Have you ever had a problem that ended up working out for your good at the end? Like when it first started, it didn't seem like it was working out for good. While it was happening, it definitely didn't feel like it was working out for good. But when when when when everything settled down, when all the chips are good, it ended up working out for your good. It ended up working out for you good. Now, may I be so bold to say I think all of us have dealt with problems, with challenges, circumstances in our lives that at the end of it, after we've gone through it, we can look back and say, that thing worked out for my good. It might not felt that way at first, it definitely didn't feel that way going through it, but it turned out for good. One of the best examples I can give is COVID-19. You know, COVID. COVID was sad and it was hard for a lot of people. When COVID first happened, I mean for me personally, it was devastating. We just moved up here to the Richmond area. We just planted our church. We're so excited for the future of what God had for our church. And then boom, COVID happened. Six weeks into our our church services, we had to stop. We had to go online only. It was devastating. Then on top of that, you know, daycares were shut down. So I took care, I took the responsibility of watching our our our our daughter at a time. At that time, I only had one kid watching her while Aaron still had to do her job. And you know, so that was new, and that was that was challenging. I couldn't work like I was normally used to. And then on top of that, there was no more toilet paper. Does anyone remember that? All the toilet paper was gone. You know, it was it was a problem. But as time went on, there was a lot of benefits from the problem. For example, I discovered that I was on the borderline of burnout. I was on the borderline, and a trajectory I was going in my professional life would have led me to a place that wasn't good. I rediscovered my love for Jesus and learning spiritual daily habits with God that transformed my life. We had our son Jameson in the process of that because it was COVID. What else were you gonna do? Come on, somebody. You know, you know, and in LBC, LBC, during COVID, we discovered our mission and our heartbeat for our community to help everyday people learn how to become Jesus followers. That was birth through the pain, through the process of COVID, and coming back to service again and asking ourselves, what is the church that Jesus sees and how can we do it? So there was a problem, but but there came benefits from the problem. What started out as a major problem ended up being the thing that God used to bring significant and meaningful change to my life. And this is and this is what we see. This is what we see. Joy isn't isn't found in the absence of problems, it's found in the realization that God never wastes a struggle. He never does. He will never waste a struggle if you if you give it to him. So, because if we're gonna talk about joy, we have to talk about the things that try to steal our joy, that try to take our joy away. We have to talk about the chains in our lives that try to rob us from joy. Paul, Paul, he's in he's in a Roman prison and he has every reason to be bitter, but instead of being bitter, he's bragging about God. He's bragging about the goodness of God. And he's gonna show us that there is actually purpose in the prison, that there is benefits in the problems. So you can title part four of this long journey that we're on the benefits of your problems, the benefits of your problems. Now you might be thinking, Jacob, Jacob, there is no benefits to the problems I'm having right now. There's no benefits to my kid waking up in the middle of the night. There's no benefits to the work problems that I'm going through. Um, there's no benefits. You might be you might be thinking there's none, but what what do we normally do with our problems? What do we normally do? When problems come up, what do we want to do? We want to get rid of them. That that's the first thing. And marketers, advertisers, they know this. They know that you want to get rid of your problem. They know it so much that that commercials they're geared towards telling you about your problems and your fears. You'll be watching a commercial and you'll be like, I didn't even know I had that fear. I didn't even know I had that problem. Now I know I have that. And what's their solution? Their solution is if you buy their thing, it will get rid of the problem that you didn't even know that you had. You got so many problems now. You just watch one TV show, you're like, man, I got so many problems. You know, so but marketers know this. Marketers know we want to get rid of our problems. We want to run them from our problems, we want to bury our problems, we want to hide from them. But what if I told you that your problems can come with invaluable benefits, that God can do something with your problems that is better than running from them, burying them, and trying to hide from them. And this is where, as everyday people who are learning how to become Jesus followers, choosing joy is so important. It's so, it's so important. The apostle Paul, he has a lot of problems going on right here as he writes his letter to the Philippians. Paul is faced with two problems right on top of each other. But but here's the reason why we love this book so much and what we want to learn from it. Because Paul has this crazy way of seeing how major difficulties in his life, well, God's using them to form him into the likeness of Jesus and to still proclaim the gospel, the good news of Jesus. So his first problem, and the most obvious one, is what? Well, he's in prison. That's that's a pretty obvious one. He he's in prison. This is especially hard for someone who is a traveling apostle. He's a church planter. This is what he does. He he he goes and he plants churches. This is kind of like what's happening with Bo Knicks right now. He takes his whole team to the AMC championship game to what? To hurt his ankle on the last play. He can't even play in the championship game. You know, this is this is what he was meant to do. You know, so so here you go. But the second problem is this there's people going around talking about Jesus who don't really mean it. They don't really mean it. They don't believe the same message Paul believes. They're just trying to create problems for Paul while he's in his imprisonment. And again, here you go, we all have problems. And similar to Paul, our problems can have, can leave us feeling stuck. Whether that's financial, emotional, relational, professional, it can leave us feeling stuck. Whatever it is, our problems can cause us to feel like we are in chains. And we all, like Paul, have people problems. People saying stuff, people doing stuff, people pretending, pretending like they weren't the ones that offended people and acting like, why are you so offended? Because you did an offensive thing. That's why we're offended. People are out here peopling. Do people, people, people be doing some people and things out here sometimes. Life comes with problems. And since no matter what you do, you will have problems no matter how hard you try, problems will keep coming up. For example, you pay off your credit card debt, then your car breaks down, right? You finally pull that one grade up in school to recognize you got so much chores at home and your in your in your sports practices are so overwhelming. It feels like it doesn't stop. You know, the the million dollar question is this if our circumstances, the the prisons, the finances, the diagnosis don't change, what do we actually gain? Through the lens of choosing joy, we realize that the benefits of our problems aren't about our comfort, but about our character. The benefits of problems have nothing to do with your comfort level, but it has everything to do with the character that God is shaping in you and the mission that God has for your life. So here you go. Here are three practical ways God uses problems to work in us while God works through us. Okay, benefit number one to your problem. It gives you access to God's heart and the healing of your heart, and the healing of your heart. Check out what Paul says here. He says in Philippians 1, we're gonna read through verses 12 through 13. Now I want you to know, brothers and sisters, that what has happened to me has actually served to advance the gospel. As a result, it has become clear throughout the whole palace guard and to everyone else that I am in chains for Christ. What has happened to me? And again, we have all had things that have happened to us. And these things, things that we did by our own bad choices and bad decision making, but things that happened to us that we had no control over. People did, other people did things, and now we're facing the we're facing the tidal wave of their of their decision making. You know, so things happen, life happens, people happen, people are doing people things all the time. What has happened to Paul is he's he's in prison. He's not where he thought life is gonna take him. He's not on the he's not where he thought the gospel message was gonna bring him. He's not where he wants to be. It's a problem that has happened to him. But I love this little transitional line. I love this little transitional line. Get this here, LVC. What has happened to me, here it goes, has actually, has actually, I love it. Something, something happened that I did not want to happen. I'm not downplaying what happened to me, I'm not denying the severity of what happened to me. I'm not faking like I'm all good, even though I'm dying inside. No, no, no, no. It happened, it sucks, but but it has actually turned out for my good. Let's make this clear. The situation that got me here is not good. It is not the situation's not good. Paul gives us a little bit more insight to this when he's talking to the church in Rome. Romans 8 28, he says, and we know that in all things, God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose. God works for the good. That doesn't mean your situation was good. Some people misquote Paul. Paul is constantly misquoted, you know, throughout the Bible, and this is one of those misquotes from Paul. Some people say all things work for good. No, no, no, no, no. Paul didn't say that. Paul didn't say all things are good. He didn't say all things work out, he didn't say that. You know, no, he says we know. This is this deep knowing. This is not just head knowledge knowing, but is deeply, intimately knowing God. Since I know the character of God, the nature of God, I know that in all things, God can work things for good. Not me, not circumstances, but God can work. What has happened to me has actually turned out for good because God worked it out for good. Because I trusted in God, because I was faithful to God. I saw God move on my behalf. But Paul is even more specific about it. He says, has actually served to advance the gospel. This this is the good thing that's happened was the advancement of the gospel. So how does, how does Paul arrive at this being actually good? How does he get there? Is he in denial? Is he brainwashed? Is he delusional? Is he lying to himself? Paul arrives here because Paul is of the kingdom of God. Because Paul is of the kingdom of God, meaning his worldview, his character, his viewpoint in life is aligned in kingdom's business. He's about his father's business. That's what he's about. He's about the father's business. And so, since he's about the father's business, even though things from the natural world doesn't, that don't look good. He can see from a different lens of what God is at work. Dallas Willard puts it like this: living for Christ in the world today means being in the world, but not of the world. In, but not of. Christians can live squarely in the world, but with a Christ-like character. Someone who is of the kingdom of God has their origin and their nature or form from that kingdom. Paul is in the world. He is in his circumstance. He's all up in his circumstance. He can't deny. Debo is attached to him by the hip. He's all up in it, but his heart is of the kingdom of God. Is of the kingdom of God. So this imprisonment, well, it was supposed to stop me from talking about Jesus. But now, but now the guards and actually the whole palace guards know that I am in these chains for Jesus. And again, I'm not justifying, I'm not dismissing, I'm not downplaying the pain, the heartache, the confusion of your problem, but the benefit of your problem, the benefit of your problem is that it can draw you closer to the heart of God. It can draw you closer to the heart of God. And when you get closer to the heart of God, there comes the healing of your heart. You have access to God's heart in the healing of yours. It's often in pain that we either make one or two choices. We either, in our pain, we either run from God or we run to God. We run to God. C.S. Lewis says it like this: God whispers to us in our pleasures, he speaks to us in our conscience, but he shouts in our pains. Paul is in pain, but his heart is aligned to the mission of Jesus. When Jesus said, I will build my church, he wasn't talking about bricks and mortar, he was talking about us. He was talking about people carrying the hope of Jesus into a broken world. The church is God's plan A for the healing of the world. But here is attention: what happens to the mission when the people of God get stuck in a bad situation? What happens? What happens to the mission when the people of God get stuck in a bad situation? Paul is the greatest church planter in history, but right now he isn't planting churches. He's sitting in a prison cell. It looks like the building project is on, it has stopped. But the hope and the encouragement of verse 12 says this what has happened to me has actually served to advance the gospel. Paul realized that while he was in chains, the gospel was not in chains. Come on. The gospel was never locked down, the gospel could never be stopped because he was in prison. The palace guard, the people that would never step foot in a synagogue were hearing about Jesus. God was still building his church even from a prison cell. And I want to encourage some people today that you might feel like you're in a prison, a prison cell, but your purpose is not in a prison cell. Your God is not in a prison cell. Your God is not trapped. You may feel trapped, but God is not trapped. And he can use you even when you feel trapped. If you're in a prison cell, God draws you to his heart and he heals your heart in the process. Paul, Paul isn't. Paul could have gave given up. He could have easily threw in the towel, but instead he said, I have pain, I have problems. I'm gonna let the palace guards know about why I'm up in here. And this leads to the second benefit of your problems. Benefit number two is a contagious courage. A contagious courage. Now, now I have a friend who I dearly love. He's like a spiritual son to me. And he's given, and he's one of those guys that that even before he had a kid, you knew, man, this guy's gonna be a great dad one day. And you knew his wife, you knew when you met her that she would be a great mom one day. They were built for it. They were built for it. And so for him and his wife, they looked forward to having kids. Long story short, they did have a baby, a beautiful little boy. Um, but a few months into his life, into his development, they discovered that they their dreams of having a normal parenting experience weren't going to be there. The little boy was diagnosed with a genetic disease that at that point the average lifespan was roughly three years old of age. Their son would never be able to walk or talk. He would need assistance and feed in for his whole life. Now I talked to my friend the other night, just just that's a week or a week or so ago. And and and the first thing I say to him, the first the first thing he says to me is, man, I can't believe Cooper's turning five next month. He's turning five, he already beat the odds. Cooper already beat the odds. And now Cooper he's on this device that gives him the ability to talk. He can Cooper Cooper can look at this tablet and and then by his eyes it will say, Dad, mom, drink, food, all these cool things. And my friend told me hearing his son's voice for the first time was one of the best moments in his life. And then he said, This is not what I thought it was going to be like, but God still has a plan for my boy. And each day he beats the odds, it's a good day. Come on, LVC, talk about a change of perspective. But what I don't want you to take from the story is, well, I guess my situation isn't as bad as that, you know, so maybe I should just be grateful. That you could take that a little bit, but but no, no, no. What I want you to see is the power of being courageous in difficult and challenging seasons and circumstances in your life. A benefit that you can give the world is to be courageous in your grief, to choose joy in your heartache, to choose joy and declare the goodness of God in your problems. Paul says, Because and because of my chains, I love this. Not because I had some chains and God healed me from it, not because I was dealing with some stuff and God delivered me. No, this is present tense. He's writing present tense because of the chains that I currently am wearing, because of my current situation, he continues, he says, Most of the brothers and sisters have become confident in the Lord and dare all the more to proclaim the gospel without fear. I love this. And the spiritual principle here is this your courage brings courage to those who need courage all around you. Let me say that one more time. The spiritual principle is your courage brings courage to those who need courage all around you. Just two aspects of courage I want to highlight. Paul's courage in Jesus gave the believers courage in Jesus. And this is so important. Paul's imprisonment and the stories that were coming out of the jail about Paul caused the believers where Paul was in while Paul was in prison to be more courageous in their faith. Paul uses the word confidence. They became confident in who? Not themselves, not in Paul, but in the Lord. They became positive in the confident in the Lord. And Paul's courage in terrible times led the people to grow in their confidence in Jesus. And here you go. The Greek word for the word confidence is paido. It's called paido. It kind of sounds like pay though. You pay though, you pay it up, though, you got you pay though, you gotta pay. And I love it because it sounds because it because it's it means persuaded, convinced, confident, obey, follow, have confidence. And and and what and what it's saying is this you are bold for Jesus even when the culture isn't. I mean, I'm gonna be bold with you even when the culture isn't. I mean, I'm gonna be bold too. They were saying, Paul, you stood up when it got you in jail. We're gonna stand up too. You know, Paul, you put your life on the line for Jesus. We're gonna put our life on the line for Jesus too. And because these other believers who got confident, check this out, they could have gone to jail right with Paul and Paul, because Paul primarily went to jail in Rome because the saying in Rome was Caesar is Lord, Caesar brings justice and peace. And Paul ran around taking the cultural language and said, Well, Caesar isn't Lord, but Jesus is Lord. And Jesus brings peace and Jesus brings justice. And that got good that got Paul in jail. That was the primary reason that got him locked up. But now his confidence, his courage to be bold for Jesus caused others to do the same. And can I say, LVC, can we be bold for Jesus? Can we be bold for Jesus when the culture is telling us? All these different things, the culture is saying we gotta do this thing and that thing. Can we be bold for Jesus and stand up for him, even if that leads to our imprisonment? Even if that leads to like people like, why are you talking about Jesus so much? Can we be bold for Jesus? Can we in even in a practical way? Can we be so bold that we don't have to stay tied to our phones, to our devices, and we can actually be with the people? It may look weird. Your family takes a Sabbath? Like, why? You guys don't do anything? You actually don't go to, you know, you actually don't sign your kids up for sporting events and do all these things. Yeah, because we want to prioritize our time with Jesus as a family. Come on, can we be bold for Jesus? Can we be bold for him, LVC, and watch what he does for us? Can we have some courage? Then the second aspect of courage I want you to see is this courage makes you real and it makes you personal. It makes you real and personal. And what do I mean by that? Because to have courage is to say, I'm afraid. Is to say I'm afraid. I am afraid. Courage is being afraid and doing it anyways. Courage is saying I'm afraid to go to that AA meeting, but I'm gonna do it anyways. Courage is saying I'm afraid to risk and start tithing 10% of my income, but I'm gonna do it anyways. I'm gonna do it anyway. I'm afraid, but I'm gonna do it. Courage says I'm afraid to go back to school or refocus some goals, but I'm gonna do it anyways. Courage, courage, don't get me sounding like the cowardly lion up in here. Courage will allow people to look at you and say, man, if they're afraid and they did it, maybe I can do it too. You got me persuaded, you got me convinced that maybe I can. And Paul is saying, I'm all up in chains, but the prison guards, well, they know about Jesus because in their six-hour shift, they got a whole six-hour-long sermon about Jesus. See, you hear what I'm saying, LVC. We gotta be courageous. Your courage in the middle of your of our of your problems. What a benefit! What a benefit to those all around you. The world's watching you. And let's be courageous. Last benefit is this benefit number three, creating a non-anxious presence in me. Creating a non-anxious presence in me. This is one of my 2026 goals. This is one of my personal goals, that I can be a person that has a non-anxious presence. Because we all know what an anxious presence is, right? They walk into the room, they stress out, they late, you know, now everyone else is feeling the tension from their tardiness. You know, that's not that's not what I want. Paul says this. He says, going up to verse 18, 15 to 18, he says, It is true that some preach Christ out of envy and rivalry, but others out of goodwill. The latter do so out of love, knowing that I am put here for the defense of the gospel. The former preach Christ out of selfish ambition, not sincerely support, not sincerely supposing that they can stir up trouble for me while I'm in chains. But here's the line, here's the line. But what does it matter? I love it. Paul says, but what does it matter? The important thing is that in every way, whether from false motives or true, Christ is preached. And because of this, I rejoice. Yes, I will continue to rejoice. Now, we don't we don't know who Paul was talking about. Scholars don't know, theologians don't know. You know, we can assume some people were mocking Paul, mocking his message as Jesus' Lord rather than Caesar being Lord. We don't really know, but what we do know, the mockery or the are are or the false accusations got back to Paul. It got back, he heard about it, it got back to him, and he heard it, and this is what I love. It's so good. He's like, they're talking about me, and I don't know when people talk about me. I want to I wanna come to defense. Like, don't talk about me, you don't you don't know what I'm doing, you don't know my struggles, you know. That's what I want to do. Paul heard about it and he says, Ah, what does it matter? What does it matter? They're talking, let them talk. They're tweaking about me or exing, whatever that's called. Let them do it, let them do it. They're talking, what does it matter? And this is the ultimate mark of spiritual maturity. A non-anxious presence, a person who is anchored in the kingdom, that they don't react to the world's chaos, but they respond with God's peace. Paul has rivals are trying to stir up trouble. A reactionary person would be anxious and defensive. But Paul says, what does it matter? I wanna be that kind of person when people are out doing people things. I'm like, what does that matter? And I'm not gonna let that, I'm not gonna let that steal my joy. I'm not, I'm not gonna let people live rent-free in my head. I'm definitely not gonna stay up all night thinking about people who aren't thinking about me. What does it matter? I'm gonna give it to the Lord. At least Christ is being preached. That's all that matters. Listen to me, LVC. The LVC, I mean, the Holy Spirit isn't just working to get through, get you through the problem. The Holy Spirit is working to make you a signpost to a different kingdom. And the way we respond to people, the way we respond with a non-anxious presence. Dude, what a good signpost that is pointing to Jesus. What a good signpost. Most people are defined by their stress. When you when you walk into your office, uh your kids, you know, your kitchen, your kids are screaming. Imagine if you carried a non-anxious presence about you. What will happen? People will notice. People will notice because a peaceful spirit is one of the most attractive things about a follower of Jesus. And you have to realize you aren't just coping with pressures, but you are being formed by the pressures. Well, the enemy attended to break you, the Holy Spirit will use to form you into the likeness of Jesus. He is building you up to something that is unshakable and something that is unoffendable. Because when you are anchored in the kingdom, the chaos of the world doesn't stand a chance. LVC, I want to look at you right in the eyes and I want to say this. And if we were in person, I would be telling you this right now. I want to look at you in the eyes and say, God never voices a struggle. He never does. He never voices a struggle. If you feel like Bo Nix, you make it to the championship game just to get heard. Guess what? God can still use that. God can still use that. I want you to hear me. You are not a victim of your circumstance, but you are a vessel for the kingdom of God. Paul didn't pray for the prison doors to open, he prayed for his heart to stay open. And because he did, he received three things no amount of comfort could ever buy. He got access to the very heart of God. He gifted courage to those all around him. And it formed of him a non-anxious presence that made him unshakable. The benefit of your problem isn't that life gets easier, is that you get more of Jesus in you. The challenge this week, this week, whether it's financial stress, emotional stress, relational, professional, whatever it is, whatever's going on, I want you to stop. I want you to stop. Don't react, but respond. Respond. God, I don't like this chain, but I trust the benefit that you are working in me through it. So God, Jesus, Holy Spirit, we trust in you. We lean into you. We know that you can take anything, and you, God, work all things for God. You, God, can work all things for your good. And so, God, we trust you with that today. We put our hope in you today. We put our joy in you today. We love you, God. We say yes to you. You have our yes. We love you in Jesus' name.