Fruit of the Spirit: Joy (Galatians 5:22)

and pin here. We all right now we're good. We're cooking with gas. Okay. So, we uh we decided that we were going to cover the fruit of the spirit. So, yesterday this is we're talking about Galatians 5 and 22. And yesterday we covered uh love and today we get to cover joy. And I I will have to tell you that this is this this one fruit not not unlike maybe of the others. We literally could break out for seven mornings or eight mornings. There's just so much to be talked about when it comes to the joy that that God is talking about here as the fruit of the spirit.

But we'll condense it to just today. So I want to give you some context uh just for a second. So uh as Paul is writing this letter to the church at uh Galatia, one of the reasons why he's writing this letter is because they have they've fallen away from grace. And what they're doing now is they're they've traded their grace for lawkeeping. And so that's one of the reasons why Paul writes this letter because he says in Galatians 4:15, this is just before chapter 5, he asks them the question, what then has become of your blessedness? And it's because they've started following the law as opposed to remaining in grace.

And the blessedness is the joy. What where'd your joy go? Well, yeah, you traded joy for the law. So, so what what is what does that mean? Um, so let's talk about joy and I'm even going to include grace in this process. You can't manufacture joy or grace. It doesn't matter. You you you can't do something to have joy. You can't do something to get grace. It is a gift given to you by God. Your joy doesn't come from what you do. Your joy comes from the Lord. That's where it comes from. Same thing with your grace. You can't manufacture that. So, let's talk about joy and happiness because they're not the same thing.

Uh happiness is a temporary emotion based off of your current circumstances. That's happiness. Hey, I was happy this morning when Tony cracked a joke. Made me laugh. But that has nothing to do with my joy. I woke up this morning joyful in in spite of my circumstances. And why? Because the question that we need to ask ourselves is not are you happy? It's who are you trusting? I'll say that again. The question is not did I wake up happy today? Am I happy in my life? The question is, who am I trusting? And when that answer is our Christ, then you're going to receive joy in spite of your circumstances.

How do we know that? Paul writes probably one of his best letters from prison. The text goes on to say that at midnight they were singing and praying and shouting to shouting to the Lord. That's not a happy moment. I mean, I don't know if any of you have been to prison, but I'm quite sure that that was probably not a happy place. But they were filled with joy. Why? Because they knew where their hearts were. They knew who they trusted. That's joy. " Yes, you're going to wake up and not everything is going to be rosy. Uh James uh count it all joy when you run into trials of various kinds.

Um it it's going to happen. He James doesn't mince any words. He says, "Listen, you've you've accepted Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior. You're probably going to run into way more bad stuff now than you did before." Amen. Before the enemy didn't care. You were on his team. You were on team devil. Now you've given your life to Christ. And now you're more important to him than ever. Now he's going to start trying to throw stuff in your way. Now you become important. Now he's going to try and knock your joy down. Not your happiness. That's temper.

That's temporary. That's that's that's hour by hour, minute by minute. Your joy comes from who you trust. Uh that's the main stay of where your joy comes from. You can't create it. It's from the relationship you have with the creator. That's where the joy in your heart comes from. All right. thoughts, comments, suggestions. I have a suggestion. Uh, why am I scared right now? I don't know. You shouldn't be. I was I'm not I'm kidding. That uh joy, this that whatnot. What happens? It just popped in my head. What happens when you go against the will of God?

Like how would that look like? Not pleasant. I assume. So if you're you're operating outside God's will, it be very difficult to feel joy. Because if you're operating outside God's will, you're not trusting in him. And go the joy goes away. Operate inside his will. That means you're trusting him. Joy comes to you. Yeah. It may not be what you like. You It may not be the season where he Lord, I don't want to be here right now. Paul didn't want to be in prison. I promise you, he didn't. He didn't wake up one morning and go, you know, I think today's a great day to go to prison.

Yeah, let's go. He didn't do that. But God put him there. That's where he needed to be for whatever reason. You can ask him one day when you get there. But he never lost his joy in that circumstance because he continued to do the will of God. When you leave that, you leave your joy behind. That's what he said right here to the Galatians in chapter 4 and verse 15. What then has become of your blessedness? They stopped operating inside the will of God and they started going back to the law and when they did that they lost their joy. I hope that answers the question.

So last yeah la last last week when you you made the analogy of uh finding joy in all things uh like with a flat tire, right? Well, at least I have my at least I have my cell phone. At least I'm not It's three Thanksgivings. Okay. I was I just wanted to I wanted to revisit that and it kind of falls into this discussion as well. Yeah. Because you're you're not forgetting where your trust is when you do that. Your three thanksgivings are are relying on your father in heaven. That's what that's the point, right? So that you you continue to walk in the will of God.

Your joy still remains. Say, "Man, thank God I got a spare tire. Thank God my my phone is charged. Thank God I got AAA." Right? That's we're that's where that's how we operate. and then then we don't lose our joy in that regard. Um it's operating inside of his will. Anybody else? Thanks, William. Yeah, I have a question real quick. I have a question. In the previous verse, it talks about the acts of the flesh and it says those who live like this will not inherit the kingdom of God. Um, and you know, I know that you believe in Jesus, you're going to heaven, but why does it say that we will not inherit the kingdom of God if we live like that?

Because we all fall short. And I believe at times we may all engage in those kind of things. Yeah. Well, and and it's true, right? And so we all stumble, which is why the next morning what ends up happening. Grace washes over your iniquity. And so you wake up fresh every day. And so God knows that. And he knows that we're not perfect. When when Christ comes to dwell, when the Holy Spirit comes to live inside of you, the sign that you know it, we get lots of there's lots of Pentecostal and Southern Baptist preachers who will tell you that the only true way you know you have the Holy Spirit is that you speak in tonesues.

Well, I we can have a conversation about that, but that's nowhere in the work. Speaking in tongues is real. It's a gift, but that is not the only sign that the Holy Spirit indwells inside of you from my from what I believe, right? And so the Holy Spirit is in you. You're going to have a heart change. You're going to not want to do those things. Doesn't mean you won't stumble. Doesn't mean you won't fall. That doesn't mean that Christ doesn't love you. Means you you messed up. Doesn't mean that the consequence goes away. You still have to walk through that.

We still live in a real world. But his love for you never left. It's still there. You accepted him as Christ. Now, if you continue to do these things over and over and over again, and you don't have a change of heart, and you aren't flipping, and you aren't repenting and going in the other direction, then it's not for me to judge. But I would suggest that you probably need to re-evaluate your salvation. Did I really truly accept Christ as my Lord and Savior? Was it service? Did I really truly do that? Right? Am I really truly allowing him? Am I submitting?

Am I really truling allowing him to be the Lord of my life? Because if you haven't really truly done that, well then yeah, then it's going to be it's you have a hard time repenting because you're not saved. I'm not saying that's you, Mark. I'm just saying that that's that's what we we should do. We should take inventory. That's why the scripture says uh uh work out your own salvation with fear and trembling. It does not say work out the salvation. says, "Work out your salvation if you're in trouble." I hope that I hope that helped. It did. Thank you.

All right. All right. We got 30 more seconds. Anybody else? All right. Great. Let's imitate Jesus. What was that? Imitate Jesus. There you go. Yes. Every every minute, every hour, every day. And when you fail, wake dust yourself off and continue to imitate. Thanks, Timothy. All right, let's bow our heads. Father, thank you so much for today. Um, ju just thank you that we that that you're there for us and that you don't waver, that you are truth, that we know that when we continue to put our trust in you is when we receive the grace. It's when we receive the joy.

It's when we receive the fruit of the spirit. And so, Father, I just pray that we would take uh take inventory, that we would take an accounting of where we're at in our lives. Make sure our election is sure. Make sure that yes, we have committed our lives to you. That that you are the Lord of our life. Uh so that we know that that joy is available for us. That we know that that grace is renewed so that when we do slip up and we do mess up, that when we wake up the next morning, you love us no less than you did the day before. And so, Father, I just pray that we would remember that, but that you want us to walk a Christlike life.

As Timothy said, we should imitate you daily. And when we miss it, we stand up. We dust ourselves off. And we continue to imitate you for others. The fruit of the spirit, Lord, we know, is not for us. It's for those that are around us. An apple tree doesn't produce an apple and then eat it. An apple tree produces the fruit for someone else. And so, Father, I pray that we would remember that. That when when we trust in you and we get that joy, that joy is for those that are around us. So, Father, uh, allow us to remember that. Allow us to continue to walk in your will as Aggie said, so that we can continue to receive the joy that you have for us.

Father, we thank you. We love you. We praise you. And as always, in your son, Jesus Christ's name we pray. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. I'll see you guys tomorrow. No, today's Thursday. I lied. Monday. I mean to Monday, some Sunday Monday most of you Monday. You guys have a great weekend. Bye. Thanks. Yep.

Transcript generated from the recording and lightly edited for readability.