Enjoying the People in Your Life
Enjoying People.doc SD20
August 5, 2007 file:E
The Joyful Christian
Enjoying the People in Your Life
Philippians 1:1-11
Joy is a distinct mark of the Christian life…
The bible is filled with references to the joy of God’s people
But don’t misunderstand me…this biblical/Christian kind of joy is not what you might expect…
It is not … blissful happiness
It is not … the absence of conflict or turmoil or persecution
It is not … feelings of comfort and peace
It is not … merely the absence of struggle
There are two kinds of Joy—
1. Joy because of…dependent of happenings—happiness, flighty, and unreliable, an emotional roller-coaster dependent on the whim of my feelings…
2. Joy in spite of…a fruit of the Spirit in your life
The Apostle Paul knows about Joy---
When he writes his letter to the Ph8ilippians he writes it from a roman jail
He remembers that when he was starting the church in Philippi with Silas and a few others –that he spent his share of time behind bars and in stocks and even been beaten with stripes…
He had been maligned.
Had is reputation called into question
Beaten and imprisoned…
But when we find him and Silas in Acts 16 they are singing praises to God with their necks in the stocks…and midnight!
The devil is a thief!!!
he is real and he is a liar and a thief
he wants to steal your joy!!!
He wants to rob you of your capacity to rejoice always
Today satan is attacking your faith
Stealing your hope
And robbing you of this persistent unidentifiable solid knowledge of God plan and purpose in your life—which results in joy---
Joy in spite of…Like Paul in prison
We are going to look at that book of Philippians for the next several weeks and discover some principles of the Joyful Christian Life…
As Paul writes—his main theme is the Joy of the Lord—and he seeks to root us in a joy-in-spite-of attitude…
How can I have this??? Is our question!
Read the book often in the next several weeks…
Because the Holy Spirit is going to teach us about having
1. Joy in our relationships—enjoying the people in our lives
2. How to maintain joy in times of affliction
3. How to reduce conflict
4. How the Holy Spirit produces personal change—God’s part and my part
5. How to overcome the complainer in your life—YOU!
6. How to develop a winning attitude
…plus several other themes that relate to developing and maintaining a joyful Christian life.
READ Philippians 1:1-11
This morning I want to look at these first few verses and discover some ways to enjoy the people in your life…
Do you enjoy the people in your life or do you mostly just tolerate them?
The people you work with and live with?—Do you enjoy your spouse? Your children?
The Bible says in Ecclesiastes 9:9, "Husbands [men] enjoy
life with your wife whom you love."
The problem I find is that many marriages are more a matter of endurance than enjoyment. We don't really enjoy the people in our lives, we tolerate them, we put up with them. We endure them.
What does it take to enjoy the people in your life?
Rick Warren says there are four keys in this passage.
(from Rick Warren, Saddleback church,)
But before I share these four keys let me tell you the one key that underlies them all—It is unspoken in the text…but it is this:
You must enjoy your relationship with God…
You must experience His forgiveness and healing and believe in His love for you and enjoy that relationship.
Many live with suspicion of God—
They love Him and serve Him but are not sure that He is fun.
They don’t enjoy Him…they are always thinking that He is displeased with them---Just because they are displeased with themselves -- they transfer that displeasure to God and then blame Him because they are not happy…
Before you can enjoy the people in your life you must enjoy your relationship with God—Believe in His love for you!!!
Okay!!!
What does it take to enjoy the people in your life? Philippians give us four key principles to apply to ourselves!
1. Be grateful for the good in people.
v.3 “I thank my God every time I remember you…”
Now understand—Paul could have chosen to remember the bad things that happened to Him in Philippi…the crazy lady who kept interrupting his messages…The merchants who liked and accused him and had him arrested…
He could have dwelt on the bad side of people…
But he chooses to remember and rejoice!
What do you remember of choose to think about the people in your life? The good experiences or the bad experiences…
Sometimes it seems that the bad may far out weigh the good but we can find some good to remember or to think about…
Maybe you have, in your past, been hurt by a parent or a partner and you're still holding on to that hurt.
As a result you can't enjoy them today. You're still focusing on the bad and the negative.
Be grateful for the good in people. Pleasant memories are a choice. I can choose what I'm going to remember about the past.
Note merely to be grateful for the good people…but to be grateful for the good in the people who really aren’t that great…
Here’s the principle: Remember the best and forget the rest!
We need to affirm our faith in people. children need encouragement…they need to know they believe in them…and you and I need that too…so we must give that to the people around us if we are going to learn to enjoy them
You will never enjoy the people you are criticizing!
You will never enjoy the people you are trying to change!
2. Practice positive praying
v.4 “In all my prayer for all of you, I always pray with joy.”(NIV)
How would you like to have the apostle Paul praying for you? Would that encourage you? Isn't it an encouragement when you know people are praying for you when they are remembering you?
PRINCIPLE #2: The quickest way to change a relationship from bad to good is to start thanking God in prayer for people.
This will do two things: change your attitude and change them. Positive praying is much more powerful than positive thinking.
People may resist our advice and spurn our appeals and reject our suggestions and not listen to our help, but they are powerless against our prayers.
In vv.9-11 Paul spells out some specific ways that we should pray for people in order to enjoy them more…
Pray for them in this fashion. Pray that they will:
v.9 grow in love…”abound in love still more and more” = over flow like an artesian well
v.10a make wise choices. “In knowledge and all discernment” = discern what is best
v.10b do the right thing – “be sincere and without offense…” be pure and blameless and have a clean conscience…
v.11 live for God’s glory – “be filled with the fruits of righteousness which are by Jesus Christ, to the glory and praise of God
If you want to begin enjoying the people in your life pray for them with an attitude of gratitude…thank God for the people in your life…even the ones who rub you the wrong way…they are as iron that sharpens iron and God will even use them to develop you
BE THANKFUL! Pray for them with joy in your heart!
3. Be patient with their progress v.6 “Being confident of this, that He who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.”
Don’t you like it when people are patient with you? when they give you space to fail and recover?
Then friend, be patient with the people in your life!
Here is the principle: GOD IS NOT FINISHED WITH PEOPLE
He is not finished with you! Aren’t you glad????
If you will enjoy the people in your life you must leave place for growth and development….
In your marriage, -- in your family-- if you want to enjoy your mate,-- if you want to enjoy your children--- you've got to learn to enjoy them right now while still allowing for growth and development.
Otherwise, by the time they meet your conditions you will have still another condition for them to meet. You've got to learn to enjoy them where they are right now.
Learn to enjoy them in the process, while they're growing.
There is no such thing as a perfect kid. And there's no such thing as a perfect adult. If you demand perfection of the people in your life in order to enjoy them you're going to be miserable for the rest of your life.
Nobody's perfect.
Paul says that he enjoyed the Philippians because he chose to ignore the bad things that happened and concentrated on the good. He was grateful for the good that happened and he practiced
positive praying, he prayed with joy and for specific things in their life. If you want to change your attitude start praying for that person who irritates you at work, that person in your home, child or mate, and see what happens to your attitude. Then be patient with their progress because life is a matter of growth.
We are in the process!!!!
Please be patient with me! God is not finished with me yet!
Our mistake: We tend to judge others by how far they have to go rather than how far they have come.---stop that, or you will be miserable and without joy in your relationships
4. Love people from the heart v.7-8
“If is right for me to feel this way about all of you since I have you in my heart.”
“God can testify how I long for all of you with the affection of Christ Jesus…”
Ro.5:5 (GN) “God has poured out His love into our hearts by means of the Holy Spirit, who is God’s gift to us.”
When people are not on your heart they are usually getting on your nerves…When the kids aren’t on your heart they are on your nerves…when your mate is not on your heart he is getting on your nerves…
One reason so many marriages are crumbling is that mates are reacting to each other from their mind rather than their heart.
They are trying to reason things out instead of loving things out!
We must learn to listen to each other from the heart! Not the head!
We must learn to allow the love of God to be processed through our hearts…
That is not an emotional, whimsical or sloppy kind of love.
It is a deep love that can only come from God
Principle #4: The secret of enjoy the people In my life is to be filled with God’s love
How do I get that kind of love???
Ro 5:5 "God has poured out his love into our hearts by means of the Holy Spirit, who is God's gift to us."
God's love is not something you work up. It is something that is poured into me by the Holy Spirit as I let Him live in me day by day.
God's love is something He does in me and through me. It is a gift as you let the Holy Spirit live in you moment by moment.
Life is too short to not enjoy the people in your life. If you don't learn to enjoy the people that God has placed around you in your life you will be miserable.
As Paul begins this great book about joy (and he's going to deal with all the common kill-joys we experience in life) he starts off
talking about people.
satan will use the people in your life to rob your joy unless you learn how to respond to them the way Jesus did.
Paul started this church; he was the founding pastor. He had these people in his heart. The word in the Bible which means "enjoying other people" is the word "fellowship". That's what it's all about -- enjoying your family, your church. When you really love each other, that's what fellowship is all about.
Use these principles to help you enjoy the people in your life! Apply them today!
But begin here and today by inviting the power and presence of Jesus into your life…surrender to Him and commit to living life His way…otherwise you will never get what He has promised and purposed for you!
The Joyful Christian (Part 1)
LEARNING TO ENJOY THE PEOPLE IN YOUR LIFE
Philippians 1:3-11
Four Keys To Enjoying People
1.______________________________________________ (vs. 3)
"I thank my God every time I remember you."
PRINCIPLE #1:
2._____________________________________________ (vs. 4)
"In all my prayers for all of you, I always pray with joy ..."
PRINCIPLE #2: The quickest way to change a relationship from bad to good is to start:
What to pray for others: Pray they will . . .
(vs. 9)
(vs. 10a)
(vs. 10b)
(vs. 11)
3.______________________________________________ (vs.6)
PRINCIPLE #3
Our Mistake: We judge others by how far they ____________ rather than how far __ ______________.
4. ___________________________________________ (vs.7,8)
PRINCIPLE #4: The secret of enjoying the people in my life is to be: