joy is indeed our birthright as born again followers of Christ but the truth is many Christians fail to experience joy or they lose it after the initial joy of their salvation.  Circumstances get us down, things don't go our way, life gets hard and stays hard...Christians may even slip into a depression but this should not be...instead of depression there should be joy in the Lord that goes beyond our circumstances, moods, our ups, our downs, our failures and our disappointments. 

 

• Perhaps you're saying, “I know that I should have it, and I would like to rejoice in the Lord always.  But you know I still get down, I still get angry and sometimes I stay that way for hours, days even weeks.  How can this joy be sustained?”

 

• The answer is in God's word and we must follow it as we would a Doctor's prescription.  If you see a doctor about fatigue and feeling run down and he prescribes exercise and a multivitamin, you go down to the drugstore and buy your multivitamins and if you are disciplined, you plan some exercise into your day.  In the same way, if we lack Christian joy, we need to adhere to God's remedy.  This remedy can be summed in a just a few biblical principles....

 

 

• First you must become a Christian.  Supernatural joy is not available to the natural man...God cannot build upon a human foundation because the human foundation that we all possess is tainted.  We must be reborn by the indwelling of His Holy Spirit thus relaying a foundation of righteousness, His foundation within us and then He is able to build...the spiritual foundation will support spiritual growth...

 

• The second step to sustained joy is to know Him through His word.  Joy is associated throughout the bible with a mature knowledge of God's word.  Psalm 19:8 says the precepts of the Lord are right, giving joy to the heart.  Psalm 119 says I rejoice in following Your statutes as one rejoices in great riches...John 15:10-11 Jesus said, “If you obey My commands, you will remain in My love, just as I have obeyed My Father's commands and remain in His love.  I have told you this so that My joy may be in you and that your joy may be full.”

 

• Joy is to be found in a knowledge of God's character, commandments, and promises and these are all found in His word.  To know and experience joy, you must know and experience His word.  You must have commitment and consistency in your study habits.  If the doctor prescribes exercise and you get on the treadmill for 45 minutes every Sunday and Wednesday or if you get on the treadmill at home every day for 15 minutes, it’s not going to do much help...there is no bowflex Christianity...

 

• The third principle is to not only hear, read and study the word, but to be a doer also of that which you learn.  The bible will profit you nothing if all you do is read it but never apply it in your lives.  Head knowledge is useless without application.

 

• The fourth principle is to serve the Lord.  Whatever you do, do it unto the Lord.

 

• The fifth principle is to communicate with God.  Pray without ceasing the bible says... 

 

• The sixth principle, fellowship...build relationships with other believers so that you can hear of how others are saved, how others are growing in their knowledge of the word, how others effectively find time to study and their methods, you'll hear of their experiences and what they did and then you will learn from their actions, you'll hear of their service to the Lord and they'll hear of all of these things from you also, your walk, your growth...and finally you'll pray together.  The mark of fellowship is that there is time for prayer.

 

• Just like Paul says there in verse 2, it is profitable to be reminded of the basics...the doctor's prescription...because it is so easy to get off track and have an imbalanced spiritual diet and find ourselves slipping into a season of emotional trial....apply these simple principles and share in Paul's supernatural rejoicing regardless of the prison you may find yourself in....

 

• Verse 2

 

• The Jews would typically refer to the gentiles as dogs but here Paul turns it around warning against those who would seek to impose the law and pervert the gospel into something that is not the gospel at all.  This we can apply to false teachers.  And we are to beware of false teachers and false teachings because ultimately following and believing false teaching will lead us into some sort of form of bondage.  You know the most effective false teacher…is yourself.

 

• The mark of a false teacher is laid out for us in Galatians 1:7-9...”There are some who trouble you and want to pervert the gospel of Christ.  But if even we or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel to you than what we have preached to you, let him be accursed.”

 

• To be able to identify “any other gospel” one must first know the true gospel.  This is precisely why a mature knowledge of God's word is a principle step in the prescription of joy.  To embrace or fall victim to a false teaching is to be ripped off by the thief, ripped off of joy in the simplicity and availability of the good news of Jesus Christ!

 

• Here are a few personal marks that I watch for when my false teacher radar starts to go off....statements like...

 

• ….well it’s not in the Bible but I know it’s true, or I feel it’s true, or it’s not in the bible but its scripture....

 

• ….well if you kinda look at it this way and just somewhat just think of it like this and if you put this and this together then you'll see that....I shouldn't have to stretch...the bible is not hard to understand...

 

• ….or of course if one makes a doctrinal statement on a single verse....at least give it the 20/20 test...

 

• Faith plus….or according to the bible, in order to be saved you have to ____________(anything other than put your trust in Jesus, believing Him to be who He said He was and invite Him into your life)

 

• Understand that in order to guard against false doctrine, in order to fine tune your false doctrine radar....we must have a mature knowledge of the word...

 

• The word in the Greek for pervert is metastrepho.  It is where we get our word metastasis or metastic, as in disease which is the spread of a disease from one organ or part of the body to another non adjacent organ or part of the body.  And that is exactly what false teaching and false doctrine does when a believer is caught in it...it spreads like cancer.  But just like cancer, if it is caught early it can be stopped. 

 

• Paul would say, stop the cancer!  Get it out before it metastasizes and begins to attack other organs like your families, your children, your wives, your husbands, your church family....Paul said in

 

• The bible tells us to not heed false doctrine but rather Expose it….interesting how your expose a fake, you study the real thing…

 

• Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits, whether they are of God; (1 John 4)

 

• False doctrine is serious business…Whoever transgresses and does not abide in the doctrine of Christ does not have God. He who abides in the doctrine of Christ has both the Father and the Son. (2 John 9)

 

• But we cannot use fleshly instruments of was such as emotion, such as head knowledge…such as physical attack….For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war according to the flesh. For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal but mighty in God for pulling down strongholds, casting down arguments and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ, (2 Corinthians 10:3-5)

 

• Paul says rejoice and in your true rejoicing…by giving your life to the Lord and being born again into the resurrected image of His Son, by giving great place in your life to the study of the word of God, by not only studying but also applying God’s word, by serving the Lord out of a heart of love responding to His goodness, by staying in close communication with God, and by pursuing fellowship…in your true rejoicing you will indeed be growing into a mature Christian…able to protect your heart and the hearts of those around you from false teachings and doctrines of demons…the enemy comes only to murder and to steal…God is calling each of us to be sanctified, sold out…Jesus freaks and turn the world upside down for His glory…starting with our own….