Philippians Part 1 | Joyce Meyer | Radio Podcast

Philippians Part 1-1 A 15-minute teaching applying practical principles from God’s Word to everyday life.

Joyce Meyer, one of the world’s leading practical Bible teachers and New York Times best-selling author, shares encouragement and advice to help us enjoy our daily lives. With a heart to share Christ and love people, Joyce’s messages help people in all walks of life to grow in their faith, learn to study the Bible, find healing from the wounds of life, get answers to life’s questions and encounter the love of God in a powerful way.

Welcome to enjoying everyday life with New York Times best selling author Joyce Meyer.
On today’s program, Joyce will be teaching from Galatian and Philippians. Galatians is all about god’s amazing grace.
We’ll learn how the power of the Holy Spirit is what enables us to do what god asks of us, not our own strength and effort.
Meanwhile, Philippians teaches us about joy and how true lasting joy comes only through faith in Jesus Christ and serving others.
Now here’s Joyce with today’s teaching.
This weekend, I’m doing another one of the books of the Bible that will eventually be turned into a commentary and, um, starting here this week in the book of Philipp.
I think you’re gonna learn some very valuable things.
First of all, let me say that although Jesus was a man of many sorrows and acquainted with grief, He possessed a deep joy beyond anything that the world could offer.
As he faced the terrible death on calvary.
He spoke to his disciples and said, these things I have spoken unto you that my joy might remain in you and that your joy might be full.
He said, I’m telling you these things because I want you to have joy.
And not just any kind of joy, but my joy. John Tim Tim is one of my favorites.
The thief comes only distill to kill and kill and destroy.
But I came that you might have and enjoy your life.
So let me just ask, and you don’t have to give me any visible answer, but just to get you to think about it, how many of you are really enjoying your life.
You see, a lot of people are, but a lot of people aren’t because a lot of people think to enjoy life, you have to have no problems, way more than enough money, everything that you want, And when Jesus said he want us to have his joy, it’s a joy that we can have when not much of anything, is going right in our lives.
In the book of Philippians, Paul mentions joy 19 times.
It’s the epistle of joy.
No matter what our circumstances are, it is our privilege as a child of god.
To be full of joy.
Although Paul wrote this book while imprisoned, he still found joy. What was his secret?
Well, he mentions the mind and our functions of the mind sixteen times.
In the book of Philipp.
So joy he mentions 19 times, the mind and thoughts he mentions 16 times, So how many of you already know that your mind the thoughts you allow in your mind are the thoughts you choose to think on have a lot to do with your joy.
Do you know, you can think yourself into being miserable And honestly, you can think yourself into being happy.
If you sit around and think about what you don’t have, and what people don’t do for you that you think they should do.
You can have a miserable day anytime you wanna have one.
Just get up and start thinking the wrong stuff in the morning and just be as miserable as you want to and feel sorry for yourself all day.
And the devil will join your party and just think it’s marvelous.
Or you can say, No, I’m not thinking like that.
Because I know my thoughts are gonna affect my actions, my thoughts are gonna affect my moods, and I’m not gonna give the devil one more day of my life.
So I’m gonna think about what people do for me, and I’m gonna think about what I do have not what I don’t have.
And one thing I always have is Jesus in my life.
And if I have him, then I don’t really need anything else to keep me happy.
We absolutely must remember and be reminded often that our time here on earth is so short Let’s don’t make too much out of it because when your life here is over, It’s not over.
You’re gonna go somewhere else, and there’s only 2 choices. Either heaven or hell.
And if you’ve read anything at all about what hell’s gonna be like, I think it’s obvious that heaven is the best place to choose.
The only way to get in there is to believe in Jesus, to believe that he is the son of god that he came and he paid for your sins.
He died for you. And the only way that you can have real relationship with god is through Christ.
Spend your life here developing a close tight, intimate relationship with Jesus.
He did not die for us so we could have a religion He died for us so we could have a relationship with him.
I’ll say this again later in my teaching, but one of the statements that I ran across studying for this, you know, a lot of this is about the apostle Paul, and, you know, he he had he had everything right.
He had all the religious things that you should have to be the right kind of person.
And I read a statement that said Paul had to lose his religion to find salvation.
Anybody relate?
You know, sometimes we’re so religious, and we think we’re doing all the right things.
I can’t stand it when I ask somebody if they’re saved, and they say, Well, I go to church.
You can go sit in a church all day long, and that don’t make you a Christian any more than sitting in a garage will make you a car.
So we need to know him.
And the one thing that you have to invest if you wanna really know somebody is time.
And you need more than 45 minutes to an hour, an hour a half once a week or a couple times a month on Sunday morning.
The devil is working too hard out there.
And we’ve gotta be feeding ourselves the word of god on a regular basis.
Uh, how many of you don’t wanna just do this? You wanna have victory. Hey, ma’am.
And how many of you don’t wanna just go to heaven you wanna take some people with you?
Alright. So nineteen times, he talked about joy.
You know, our joy, it’s very important for people to see happy Christians.
We should be the happiest people on the face of the earth.
And that doesn’t mean we have to go around giggling and being giddy all the time, but it means that we we don’t we should be able to have the same problems that other people have and yet handle them in a completely different way.
Amen? The joy of the lord is my strength.
The devil doesn’t want your stuff. He wants your joy.
So Paul wrote this book while he was in prison, and keep that in mind as we go through Philippians.
And he still found joy. What was his secret? He thought about the right things.
He chose to have a positive perspective.
Even the worst circumstances cannot steal your joy if you won’t let them.
For example, when you experience a loss in your life, do you focus on what you’ve lost or what you have left?
As you deal with people, do you focus on their weaknesses or on their strengths?
You know, most people that get divorces get divorces because they have focused on what’s wrong with their spouse for so long that that’s all they see.
But if you stop and think about some of the things that you like that cause you to wanna marry them in the first place, Come on.
And I got one woman that agrees. I don’t know about the rest of you.
As you look at yourself, do you focus on all your faults and your weaknesses and what’s wrong with you, or do you focus on the mercy and the forgiveness of god and the fact that every day is a brand new day and his mercy is new every day.
Our joy or the lack of it speaks a message to the world, and the Bible says that we are the light of the world now.
Philippians chapter 1 verses 1 and 2.
Paul and Timothy servants of Christ Jesus to all the saints in Christ Jesus who are at philippi with the overseers and the deacons.
Grace to you and peace from god, our father, and the lord Jesus Christ.
Now, normally, you wouldn’t think that you’d get anything out of the greeting.
So we just read over the greeting and never even really think about what it says.
But there’s lessons just in the greeting here.
First of all, I want you to notice that Paul did not call himself by a fancy title.
He said, this letter is from Paul and Timothy, and our identity is servants.
Of Christ Jesus.
He didn’t call himself reverender Bishop or doctor or you know, not, you know, I’m I’m not putting that down.
You know, there are titles of respect, and I think that’s fine.
But I do think it’s interesting that Paul didn’t call him self by any of those things.
You see, sometimes when people get in a place of leadership, they begin to think more highly of themselves than they ought to.
And they begin to see themselves as the boss rather than a servant.
And I think anybody in leadership needs to talk to themselves every single day and remind yourself that you’re nothing without Christ And you’re only in the position you’re in because god put you there, and he can take down what he put up.
Nothing aggravates me worse than a preacher with a bad attitude.
Amen.
So servants of the lord Jesus Christ is exactly what we’re supposed to be.
And I wanna share with you that I had a very good opportunity to practice my servin hood just this last week.
And Dave gave me that opportunity.
Dave just is so kind to me.
He he makes sure that I follow after the lord. Well, what happened was he hurt his back.
Of course, that wasn’t funny at all.
But, I mean, he like something just went out of place, kinda like over here, and he’s fine now, but I mean, he he couldn’t get out of a chair for like 30 minutes.
And then when he finally did get up, he had to lean on me, and I’m not just like big enough to really lean on.
And so I finally got him to the recliner, and I put it back, but I almost put it back too far.
And he was like, Wow. Wait a minute.
Ira, that was payback for something he did to me one time after I had surgery.
And he almost dumped me in the floor head first backwards.
But with eyes and taking some a leave.
He got some relief, but he still couldn’t do certain things.
So now I had to put on his undies, put on his pants, put on his socks and his shoes and tie his shoes.
Well, he got to liking it a little bit too much.
So in the morning, he would say, where’s my dresser?
We don’t need to go through life frustrated because god loves us and wants to help us.
He’s right there waiting for us to exchange our trying for trusting.
Today’s resource offering further explains his grace, his joy, and how to live an abundant life.
For your gift of 20 or more you’ll receive Galatians a biblical study and Philippians a biblical study.
These are perfect tools for your time with God or to do with a small group, order now at joycemeyer.org or call toll free at 1800 7890089.
Most people want to be successful, but what you have to decide is whose definition of success are you going to follow?
In my new book, The Pathway To Success, I want to walk with you toward a life filled with meaning and purpose the way god sees it.
God has given everything we need for a life that’s fulfilling to us and pleasing to him and I want to help you discover it.
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