You can find an audio version of this blog at: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/cbc-devo-core-value-joy In recent years our church has had a theme to focus on each year. This year, however, instead of a specific theme I want to focus on core values. These core values developed over the past several years of preaching on subjects like spiritual gifts, modeling Christ, the Christian family, prayer, and worship. In compiling these subjects, we now have an extensive list of core values that I don’t want us to forget and that we need to apply if we’re going to continue being a healthy, effective, life-giving, and God-glorifying church. Each month I plan to focus on one core value through a devotional like this one. The core value will also appear in our bulletin. If interested, you can find the entire list of core values on our website. The first core value I want us to focus on is joy. Joy! It’s what everybody wants! In my first year as a pastor, my personal theme that year was “to serve the Lord with joy.” Followers of Jesus should be known for their joy. I’ve said many times before that if we can’t have fun and enjoy doing ministry, we won’t be doing much ministry at all! No one wants to be part of a church or any other group that has no joy. We can communicate all the right information to people but without a sense of joy, it will go over like a lead balloon. Who wants to hang around a bunch of cranks who argue and complain about everything or go through life as an expressionless Stoic? They make a terrible witness for the good news of the gospel! Joyful Christians, however, are winsome witnesses for Jesus. Charles Swindoll once said that long before people are attracted to our life of love, they are often attracted to our joy. Christ came to give us an abundant life (John 10:10) and in a very real sense, part of that “life” is a lightening of our spirits and learning to laugh at life! There are two principles that I would like to share to make sure we don’t lose our joy. The first one is that joy comes with abiding. In John 15:10-11 Jesus said, If you keep My commandments, you will abide in My love; just as I have kept My Father’s commandments and abide in His love. These things I have spoken to you so that My joy may be in you, and that your joy may be complete. Jesus teaches that we can abide in His love by keeping His commandments. The reason He tells us this is because He wants us to have an abundant life characterized by joy! He wants us to have His joy and for our joy to be complete. One translation says “so that your joy may overflow.” Sometimes people are tempted to view God’s commands as restrictions that steal their joy. God is looked at as a big bully in the sky who doesn’t want us to have any fun. On the contrary, for believers, it’s when we are living in sin against God that we lack this overflowing joy. God will not let His children enjoy what is not good for them. Therefore, overflowing joy only comes when we are walking in fellowship with the Lord and thus abiding in Him. The second principle is that we must be careful about where we find our joy. In Luke 10 when the disciples returned from their first short-term missionary journey, they returned with joy, saying, “Lord, even the demons are subject to us in Your name." Understandably, the disciples learned that serving Jesus can bring them immense joy. They were joyful about the way He used them and empowered them for the work of ministry. However, Jesus knows that ministry hardship lay ahead and they need something more secure to rest their joy in. He responded, saying, Do not rejoice in this, that the spirits are subject to you, but rejoice that your names are recorded in heaven. As heaven’s disciples, and especially for those in some sort of vocational ministry, we must beware of placing our joy in what we do (maybe it’s a ministry or job) or in what we possess (maybe it’s material possessions, influential qualities, or personal performance). Placing our joy in anything other than Christ and what He has done for us—formally inscribing our names in heaven’s book of life—is a recipe for disaster because everything other than Christ is temporary and fleeting or fluctuates up and down. If I place all my joy in my job but my job isn’t doing well, my joy won’t be doing well. If I place my joy in a fancy vehicle but then it gets wrecked or I am forced to sell it, my joy will go with it. Joy comes to stay when we recognize that Jesus is everything we need and because of Him, we are saved and going to heaven. If you seem to have misplaced your joy lately, I encourage you to pray with David in Psalm 51:12, Restore to me the joy of Your salvation and sustain me with a willing spirit. In Christ with you,
Pastor Justin 2/18/2024
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The other day I watched a video showing the final, game winning touchdown play in a high school football matchup. The white team threw a touchdown pass and ended the game with a last-second win! Everyone on the white team immediately started celebrating with their teammates, jumping up and down with their hands in their air—all except one. One of the players on the white team was going around and speaking with players on the green team who had collapsed on the field in tears, heads down, grieving over the loss of a championship win. At first, you would assume that this player might be mocking the other team for losing the big game and rubbing it in their faces, but that wasn’t what he was doing at all. He was gently consoling them and speaking words of encouragement to them. One by one he lifted them up, shook their hands, and congratulated them on a hard-fought game. Immediately I thought, “That’s exactly what Paul is talking about in Ephesians 4:29.” Paul tells us to build others up—lift them up with our words! Ephesians 4:29 is in a section of Scripture where Paul is telling us how to live now that we are in Christ and how to have healthy, Christ-centered relationships that last. He is telling the Ephesians to lay aside the old self with the sin nature and put on the new self that is renewed in Christ and in righteousness. This renewing includes our words! There are words to put off and words to put on. He says, Let no unwholesome word proceed from your mouth, but only such a word as is good for edification according to the need of the moment, so that it will give grace to those who hear. The words to put off are unwholesome words. Some of your translations call them corrupt or foul words. These are all great depictions of the Greek word that is used in relation to fruit and rotten or decaying food (Mt. 7:17; 12:33). Rotten words like this are destructive and detrimental to others’ physical, mental, or moral well-being. Paul mentions some of what he has in mind in verse 31; they would include harsh words spoken in anger, coarse (unclean) jesting, degrading slander, and heartless malicious gossip. Speech like this doesn’t bring life—they destroy life. Some workplaces and homes are miserable, lacking peace and joy, because they are filled with rotten words. They deteriorate the spiritual well-being of others. Paul says to stop these words from coming out of our mouths.
The new way of speaking in Christ is mentioned second. These are the words we are to put on: edifying words. These words, as some of your translations say, are helpful for building others up. This is a construction term (edifying/edifice). These are words that strengthen or “make more able” someone else. Words like this give grace to those who hear. In Colossians 4:6, Paul says to season our words with salt. Salt, as you know, has a preservative effect on things. When I do taxidermy, I use to salt to preserve deer hides until they can get tanned. Salt kills the bacteria that would cause that deer hide to rot. It preserves the deer hide. I guess we could say the best way to fight against and prevent rot in our relationships is to use salty words—words of grace that build others up. Just this week I was the unexpected recipient of constructive words through text messaging. In the middle of this crazy week, I can’t tell you how much that brightened my day! It’s so much easier to use rotten words than constructive words. We find it so much easier to criticize than to commend and to put down than to praise! We could all use a little more encouragement and affirmation. Indeed, some peoples’ love language is words of affirmation! So how can you build someone up right now with your words? Make it your goal this week to build someone up each day. Life is better when we are better with our words. In Christ with you, Pastor Justin |
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