PULPITMAN.COM "My whole intent in living here is to make God smile." (Gianna Jessen)
The Attitude Adjustment Philippians 2:1-11
Delivered on September 11, 2011
What I Didn't Say
Joy--We all seem to have different ideas of what joy is or should be. Paul is a great example of someone who has joy even though his circumstances are, shall we say, crappy (pardon the euphemism). He doesn't really give us a definition of that joy, but he let's us know where it comes from.
It would seem that life would be complete, regardless of what's going on, if we had joy. If that is the case, and I believe it is, when we have joy, life is worth living. Without joy, we are never satisfied, never content, always restless, and seldom happy (happiness being different than joy). We are too often ruled by our circumstances rather than by the joy of Christ.
If we could somehow get out of the way, our joy could be complete as it seemed to be in Paul's life. Because we try to create our own joy, it constantly eludes us. We probably do that to the point of losing any real understanding of what true joy is. Heaven help us...actually, that's the only place from which it can come.
