John 4:23-24

1. Worship needs to be real:
2. Truth = Reality
3. In the reality of Spirit and Truth
4. A living vessel that yields to your spirit and not our flesh

Exodus 34: 6-8

1. Worship is a posture:
2. 1st example of worship was in motion
3. When we give Him the ground necessary He has room to take over
4. Worship is costly:
5. We must give up the worldly things we worship
6. We constantly battle our flesh but we give that up to worship
7. Guard our hearts so that we can yield in those hard moments
8. Worship contributes to who we are:
9. 2 Timothy 1:4 → we are soldiers enlisted and therefore do not get weary like those who do not have Jesus
10. Revelations 4:8 → we are as reverent and respectful as the angels when they sing “Holy, Holy, Holy…” This is out of respect where we lean on Him and trust Him

Romans 12:12

1. Worship is a lifestyle:
2. Daily giving Him all we have, our lives
3. The Lord says, “Are you listening to me? Are you watching me?”

Questions for consideration and reflection:

1. What is your reality right now, at this moment in time?
2. What is your posture of worship? Weeping? Jumping? Do you have one?

Final thought → Give praise to the Lord… He deserves it!!!

The joy of the Lord is a transformative kind of joy.  It is not something that you can muster up on your own.  It is a kind of joy that withstands ridicule and abuse. It is the kind of joy that will keep you singing even when your circumstances don’t come anywhere near being defined as joyful.  It is the kind of joy that is infectious to others and can be shared!

Paul and Silas were traveling as the Lord had instructed them to, from town to town, with the privilege of sharing the news of the new covenant.  Out with the old and in with the new! No more animal sacrifices! No more absolution from priests and Pharisees that were going to take advantage of their position!  No! Christ came to restore the relationship with His beloved people and if they would but have eyes to see and ears to hear, they would have the opportunity to live under the new covenant!  While in Philippi, they shared three of these opportunities with us.  

It began with a woman who already loved the Lord!  She worshipped God (Acts 16:14). This is what we call a “Person of Peace”.  She was easy to talk to and willing to listen. Paul and Silas shared the joy of the Lord with her, and as a result, they baptized her and her entire family under the new covenant and they were saved.  

The second opportunity to share was with a woman who had a spirit within her.  She was not a person of peace but someone who followed Paul and Silas around for days, bullying and heckling them endlessly.  I love that the ESV says, “Paul, having become greatly annoyed, turned and” commanded the spirit from her (vs. 18). Are we not annoyed when someone is giving us a hard time?  When that one “friend” comments negatively on our clothes or make-up or whatever it is that they want to rag on us. She was set free from this spirit though, and in her gratefulness, her eyes and ears were opened to hear the truth of Jesus.  Paul and Silas were able to share the joy of the Lord with her by releasing her from a spirit that plagued her.

The third opportunity came about as a consequence of the second.  Apparently, people in that woman’s life really enjoyed the benefits of this harmful spirit within her.  They used her to gain wealth through divination of profits, and they were pretty irritated when their cash flow was interrupted.  Paul and Silas were arrested, publicly beaten, stripped bare and thrown into prison. Yet, their response was to pray and sing hymns (vs. 25).  If I had been physically abused, stripped down, and thrown into prison, I am not sure my response would be to pray and sing hymns. I don’t think I would be in the mood for a song.  BUT, they chose to praise God! And He was listening and caused an earthquake that would set Paul and Silas free. The guard woke up and immediately knew that suicide would be better than if he had been caught without his prisoners.  But did Paul and Silas run? No, they stayed and talked the guard “off the ledge”. They shared the joy of the Lord and, as a result, baptized the guard and his entire family!

These are three examples of increasingly difficult situations where the joy of the Lord overcame.  Not only were Paul and Silas still living under that joy, but they were able to share it with others!  Was their situation easy? No! Were they spared all earthly pain and embarrassment? No! But they did not have “worldly” joy to fall back on; they had the joy of the Lord!  This is something that was gifted to them by the Spirit within them, upon their baptism, in the belief of Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior. This is the gift we receive when we are baptized.  The same Spirit that lived within Paul and Silas, feeding them the Joy of the Lord, lives within us today.  

So how do we live with joy that cannot be mustered up on our own?  Let’s take a look at what Paul and Silas were doing.  

• Vs. 14b: “The Lord opened her heart to pay attention to what was said by Paul.”
• Vs. 18b: “Paul...turned and said to the spirit…”
• Vs. 25: “Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the prisoners were listening to them.”
• Vs. 32: “They spoke the word of the Lord to him and to all who were in his house.”

Paul and Silas were not silent about who Jesus was to them, what He had done for them, and the life that could be lived if those who listened would only believe.  They spoke of Jesus. They prayed and sang where others could hear. They used every opportunity they could to talk about Jesus. They spoke genuinely about what they had learned to be true.

So with that, we have a few questions:

• Do you find joy in God, or in your friends?
• If a known atheist asked you if you believed in God, how would you respond?
• And finally, will you be brave enough to share what God has done for you with everyone you know, everyone you come across, whether they are a person of peace or the one who would see you rot in jail?