The Secret of Joy

I'm really excited about the new sermon series which will begin on Sunday. We're going to be walking through the book of Philippians together, and taking a look at how to have a joy that transcends our circumstances. I had been planning to walk through an Old Testament book or character study when we wound up our look at spiritual habits, but the message of Philippians just kept appearing in my life again and again. I'm assuming the Spirit wants to say something to us.

Over the years I have found that I tend to have experiences that directly relate to whatever I'm about to teach in church. (It's one of the reasons I'm so reluctant to launch a 6-part series on suffering or something; I'm not eager for the real-life example that would precede it.) So having a sense that God is leading me to teach on deep and satisfying joy is really exciting.

I want to share a paragraph I stumbled across as I was studying this week. I may end up sharing it again on Sunday (so think of this as a little sneak peek). It's from J.I. Packer's Knowing God.

We have some idea, perhaps, what prayer is, but what is meditation? Well may we ask; for mediation is a lost art today, and Christian people suffer grievously from their ignorance of this practice. Meditation is the activity of calling to mind, and thinking over, and dwelling on, and applying to oneself, the various things that one knows about the works and ways and purposes and promises of God. It is an activity of holy thought, consciously performed in the presence of God, under the eye of God, by the help of God, as a means of communion with God. Its purpose is to clear one’s mental and spiritual vision of God, and to let His truth make its full and proper impact on one’s mind and heart… Its effect is ever to humble us, as we contemplate God’s greatness and glory, and our own littleness and sinfulness, and to encourage and reassure us — “comfort” us, in the old, strong, Bible sense of the word — as we contemplate the unreachable riches of divine mercy… And it is as we enter more and more deeply into this experience of being humbled and exalted that our knowledge of God increases, and with it our peace, our strength, and our joy. God help us, then, to put our knowledge about God to this use, that we may in truth “know the Lord.”

There's food for thought, eh?