Joy In Adversity

And remember, god chooses to take old, messed up, broken, cracked, clay, jars of clay to do something amazing, doesn't he? And that means all of us with with our mistakes and our failures, our weaknesses, our insufficiencies, whatever it is, God uses those things that we think mess us up and and and things that disable us from being able to do what god calls us to do. He actually uses those many of the times to advance the kingdom. He will take something that's all messed up and burnt and bring beauty out of it. So, on your sheet, the last thing is, look for what god is doing and rejoice. [01:12:16] (43 seconds)  #GodUsesBroken

But he goes on to say this. He says, if you wanna be happy for a lifetime and I'm gonna substitute a word here. If you wanna be if you wanna find joy for a lifetime, place your faith in Jesus. Not just for salvation. Brothers and sisters, we we are I trust that you've made that decision, but we know every single day is a day to wake up and place our faith in Jesus, that he's got this day, that this day is his, that I'm gonna die to self, fix my focus on the mission on the cross, and allow him to use this day. [00:38:46] (37 seconds)  #DailyFaithInJesus

Proper perspective produces praise. Many people use hardships and adversity in their lives to be an excuse, to justify, their attitudes or what's happened to them, playing the victim card, if you will. Maybe they're they're my something like, well, my boss did this, and this is why I have failed. Or, my parents did this, and this explains why I live in defeat. Or, my disadvantage, and because of my disadvantage, this is why I don't do that, or why I can't do that, or why I do this. You know, we use all kinds of excuses to justify our response to difficulties. Right? [00:53:00] (42 seconds)  #PerspectiveProducesPraise

if we just looked at it by our earthly mind and our earthly eyes, we think this is tragedy. Oh my goodness, Paul's in chains. What's going to happen now to the church? What's going to happen to the spread of the gospel? What are we going to do now? And it'd be easy for the church to be in just distraught and and also maybe to be angry and want to retaliate. But Paul's telling them, that's not the that that's not what you need to do. He he gives them a different message than that. He says, what has happened to me has really served and I may put in part as part of god's plan has really served to advance the gospel. [00:46:45] (37 seconds)  #AdversityAdvancesGospel

he was singing like he did when he was in prison with Silas before in Philippi, years before. He was maybe singing because that's what Paul did. He found joy and he would just sing. You know, I I don't know about you. Sometimes I I just have a stone stuck in my head and or something will come to mind and it just brings to mind a a praise song and and and I just sing it and as I said before, it's hard to worry when you're worshiping. [00:50:59] (24 seconds)  #WorshipOverWorry

People watch how we respond to our difficulties. They're watching to see how we how it affects us. How do we normally respond? Do we respond in fear? Do we respond out of anger? Or do we respond in faith? Do we respond and have joy in spite or even because of what's going on? Paul's situation could have been caused to been caused for him to be discouraged, depressed, and in despair. However, Paul was keeping a proper perspective on God's plan and his mission. [00:52:08] (38 seconds)  #ResponseRevealsFaith

His joy is not tied to his comfort. Our joy is not tied to our comfort. Man, Americans, we are so bad about that, aren't we? Our reputation, he wasn't he wasn't his joy was not tied to his reputation. It was not tied to just treatment. Man, how how much do we as Americans get caught up in that? That wasn't right for them to treat me like that, and therefore, I'm going to or I'm gonna feel but no. His comfort was tied to God's purposes being fulfilled. God's mission being fulfilled. [00:56:24] (46 seconds)  #JoyBeyondComfort

this is why testimonies are important. You never know how God will use your testimony. I'm not just talking about salvation testimonies. A testimony about how God has brought you through something, how you've seen him at work, maybe you were discouraged, maybe even depressed, and how God allowed you to see something good. You never know how that is gonna impact someone else. Maybe they're going through something similar and that God just through the Holy Spirit is using that testimony to just bring encouragement to their heart. [00:48:13] (30 seconds)  #TestimonyTransforms