Real Life Community Church Sermons
Real Life Community Church, is a church located in Richmond, Kentucky. Our fellowship is comprised of authentic followers of Jesus Christ who aim to glorify God in all that we do. We have a desire to reach our community, meeting both the physical and spiritual needs of those who are hurting.What to Expect in a ServiceOur Sunday Morning services include a time of dynamic, contemporary worship. We have a full praise band, consisting of real Christ-followers who are committed to worshiping God, not just through song, but in every area of their lives. Each service will include a relevant, Bible-based message, that will inspire and challenge those who hear it, in their walk with the Lord. Come casually or formally dressed… however you are most comfortable. We hope to see you soon!
Real Life Community Church Sermons
Fruit | Part 3 | Joy
What if joy isn’t just a fleeting emotion but a commandment for every believer? Join us as we uncover the profound significance of joy in our ten-week series on the fruit of the Spirit from Galatians 5. We start with scripture readings from Galatians 5:22 and Luke 10, highlighting the incredible mission of the 72 disciples and their joyous return. Joy, much like love and self-control, stands as an essential virtue for Christians, woven into the fabric of our faith by biblical teachings.
If you have your Bibles, if you'll get them. And turn to Galatians, chapter 5, we're going to start at verse 22. But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control, and against such things there is no law. And if you'll turn with me to Luke, chapter 10, starting at verse 1. After this, the Lord appointed 72 others and sent them on ahead of him, two by two, into every town and place where he himself was about to go. And he said to them the harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few.
Speaker 1:Therefore, pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into the harvest. Go your way, behold, I am sending you out as lambs in the midst of wolves, carry no money bag, no knapsack, no sandals and greet no one on the road. Whatever house you enter, first say peace, be to this house, and if a son of peace is there, your peace will rest upon him. But if not, it will return to you and remain in the same house, eating and drinking what they provide for. The laborer deserves his wages. Do not go from house to house. Whenever you enter a town and they receive you, eat what is set before you, heal the sick in it and say to them the kingdom of God has come near to you, and I'm going to skip to verse 17.
Speaker 1:The 72 returned with joy, saying the 72 returned with joy saying Lord, even the demons are subject to us in your name. And he said to them I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven. Behold, I have given you authority to tread on serpents and scorpions and all the power of the enemy, and nothing shall hurt you. Nevertheless, do not rejoice in this, that the spirits are subject to you, but rejoice that your names are written in heaven. In the same hour, he rejoiced in the Holy Spirit and said I thank you, father, lord of heaven and earth, that you have hidden these things from the wise and understanding and revealed to the little children. Yes, father, for such as your gracious will, all things have been handed over to me by my Father, and no one knows who the Son is except the Father, or who the Father is except the Son and anyone to whom the reading of God's word and did not hear it.
Speaker 2:Amen, you may be seated. That ends the reading of God's word. Good to see everybody this morning. Are you glad to be in the house of the Lord? Well, joy is not optional in the life of a believer. Somebody better smile at me this morning.
Speaker 2:Joy is not optional in the life of a believer. We are in a nine-week series where we're looking at Galatians, chapter 5. We're taking one week to look at each of the nine fruit of the Spirit Love, joy, goodness, faithfulness, kindness, gentleness, so on and so forth. And so when we think about the fruit of the Spirit, we think about qualities like love, the virtue of love, and we're like, of course, that's not optional, like, if you're a Christian, you should be loving, correct? Okay, we're on the same page. When you think about self-control, it's like, yeah, as a Christian, I should probably be self-controlled. You think about kindness, how you doing? We should be kind people? Yes, all right. But what about joy? Do you know that the Bible commands us to be joyful? We should be a joyful people.
Speaker 2:Let me, this is not just the New Testament, it's old and new, both. Let me give you an example. Psalm 33, verse 1, says Shout for joy, o you righteous. Praise befits the upright Psalm. One of my favorite verses, psalm 37, verse 4, says Delight yourself in the Lord. Don't just follow him, but delight yourself in the Lord and he'll give you the desires of your heart. And then we flip to the New Testament and you go to passages like Philippians, chapter 4.
Speaker 2:The Apostle Paul pens these words, by the way, while imprisoned. We have no excuse. He says what's he say? Anybody know what's the first word Rejoice in the Lord always. He didn't say rejoice in the Lord sometimes. Rejoice in the Lord always. And again I say rejoice.
Speaker 2:This begs the question how could the Bible command us to be joyful? Because doesn't joy? Wouldn't it shift with? You know, in the good times and bad times? It seems like it would kind of ebb and flow, right. Why would the Bible command us to be joyful?
Speaker 2:Well, I want to point your attention again to the fact that these virtues that we're looking at, these are the fruit of what? The fruit of the Spirit, which is really important. What this means is the Bible calls us to walk in love, joy, peace. You know the whole gamut of the fruit. But the great news is this these are not foreign objects that we're trying to pull in from the outside. These are the fruit of the Spirit, which means this, friends, if we have the Spirit of God and if you're a Christian, you are indwelt by God's Spirit If you have the Spirit of God, then you have the fullness of the fruit. And so what Paul says in Galatians 5, he doesn't say, hey, learn to walk in joy. Or he doesn't say, learn to get joy, come on, go out there, find joy, bring it in, pull it in. He says, no, you've got it, walk by it, walk by the spirit. So have I convinced you yet that God's people are to be a joyous people? Okay, don't look mad about that, look joyous about it. Because here's the deal. Like, listen, we're supposed to be joy-filled as believers, but can we be honest? We don't always give off that persona right.
Speaker 2:I love this story. It was published back in the 80s in Today in the Word. It was an article about a man by the name of Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr who was a member of the US Supreme Court for 30 years and he earned himself the unofficial title of the greatest justice since John Marshall. Now, listen to this. This is so good. At one point in his life, justice holmes explained his choice of career. And here's what he said, quote I might have entered the ministry if certain clergymen I knew had not looked and acted so much like undertakers end quote Friends.
Speaker 2:I mean, let's think about it Like this when we gather together, it ought to be like this this morning. It ought to be like a wedding venue, like celebratory, but how often does it look like a funeral home? We are to be a joyous people. I'll never forget my wife's back there and we, when we got married, the thing he wanted to do for us to open that car door. He was meet, happy, right and listen. We're supposed to be happy church. So let's not look saved and mad about it.
Speaker 2:Like they go out on this missionary journey, they're casting out demons, they're healing the sick, they're watching these great miracles. People's lives are being changed and they're excited. They're excited and they come back and they're just ecstatic when they see Jesus. But there's something very interesting here. Because you go, of course. I mean look at all that happened. Let me's something very interesting here. Because you go, of course, I mean look at all that happened. Let me point you to something here.
Speaker 2:Joy does not mean that there is no grief or sorrow. Sorrow is not the opposite of joy. It's those sandals. You can't even have shoes. Not the opposite of joy. It's those sandals. You can't even have shoes. Greet, no one on the road.
Speaker 2:So, hey, listen, disciples, I'm sending you. It's going to be great. Listen, I'm sending you out as sheep amongst wolves and I'm sending you out. Get this Lean in Broke. Come on, jesus, we're ready for this. Well, it gets even worse. Look now amongst wolves for this. Well, it gets even worse. Look now, wolves, I'm sending you out broke. And, by the way, some of the towns are going to hate you for this message. And then here's what I want you to do this is going to be to pronounce judgment on them. So, guys, the point is this life involves Jesus, life involves hope.
Speaker 2:Jesus rejoiced that's a loaded word Rejoiced in the Holy Spirit. Jesus over and over. You read in the gospel accounts he walked in joy, he walked in joy. He walked in joy. Who is the founder and perfecter of our faith? Who, for the joy that was set before him, endured the cross? All right, listen to me. The cross Jesus had to bear was painful. Do you remember the Gethsemane? Jesus said, but I lay it down it's through Calvary that we live at the right hand of the Father. So my point is this that joy and grief can coexist.
Speaker 2:Now let me just unpack this word rejoice. Jesus rejoiced, he was full of joy. So here it is the Greek word that's translated rejoice is a Galileo. How many of you are like singing Bohemian Rhapsody now? A Galileo, that's what it is right. No, it's not that. This is a Greek word. And here's what it means. It means to exalt, to rejoice exceedingly, to be exceedingly glad and get this. Here's what Strong's Concordance said. I love this. Here's what Jesus did. He began to pray and he rejoiced. Here's what it means, literally, properly, to jump for joy.
Speaker 2:Now, when you think of Jesus, you think of him carrying the lamb on his you know, on him, or at the cross, or you think of him teaching, very seriously, but in all serious, how many of you have ever thought of Jesus doing this? Woo Father, god, hallelujah. Which means we better be careful for judging people who praise exuberantly, because Jesus got excited about the plan of the Father. So now I've messed you up, right? Some of you are like I don't know about this. Read it, read it, study it out.
Speaker 2:Man he was, he was joy filled, even in the midst of grief. So the opposite of joy remember it's not sorrow. Then what is the opposite of joy? Here it is, the opposite of joy is despair, or you might say, hopelessness. Okay, let me just read you a text from 1 Thessalonians, 4.13.
Speaker 2:Paul says we do not want you to be uninformed brothers about those who are asleep that's a nice way of saying those who have died, that you may not grieve as others do, who have no hope. So Paul is not saying here listen, you have a loved one die. It hurts, and some Christians have been made to feel like it's a lack of faith to lament. Lament is actually a lost art in the church. There's nothing unspiritual about grieving, is there? Okay? So think about this. Paul says listen, you're going to grieve, but you're not going to grieve as people without hope.
Speaker 2:So let me break this down. Let's just take our current day situation. Guys, is it chaotic out there? I mean, do you even recognize America right now? Do you expect just to wake up at some point and be like, oh yeah, this was a dream. That makes sense. Right, like I ate really bad pizza. Like people really do know how to define a man and a woman, right? Right, guys.
Speaker 2:You look at the moral decay of our country. You look at the wars and rumors of wars in our world. You look at the fight. Listen, can you believe that the free market, capitalism, democracy itself is at risk? I mean, people are advocating socialism, marxist ideology, like we've been there, like it didn't work, like this has been a pretty good governmental system, not perfect. The free markets worked out pretty well and they want to. Certain people want to throw that aside. We've lost our minds. And you look out particularly at the moral decay of our nation and you ought to be grieved, it ought to break your heart for what America is becoming.
Speaker 2:But we do not grieve as people without hope. But we do not grieve as people without hope. Here's the thing. We grieve because we hate what's going on, but we remember, as children of God, that God is on the throne, that his plans. I don't care who the president is, I don't care if the Antichrist himself steps into government, I don't care who the king is, who the tyrant of the day is, I don't care who wins the election in November, no matter what happens. You know you can sink this country, but you cannot sink the throne of God.
Speaker 2:Amen, and one day here's what I know, no matter how bad it gets here, you can laugh at Christians, you can laugh at biblical ideologies, you can laugh at our morals and our ethics, but one day you will not be laughing, brother right. One day every knee will bow, every tongue confess that Jesus is Lord Hallelujah. One day we are going to be vindicated. One day the earth will be renewed by God's grace. Justice will finally come.
Speaker 2:The opposite of joy is despair, and we are not people of despair. Now I would ask you. So how are you doing with walking in joy? You may say well, really good. But I want to give one warning here. There is such thing as a counterfeit joy. There's a counterfeit joy. Here's what it is. I'm going to show you.
Speaker 2:It's in our text, verses 19 and 20. So here's what the disciples have done. They've gone and done their missionary work. They come back and they're ecstatic. But here's what they're ecstatic about. Oh Jesus, even the spirits were subject to us. Now watch what look at Jesus' response. So it's good, they're joy. They have joy, but Jesus mildly rebukes them. Here's what he says. Behold verse 19,. I have given you authority to tread on serpents and scorpions. Like that's cool. I lived in Tucson, we had those everywhere. I claim this verse. He says over all the power of the enemy, that's cool and nothing shall hurt you. Nevertheless, listen to this, because that's what they rejoiced in that happened. They rejoiced Do not rejoice in this that the spirits are subject to you, but rejoice that your names are written in heaven. Rejoice in the gospel. The gospel never changes. So Tim Keller defines counterfeit joy like this. Counterfeit joy is joy in the blessings, not the blesser. So here's what it means.
Speaker 2:There might be a season in your life where you see the hand of God. Right, you're like you see all these miracles, man. I mean the bank account's full, you're getting the promotion. I mean things are just going great for you. Your spouse is even being nice Woo, what's up with this? Right, she's all thank you, don, somebody gets a brownie, right? So, yeah, all this is good and you're seeing miracles and you've got a clean bill of health and everything's just great, and so, of course, you have joy.
Speaker 2:But then you lose your job, you get a bad prognosis and all of a sudden, all of a sudden, your wife starts being mean to you. Lynn, you would never do that, but your wife starts being mean to you. Your, your kids are going crazy. Casey laughs, does that have? Am I? Am I speaking your language right now, casey? And and all of a sudden, listen. Here's what happened.
Speaker 2:You, those things happen and you find that your joy is depleted, it's evaporated. And here's what that means. This is rough. Here's what it means that you have put your. You have depended on the blessings of God for your joy, rather than God himself. You have not delighted yourself in the Lord. You've delighted yourself in his blessings.
Speaker 2:See, if your joy is moving up and down based on circumstances, then then your joy is not where it needs to be. It's not grounded in the fact that your name is written in heaven. You are, you are using god, you're exploiting god, in a sense, because all you want him for is the. The only goodness you see in him is his external blessings. That's not why we rejoice. We rejoice because of who. God is. Amen, all right.
Speaker 2:How do we grow in this Number one? How do we grow in joy? Number one look to Jesus, verse 23,. Jesus turned to his disciples and said Blessed are the eyes that see what you see. They're looking at Jesus. Blessed are the eyes that see what you see. And in the context he's saying listen, not only do you see me, a lot of people see me but he said you know I'm the son of God. You're starting to understand who I am. Amen. The fruit of the spirit. One way to look at them is this the fruit of the spirit. These are this is deep, a little deeper. These are called theologically the communicable attributes of god. Okay, you're gonna leave sounding smarter than you did when you came in. These are the commute.
Speaker 2:Go call somebody, tell them hey, can I tell you about the communicable attributes of God Love, joy, peace, you know, as opposed to the incommunicable attributes of God. We talked about this last week. So the incommunicable attributes of God are omnipresence, omniscience, omnipotence, like all, powerfulknowing everywhere. Right, it's not like you're never going to be those things I said last week. Some of you think you're all-powerful and all-knowing, but you're not. Those attributes of God are not related to communicated to us. But God is love, god is joy, god is peace, god is a God of self-control, he's a God that is kind and merciful, humble, meek. Those are those traits, by God's grace, as Christians, are communicated to us.
Speaker 2:Let me make it really easy for you to understand. If you have a good marriage everybody smile that has a good marriage. Listen, there are certain things, like if you're in a close relationship with your spouse I hope you are there are certain things that your spouse can communicate to you, like, in all seriousness, I'm talking viruses. Like you know, your wife has a communicable disease and the only way you're not going to get that past your bed is if you're used to sleeping in the other room, like you should get that disease right.
Speaker 2:Here's the thing the closer well, let me think about this have you ever heard this that the longer you're married, the longer you're married, the more you begin to look like your spouse? Now, some of you are looking right now like, uh-oh, like you're looking at your spouse going, oh, I don't want that to happen. To your spouse going, oh, I don't want that to happen. Listen, the point is this the closer we are to friends and spouses and those kinds of things it's like, the more we become like them. And so let me let me bring you back around and just say the closer you are to Jesus, the more you are to Jesus, the more you're going to start to look like him, the more his attributes are going to be communicated to you.
Speaker 2:So how do you do that? Well, it sounds like a broken record because we talk about it every week, but you do that through prayer and the word. When Jesus rejoiced in our text, here's how he rejoiced he rejoiced in prayer. He was praying and he rejoiced. He rejoiced in prayer, he was praying and he rejoiced. All right, so we got to pray. If you don't feel joy this morning, pray, seek the Lord.
Speaker 2:The second thing you do is you read the Bible, because blessed are you who disciples, jesus says, who see what you see. Blessed are those who see what you see. Blessed are those who see what you see and the way that we see Christ. We don't see him physically. The way we see him, I believe, is through the Bible. So if you don't read your Bible daily, you're not daily going to see the beauty, the glory, the wonder, the majesty of the Lord Jesus Christ. And, by the way, if you want joy, it's not just reading the Bible, you've got to live it.
Speaker 2:So you talk about depleting your joy. Read something in the Bible and then do your own thing. Read what God says about sexual ethics and go sleep with somebody outside of marriage. Read what God says about drunkenness go get hammered. Read what God says about lying cheat on your taxes. Oh, I just don't know why I don't have any joy. Duh right, ask your spouse, she'll communicate to you the reason. Right? All right, here we go. So we look to Jesus.
Speaker 2:Number two we grow in joy through Christian community. This is so good. In verse one of our text, in Luke, chapter 10, jesus sends the disciples out, one by one, two by two, and that is the pattern in the New Testament that you see Christians doing ministry, living life together. We live again in a hyper-individualistic culture where my, so Christianity is about me and God. No, it's not. It's about we and God. So, sitting at home if you're capable to go to church, sitting at home and watching church online is not being part of the body of Christ and it's not going to bring you joy, like being here will All right.
Speaker 2:Jc Ryle said this. He said friendships. Friendship, excuse me, is that gift from God that doubles our joy and halves our sorrows. That is good. When you come in here, we're, you know, stirring one another up and spurring one another on to good works and we're celebrating what God's done. So friendship doubles our joys but then it halves our sorrows because we're sharing one another's burdens.
Speaker 2:Are you with me? I've got today. I'm so honored to have one of my best friends in the world, rick Painter, back there with me today. And Rick has been a longtime mentor of mine, friend of mine, and here's what I know. There's times when I lack motivation, there's times when I don't feel good about myself, there's times that I want to throw in the towel. And here's what I know about Rick. I can call Rick at any time. I could call him at one in the morning. He's still up, right. I could call you one in the morning. He will drop what he's doing. He'll meet me for lunch. We'll get together and here's what I know. Spending one hour with him, I will leave from that table feeling like I can conquer the world. That's what we do for one another.
Speaker 2:So you want to stir up your joy? Spend time, do life with other believers. Finally, how do we grow in joy? We grow in joy through song, by singing joy through song, by singing the word rejoice again. You remember? Verse 21 says Jesus rejoiced. It means to exalt, which means to feel or show triumphant elation or jubilation.
Speaker 2:Music makes us, it conjures up certain emotions. That's why when your boyfriend broke up with you young people you want to play. You know the sad songs and you know that kind of thing I would sing one for you. That was, but you wouldn't recognize it because it's so old. You know kind of thing. But if you're in the mood, like when you work out, you want to listen to like rock and music right, you want to listen to like rock and music right, listen.
Speaker 2:There's no greater way than stir up God centered joy, than to come together and to sing. It's a wonderful thing. It's one of the ways that we express the goodness of God and we recall and we recount the goodness of God. So in this church we spend time singing for that reason it's about God and we're very careful here. We want to singing for that reason. It's about God. It's about and we're very careful here. We want to sing words that are true about God. We want to see sing words that are, that are deep and and that make much of the Lord, because that is what that is, what praise is. It's making much of God, and I hope the songs today stirred your heart. So let me just can I close by just going over a few of our lyrics. All right, you got three more minutes. All right, here we go, real quick, here we go.
Speaker 2:Joy of the Lord, first song we worship the God who was. We worship the God who is. We worship the God who ever more will be. That reminds us of that. God is eternal, that his plans will never be thwarted. He opened prison doors. He parted the raging sea. My God, he holds the victory. There's joy in the house of the Lord. Think about this.
Speaker 2:Verse two we sing to the God who heals. We sing to the God who saves. We sing to the God who always makes a way. Boy, that's a good reminder. This morning he hung up on that cross. He rose up from that grave. My God's still rolling stones away. There's joy in the house of the Lord.
Speaker 2:Song two our God is for us. We won't fear the battle. We won't fear the night. We will walk the valley with you by our side. You will go before us. You will lead the battle. We won't fear the night. We will walk the valley with you by our side. You will go before us. You will lead the way. We have found a refuge. Only you can save. Sing people of God with joy. Now. Our God is for us, the Father's love. It's a strong and mighty fortress. Raise your voice now. No love is greater. Who can stand against us if our God is for us? And then we go to. It is well with my soul and you go. Well, that doesn't sound like a very joyful song.
Speaker 2:Horatio Spafford wrote this song after he just lost his children at sea and as the ship went by that place where they drowned, he penned these words. When peace, like a river, attendeth my way, when sorrows like sea billows roll, whatever my lot thou has taught me to say, it is well. It is well with my soul. Though Satan should buffet, though trials should come, let this blessed assurance control that Christ has regarded my helpless state and to shed his own blood For my soul. My sin, oh the bliss, this glorious thought. My sin, not in part, but the whole, is nailed to the cross and I bear it no more. Praise the Lord, praise the Lord, oh my soul. If you want to feel joy arrive, you just sing, you just sing.
Speaker 2:So let me close by asking you this when are you looking for your joy, some of you? Today, you are way underselling yourself because you're looking for joy and sex and power and the things of the world, money. Let me just quote CS Lewis. Cs Lewis said this. He said our Lord finds our desires not too strong but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures fooling about with drink and sex and ambition. When infinite joy is offered to us, it's like an ignorant child, he says, who wants to go on making mud pies in the slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at sea.
Speaker 2:Cs Lewis says we are far too easily pleased, and some of you are today. You're looking for Friday night thrills, saturday night thrills To bring you joy, and you might feel elation for a moment, until you're hungover, if you got somebody pregnant outside a wedlock and you long for joy, and so what you do is you look to something else. Well, maybe it's in a better job, or maybe if I just got more money, and you're miserable because those things will never satisfy your heart. The only lasting joy comes from the only unchanging thing, and that is God himself. If you're here today and you're not a Christian, I'll just say this you cannot possess joy if you do not possess Christ. So I would invite you to come to Jesus today, believing upon his death, burial and resurrection, repenting of your sins, and our pastors will be down at the front. We'd love to help you do that today.
Speaker 2:If you're here and you are a Christian, I hope today that this has stirred you. This message has stirred you and I want to give you just a practical thing to do this week to help you in this. I want to encourage you to keep a journal this week, if you don't already keep one. Write down all the good things about God, his mercy, his goodness, his faithfulness, his power, his long-suffering, all of these things, and then write down scriptures if you want to go along with those things, and then just meditate on God all week and rejoice that your names are written in heaven, and hell itself will not be able to bring down the elation in your heart. Okay, joy is yours in Christ. By God's grace. May we learn to walk in it.