Philippians: Praying with Joy

Praying with Joy

Today’s cowboy joke I got as a video, and, but I think you can see it with words. Try it out. Here it is. It's the picture of a cowboy out beside his tractor. Now I'll digress to say that in the picture. I swear it's a John Deere tractor. So this is a cowboy of above average intelligence, just saying he's, he's out by his tractor. He's sitting down with a guitar strumming softly and singing a country western love song. His neighbor walks up, listens for a while, and says, what in the world are you doing? Well, cowboy quits his music and says, you know, wife and I are going through kind of a rough patch right now. So we've been going to a marriage counselor, and he said, the marriage counselor told me that I should do something romantic to attract her.

Let’s get into God's word. And we're talking about joy and it's amazing. We're starting through the book of Philippians and last week we talked about joy in difficult circumstances because the Apostle Paul is writing this and he's in jail and he's writing to this Roman colony of Philippi that's a colony for, for retired Roman officers primarily.  And, and he just writes about in joy. Just as a refresher, remember one of the things was, “I thank God every time I remember you,” and we talked about that word remembrance as intentional remembering every time on purpose intentionally. I remember you with joy and I challenge you to have a joy list, a remembering list, a Thanksgiving list. And I'm just gonna remind you, if you haven't done it, get after it, get with it, uh, because it is one of those key things in our lives which keeps joy flowing.

If we are intentional, your problems, your stuff will be there. Whether you put it on a list or not, it'll be there. But the good things, the joyous things will tend to fade in the background unless you get intentional about it. So let's be intentional. Let's go back though. Let's segue into today's and, and here it is. “I thank my God every time I remember you.” This is not when I happen to think about it. Remember, this is on purpose. Every time I intentionally remember you in all my prayers for all of you.  Now we're gonna see this. Today we are going to delve into it a little more and we're gonna hear some of the why you have joy and some of the how you have joy and some of the for what you have joy.

“I thank my God every time I remember you in all my prayers for all of you. I always pray with joy because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now being confident of this, that he (that's God) who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.” Philippians 1:3-6

God Focus

We are gonna talk about a theme of a God focus in this prayer. One of the reasons that he was able to keep his joy was that it, he's praying for these people at Philippi, but he's got a God focus that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion.

Got that? So his focus is not on. I'm so impressed with you, Philippians, that I believe you are really gonna live this out, carry this through, get this done. No, he says, I pray with joy because yeah I like you guys, but I'm confident that God who began a good work in you is going to finish it. There's the first part. And I wanna camp out here for a while because he's also talking about direction, not just destination.

Direction, Not Just Destination

He's saying he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion. Every parent needs to learn this. Every teacher needs to learn this. Every pastor needs to learn this. Every friend needs to learn this, everybody needs to learn this. You get the drift because sometimes we gauge people and judge people, including ourselves by accomplishment of certain benchmarks or way points on a journey instead of the direction that we're on.

I notice in God's word, over and over, he starts blessing people and rewarding people and approve of people when they're headed in the right direction, not waiting until they get there.

But you understand religion, we tend to put benchmarks in. If you're a Catholic or Lutheran, you had infant baptism and catechism and first communion and, and confirmation. And if you're a Baptist, you went to the altar and you were baptized. And I'll just quit there because I'm just saying there's all kinds of benchmarks, religious benchmarks, and I'm not deriding any of those things. They all couldn't be very, very significant.

It is sort of like the idea if you've graduated, you quit learning. Well, that's dumb. Are you with me? But see, we put so much emphasis on achieving certain steps that we almost tend to ignore the direction and God tends to look at direction more than achievement. And this prayer with joy said, I'm praying with confidence in God because he began a good work in you.

And he will carry it on to completion. Does that make sense? So first I'm gonna be just a bit snarky and I will say that we have at least three guys out there who are named Brian. And so Brian, this is for you. And by the way, you know which Brian, I mean don't you.. See, see the snarky in me says I can pray with joy because if I pray saying, okay, God, you've done pretty much everything you can do for Brian, this is a finished product. This is as good as it gets. Oh boy, there's no joy in that. Are you with me? We have at least three Janets out there. This is for Janet too, by the way, are you with me? The idea is we pray with God's still working on you and me. We are not finished products yet. We are not done yet. God hasn't quit with us yet. God is not done with us yet. God's still working on us. So there's hope! Even for Brian.

So you pray with joy, but now, it's the idea that we have confidence in God. When I pray for you that God is at work in your life and he is going to complete perfect, make whole, make mature his work in you. So I pray with joy for not where you are today, but where you're going. Does that make sense? Again, every parent needs this lesson. Hello teachers. You need this.

I'll reinforce this by a horse trainer. Let me cowboy this up. A few years ago I started tuning into John Lyon, who's a bible believing Christian and was an excellent, uh, horse trainer. And, and I wind up wound up learning just a lot of stuff from him.  And, and one of the things I learned from him, he was talking about was, was in the pressure-reward category. And he talked about a horse that's high headed. Let me just explain that a moment, if you're not into horses. sometimes you go to put a halter on a horse, for instance, and they'll stick their head way up high just to make that harder for you or impossible for you.  And, and we just refer to that as high headed. So one of the issues, of course, is to bring that head down because what you'd like to have is that horse's head about right here, sticking his nose into that halter and that way you can do it around his ears and all that pretty comfortably.  Got that. And, and so the idea is to get his head from way up here to down here. And so of course one of the things that you do is you put pressure, you put your hand up on top of his head, which is called the pole, and you put pressure on that. And then John Lyons nailed me. He said, what you want to, what you tend to do, he said is to you put pressure on that all the way down until he gets it cleared down here. You don't give him any reward or any relief till he gets it clear down here.  And I'm thinking, of course, who has time to wait for all of this?  And he said, but, but guess what? That horse is stronger than you are. You don't have that much pressure. He can be just as stubborn as you can be. I'm thinking, you know me and you know my horses, don't you? And so then this is what he taught me, and it goes right into this. He said, what you wanna do is put pressure on this. And if this horse yields a little half inch to an inch, you take the pressure away and you give him an attaboy. That's good. And my immediate thought was, whatever my horse is way high headed and he's still way up there. Half inch is not gonna cut it. But then he said, you go back and give him a little more. And he has learned with that pressure. He drops a little, he gets released from pressure, he gets rewarded. And then you keep doing that. And pretty soon you can get him all the way down here. And then he said, it depends, I think he said six months in there. At some point, I tend to disregard those kinds of things 'cause it just seems preposterous to me. But I think he said something, he said, if you do that for maybe like six months, you'll come out, you'll just do this. And he'll drop his head right down to level. Huh? He was right by the way. That was excellent technique.

I wonder parents could learn something from that. See, we want to put pressure on people and have them be complete in about 15 seconds. See, see what I'm saying? See let, let's just translate it. Churches have a, have a bad tendency about this. Let me just tell you this. I've done church all my life. Churches wanna put pressure on you and see you shape up and straighten up and be perfect in about 15 seconds.  And most of us just can't get there from here. You with me? Here's good news for you. God doesn't expect that. God says you lowered your head a half inch. Good move. Not good enough, but good move. God's working on you. And here's what I wanna say to you. You can pray with joy if you pray with understanding that God is at work and he's gonna accomplish his work.

So think about that person right now that you would really like to see change behavior or change attitude or change. And you want to see them go from here to here, learn to pray with joy over direction.  They're starting to get here. Does that make sense? Paul is saying, I can pray with joy. I can pray with joy because I'm focused on the power of God. Now let me apply this to me too. You apply this to you. 'cause sometimes I am disappointed with my own behavior and performance. Anybody else? Sometimes I say to myself, come on you. You're smarter than this. Or you should be smarter than this.

You heard you ever heard that phrase in your own head? Come on, shape up. You're better than this. Come on, you should learn this. Come on nowadays. I'm saying, come on, you're this old and you still don't know that. Come on. Right? And, and sometimes I get disappointed in me because I'm not right where I ultimately want to be right now. I need to come back and pray with joy to say thank you, God.

This could be on your intentional remembering list. By the way, this is not about arrogance, but it's, thank you God. Here's a phrase I've come up with. Thank you God, that I'm better than I used to be. Not as good as I'm going to be, better than I used to be, but not as good as I'm going to be. Hello. And you can, you can pray with joy to say God's still working. By the way, here's the confidence I have in God. He loves you too much to leave you comfortable.

I'm sorry, but that's a fact. He loves me and you too much to leave us comfortable. He won't let you be complacent. He won't let you park. He won't let you just sit there. He's always saying, yeah, we've done some training. Yeah, you've made some steps. But look what's ahead. So I pray with joy because of your partnership with the gospel. I pray with joy because I'm focused on what God is about. And I'm praying with joy because God is at work and God will complete his work.

We are still in this context of praying for joy. Now this is, this is more the how and the what he's praying for. Watch this. “It's right for me to feel this way about all of you since I have you in my heart. And whether I'm in change, which is one reference, remember he identified him, servant of Christ. But I am in change since whether I'm in change or defending and confirming the gospel, all of you share in God's grace with me. God can testify how, how I long for all of you with all the affection of Christ Jesus. And this is my prayer (first of all) that your love may abound more and more in knowledge and depth of insight. So that you may be able to discern what is best.” Philippians 1:7-11 We're gonna get back to that and may be pure and blameless for the day of Christ, filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ to the glory and praise of God.

Abound in Love

First of all, that you would abound in love. You understand God uses some superlative, even reckless language at times. God doesn't say so that your love may grow. Now he says so that you may abound in love, have lots of it, overflow with it, have a bunch of it. Don't wanna quantify it just abound or, or you see what I'm saying? God is saying, I've begun a work in you of love. Now I want it to just explode. I just want it to go everywhere. I just want you to abound in love. That's a prayer that God has for us. And I can pray with joy because I want God's love to abound in you. By the way, this is one of those things I'm better than I used to be. Not as good as I'm going to be. And I wonder sometimes, what's that? What, what, what? What's that mean? Because I actually love quite a few things and I actually love quite a few people. And then there's a few people. Hello. Sometimes I watch the news and I'm not abounding in love.

Sometimes I hear about some people making some statements that I think are less than intelligent. And my love is not abounding. Hello? So one of the questions I ask myself is, okay, God is, I pray this prayer for me and others. Where does my love need to abound?

It's not, not good enough to be okay. Where does it need to spill over? Where does it need to really grow? Where does it need to like abound? Where does my love abound? God helped me to love people in things that I really shouldn't love.

It made no sense for God to love me. I was not making moves toward him. I was not wanting him. I didn't love him first. He loved me first. Are you with me? I'm looking at you. You're the same way. Made no sense for God to love you like he loves you. But he did. And he does. And he will. And his love abounds for you. His love abounds for you. When you shake your fist in his face and tell him to go away. He says, yeah, that hurts. But I love you. I will not leave you. I'll be back. His love abounds for you when you know better and do it anyway. He'll say that's gonna hurt, but I'll forgive you and I'll still love you. You get the, do you get the idea? So because God loves abounds for me, my love needs to abound.

Discern what is Best

He also says, I'm praying for you with joy 'cause God's gonna complete this good work. His love is gonna abound in you and you're going to be able to discern what is best. He's talking about part of the abounding love. He said, you're going to have knowledge and insight you're gonna love through knowledge and insight. And you're going to be able to discern what is best.

There's a point in your life where you battle between good and evil. This is good. That is bad. Boy, I kinda want bad. But at some point God helps you to start picking good. That's a good thing. Hello. But you're not done yet. Understand, God started to work in you to move you from bad to good to best.

Filled with His Fruit

And God is saying, you know, sometimes good can be the enemy of the best. You know that. And so sometimes God is saying, I'm praying for you. Not only that, you learn to avoid what is bad and choose what is good. I'm praying for you that you can discern, you can understand, you can figure out. You can really get your head and heart wrapped around what is best. Best. It's one of my prayers for me. One of my prayers. For a lot of people, God help, help, help us to discern what is best, what is best. Not good enough, not squeak by, not get by. But what's actually best. Discern what is best. Let's move to the next one. And that is he said, I want you to be filled with all the fruit of righteousness. So we've just concluded a series. You can go back and looker, listen to it again.  It’s based around the fruit of the spirit, found in Galatians chapter five, the fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace, gentleness, long suffering, joy, goodness, self-control all of those fruits of the spirit. God is saying, I want you to be filled with his fruit. I want you to be filled with his fruit. I want this love to abound in you. Fruit of the spirit starts with love. And some have argued that all of these other fruits can, you can just say the fruit of the spirit is love, period.

And then all the rest of this just sort of flows out of that joy, peace, gentleness, kindness, meekness, self-control. All those just flow out of that. You, you could say that. But he says, I want you to abound in love. I want you to discern what is best. And then I want all the fruit to be produced in your life.

I want God's fruit to be produced in your life. So here's a pattern of praying for other people with joy. I would also say it's a pattern of praying for yourself with joy. God, I wanna pray with joy because I'm just confident in you, God, that you who began a good work in me is gonna finish it. And you are going to help me to bound in love. And you're gonna help me to discern what is not just good but best. And you're going to then produce your fruit, your righteous fruit in my life.

I'm going to abound in that righteous fruit in my life. So pray with joy. Pray with joy. So let's get down to there. There are some people for whom I'm praying who don't seem to be making a lot of progress right now. You got anybody like that?  I don't see them doing much. And frankly, if it's just up to them, I'm not all that joyful. I'm not all that confident they're gonna make the right decisions.  But I'm not praying to them, I'm praying to God and I'm absolutely confident that he's gonna make all the right decisions. And I'm absolutely confident that he's loving them. And I'm absolutely confident that he's not quit. And I'm absolutely confident that he's not done. And I'm absolutely confident that he's working when I can't see him at work. Amen.

 So I would say to you, keep praying for yourself on those days when you don't seem to be making much progress or perhaps regressing saying, God, you began a good work in me.

Step it up, man, you gotta finish. Pick up the pace 'cause I need some help. And I boom, believe you, that you're gonna carry through. And the same thing carries over then to those people for whom you're praying. Let's pray for them right now. Father, we can pray with joy today. Ha. We intentionally remember that you've answered prayers so many times. Wow. God, what you've done already for us is amazing. What you've kept us out of, what you've gotten us into is absolutely astounding.

God, thank you so much. We pray with joy for that. We thank you and pray with joy. For those others that we've watched you answer prayer, we've watched you come through and wow, it's been amazing. Thank you, God. Now, father, help us for remember this, to pray with joy. Keep our focus on you, that you are at work. Keep our focus on what you're doing. Keep our pro focus on direction, not just destination. And may our joy spill over into love and good fruit. I pray God for your blessings on us this day. I pray for our world today. I pray for protection for those who are in the grip of war right now I pray for a protection for all the decisions and directions that concern our nation and our world today. Oh God, give us wisdom. Give us your guidance. May you who have begun a good work completed, I pray in and around our lives.

I prayed in the name of Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. Amen.

God bless you. God go with you. God loves you. Have a good day.