Rejoice

[00:00:00] I pray you'd be with them, continue to bless them there. I thank you, Lord, for the opportunity they had to serve there in Maine, and I just pray that you would continue to bless them. I thank you, Tony and Sharon. I just thank you for another life. I just pray, Lord, that you would bless them and be with them this morning. Thank you, Lord, for all you do for us. We just ask your spirit to be here this morning and that you would move a mile. Thank you, Lord. We ask in Jesus' name. Amen. [00:00:38] Thanks, kids, for those songs. I'd ask Sharon to get a couple songs around for this morning. Those fit well with the message. I want to start looking a little bit more at our weapons. I want us to think this morning about understanding and using the weapon of rejoicing. Now, I'm sure that you haven't thought very much about rejoicing being a weapon. [00:01:16] But I can assure you that it is from the scriptures. And I can assure you that if you learn to use it, it will be a very effective weapon and a very useful weapon in facing life. Maybe you feel like you're jumping out of the frying pan into the fire. Maybe you feel like your boat isn't floating very well. [00:01:47] and things don't look good. Maybe you feel like you've just smacked into a tree and there's some difficulties ahead. We face life and life has its circumstances and I don't, as I share this message this morning, I don't want to sound flippant. I'm not saying that everything that happens to us, we just jump up and shout and scream and just act like nothing's wrong. [00:02:26] That's not the point of this message. But I do want us to understand that there is a definite weapon that's available to us for the difficult circumstances of life. A family was facing a very difficult situation. They had prayed and prayed and prayed. Their church had joined them in prayer. [00:02:58] The situation looked impossible. It was going downhill fast. And as that family prayed, the Lord spoke to them of the importance of giving thanks and of rejoicing. And they, even though they didn't feel like rejoicing at that moment, they recognized what the Scripture said and they began to do that. [00:03:30] Within a few short days, that situation was resolved. What looked like would be impossible to happen, happened. And there's probably many of you that could share along that same line of a difficult circumstance in life, Even though you maybe didn't realize you were picking up the weapon of rejoicing and using it [00:04:06] When you began to praise and give thanks to God Amazing things happened, miracles happened I just want to turn, this scripture was mentioned not too long ago 2 Chronicles chapter 20 Talks about an amazing thing that God did And the children of Israel were in a very difficult place. There was a huge army that had come against them. The situation looked totally impossible. It was a hopeless situation. The circumstances were such that it was only a matter of time until this army came in and destroyed them. [00:04:51] And they went before God, and God said, okay, here's what I want you to do. I am going to win this battle for you, but I want you to carry the weapon. Let's just read 2 Chronicles chapter 20, verse 22. And when they began to sing and to praise, the Lord sent ambushments against the children of Ammon, Moab and Mount Seir which were come against Judah and they were smitten. [00:05:28] Now, tell me that praise and rejoicing is not a weapon. It defeated a host of armies. You read that story, it's a very interesting story. But I want us to just notice that story because it goes so well with what I want to share this morning. And I probably am not going to get through this whole message. I'll probably pick it up again later on. So children, when you get done with your notes today, maybe give them to your parents and hang on to them until the next time. [00:06:01] Alright, we're going to think about some questions. Joy and rejoicing are the two words that we're focusing on in this weapon of rejoicing. They relate to my circumstances and my adversity. What's my natural tendency when I face adversity? What is it? We probably have different ones. What's your natural tendency when you face a difficult circumstance? [00:06:36] Complain. Somebody else. Be discouraged. Get scared. Anybody else? Wine. Okay. Okay, that's, those are all, they're all natural tendencies. You're not telling us anything new. We've all seen it. We've all probably done some of it. So that's, that's what comes naturally when I face a bad circumstance, a difficult circumstance, an adversity. What kind of reaction to those difficult circumstances do you think is going to bring glory to God? [00:07:16] If I sit there and I've just run into something that's just not good, and I sit there and I whine and I moan and I carry on, is God glorified in that? No. No, we know He's not. If I come into that circumstance, and in spite of the circumstance, and in spite of my feelings and my natural inclination, [00:07:49] I take up the weapon of rejoicing, and I begin to praise and rejoice, is God glorified? Sure He is. Absolutely. Absolutely. Now, what weapon, we talked the last time about five weapons that we have to use, that God has given us, that will help us to win in all the situations of life. What weapon do you think is going to be the most effective against difficult circumstances in my life? [00:08:31] How about resisting? Don't you think it would be really good if I'd resist the devil and no difficult circumstances would ever come? That'd be really good, wouldn't it? Sorry, that's not the way that weapon works. It doesn't mean that nothing bad ever comes to us. What about the weapon of love? Is that going to help in my difficult circumstances? Well, it will if it relates to people, but in just the circumstance, it's not going to do the job that needs to be done. [00:09:12] And so it's important that we have all of these weapons available and we learn how to use them. Now, I mentioned the last time, it's important for us, and it's going to work with these just like it does in human life and experience. You don't send a soldier that has just come out of boot camp into a fierce battle. You want someone that's seasoned. You want someone with some experience that knows how to handle their weapons. [00:09:47] That knows how to deal with the situations. And that's the way it is with us. And remember, God said, He promised us this in 2 Corinthians. He said, God will not suffer you to be tempted above that you are able. He doesn't allow things to come to us that He has not equipped us to face. That's important for us to remember. So, we have got to learn to use the weapons that God has given us in the situation that we face. [00:10:26] How easy or how hard do you suppose it is to learn to use the weapon of rejoicing? How many of you have ever tried using that weapon? I think more of you have than answered on that one. But it's something that's learned. It doesn't just happen overnight. [00:10:58] It's not something that we, you know, you don't expect a young child or even an adult that's never shot a bow and arrow to go out and just start shooting bullseyes right away. It doesn't happen. It takes time. It takes understanding. We learn to use our weapon. Remember David? When he went to face Goliath and they said, well you've got to have some weapons. Here, take Saul's spear. Wear Saul's armor. And David put it on and he couldn't even hardly walk. Hardly could carry the spear. He said, I haven't proved these. I don't know how to use them. I can't. [00:11:41] I have a weapon that I know how to use. I've used it well. And I understand how it works. I'm going to trust that weapon. And that's how weapons, spiritual weapons work in our lives too. We've got to learn how they work and how to use them so that they're effective in our lives. Now, there's a prerequisite here, and I want us to understand this clearly. [00:12:13] To use any weapon effectively, any of the weapons God has given us, We first have to recognize our authority over Satan through the finished work of Christ. We do not learn to use weapons because of our abilities. We learn to use weapons because God has given them to us and because He has given us authority over Satan through Christ. [00:12:47] Christ and only through Christ. That's an important thing. The second part of it is we must have yielded our rights to God. If I am retaining ownership of the rights to my life, the right to reputation, The right to possessions, the right to my decisions, my choices [00:13:19] All of those rights I have to have given to God in order for my weapons to be effective You remember when Paul was on his journeys, they came on this man that was a sorcerer And there were some men that said to this man, they were seven brothers, they said, we tell you by the God that Paul preaches for that evil spirit to come out of this man. [00:13:57] What happened? Did they have the right weapon? They did, but they had never met the conditions to join the army to use the weapons. And that man jumped on them and just beat those seven brothers to pulp. Now, did that mean God's weapon wasn't effective? No. It meant these men didn't know how to use those weapons, didn't have the right to those weapons. [00:14:31] Alright? So that's a prerequisite. Two things that have to happen in our lives if we're going to use God's weapons effectively. Here's a saying. It was on the wall in the bedroom of my parents' room at home. And occasionally I had to take a nap in that bedroom and I learned that saying pretty well. I'd like you to read it with me. It's easy enough to be pleasant when life goes by with a song, [00:15:07] but the man worthwhile is the man with a smile when everything goes dead wrong. That says a lot, doesn't it? That man has learned to use the weapon of rejoicing. You don't find him being upset, being knocked off his feet. You don't find him being destroyed because some circumstance has come into his life that isn't to his liking. [00:15:45] Now, I want us to look at some scriptures here. And I want us to notice, first of all, that it is God's plan for us to be filled with joy. It's God's plan for us to be filled with joy. John 15, 11. Jesus says this, it's in his high priestly prayer, the time when he's praying for all of us. And he tells his disciples then, [00:16:16] These things have I spoken unto you, that my joy might remain in you, and that your joy might be full. Jesus said it plainly. Look, it's my plan, it's my desire that your joy could be full. When is your joy full? So, when is the cup full? When there's no room for any more, right? [00:16:51] You're so full of joy that there's no room for anything else. John, chapter 16, verse 24. Hitherto have ye asked nothing in my name. Ask, and ye shall receive, that your joy may be full. Jesus is saying, look, you can ask in my name that your joy may be full. Now Elijah forgot or didn't realize about the weapon of rejoicing, did he? [00:17:25] He asked in God's name, he received, but his joy wasn't full. He was discouraged. Circumstances came against him. The queen said he was going to die. And he said, God, kill me. That's Christian suicide. But, God's intention was for His joy to be full. Now, Romans chapter 15 verse 13 Now the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing that you may abound in hope through the power of the Holy Ghost. [00:18:08] The God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing through the power of the Holy Ghost. Now, are you getting the point? God's desire is for us to be full of joy. Galatians chapter 5, the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, etc. When the Spirit of God, when we are filled with the Spirit of God, and the Spirit of God is controlling our lives, He fills us with joy. [00:18:48] 1 John 1.4 These things write we unto you, that your joy may be full. Now, does God say in the Scriptures that He wants us to be full of joy? Now, I've said this before, I've challenged this before. We say that we want to be biblical. We say that we uphold the Scriptures. Why, then, are we so lacking in the area of joy? [00:19:26] Why are we so long-faced? Why are we always beaten down by circumstances? Good question for us to think about. Now I want to show us something, and I want to give credit here to Otto Koning, because he has a little pamphlet that he put out about the spiritual weapons, and I've used some of his things from that, and this is actually one of the things that I use from that. This is the vicious cycle that leads to defeat. [00:19:58] And you'll notice, I have another one here that's the victory cycle. But I want us to stop and notice. Adversity comes to all of us. That starts at the top. Adversity comes to all of us. And when adversity comes, there's distress. What am I going to do with the adversity that I face? What am I going to do with it? Then we have our point of choice. [00:20:29] What am I going to do with this adversity that's come to me, that's distressing me? What am I going to do with it? We have a choice what we're going to do. We can go on through the vicious cycle and face it over and over again, or we can choose to take the weapon of rejoicing and stand against that circumstance. Now, don't misunderstand me. We're not after changing the circumstance. [00:21:02] That's not our goal. It may happen. God may do that. But our goal is to use the weapon that God has given to us and to learn through this circumstance and to bring glory to God. Now, in the vicious cycle, then we start, our defenses start coming. We might get angry, the things that you talked about that happen to us when difficulties come. How many have ever been angry at God? A lot of us have. [00:21:35] Circumstances have come, we've prayed, we've done everything that we thought we could do, and the circumstance didn't change, and we said, God, we had a little temper tantrum and we laid on the floor and kicked a little bit and said, God, I don't understand why you keep doing this. I've done everything that you've asked me to do and it doesn't go away. And so we have our little pity party, temper tantrum, all those kind of things. Those are the defenses that happen. [00:22:07] And then the symptoms come along. Oh, we get depressed. We get discouraged. We get all blue. We feel like giving up. There's all kinds of things happen and that turns into pessimism. After a while we say, ah, what's the use? There's no reason to go on here. I mean, I've tried this over and over and over and it is not working. Forget it. I might as well just go on and live life and let it happen. [00:22:41] Okay, now you'll notice this cycle is very similar. It starts out the same. This is the victor's cycle. This is growth rather than defeat. We're living in a pattern of happening in our lives. It starts out the same with adversity. The difficult circumstance comes into our life. We experience distress. Here at this point of choice we choose to use the weapon of rejoicing in our circumstance. And all of a sudden something changes. [00:23:17] Rather than going on and having all these things come on, the anger and the resentment and all the bad feelings and then the defeat and the discouragement and the depression and all the things that follow after that, we find patience coming into our lives. And James talks about this. He says, you know, when you face a trial, when you face a temptation, Let patience have her perfect work, that you may be perfect and entire, wanting or lacking nothing. [00:23:57] He says, if you let patience work, then patience works experience, and experience works hope. So we have the two choices that we can go through. And as we begin to go through this cycle and we experience growth, then when circumstances come to us, we know, we understand. Oh, the Spirit reminds us, oh, wait a minute, you've got a weapon on you, [00:24:32] the weapon of rejoicing, if you'll only get that out and use it, you can be an overcomer. You can experience growth rather than depression You can be an optimist You can have hope rather than be a pessimist and think that things are just never going to turn out well So this is important for us These are things that God has given to us so that we can grow and we can experience the things that God intends for us [00:25:06] Now, I want to look then at the first one that we have here. I've got a number of things that the weapon of joy is to be used against in our lives, situations in our lives. In Acts chapter 13, verse 50 to 52, the Jews stirred up the devout and honorable women, the chief men of the city, and raised persecution against Paul and Barnabas [00:25:37] and expelled them out of their coast. They chased them out. Chased them out of town. Chased them out of the country. It says, they shook off the dust of their feet and came to Iconium. And here's an interesting verse. And the disciples were filled with joy. What? Hello? Who's talking here? What's this all about? You just got chased out of town and the people are all mad at you and you're filled with joy? Something's wrong. [00:26:27] and with the Holy Ghost. It's kind of interesting that they were filled with joy and with the Holy Ghost rather than with the Holy Ghost and with joy, but that's for another time. 2 Corinthians chapter 7 verse 4 Great is my boldness of speech toward you, great is my glorying of you. I am filled with comfort, I am exceedingly joyful in all our tribulation. Why could Paul and Silas sing to the Lord in jail? [00:27:05] Now, by the way, what were they singing? Praises. They were singing praises. Paul and Silas sang in the jail. Why did the jailer take notice of Paul and Silas singing in the jail? Duh. Kind of obvious, right? I mean, either these guys are crazy or they've got something that nobody else has, right? [00:27:41] Paul and Silas knew the weapon of rejoicing well. The weapon of rejoicing, of joy, is to be used in tribulation. That's one of the places where it works really good. It's what it was designed for. And so they could use it. They understood it. They put it to use. They had it at hand. And they used it as they went along their way. Now what do we do [00:28:14] if we come together and somebody's just spoken really bad about us And we come together as a group for prayer meeting. What do we do? Are we rejoicing? Are we saying, praise God, this is wonderful? No, we're saying, oh, I'll never do that again. That was awful. [00:28:46] I mean, you know, they should be appreciative of what we're trying to do for them. We were trying to bring them the gospel, just on and on. And we start around that vicious cycle of defeat rather than around the victor's cycle of growth. And that happens so easily in our lives. And I want us to understand, and maybe by the next time, you can do a little digging and finding what the weapon of joy and rejoicing is to be used for in your life. [00:29:23] And I just want us to think about this a little bit. Who brought some of the greatest glory to God? in their difficulties in the New Testament. The Apostle Paul would have to be right up there, wouldn't he? And how many difficulties did he face? I mean, you start reading the list, you know, beaten with many stripes, shipwrecked how many times, on and on and on and on. [00:30:01] And when he shares that, what does he say? Oh, it was just awful. I'd never go through that again. No. He's always rejoicing. He's always full of joy. And the people that were involved in those situations looked and said, What's wrong with this guy? What has happened to this guy? I mean, he's not like the rest of us. [00:30:32] He's not down in the dumps every time something bad comes into his life. It's the weapon of rejoicing. And as we use it, it brings glory to God. As we use it effectively, it brings glory to God. Well, I'm going to stop there for this morning, and the next time we'll pick back up on that and go on. [00:31:04] The weapon of rejoicing. And I'd like to just challenge you, do some digging on your own, and look and see what the Scripture has to say about the weapon of rejoicing. Do you know that it is God's will? It says it just in so many words in Scripture. That it is God's will for us to give thanks in everything. There's only a few things in scripture that are plainly spelled out that says this is the will of God for you. [00:31:43] And that's one of them. The weapon of joy and rejoicing, of being thankful in our spirit, in our heart, is a weapon that's very, very effective. and brings a lot of glory to God. I used to think as a young person, I used to think that faith was the ability to have my circumstances changed. [00:32:19] But I began to realize something. Faith isn't the ability to have all my circumstances be good. Faith is the confidence that God is at work in all of the circumstances of life If I join Him, it's good If I go my way around the circle, it's not good Let's stand for prayer Our Heavenly Father, we want to thank you this morning [00:32:54] that you have given us effective weapons to help us win in life. And Lord, I pray that you forgive us for those times when we've been confused, when we've somehow thought that if only we had enough faith, we'd never have to have bad circumstances. If only we lived righteously enough, we could always have life good. Help us, Lord, to see that difficult circumstances, adversities are part of life. [00:33:32] And you've given us the weapon that helps us turn those adversities into growth, into blessing, into bringing you glory through the weapon of rejoicing. And I pray Father that by your spirit you speak into each of our hearts according to our needs and we'll give you glory. We pray it in Jesus name. Amen.