Extreme Life Makeover
Galatians 5:22-23 - Joy
Remember
the video last week of the destruction part of the Extreme Home Makeover
show? Keep that in mind. We need to remember that as God is wanting to
do an Extreme Life Makeover in us that the first step is the destruction
phase. That is, He does not just want to
do a small remodeling or redecorating job on us. He want to start with a brand new life. And it is something we have to be willing to
let Him do. Galatians 5:22-23 describes
the new life and describes it as fruit that the Holy Spirit is growing in
us. This makeover will not take just a
week to build or grow. It takes the rest
of our lives. The first of the fruits is
love, and we looked at that last week.
The second is joy.
The fact
is, even the best of relationships goes through ups and downs. Every
relationship has its difficult times. You're not happy all the time in a
relationship. You married a human being, or friendships - they're human or the
people you work with. So people get sick, we argue, we have misunderstandings,
sometimes we're inconsiderate, sometimes things just don't go right. Life is
not a constant honeymoon. Some days, to be honest, are just a complete
disaster. Some days are just tough in relationships.
You know
it's going to be a bad day when ...
You call
your answering service and they tell you it's none of your business.
You put
your pants on backwards and they fit better.
When your
horn goes off accidentally and remains stuck as you follow a motorcycle gang up
the canyon.
Whenever
we look for relationships, whether it's in a marriage or a good, close
friendship, people say “I just want to be happy.” There's nothing wrong with
that. But today we're going to talk about something far better than happiness.
What you need in your relationships is not happiness; what you need is joy.
That's a
lot different than happiness. Happiness depends upon happenings - you're just
lucky, fortunate, things are going your way so you are happy. Happiness is
external; joy is internal. Happiness is
based on circumstances and when they change you’re not happy anymore. Joy is based on Christ and a sure hope for
the future beyond current circumstances.
Happiness is based on chance. Joy
is based on your choice. Joy is the
confidence I feel from knowing and trusting God regardless of my circumstances.
Today we
are looking at the secret of joy. It is
the second in the series of the Extreme Life Makeover that God wants to give to
us. It is an essential fruit God wants
to grow in your life.
Three Relational Joy Killers
First I want to share with you the three things that can kill joy
in your life and your relationships.
Anytime you are having problems in a relationship, you can be guaranteed
one or more of these is happening. They always kill the joy in relationships.
1. Selfishness.
Selfishness
is saying, I want what I want and you want what you want and those are
different things, so we don't get along together
James
4:1-2 – “What is causing the quarrels and
fights among you? Don’t they come from the evil desires at war within you? You want what you don’t have, so you scheme
and kill to get it. You are jealous of what others have, but you can’t get it,
so you fight and wage war to take it away from them.”
James is
saying that really the root problem of relational difficulties is a power
struggle between two selfish people. For a lot of us, to solve the relational
problems we're in right now, the simple solution is- grow up. Stop being so self-centered.
Think of your spouse or friend or coworker rather than just yourself. You hear
people saying “I have my rights!” Yes you do. But when you start focusing on
them you end up competing with people, rather than complementing them.
What
causes this? Pure and simple
selfishness. The truth is that I am
naturally self-centered and so are you.
For instance: It I were to take a
picture of this group, who would you look for first when I showed it to you? YOU!
You would want to see if you thought it was a good picture of you. Were you looking cross eyed with your finger
in your nose or were you having a good hair day with a bright smile? Why?
Because we are naturally self-centered as fallen human beings. Do you want joy in your life and
relationships? Then get the focus off
yourself and onto other people.
James 3:16
says, “For wherever there is jealousy and
selfish ambition, there you will find disorder and evil of every kind.” In
other words, you can't be joyful and jealous at the same time. Selfishness
undermines relationships. Get the focus off yourself.
2. Resentment.
Resentment
says, “I won't forgive you.” We hurt each other in relationships, sometimes
intentionally, sometimes unintentionally. Because you deal with human beings,
we misunderstand each other, we have conflict. You're going to be hurt in
relationships. It's a fact of life What
you do with that hurt makes a difference whether you're joyful or you're
miserable.
Nothing
destroys a relationship faster than resentment. Hebrews 12:15 warns us to see
to it that no root of bitterness (resentment) springs up among you causing
trouble.
I've had
people say, “I just don't love him or her anymore. I just don't have any
feelings for her anymore. It's empty inside. It's not hate, I just feel
nothing, and I just don't feel anything anymore.” When I hear that, I always
know that resentment has been involved somehow, because resentment eats up
emotional energy. What happens is you spend all your time resenting the fact
that they hurt you someway (whether years ago or recently) and pretty soon you
have no emotional energy left and you're empty inside. Resentment is a joy killer
in relationships
You might
say, “This is not what I expected. I really feel cheated in this
relationship. It is not at all what I
expected it to be.” What gives you the thought that you think you deserve the
perfect mate? They're probably a little disappointed too. The fact is that
marriage is built on two very imperfect people trying to work on it. But if you
just expect perfection and don't work on it, you're going to lose your joy.
Don't set yourself up for guaranteed disappointment by expecting perfection
from a mate or a friend.
If you
refuse to forgive, you're hurting yourself most of all. We've talked about this
before. Resentment always hurts you more than it does anybody else.
3. Fear.
Fear says
“I don't trust you anymore.” Maybe because you've been hurt. When fear builds
up in your life, the joy goes out of the relationship.
Proverbs
12:25 says, “Worry weighs a person down;
an encouraging word cheers a person up.” Fear causes us to build walls between us
instead of bridges. Fear causes us to encase ourselves in an isolation booth
that says, I'm not going to ever let another person hurt me. I'll never let
another person know my real feelings, because last time I got burned. So we put
up walls and we isolate ourselves and we're miserable. When you're full of fear
there is no emotional intimacy. And when there is no emotional intimacy there
is no joy. It just doesn't happen. We wear masks and the results are we're
miserable trying to put on a show and protect ourselves.
1 John
4:18 – “Such love has no fear, because
perfect love expels all fear. If we are afraid, it is for fear of punishment,
and this shows that we have not fully experienced his perfect love.”
Fearful people
cannot give love and cannot receive love because they're saying I'm afraid I'll
be hurt again. I'm afraid I will not get what I want here. Perfect love casts out fear, because perfect
love is focused on the other person instead of self. It is willing to take the
risk of being hurt or disappointed.
Fear
does three things to relationships:
1. Fear
makes me defensive. I won't admit it when I'm wrong. I can't admit a fault
because I'm afraid that will make you better than me. I don't feel good about
me; I certainly don't want you feeling good about you. Fear makes me defensive
and I won't admit it when it's my fault.
2. Fear
makes me distant. When I'm afraid in a relationship, I don't want to share my
real feelings, because you might not like them. If I tell you what I really am
and you don't like it, that's all I am, that's tough luck. So the fear of
rejection makes me distant.
3. Fear
makes me demanding. When I'm afraid I must always be in control. When I'm
afraid I have to call the shots. When I'm afraid, I've got to have the last
word. That's basic insecurity.
What's the
secret to overcoming those joy killers, those things that squeeze the joy out
of relationships?
Keys of Having Joy
Each of
these three things begins with the word “focus.” The key to joy is perspective.
Perspective is everything. The way you look at a problem, the way you look at
your marriage, the way you look at a friendship, the way you look at a
partnership, the way you look at a problem will determine whether you're
miserable or whether you're joyful. Perspective is a choice. Circumstances, or
the way a friend or spouse acts is not in your control, but your perspective to
the situation is.
I like
this letter from a college student to her parents: “Dear Mom and Dad, I'm sorry
to be so long in writing. Unfortunately all my stationary was destroyed the night
our dorm was set on fire by the demonstrators. I'm out of the hospital now and
the doctors say my eyesight should return sooner or later. The wonderful boy,
Bill, who rescued me from the fire kindly offered to share his little apartment
with me until the dorm was rebuilt. He comes from a good family so you won't be
surprised, Mom, when I tell you we're going to be married. In fact, since
you've always wanted a grandchild, you'll be glad to know that in about 7 months
you'll be grandparents.” On the bottom of the letter it said, “Please disregard
the above practice in English composition. There was no fire. I haven't been in
the hospital. I'm not pregnant. I don't even have a steady boyfriend. But I did
get a “D” in French and an “F” in Chemistry and I wanted to be sure that you
received this news in the proper perspective."
Things
could be worse. Perspective makes all the difference whether you're going to be
joyful or miserable, it's what you focus on.
What do
you focus on to have joy in your relationships?
1. Focus on Giving Rather Than Receiving.
This is
called love. That's what love is. Love is focusing on giving rather than
receiving. The Bible says, that God is love (1 John 4:18), that God is a giver
(John. 3:16), that every good gift comes down from God, “God so loved the world
that He gave.” You can give without loving, but you cannot love without giving.
Love is giving. That's the whole essence of love. It's giving rather than
receiving. When you focus on giving rather than receiving in your relationship,
you're being most like God.
Jesus says
in Acts 20:35 – “It is more blessed to
give than to receive.” Interesting
that the word for blessed is also translated as happy. So you have to focus on others and not
yourself. A lot of what is called love
today is not love at all. It is lust. Love cares about giving. Lust cares about getting. A lot of so called love songs are really lust
songs. Why are so many marriages
failing? Society has trained us to do
the exact opposite of this first step.
Society tells us to look out for number one. You have a right to be happy. Who says?
God did not say this. When you
say – “But doesn’t God want me to be happy?” you need to know that sometimes
God is much more concerned about other issues with you such as your character
or fruit development.
Focus on
giving rather than receiving, to put aside your own desires. The problem is that
as relationships grow, after we've got them established, we don't put as much
emphasis into maintaining them as we did to start them.
The
typical American man is goal oriented. He's
out to conquer. His goal is: I'm going to get married. He's out on the prowl.
He finds you. He does everything in his power to win you, brings you flowers,
calls you on the phone, does what you want to do. The moment you're married
it's bam! mission accomplished, now he sets a new goal. Usually the second
goal, after he gets married, is building a business or career to finance the
marriage. All of a sudden all of his attention goes into building the career.
The poor wife is going “What happened? All of a sudden Mr. Prince Charming who
used to pay attention to me, as soon as we got married, I never see the guy
anymore. What happened?” He got a new goal. He's accomplished that goal, he
loves you, but he's not putting the energy into it anymore. The dating turns to
debating.
The
five stages of a marriage cold:
1. First
year – “Baby darling, I’m worried about that sniffle you have. I’ve called 911 to take you to the EP Medical
Center. You can’t be too careful. And I know you don’t like hospital food, so I
will bring you a meal from Smokin’ Daves.
2. Second
year – “Sweetheart, I don’t like the sound of that cough. I’ve called Curt and made an appointment for
you tomorrow. Let me tuck you in bed.”
3. Third
year – “You look like you have a fever. Why don’t you drive yourself to Safeway
to get some medicine and I’ll watch the kids.”
4. Fourth
year – “Look! Be sensible. After you’ve bathed the kids and put them to
bed and cleaned the kitchen, why don’t you lie down.”
5. Fifth
year – “For heaven’s sake, would you stop coughing so loud and quit
complaining. We all get sick sometimes.”
It's a
choice folks. Focus on giving rather than receiving. You wonder why there's no
joy in your relationship any more. The focus has suddenly shifted from “How can
I serve you?” to “Let's serve me.” Joy comes from making other people happy.
Joy doesn't come from making me happy. God designed it that way. You're wired
that way.
You say, “When
I get home from work, I'm exhausted, I don't have anything left to give.”
That's why you need Jesus Christ on a daily basis. That's why you need His
power to give you love when human love and energy runs out.
2. Focus on Healing Rather Than Hurting.
You're
going to be in relationships and you're going to be hurt. There will be
misunderstandings, there will be conflict, there will be apathy, there will be
inconsiderate remarks, even with people you love deeply. How you handle that
hurt will make the difference whether you have joy or whether you have
resentment in your life or marriage or relationship. The problem is that it is human
nature to hold on to our hurt. Rather than just taking a hurt and immediately
dropping it, we hold on to it, we rehearse it in our minds. If somebody comes
up and they slander you, they only said it one time but you rehearse it a
hundred times in your mind and you hold onto it. It's dumb to hold onto hurts.
It always hurts you more.
Colossians
3:13 – “Make allowance for each other’s
faults, and forgive anyone who offends you. Remember, the Lord forgave you, so
you must forgive others.” There's no
value in rehearsing pain over and over. For your own sake, quit rehearsing your
pain over and over and over. Choose to release it and forgive the offender.
Romans
5:3-4 reminds us that one of the ways that makes it easier to handle a hurt in
a relationship is to know that God can use it for good in your life. Even problems
we bring on ourselves, or problems where we are an innocent victim, God can use
it for a positive purpose. How? He can build character, if I choose to respond
in the right way. It makes it easier to handle the hurt. You can have joy here
and now. There's another myth out there that goes like this: “When I get all my
problems solved in this relationship, I'll be happy.” Fat chance! Life is
simply a series of solving problems. As soon as you get one solved you're going
to have another or more. Life is a series of problem solving because it's a
test for eternity and the chance to build character. If the only time you learn
to have joy in your relationships is when you've got all your problems solved,
guess what? You're rarely if ever going to have joy in your relationships. You must
learn to have joy even in the middle of problems while you're working on them.
What is it? It's the confidence of knowing and trusting God regardless of the
circumstances. You don't wait for all your problems to he solved, but you look
at the good, at what you've got, not what you don't have Be joyful even in
tough times. That's where joy is learned -- in tough times.
3. Focus on God’s Power Rather Than My Problems.
Psalms
62:8 – “O my people, trust in him at all
times. Pour out your heart to him, for God is our refuge.” God is
in control. He can repair the irreparable. He can control the uncontrollable.
He can help you where it doesn't look like there's any hope in the situation.
He'll help you if you trust Him. If you let Him into your life, focus on His
power rather than your problem, you will have joy. If you focus on your
problem, you're going to be miserable. If God can raise Jesus Christ from the
dead, He can bring joy in your relationships. He can give you the power to
start over. God is the God of the second chance. He can rebuild trust where
there's only been fear.
Psalm 56:3
– “When I am afraid, I will put my trust
in you.” David wrote this and knew about fear. David had some difficult
relationships as a young man. He had King Saul, whom he had only done good to -
trying to hunt him down and kill him. But he could still be joyful because he
turned to God.
There is a
verse in the Bible in Philippians 4:4 – “Always
be full of joy in the Lord. I say it again—rejoice!” How is that possible?
To always be joyful? If you think God would cut out a verse for David or He
might say, David, you don't have to worry about that verse, because I know you have
had a lot of problems in your life, just ignore that one, Yet that applied to
David and it applies to you in your situations, your relationships.
How is it
possible to always be joyful? When Paul wrote this he was in prison for doing
nothing wrong. He was facing possible execution. He was writing to the Philippian
church about joy. Nineteen times in the book of Philippians he used the word
“joy” or “rejoice.” If you're discouraged,
go home today and read through the book of Philippians. It's only four chapters
Underline every use of the word joy or rejoice.
How is
it possible to rejoice in the midst of difficult circumstances?
1. I can be joyful because God is with me.
Isaiah
43:2 says, “When you go through deep
waters, I will be with you. When you go through rivers of
difficulty, you will not drown. When you walk through the fire of
oppression, you will not be burned up; the flames will not consume
you!”
The fact
is no matter what you're going through; you're not going through it alone. So
it doesn't have to overwhelm you. What God wants to say to each of you today is
God is with you right now. You don't have to be overwhelmed.
The Bible
says, “In your presence is fullness of joy.” Anytime I don't have joy it's a
warning light that I am not spending time with God. It means I've forgotten
that He's with me.
2. I can be joyful because God has a plan for
me.
He's not
only with me; He has a plan for me. Jeremiah 29:11 says, “For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans to
prosper you and not harm you, to give you hope and a future.” God isn't
worried about the problem you're going through. He knew it was coming, He saw
it. He knows how all things can work together for good. They’re not all good
but they can work together if you'll lay those into the hands of the Lord.
What is
that ultimate plan and hope? Heaven.
Galatians
5:22 says “the fruit of the Spirit is joy.” That means joy is not something you
can manufacture on your own. You can't just work it up. But it is the natural
byproduct when you let Jesus Christ live in and through you. When you place
your faith in the death and resurrection of Jesus to provide a right relationship
with God and to secure eternal life, and when God then places His Spirit in
your life, you can experience His joy no matter what the situation is. It's
interesting to me that when the angel came to announce the very first Christmas
and Jesus' birth, he said, “I bring you good news of great joy.” Mankind didn't
understand it then, but we do now because we know what Christ can do in our
lives. If you haven't discovered that, do so today.