Joy 2-The Promise of Joy, episode 104

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If you love a prodigal, you can discover help and hope for your wilderness journey right here

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at When You Love a Prodigal podcast.

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And also help and hope for your own life journey.

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Don't forget to make a note of anything you want to try to apply.

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Joy, my friend and neighbor, always brings joy into my life.

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She was aptly named Joy.

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She told me God gave her a joyful surprise this morning.

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She was talking with him this morning, sitting next to one of her very many plants.

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She noticed there were little trees beginning to grow in a pot that was holding some other plant.

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And then she remembered that months ago, she had put three avocado seeds in that plant to see what would happen,

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then totally forgotten about it.

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And this morning, she was surprised by Joy as she saw the new avocado life.

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Sometimes you don't know what God is growing, but you can find joy in it if you look for it.

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I don't think my reaction to the growing avocado trees would be Joy, though maybe a calmer response of a happy surprise.

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I might have Joy if any orchids that I have had would ever live.

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But Joy took my latest orchid and is trying to restore it.

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Joy is her natural response.

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Everyone in our whole neighborhood knows Joy.

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And they love to get to talk to her because she just exudes joy all the time.

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When you love a prodigal, though, you may find Joy is in scarce supply.

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Your surprises when you have a prodigal are usually not happy surprises.

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They're usually, oh no, not again.

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Oh no, not that.

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I believe our God wants Joy to be our normal experience.

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Is that even possible?

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Well, Joy is one of God's favorite topics.

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It's a gift that he loves to give us.

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Jumping off from our theme verse last week, James 1-2, consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds.

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Every time I read that, it's just like, okay, but that sounds almost impossible.

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But God has a lot to say about Joy.

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So we're going to just look at some of the promises, the thoughts of Joy that God shares with us.

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First, some verses from the Old Testament.

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In Isaiah 61, verses 1-3, Isaiah tells us,

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The spirit of the sovereign Lord is on me, because the Lord has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor.

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He sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives and release from darkness for the prisoners,

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to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor and even the day of vengeance of our God, to comfort all who mourn and provide for those who grieve,

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to bestow on them a crown of beauty instead of ashes, the oil of joy instead of mourning, and a garment of praise instead of a spirit of despair.

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Can't you hear that? He says, I'm going to give them a crown of beauty instead of the ashes of the ruined life or abandoned life that we experience with the prodigal sometime,

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or the oil of joy instead of mourning.

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I know a lot of people with prodigals who have left, who have said so long and they haven't heard from them in weeks, months, even years.

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And that's causing great mourning, which makes sense. Of course, they're mourning.

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But God says, I'm going to give you the oil of joy instead of that mourning.

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And certainly any of us with our loved one is in jail or making some really bad choices, addicted, lots of things that give us a spirit of despair.

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And he says, I'm going to give you a garment of praise instead of a spirit of despair.

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I could spend a lot of time on those verses, but we'll go on to some others.

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Have you experienced the oil of joy to overcome your mourning and despair?

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It is available. I think you could ask God for it.

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Psalm 32, 11 says, Be glad in the Lord and rejoice, you righteous ones.

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Shout for joy, all you who are upright in heart.

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Says, as you are seeking him and letting him fill you and be with you and be working in your life, he says, there's going to be joy for you.

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I'm sure that you have shouted for joy when something good happens, when a loved one returns home or just gets put on probation instead of sent to prison,

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or goes to rehab or a treatment program.

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Yeah, that causes some joy for you that there's hope for change.

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Can you in any circumstance look for the good that God is doing, even in a hard situation?

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Psalm 118, 24 says, This is the day which the Lord has made. Let us rejoice and be glad in it.

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That's this day right now. It's every day.

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God made each day and he knows what's going to happen.

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And he says, rejoice and be glad in the fact that God is with you in this day.

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One of my favorites is in Zephaniah 317.

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For the Lord your God is living among you.

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He is a mighty savior.

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He will take delight in you with gladness.

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God loves you and is crazy about you and takes delight in you.

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With his love, he will calm all your fears.

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Have you asked him to calm your fears?

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He will rejoice over you with joyful songs.

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God is singing a joyful love song over you.

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And he's doing the same for your loved one.

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A joyful love song.

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Does that give you hope and maybe a little joy?

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So here are a few verses from the New Testament too.

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Luke 2 10 and this is where the joy comes from.

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The angels said to them, the shepherds, do not be afraid.

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I bring you good news that will cause great joy for all the people.

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The birth of Jesus was a promise of great joy.

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He is the source of our joy.

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And because we have him, Paul could say in Philippians 4,

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always, always, always be full of joy in the Lord.

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I say it again, rejoice.

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Always?

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Can you do that always?

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Well, I guess he thinks we can.

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We're going to keep moving toward it.

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1 Thessalonians 5 16 says the same thing, rejoice always.

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It's a choice that we make, but we have the ability to make that choice

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because there is joy available to us and God will give us what we need.

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In Acts 2 28, Luke wrote this and he says about God,

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you have made known to me the paths of life.

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You will fill me with joy in your presence.

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So the longer you live, the more you discover that your life includes

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some events you wouldn't choose.

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But God says he will fill us with joy in his presence, no matter where the path leads.

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So I think part of that is hanging with him really close to be in his presence.

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And that's often in his word.

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It can be with others who know him and just talking to him.

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I talk to him every time I'm driving and so far I haven't had an accident.

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Romans 12 12 says be joyful in hope, patient in affliction and faithful in prayer.

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So faithful in prayer, we can keep talking to the Lord.

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That's what prayer is, you know, it's talking to God and listening to God.

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We can tell him anything we want.

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We can lament all the pain that we've experienced.

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We can say how sad we are, how hurt we are, how fearful we are.

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But we can also tell him that we're trusting him and that we believe that he has something

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that's going to help us have joy even in this hard journey.

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Next week, I'm going to cover some of the realities of the battle for joy.

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Because you know, we have an enemy and one of his main jobs is to steal our joy.

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And we can defeat him.

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And we'll talk about that next week.

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And we'll also talk about some practices that can be your pathway to joy.

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If you're not finding it easy to get on a pathway to joy, I hope we'll be able to help you on that next week.

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So I want to just ask you to do something here.

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I'm going to ask a few questions and you just answer them in your mind, okay?

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I'm not going to give you much time because it would be a lot of, you know, dead air.

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So think of something recently that's given you joy, even just a little.

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What about it made you joyful?

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What was your response to the feeling of joy?

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Did you desire or try to capture it or repeat it so that you could experience more joy?

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Any kind of place, anything in your life.

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Maybe it's an avocado plant growing.

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Think of something in your relationship with your prodigal that has given you joy or hope or thankfulness.

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Did that little bit or maybe if you're, well, maybe it was a lot.

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Often it's a little.

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Did that little bit give you joy? Why?

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Was it precipitated entirely by your loved one or did you say or do something to cause it?

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What was your response when some interaction with your loved one brought a little joy?

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Did you desire or try to capture it or repeat it?

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Some of you may be like my friend, Joy, and you see joy in almost everything.

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Some of you may rarely see joy, but rather mostly see the problems, and most of us fall somewhere in between.

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But God offers, he even promises joy.

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It is a gift.

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But as in all gifts, it only becomes ours as we accept it.

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And next week, we'll look at some very practical ways to make joy a consistent reality for us.

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So a couple of thought questions as we close.

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Do you believe it's possible to experience joy on this prodigal wilderness journey?

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Was there one thought you had as we listened, especially to the word of God,

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or answered the questions I just asked you that could help you have joy today?

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Be sure to listen to the songs in the show notes and invite a friend who has a prodigal

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to be part of Prayer for Prodigal Day on June 2nd.

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God bless you.