[00:00:00] Speaker A: From Westside Church in Bend, Oregon, you're listening to behind the message.
Each week, we take you behind what we teach here at Westside. My name is evan Earwicker, and my guests today are two of the staff here at Westside church. First, we have our creative director, Amelia Rabelafer. Hello, Amelia.
[00:00:26] Speaker B: Hello.
[00:00:26] Speaker A: Great to have you here today.
[00:00:28] Speaker B: Thank you.
[00:00:29] Speaker A: And we have the bend.
We have. I'm trying to talk about your burger career here, and I don't know how to describe it. Josh, will you tell us what you do besides being our youth and family pastor? You have quite the following in the burger world.
[00:00:45] Speaker C: So it's pretty funny because I realized I was eating too many hamburgers, and so I said, I'm going to only eat one burger a week, and I'm just gonna do it on Fridays, because I think that's, like, a thing you do, like, just pick a day. I don't know. I thought this was kind of normal, but it turned out people weren't doing this, I guess. And so I was like, well, if I'm gonna eat one burger, I'm gonna go out to eat it, and I'm gonna try to a bunch of different places. And so I'm kind of a consistent guy. It's just one of my things. I find something and I stick with it. And so I'm on, like, weak 80 something. I think I'm getting close to week 90 of having a different hamburger every Friday. And what's amazing is that people have found it fun and have joined in on it and want to talk about it and everything. And it's given me this reason to say to my wife, like, hey, I have to go eat a hamburger. The people need me.
[00:01:40] Speaker A: So do you still want hamburgers after almost 90 of them, like, this Friday? Are you excited about going to have another hamburger?
[00:01:47] Speaker C: Yes. And I found that the other six days, just drinking water and eating broccoli leads. No, I don't do that. But I try to be pretty careful with how I eat the other six days, and then by the time Friday hits, I am craving a burger.
[00:02:04] Speaker A: Yeah.
So now you have a following. Now, are you actually paying for these burgers, or are you in the pocket of big burger?
[00:02:10] Speaker C: I haven't. Big burger hasn't come along yet. I haven't heard from the king or Mickey D's yet or anything like that. Done some really fun burger partnerships, and I don't ever assume that anyone's going to, like, give me a free burger or anything like that, but I have had some really fun stuff of where people the best was. It was kind of early on, and I showed up at a place to get a burger, and they said, you're that guy. You're here. And they gave me, like, three different burgers. Cause they're like, we don't know which one you'd like best. You need to have all three of these. And I was like, I can do that.
[00:02:45] Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah. It's the taste of the influencer. Life is what you've stumbled into, Josh. Congratulations.
[00:02:52] Speaker C: Thanks. Yeah, no, if I can find a way to just eat burgers and have that pay the mortgage, then, well, I don't think that's gonna work. But the idea of it sounds really nice.
[00:03:02] Speaker A: Someone who is still with us, listening to this is like, when are they gonna get to Philippians?
[00:03:07] Speaker C: I don't know.
[00:03:08] Speaker B: A burger podcast sounds kind of fun.
[00:03:10] Speaker A: They're gonna talk about theology. What is this now? I'm just hungry.
We're in Philippians. We've been walking through the Book of Philippians as a church, and through this podcast this week, we are continuing that walk and the theme of Philippians. There's a lot of themes of Philippians, but through and through, we find this kind of through line or this thread of joy in the middle of less than ideal circumstances, or in Paul's case, suffering. And over and over again, we find this perseverance of Paul's joy, where he is facing bad, potentially life ending circumstances in this roman prison. And yet through and through comes this sense of joy. Josh, you preached about this yesterday, about the way there is a reward at the end, but it's on us, really, to keep our focus and keep our eyes on the prize, on the. What is awaiting us on the other side of suffering. And you said it really well yesterday, Josh, and I'd love to hear your thoughts, Amelia, on this idea that not only will it be worth it in the end, but Jesus actually meets us in the suffering of the moment. So it's not just grit your teeth and get through it, because Jesus is waiting on the other side, but there's life and resurrection on the other side. And in the meantime, in our suffering, in our trouble, in our anxiety, that's where we find the presence of Jesus close. What do you think, Amelia?
[00:04:44] Speaker B: It is so true that that is what happens, but there are a lot of times where we don't feel it in the depths of darkness. It's so hard to feel Jesus inside of that. And it's so interesting that Paul uses the word anxiety or worry inside of this passage, which is meaning like being pulled in two different directions. And I have felt that in dealing with depression and anxiety that my heart is being pulled one way and it feels into the darkness, into the suffering. And my mind is saying, yeah, no, that's true. Jesus is in this. Jesus and joy are faithful, found together. And it's this meeting of the heart and the mind that we need to happen in order to find this peace and in order to find this joy and to allow Jesus to meet us there. Because it's so, so difficult to do that when you can't think of the noble and the right and the true and the lovely, when your mind just can't think of those things or dwell on those things.
We need to choose and allow Jesus to meet us in these moments, even when we don't feel it.
[00:06:07] Speaker A: That's really a profound addition to this thing. Oftentimes I think it's like circumstances versus confidence in Christ, but oftentimes it's circumstances and mindset and how we are processing that circumstance versus the closeness that we feel in Jesus. It's not just my circumstance is good or bad. It's in this moment, even regardless of the circumstance. This is how I'm feeling. And that is really hard for me to feel like I'm close to Jesus when my mind is taking me somewhere that I don't necessarily want to go, but I have to go because that's where I'm at and wrestling with that as part of this process of finding joy. What a challenge.
Let's read this. Philippians four, six, seven. It says, don't worry about anything. Instead, pray about everything. Tell God what you need and thank him for all he has done. And then you will experience God's peace which exceeds anything we can understand.
And his peace will guard your hearts and minds as you live in Christ Jesus.
I think I would find this maybe cliched except for where Paul is at when he's writing this. Right. It's one thing if you're having a great run, your career's doing great, if your relationships are all up into the right, you know, you've got provision and money and possessions and to say, you know, it's okay, just trust Jesus and he's going to send you peace. That will guard your heart. Okay? Yeah, nice. Easy for you to say. But here we have Paul, having experienced the loss of all things, facing his own death, saying this and that, I guess that encourages me that no matter where we're at. Josh, you talked yesterday about how comparison, sometimes we can compare our sufferings to others. And either that makes us feel like we have it worse than everybody or like, oh, I guess what I'm going through doesn't matter. Speak to that a little bit.
[00:08:07] Speaker C: Yeah, no, that's. I love this talk. Wow. This conversation is fun.
I think that I want to tie in the question you just asked with that peace part of it of verse seven, because I love this idea of that there's a peace that's beyond understanding. And I think that part of the comparison is realizing there's some people who go through seasons of life or maybe a lifetime of experience where they don't know peace in any sense. They don't know peace.
They just never feel peace. And so I have a peace that's very understandable. So, for me, it's like, things are going good. I call it alone at the waterfall. If I'm ever alone at the waterfall, I've got a peace that makes sense. I'm like, this is a nice spot. There's no one asking me to do anything. This is very peaceful. But then there's also this peace that is beyond understanding that doesn't make sense. And that's that piece where, like, the circumstances are awful, but you feel peace. And so how do we find that? And I think that the comparison part. Right. We, man, all these things tie together. We have an amazing men's Bible study group, and we were talking about it today, about the things in your life that weren't peaceful, that were the struggle and were the suffering. But then on the timeline of life, when you're on the other end of them, you look back and you go, oh, but that refined me, that shaped me like I'm a different person because of it. And that, I feel like, is a pretty common response on the back end of suffering. But in the midst of suffering, how do you do what Amelia was asking about? Like, how do you find joy and peace and closeness, and then how do you not compare yourself in that of where it's easy to do this thing, where you go, well, other people have done this, and they made it out okay, like, why am I making such a big deal out of this?
And to be able to give yourself a little freedom, like, no, this is hard. This is a hard thing. And realizing that the way you make it through it is finding a peace that only comes from Jesus.
[00:10:16] Speaker B: You said something yesterday, Josh, that I found really interesting, and it hit me inside of this whole comparison thing that you said. You have this phrase in your family, like, hot is hot, that these. These circumstances can be different, but it doesn't matter. Like, if you're suffering and somebody else is suffering, it's suffering. We don't need to compare it. And I have always, well, when I was younger and I was trying to use Philippians as this, like, find joy book that, you know, I just read over and over again to try to feel joy.
I would look at it and say, well, Paul's in prison. Of course I can figure this out, or of course I can feel joy because I don't have it as bad as that. Like, I'm not in prison. I'm just numb or sad or whatever I'm feeling. And to think through that, like, no, my suffering is different than Paul's, but it's still my experience, and that's okay. And we can find these different pieces of joy and peace inside of our suffering, even though it doesn't look like Paul's or whoever else is in your life that are also suffering.
[00:11:35] Speaker A: Right. And I think we see this in the gospels that Jesus meets people at all levels of suffering. You know, it isn't, isn't like there's some qualifying threshold where if you have it bad enough, then you qualify to access something from the presence of Jesus. Right. He's walking around and he's, yeah, he's, he's raising, um, you know, Jerry's daughter, uh, from the dead in their deepest grief. I mean, what suffering is worse than losing a child? And then also he's like, providing taxes for Peter to pay his tax from the mouth of a fish. You know, it's like, it's like there, there can be different levels. And to feel like we have to be a certain category of difficulty or of need before we get Jesus attention just flies in the face. I think of the Jesus in the gospels where whatever the need is, you don't have to compare yourself to the others. Whatever you're going through today, the cross speaks to that, right? What Christ has done through the resurrection, it wants to bring life to us in every small and large struggle or circumstance or difficulty we're in.
[00:12:49] Speaker C: Oh, I love that. I like to think of, we are the children of God. And when you think about a child, if you found out that there was something awful and they were very, very sick, you would be there for them. But also, when they skinned their knee, and it's not really skinned, but they think it is, you're still there for them. Like, you don't ever say to a child who's suffering, even if they're only suffering in their mind. Like, hey, people have it worse than you fuck up. You don't say that to kids. You say, oh, I see you, you're crying. Let me comfort you. And how much more so a perfect father, right? How much more so a perfect God who understands that, like, hot is hot, the place we're in, that is tough. It's tough. No comparisons.
[00:13:38] Speaker A: Yeah. And when we can kind of set that aside of that feeling of like, is this important enough, it also allows us to really, I guess, process things that are difficult but maybe don't rise to the level of what people are experiencing in a war zone across, you know, because we can be like, well, I should really be okay. I don't have it that bad because these people have it so much. That's true. It can also be true that I need to, I need to experience healing for what is minor compared to, and yet it's a big deal and it needs the touch of Jesus in my life, my heart, my mind. And so I guess giving ourselves and those that were around in community the permission to say, yeah, we're not comparing what we're going through with those that are going through much more. We know that exists and we're not belittling them by saying, yeah, what's happening in my heart or my emotions or my relationships is real and I need Jesus to show up, you know?
[00:14:41] Speaker B: Yeah. The life and joy and the healing of Jesus is for everyone, everywhere. And I wonder on the other side of this, what people feel who haven't experienced great suffering or haven't experienced darkness, how they interpret this scripture. I wonder if, I think there could be a possibility that they read this and say, oh, but I don't experience anxiety or I haven't suffered that much. Like I've had a really good, pretty easy life. Do I get to like, have I experienced the fullness of joy if I haven't gone through all of these things that everybody else is suffering through? Or I wonder if there's ever, on the one side when we think, well, we can't experience a fullness of joy because we're suffering and it's really hard. I wonder if on the other side, people who don't experience that, if they ever feel like they don't get to experience the fullness of joy because they haven't suffered.
[00:15:58] Speaker C: Yeah, that's interesting. I can say for myself personally that I basically went the first 18 years of my life feeling like, wow, this life thing is so easy.
It just happens for you, right? There's not much suffering.
And so, yeah, I don't know that I was.
I wasn't smart enough. I wasn't a deep enough thinker to go where you just went with that. I didn't know think about if I was missing out. But I can say that after then experiencing some suffering, after that point, I was able to look back and be like, oh, wow, this did change me. I'm thankful for where I am now.
You'd never. When someone asks, would you go back and change that if you could? I'm like, I can't play that game because I can't go back and change anything. We are where we are. But so many times the suffering leads to. To such a different perspective on the other end of it.
[00:17:01] Speaker A: Yeah. And the heart of the message that we receive from Christ's sacrifice on the cross, and I think this is all through the book of Philippians, is when you suffer, God suffers, too, in Jesus. Like, he's not removed from that pain. And for those, you know, especially kids who maybe have a pretty good life and haven't experienced, like you as a kid, haven't really experienced difficulty or haven't lost someone you love or.
I don't think anyone needs to feel bad about that. Right. But what confidence we have that when life does go bad, and I don't know anybody that makes it to the end of their lives, if they live long enough without experiencing some kind of pain or loss or suffering.
We have this confidence that no matter what we face as Christians, we're worshiping a God who is acquainted with our sorrows, as it says that somehow, through what Jesus did on the cross, he was saying, I know how this is. I know what it is to be fully human to the point of fully enveloped in the depths of pain and darkness and. And all those things. We see it in the garden of Gethsemane as much as I think we do on the cross itself is this turmoil and this weight that Jesus faces. And all through that, it's shouting to all of us, God was there, too. Like, God sees it. He knows it because he was there. And he wept those tears, and he felt that pain, and he experienced that torture on the cross.
I wonder, when it comes to anxiety specifically, Josh, you work a lot with youth.
We know statistically, especially with social media, as an agitator or an accelerator of anxiety among young people, especially young women on social media, there's just anxiety, seems like is just running out of control in a new generation. But that's true for, I think, a lot of us, especially in the developed western world, anxiety almost feels like a constant companion.
When we talk about suffering, oftentimes I think we think of, like, sickness or death or cancer or loss or people dying, but there's also this suffering that exists within trying to live life and the things that come up against us in our emotions, in our mind, in our. In our intellect, even. Can you guys speak to that? Like, maybe we're setting aside just the idea of loss and sickness and pain, and let's talk about anxiety and worry and fear and some of these things that rise up against us.
[00:19:52] Speaker C: So, so important because those other sufferings are pretty apparent to the people around you. Extreme sickness, loss of a loved one, your house burning down. People see that and they're like, oh, I see you. A lot of what you just described of suffering, the other people don't see. And so there's like, you know, you can be extremely anxious, you can be extremely lonely. That's one of the things I find that is, is such a suffering moment, is a young person who feels lonely even amongst other people, because you don't see it, and you're not able to say, like, hey, I see your broken leg. Let me help you with that. And so I think so much of this, Amelia made a point earlier that just made me think of, like, wow, when we are able to not downgrade our suffering but see it for what it is, then we're able to take it to God.
And ultimately, what does God want from us? He wants us. He wants us talking to him. And I think that this is one of those things where there's a lot of people who suffer and they don't take it to God, but they also don't take it to anyone else. They hold it in, and it's a different kind of suffering than the one where we can see, like, oh, you were in this accident, this bad thing happened to you. I see that the internal suffering can be very isolating and lonely.
[00:21:19] Speaker B: Yeah. As somebody who has experienced two plus decades of depression and anxiety and this inner turmoil that people don't see, it's to your point, it does feel so isolating and so lonely and also incredibly difficult to bring those things, even to Jesus, to even pray or ask for what I need or any of these things, because sometimes you're just so weighed down that you can't pull yourself up by your bootstraps. And even bringing it forward feels so difficult. Cause you just. It's kind of like a security blanket at some point where you're just like, well, this is me. This is what I go through. And I've always, when I was younger and still sometimes struggle with these. This passage, feeling like a directive, feeling like, don't be anxious. Just decide. Today you're going to choose to not be anxious. Today, right now, you're going to choose to have joy. And when you're struggling with that inner turmoil and darkness, it feels kind of mocking in a way, because you can't do those things.
I read a translation of this passage, and their words were, dance for joy. I will tell you again, dance for joy. And thinking about it in that way of, we don't need to teach people to just decide to just go with this and say, why are you not joyful? Just decide or don't be anxious, but instead to find the things in their life that could bring them joy. Or even one of my doctors recently told me, like, you need to go outside even if you don't feel like it. Like there are times in our lives where we have to choose an action in order to start the process of feeling better, even if it's just for five minutes. Go dance, go laugh with a friend, go outside in the sun, go for a walk. And sometimes it takes these choosing of moments that feel really hard. But I think Jesus meets us inside of those. He meets us inside of the.
I chose to go outside, and this is hard. And he's there with us even in the joy that could come alongside that. And I think that's the starting of this process sometimes for people, of choosing one thing for just a couple minutes and letting Jesus be a part of that moment.
[00:24:15] Speaker A: And that's so much of the language we use around, like, spiritual practices or like, the importance of prayer, regardless of how you're feeling or name any solitude and silence and scripture reading. And there's lots of even attending church. And we are constantly saying, like, no matter how you feel, it's important to do these because they form you, they shape you as you do them. But to think of joy as a spiritual practice, that this is something that we intentionally.
This is something we intentionally act out in order for it to somehow do something in us as opposed to joy, as this overflow of our emotions, I think that's really profound. And maybe one of the keys that. That Paul has put it into practice in his life where it's like, yeah, I woke up, you know, chained to the prisoner next to me, you know, sitting in two inches of fluid on the bottom of my cell, yet not joyful. But I'm choosing joy. I'm even emotionally, spiritually stepping outside for a few minutes here, considering Christ. And somehow that's actually feeding this joy in his heart and life. I love that.
What do you, either one of you, what do you see as the obstacles? Maybe not for Paul, but for us and those we lead in the 21st century, what are the obstacles to a life? Practicing joy, stepping outside, so to speak, and pushing back against the things that would steal our joy. What are the things that people run up against?
[00:25:58] Speaker C: We mentioned comparison earlier. Comparison is, I think I won't pull out who the quote was from cause I wasn't preparing this, but comparison is the thief of joy. I wanna say that was Teddy Roosevelt, maybe, but comparison is the thief of joy. It's very hard to have joy when you're looking at everyone else's situations. And so I think comparison is an obstacle. And then I also think distraction is an obstacle because distraction keeps us from making progress. So distraction, like, there's a.
This is not the root of the word, but I love to think of distraction as, like, distraction. Like, it keeps us from moving forward. Like, you get distracted and then all of a sudden you're like, you didn't make any progress, you just were entertained. And so we have so many distractions available that we sometimes like, oh, this is a hard thing. I'm going to distract myself. And then maybe that distraction is binging something or taking up a whole bunch of time, and then you finish. And you never dealt with what it was you had in front of you, but you were able to kind of, like, numb it for a while. And so, yeah, comparison and distraction are like two obstacles, I think, that each of us deal with. I think younger, the people younger than us, man, they can get caught up in those.
[00:27:25] Speaker A: I like the metaphor for distraction of noise. I think about if I'm washing the dishes or something and have the sink on, and my wife says something from across the room or in the other room, if the sink was off, I could hear her fine. Her volume is loud enough to reach me, but because I'm so close to this source of noise, it's going to drown out what is absolutely volume enough. And I feel like sometimes when it comes to joy or the presence of Jesus, it's like the joy is there. It's loud enough to reach us, but not if we have all these other sources of noise that drown out God's presence. And maybe that is the nature of a God who is omnipresent and always with us and always close. And we say that over and over again. And then I think sometimes people walk out of our church or our services like, yeah, God's always with me, but I don't feel it. I do not. I rarely feel it. Sometimes I wonder, like, maybe it's not that they don't have the presence near them. It's just that there's so much noise, whether we do that to ourselves or the world around us, but we're surrounded by noise that just drowns out the voice of Jesus.
[00:28:37] Speaker B: I think some of the obstacles inside of not finding joy or being distracted from joy is obviously the mental health battles that people go through that can be really difficult to walk through.
And even inside of that, whether you're dealing with mental health battles or not, especially as, like, someone who lives alone, choosing to always be alone.
Like, when my friends invite me out and I choose to say no so I can stay home with no intention of doing anything productive. But I think that that perpetuates the loneliness. And even if you don't, again, feel like going out or you don't feel this draw to do something. Cause you know it's gonna bring you joy. That those moments with the people that you love and the people who love you, that's gonna bring joy naturally. That's gonna bring you community. And I think community is such a big part of our joy when we can be a part of something and belong to something and remind ourselves that we're not alone.
[00:29:53] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:29:54] Speaker C: Oh, it's so good, man. All of it ties together, right? And it's just like, if we go back to chapter three and having this idea of, like, the prize is ahead of us, you don't get to the prize without moving forward. Right? You don't, like, so many times, like, going out with your friends is it starts with just saying yes and taking a step out the door. I love this saying about getting down and doing push ups. The hardest part about doing push ups is getting down on the ground. Like, if you get down on the ground, you don't usually get down there and go, I don't think I'm gonna do a push up now and get back up.
[00:30:25] Speaker A: Speak for yourself.
[00:30:27] Speaker C: For me, it's that I don't get down in the first place. I'm like, that's a long ways, and I'm gonna have to get back up. And so I just choose not to get down. But it's like, once you get down, it's kind of like putting on your running shoes. They say that, like, if you want to become a runner, buy some running shoes and put them on, and you nailed it. I think with friends and with, like, just saying yes to stuff. And it's all moving forward. Right. It's all like, there's so much stuff on the sides, the distractions. I like to think of them as being on the sides and the good stuff is in front. And how do we move forward? How do we take positive steps? How do we choose to say what's a step today towards joy?
[00:31:05] Speaker A: Mm hmm.
Yeah. And this focusing on the future also actually helps keep us in the present. Right. Like when we have a goal ahead, it really, I think, sharpens our focus to the present moment. And I think this is a huge piece of understanding, kind of the, even the psyche of Paul from where he's writing and the connection of what the presence of God is doing to bring joy. It doesn't bring joy to the past.
And we don't know about what it's going to do in the future, but we experience joy in the present, right? This moment is where God meets us. And I wanted to read this quote. Father Jacques Felipe, I think that's a french name, or just really, really creative american parents. I'm no linguist, but here's what he said. He said, we are obliged to plan for the future. By the way, I think this is translated, I think he said it in french, but we are obliged to plan for the future and take thought for tomorrow. But we should do it without worrying, without a care. That gnaws at the heart but doesn't solve anything and often prevents us from putting our hearts into what we have to do here and now. Hearts anxious about tomorrow can't be open to the grace of the present moment.
And I received that from Father Jacques. This idea that my heart is often anxious and it closes me off to receiving the communion of Christ in this moment because I'm somewhere else. I'm wallowing in the regrets of yesterday, or I'm worried about the future. And here's Jesus at the door knocking, saying, I'm here now. Can you open your heart to the grace of this present moment? And I love how throughout history, the present moment was seen as the sacramento, just as much so as the table of the bread and the cup, or communion or baptism, marriage, all these sacraments that we consider ritualistic. For many centuries, the church. The present moment was also a sacrament. It was like, God is here, so it's holy.
And when we get away from the regrets of the past and the worries of the future, I think there's something beautiful and sustaining right here in the present moment.
[00:33:19] Speaker C: I think one of the most powerful things that we have done here at Westside recently is this posture of open hands.
I mean, it's really impacted me and I've heard it from a lot of other people of where there is just when you stand with open hands before God, there is a letting go of things, but also a availability to receive things that is very present.
You don't open your hands before God and say, well, I hope you got something down the road for me.
You open your hands and you say, okay, I'm here right now. And there's this, like, moment of like. And I love that you put joy in the present like that. I think this is so key. There's not joy in the past. I mean, you can reminisce, but that's not. That's different. It's right here, right now. And. And the availability of God to be present and indwell us right where we're at, and to have this open hand posture. And I look at, even just in a Sunday service, I look out when people do that and how it just changes our bodies when we open our hands before God and say, I'm letting go of my stuff because I want your stuff is a powerful present moment.
[00:34:38] Speaker A: I catch myself often, more often than I'd like to admit with my kids at home where I'm distracted, I'm on a phone, I'm reading the news, whatever. And many times my kids are also on screen, so I don't feel as bad. But there's times when, like, for instance, my son will just want time with me, want my attention, want my interaction, want to play, whatever, and I'll catch myself choosing something as trivial as reading the news over spending time with my young son. And I thought, you know, 40 years from now, I would give anything, I'm sure, to go back to that moment, to that moment and be fully engaged in the present with him at that age, and I won't have that again. And yet, in the moment, it's so easy to choose such lesser, stupid things, and there's no comparison. And I wonder how often this is true across our spiritual life where if we could see it from far up, we would realize, like, there's no comparison. Do I want to choose to live in joy in the presence of Jesus or focus on this trivial issue that's causing me worry and anxiety? And I'm not saying worry and anxiety are trivial, but sometimes the things that we fixate on are, and we don't have that perspective. That sometimes I just, I hope the community maybe can help us have that perspective of choose joy. Like in the end, we'll be so much more at peace because we chose the better thing in the present moment. You know, I don't know if that makes sense.
[00:36:16] Speaker B: Yeah, it does. And I'm just thinking as not a parent, but as somebody who's single with no children, there are so many times that I do the same thing where I will choose the distraction. I will choose the lesser thing, one without really realizing it. But I can be so intentional, too. Like, I can choose the other thing.
And the piece that you said about community is really interesting to think about and not necessarily in our own selves of saying yes to community or being a part of community. But I think such a big part of it is also us inviting other people into community, and us being the ones to invite and us being the ones to tell people, you belong here. You belong in this space. You belong in this friendship.
And being the purveyors of building community and letting people say yes to us and helping them find the joy again, even when we don't feel like it. There are so many times where we can be stuck in the darkness and the anxiety and all of those things, and us just saying yes to somebody else's needs and wants can totally change us. It can totally bring us joy when we can go out of our way to helping somebody, to seeing somebody else.
[00:37:54] Speaker C: We literally, in the youth, use this acronym, probably weekly. Not exaggerating. I've said it before that I'm a bit of a broken record. I say the same things a lot, but we use the acronym joy, Jesus, others, yourself.
[00:38:09] Speaker B: I learned that when I was in youth group.
[00:38:11] Speaker C: Okay. And it stuck, right? I mean, and it's. You nailed it. I heard the story one time of where someone wrote a self published, best selling book, and it was about this idea of, if you want to feel better, help other people.
And I remember hearing that, and I said, oh, why do you need to buy the book? Like, I feel like you just nailed it, right? Like, thank you. That's great advice. And it's so true, though, right? We can get caught up in our own self when we put Jesus first, and then we look around, and I always say that the only way you ever help others is if you see others. And so you have to open your eyes. And if you open your eyes, you will see other people who could use your help. And then once you do that, it's amazing how much better you feel about yourself. I think there's, like, there's no greater joy, right? Than to feel like you've served well and that people are better off because of you. Like, that's. I mean, we don't always get to experience that, but it's pretty available, actually.
[00:39:13] Speaker A: Yeah. And this is the power of community, is that it puts us in proximity to other people. And I think for so much of our behavior and our, especially our thought life, we're products of our environments. Right? Like sociologists would, would tell us that environment matters a lot on personal identity, life direction, all these things. And I know it's very possible to be inside community and still struggle with anxiety, depression, worry.
On the flip side, to have an environment that is self focused, where we build a castle around our own isolation and our own needs and wants, and that's going to lead us to a place where we have to be the source of our own joy, and that's going to run out. And so I think one of the things that I'm so interested in seeing the church be is an environment for joy, an environment for connection. An environment, right, that we're not just a content manufacturing facility, right, where people come in, they receive a download of information. No, we're creating an environment for connection, human relationship, that hopefully will drive things in us, hopefully will up the joy level, because we're forced almost by the environment to give of ourselves to one another and to care for one another, to empathize, and all these things that maybe we wouldn't choose if the environment was different. And yet we've come into this place, and hopefully we're custom designing it to allow these things that Paul's writing about to happen.
There was a documentary we watched a little while ago, a few months ago. It's talking about longevity in different cultures around the world, this blue zone thing.
But at the end, I thought it was very profound. He was talking about all the different things and behaviors that lead to longevity, and he was talking about how to actually make this happen in places that don't naturally do it. And kind of the takeaway was, you have to change the environment. You can't just ask people to change their behavior. You have to create an environment where this is the most natural thing to do, is to make good decisions. And I feel like that sometimes is the church. We can't just ask people to be like Jesus. We have to create an environment. We have to welcome the kingdom. We have to set up a house where people, when they come in, the natural response is to follow after Jesus, because that's what the environment's designed for.
And I think that sometimes can maybe relieve the pressure where it feels like I just gotta be more joyful. No, I want you to come into a community, and we're gonna find joy together. And where you struggle with that, and maybe it's. Maybe it's, you know, your past or your history or your even, like, you know, the makeup of how your brain works. All the. We're gonna. We're gonna help put our arms around each other, and where we're weak, we're gonna be strong for one another inside this community. I think it's so key.
[00:42:14] Speaker C: So key. Joy doesn't seem to exist, like, in a vacuum. Right? Like, joy is like a shared experience, and you can have joy in, like, solitary moments, but I think those solitary moments where you have joy, you actually feel a closeness to God, so you're not even alone in those times. And so I think Joy is like, joy is the thing that's available to be shared. And I love what you said about creating an environment where people can then interact with Joy, because we can't. You can't download, you can't be like, show up here and I'm gonna tell you about joy, and then you're gonna leave with it. Like, that's not. We're not wired that way. We connect with each other, we find Joy, we share in joy, and we see that joy is one of the fruits of the spirit. And so the closer we are to God, the more we're going to feel that.
[00:43:05] Speaker A: Yeah. And when we read Philippians, clearly, Paul has experienced something of the Holy Spirit.
You don't write these words in the circumstances Paul is in unless something supernatural is taking place. And that's been an overarching takeaway for me from this whole book. This whole letter is the spirit of God was close to Paul even a couple weeks ago when we were in the Christ poem in chapter two, to write some of the most beautiful poetic words about the person of Jesus as God himself, from the circumstances he was in, that's nothing short of miraculous. And I have this hope that it's like Jesus said, you know, if you, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more so will the Holy Spirit be given to those who ask? And so I have this confidence that, like, where my joy runs out, the spirit comes alongside where I. Where I'm struggling to put this into practice. We have the Holy Spirit that leads us into it.
[00:44:09] Speaker C: So good. And to have it in the midst of, like, in this chapter four, where Paul talks about a peace that surpasses understanding. Right? You could say the same thing with joy, a joy that doesn't make sense based on circumstances.
That's a gift from God.
[00:44:28] Speaker A: Yeah. And it's no mistake that at the, you know, towards the end of this letter, Paul starts referring to God, the God of peace. Like, what's he about? He's about peace.
And to say that in the middle of prison, war zones, loss, struggle, hunger, say, yeah, my God's the God of peace. It's not something he's good at. It's in his very nature is to bring peace. And I love the heart of Paul to say, when God is in the room, when God gets near you, that peace is going to leak out onto you, too. And you're going to have that peace, and it's not going to make sense. It's going to be that transformative.
It's really beautiful.
All right, any final thoughts, you guys, on the nature of joy in the middle of circumstances and suffering?
[00:45:23] Speaker B: I was just reading this again, and to go back to that community piece, and I think it's so important for us to remember verse four, rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again. Rejoice. And the next verse is, let your gentleness or kindness be evident to all. And I think that is such a key part that when we rejoice, we can bring other people into that and we can show people that, and that can bring them joy or them peace. And peace and joy are so closely connected that even if it is our kindness to somebody can just, like, be a refreshing moment and a peaceful moment that will come along with joy.
[00:46:15] Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah. Just yesterday, a gentleman came to me after a service, and he was sharing how going through a divorce, and for the longest time, as this was starting to happen, he felt like he didn't want to share with anybody, like he didn't want anyone to hear that story. And just recently, he started to open up with some of us here at the church, and he was just saying how he realized at some point, like, he has to be sharing this burden with others, not only because he needs that support, but also so that others can be encouraged by the way that God is showing up in his circumstances, I think, and I told him, don't feel all this pressure to be the poster child for doing this. Well, that's too much of a burden. Right. But yet God is going to show up in the middle of what is a really hard circumstance, and he's going to receive comfort, and he's also going to be a comfort to others. And I think this is the nature of when we walk this stuff out for those that are struggling, they receive encouragement. And then for those that are outside watching, they're also encouraged by it. It's this really beautiful kind of both ways that God works through trouble and suffering and bad circumstances to bring joy. It's not just joy for the one in the middle of it. It's those watching also that receive something of joy from it. Really cool.
[00:47:42] Speaker C: So good.
[00:47:43] Speaker A: Well, thank you for listening along our conversation today about joy. We have one more week, is that right, Amelia? One more week in the book of Philippians. We'll wrap up with part six of our talk on Philippians next week. Thank you for following along. We're at westsidechurch.org with all of our sermons and service recordings and this podcast. Of course, all the back episodes can be
[email protected]. We'll see see you next week for the final episode in the Book of Philippians.
