21st April 2025

21st April 2025


Pray (ACts)


Read (Philippians 1:3-6)


Message (Alan Burke) 


You’ve got a face on you like a Lurgan spade! Ok you may not have and it just may be the sleep in your eyes as you lift that the little pocket dictator up (mobile phone) and read this devotion or you may not even know what I’m referring to and if you don’t to have ‘a face like a Lurgan spade’ means that you look miserable or long faced, got that scowl on you. If you have a face on you like a Lurgan spade there may be good reason, it may be that you’ve looked in the mirror and realised you’re not 16 anymore, or you’ve looked over at the empty space beside you, maybe it’s because you know what awaits you the rest of the day as you head to hospital for tests and you already know what is coming it could be any number of things. I do not mean to belittle what is going on in your life at the moment, why you have a face on you like a Lurgan spade nor am I going say you know that “there are many people worse off than you”. For while that may be true and people often say it to me there is something much deeper I want to take you to and that is the joy that we can have even in the midst of what we face. 


We come here to these verses remember that Paul is languishing in prison. His experience would make Maghaberry prison look like a six star hotel so then the question that we should ask is how is he able to thank God in his remembrance of the church in Philippi making his prayer with joy? We might think to ourselves that Paul is off his trolley that he should be in Holywell Hospital maybe that’s why he was languishing in prison but it’s not. He is able to say these things, because he has a genuine affection for them even in the midst of what he faced, he was able to pray with joy and be thankful for them even though I’m sure there would have been a few numpties and old trouts among them. He was able to pray with joy because he had joy. The thing is we often confuse joy with feelings of great pleasure and happiness, joy does not come naturally to people, nor does it comes with the pleasures that people take as substitutes for joy and the reason is that they are only ever substitutes for joy, true joy is because joy only comes by the work of the Holy Spirit within us, it is the fruit of the Spirit within us. The reason why Paul had joy was because of the Holy Spirits work within him. 


Joy is something that doesn’t come naturally, it isn’t just a feeling of great pleasure and happiness as many people confuse it with, joy is the work of God and it is something that we need to cultivate, it’s not just something that happens it is something that we are to look for in our walk with God. The letter of James helps us to understand that a little more where in chapter 1 we are told us 2 Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds… (Jam 1:2). There James makes the point that when trouble comes to us, and it does we face the miseries of this life because of the fall, because of sin, so when troubles come we can gain from them. We can either allow those things to define us or we can experience the joy that is in Christ, the hope that we have. Hebrews 12 tells us how to do this, where it says; Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. Heb 12:1–2. 


Jesus was able to endure much because he knew of the joy that lay ahead. Our joy is not in temporal circumstances but in the eternal reality that we have, that was how Paul was able to write while languishing in prison praying with joy in the midst of his circumstances. While some look to pleasures as substitutes, they think that joy is a feeling of great pleasure and great happiness, looking to their circumstances in life, things like money, fame, pleasure, family, none of those things give joy. True joy is only found in the Lord and the hope of what lies ahead. For Paul and for us the source of our joy is in the Lord himself and what he has done.


Pray (acTS)


Sing


WSC
Q63 Which is the fifth commandment?
A. The fifth commandment is, Honour thy father and thy mother: that thy days may be long upon the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee.
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