[Acts 14.8_20] 2025.07.27 The purpose of joy in life
[Acts 14.8_20] 2025.07.27 The purpose of joy in life
The purpose of joy in life
Big Idea: Respond to God’s joy-sparking gifts by turning away from worthless things to trusting in the Living God.
1. Two responses to God’s joy sparking gift
2. The true purpose of God’s joy sparking gifts
3. The failure of worshippers of worthlessness
A while ago, I saw this video of a baby who looked drowsily at a scoop of ice cream that an adult placed in front of them.
However, as soon as she had a taste, her eyes glowed up.
She didn’t want to just taste the ice cream; she grabbed the scoop with both of her hands and plowed her face into the ice cream.
It was her first time of tasting ice cream and it sparked joy in her.
Who remembers their first taste of ice cream?
Did you do the same?
While many of us love ice cream, others might love other food, like meat, or healthy vegetables, or sweet strawberries.
Isn’t it incredible how we can find joy in so many different types of food?
But, why do we find joy, in food?
I mean, we need food to survive but we don’t need to enjoy ourselves with food to survive.
We can have the same food every day and we will live.
Why do we enjoy food the way we do?
What’s the purpose of enjoying good food?
Please open your Bible with me to Acts chapter fourteen beginning from verse 8.
We’ll see the purpose of why we enjoy good food the way we do.
We’ll see three things:
1. Two responses to God’s joy sparking gift
2. The true purpose of God’s joy sparking gifts
3. The failure of worshippers of worthlessness
Let’s pray and ask God to help us understand this word today.
“Father, we thank you for your word, that you have freely given to people like us. By your Holy Spirit, let us ingest, treasure and live out your word for the glory of Jesus, who reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, and in whose name we pray, Amen.”
1.Two responses to God’s joy sparking gift
Lat week, we read that Paul and Barnabas fled Iconium after discovering a plan to stone them.
They then travelled from Iconium to Lystra, a distance of around 40 kilometres.
Look with me in verse eight.
“In Lystra a man was sitting who was without strength in his feet, had never walked, and had been lame from birth.”
In Lystra, there lived a man who had never walked.
He had been lame since birth until the day Paul and Barnabas arrived in Lystra.
Historians have told us that the people who lived in Lystra, the Lystrans, were often described as uncivilized.
They weren’t very sophisticated, and they probably only spoke their native language, Lycaonian.
However, while the lame man almost certainly spoke Lycaonian as his heart language, he must have also understood Greek as well because he listened to Paul and understood him.
Paul looked directly at the man and saw that he had faith in being healed.
We’re not sure what he saw, but he must have understood that the man believed Paul’s words.
Paul then did something extraordinary – he told the man to stand on his feet and walk.
There must have been love and power in his voice, otherwise, how could Paul tell a lame man who had never walked to get up?
This man had never walked before, but somewhere in this man was not faith in himself but faith in the Risen Lord.
He heard the command to stand and, despite never having stood, obeyed the command and did the impossible.
He stood up, jumped up, and walked around; He was completely healed!
One of the things I do as a minister is that I often attend conferences with long talks that require delegates like me to sit for extended periods.
Sometimes, the more experienced speakers would tell us to get up and stretch for a few seconds.
I’m always glad to hear the instructions for these brief breaks to stand up after several hours of sitting.
Imagine being confined to a life of sitting.
That’s all this man in Lystra had ever known, until Paul commanded him to stand. Suddenly, he felt a new sensation, a sudden rush of strength going through his legs.
There was now strength in his legs which weren’t there before. There was life in his legs that were dead before.
It wasn’t the strength within him that enabled him to walk; it was the faith he placed in Paul’s words about the Lord Jesus that enabled him to walk.
It was the power of the Lord Jesus, as preached by Paul and Barnabas, that made this man able to take his first steps.
Paul’s message of Jesus, a message of both love and power, sparked a sense of joy in this Lystran man.
However, the crowd had misinterpreted the situation.
Look with me at verse 11, “When the crowds saw what Paul had done, they shouted, saying in the Lycaonian language, “The gods have come down to us in human form!”
reveals their confusion as they shouted in Lycaconian, claiming that Zeus and Hermes had descended in human form. Barnabas they called Zeus, and Paul, Hermes, because he was the chief speaker.”
Zeus was the supreme god in Greek mythology, and Hermes was his messenger.
Just a few decades prior, a poem had been written about similar gods who visited an elderly couple.
The poem said that those who failed to receive these gods were deestroyed.
The crowd thought that Barnabas and Paul were these gods returning, because Paul had miraculously healed the lame man.
The priest of Zeus, who lived just outside the city, arrived and prepared to perform a sacrifice to Paul and Barnabas.
Paul and Barnabas were deeply distressed when they heard this.
They were distressed that the Lystrans were honouring them instead of honouring God.
A few weeks earlier, we read about King Herod’s death at the hands of God, as people had interpreted his voice as divine.
Ironically, when the servants of the Lord Jesus spoke the words of God and were mistaken for gods, they were filled with distress.
They were distressed because the people had completely misunderstood their message.
Instead of joy, the same gospel message sparked confusion for the crowd and distress in the messengers.
The Lystran man and the crowd around him heard the same gospel message and saw the same facts, and yet, they arrived at very different conclusions.
One responded with joy, presumably giving glory to God, while the other responded with idol worship, taking glory away from the one true God.
It’s still the same today, isn’t it?
While we may not sacrifice to Zeus or Hermes when good things happen, we, just like the Lystran crowd, often still attribute these good things to something or someone else.
When good things happen to people, what do we often hear others say?
“He’s lucky” or “He’s got good luck.”
What happens when bad things happen? He has bad “luck.”
When we say that things in life happen because of luck, we’re basically saying that there’s a force or power we can’t see or predict that governs everything that happens around us, for good or for ill.
It’s almost as if we’re giving this thing we call ‘luck’ godlike qualities.
Sadly, people use this idea of luck to lure others to gambling, whether physical or online, for the chance to ‘try their luck.’
Of course, as well as luck, there are other things that people give these godlike qualities to, such as science, money, or power.
However, in reality, all the good things and bad things that happen in life are not the result of luck, but the result of God actively working his purposes out.
When something good happens, we ought to thank God, like the Lystran man who was healed.
We ought to be happy, even jumping for joy for what God has done.
And when bad things happen, we ought to turn to God for help.
God has given us many wonderful gifts that can spark joy in us.
We must take care to give him the glory and honour that he deserves, and not to anything or anyone else.
We must take care about this even in churches.
God has been incredibly generous to our little church in many ways.
Yesterday, our Parish Council met for our planning day, and we express our gratitude for what He has done, even as we plan for the future.
While planning, strategising, and working in teams are important, we must always remember that God must be the One who receives all the glory.
How do we give glory to God?
We publicly thank Him through song and words, but we also pray.
When we come together to pray and bring our needs before Him, and when we express gratitude for His answers, we give Him glory.
That’s what our Parish Council did, and that’s what I hope we all do as well.
If something positive has happened in your life, try starting by saying, “God has answered our prayers. Here’s what happened…”
Give God the glory for the great things he’s done!
2. The true purpose of God’s joy sparking gifts
Paul and Barnabas wanted to give all glory to God, so they began explaining to the people what was actually happening.
They told them the true purpose of their actions and why God gave us all gifts that sparked joy.
Most of us like joy, don’t we?
We enjoy being happy, laughing, and cherishing the good things in life.
I don’t know what sparks joy in you, but for me, one of my happiest moments was taking my stuff out of my suitcase and sleeping on my own bed.
As I said earlier, I’ve been to a conference this past week.
And before that I’ve been to quite a few others.
While it’s been great to be away for conferences as well as spending time away with the family, it’s like I’ve been living out of a suitcase for a long time.
In fact, both Jenny and I had to live out of suitcases or large bags of clothes because we were preparing for our move on Friday.
It was such a relief and joy to not live out of a suitcase for a while.
But why should we be happy? What’s the purpose of our joy?
Listen to what Paul and Barnabas say is the true purpose of our joy, starting from verse 15, ““People! Why are you doing these things? We are people also, just like you, and we are proclaiming good news to you, that you turn from these worthless things to the living God, who made the heaven, the earth, the sea, and everything in them. 16 In past generations he allowed all the nations to go their own way”
Firstly, Paul and Barnabas clarified that they weren’t gods at all.
They were ordinary human beings, just like the Lystran crowd.
The only difference was that they were proclaiming the good news about the true God, the living God.
The good news they were bringing to the Lystran was that the Lystrans were to turn away from these worthless things.
What worthless things were they talking about?
It could have covered many things, but the most obvious would have been the sacrifices that these people were bringing.
Paul and Barnabas were saying that these sacrifices they brought to them were worthless because firstly, they were wrong about Paul and Barnabas being gods. Second, and even more importantly, the worship of Zeus and Hermes was also worthless.
The Lystran worship system wasn’t just wrong; it was worthless because they were serving created things, rather than the Creator.
They were serving things that were dead rather than the God who lives forever.
Paul had to start from the beginning and tell the Lystrans that God, the Living God, is the creator of heaven, earth, sea, and everything in them.
He told them that God is the Creator of all.
In contrast, when he spoke with Jews, he didn’t need to go back to the very beginning because the Jews already understood that God is the creator.
Not only did the Lystrans didn’t understand that there was only One Creator, One God, they didn’t understand that God is the King and Judge of all.
God had allowed nations in the past to go their own way, implying that God had his own plan for each nation.
However, for generations, these nations had strayed from God and gone their way instead of his.
This is a bold and confrontational statement.
In our world, we often hear that all nations and cultures have their own ways, but eventually, they all end up on the same path to heaven.
However, Paul and Barnabas said it’s the opposite: God has a one path, One Way, that leads to Him, while nations have strayed from Him and so away from heaven.
This truth applies to the ancient Lystrans, the Indigenous Australians, the English settlers in Australia, as well as every non-English immigrants living in Australia today.
We all belong to cultures that have strayed from God, and He has allowed that to happen in the past.
Despite this, God had not left Himself without a witness.
He has given us rain from heaven, as we have experienced this weekend, and He has also provided us with good things, such as food, to fill our bodies and hearts with joy.
Isn’t God’s grace amazing?
Despite our ingratitude, He continues to fill our lives with blessings like food.
He leaves witnesses of his amazing grace.
This is the purpose of good food and the joys of life.
These blessings are witnesses to the living God.
Every nice meal with our family, every beautiful sunrise, and every good song we hear are reminders of God’s goodness and kindness towards us, ungrateful and undeserving people that we are.
When we witness our community’s kindness to the vulnerable, we should thank God for being our good and kind Creator.
All these good things in life that sparks joy in us, as well as the fact that we can experience joy, are witnesses that God gives us of himself.
Friends, God has given us many reasons to be joyful.
Many of us have worked hard to come to this wonderful country we call our home.
We have families and friends we treasure and love.
We have lovely places to live in, often larger and better than homes in Hong Kong, where I came from.
The reason why we experience these joys in life is to help us put our eyes on God.
So, let’s enjoy these wonderful things God has given us.
He is kind and wants us to have joy.
He is the Giver of gifts of joy.
But don’t just receive the gifts; thank the Giver.
Just like our fathers and their fathers before us, we have strayed from God.
Now is the time to turn back and thank Him for the joy He has given us.
A few weeks ago, many of us were invited to Hua’s and Meixiang’s new house, Fenny and her son Xi’s.
It was so good to hear them thanking God for giving them a new place to live in. It’s even better to see that one of the first things they did was to invite brothers and sisters from Church to come together so that they can thank God for what he’s done.
It was a wonderful time of thanksgiving to God. It was a time of great food and great joy.
Like what Paul and Barnabas said, we, the Church, were filled with both great food and great joy!
Even though there are many reasons why they got the new place, they rightly recognised that the main reason why they got the house was because God’s been kind to them.
They publicly thanked God for what he’s done.
They recognised the evidence of God’s grace.
Do you recognise God’s hand in your life?
God’s so kind that even if you don’t believe in him, he’s still kind to you.
He gives rain to both the righteous and the wicked.
The world is full of the evidence of God’s grace.
Do we recognise him? Or to do we give it to something as worthless as luck, human achievements or fake gods instead?
3.The failure of worshippers of worthlessness
Paul and Barnabas had been patiently sharing the gospel with the Lystrans, but it seemed like they didn’t understand or didn’t want to understand them.
Look with me at verse 18, “Even though they said these things, they barely stopped the crowds from sacrificing to them.”
It seems like Paul and Barnabas still had more to say about the good news they were sharing.
Paul and Barnabas hadn’t even seemed to have reached the part about Jesus, the best part of the news: God giving us his only Son so that we, as well as the Lystrans, could be saved.
Before they could talk to them about Jesus, Jews from Antioch and Iconium arrived and once again, poisoned the people against Paul and Barnabas.
Remember them from the time when they were in Iconium, and they were planning on stoning Paul to death?
Paul and Barnabas managed to escape Iconium and the Jews had travelled far to persecute them.
These time, they succeeded to persuade the people with enough poison so that Paul got stoned.
Paul was stoned, that is, had large rocks thrusted towards him, and, thinking he was dead, dragged him out of the city.
How quickly the crowd had turned!
One minute they thought Paul was a god, and the next, they treated him as trash. All this happened because Paul rightly criticised their worship and claimed to have come to bring something worthy and good to them.
This reminded me of a commercial that started with a father and son fishing in a beautiful lake.
The father skillfully cast his line, and the son looked happily at him.
However, the son then asked, “Dad, have you seen the boat key?”
The father replied, “No.”
The next shot was an underwater shot showing the father had used the keys as the fishing sinker or weight, and the key went down to the lake’s bottom.
As the worried son looked back at his father, the father happily said, “I can stay here forever.”
What was the ad for? Specsavers, a glasses company.
That’s similar to what the Lystrans did.
Instead of appreciating the beauty and the enormous worth of the gospel message that Paul and Barnabas brought, they literally threw the messenger, like trash. out of the city.
Their spiritual blindness had completely distorted their values.
They rejected the worthy gospel in favour of their worthless worship, believing it would be the last they would ever see Paul and Barnabas or to even hear their message.
However, even their attempt to eliminate Paul failed.
They believed Paul was dead and dragged him outside the city.
But after the disciples gathered around him, Paul rose and returned to the town. We don’t know what Paul said or did after he returned, but it would have been shocking for anyone who had witnessed what looked like his death to see him return.
They might have wondered, “What was Paul thinking, returning to this place where we had stoned him to death?”
Or, they might have thought, “What were we thinking, trying to kill a man who clearly spoke the truth? How else could you explain why the lame man walk and jump at Paul’s command?”
Either way, Paul’s presence back in Lystra was a testament to God’s power and grace.
It was also a preview of the failures of those who pursue worthless things instead of the God who is worthy of all praise.
One day, on the day that Jesus returns to the world, as the One who defeated death, everyone who had rejected His gospel in their lives would think to themselves, “What were we thinking? How could I treat this message about the love and power of the Living God as trash?
Why did I spend my life on worthless things instead of worshipping Jesus?”
But it would be too late on that day.
On that day, all those who do not put their trust in Jesus will be cast into the eternal fire for rejecting him.
But that day isn’t here yet.
God, in his kindness and patience, has given us one day more.
Today is the day to turn back to him.
Today is the day to see the good things in life and recognise that they are gifts from a loving God.
That’s the point of enjoying good food, of finding joy in life – they are all evidence that God has left for you to find him and to thank him.
Today is the day to thank him.
Today is the day to turn to Jesus, to trust in him, and to thank him for giving his life to you so that you can have eternal life.
Today is the day to turn and to trust in the living God.
Over the past two weeks, we’ve had to decide what to bring to our new home.
We’ve realised that many of the things we used to treasure have become rubbish. They used to bring us so much joy but now they had served their purpose.
We have a whole skip bun outside of our house to throw all this rubbish away.
You know what, everything in our lives will one day become rubbish.
These are good things, wonderful things that God gives us to bring us joy, but their purpose isn’t for us to keep them forever.
Their purpose is to point us to God.
So, friends, trust in the Giver, not the gifts themselves.
Turn to God in Jesus and find joy, everlasting joy.
All the joy we have now from God’s kindness is only a preview of the eternal joy he gives us in Jesus.
Long for that joy in Jesus above all other joys.
Respond to God’s joy-sparking gifts by turning away from worthless things to trusting in the Living God.
Here are three questions for us to think about this week:
1. What do you enjoy doing?
2. How does God want you to enjoy it?
3. What worthless things do we pursue instead of worshipping God?
Friends, as Paul’s said to the Lystrans, “he (that is, God) did what is good by giving you rain from heaven and fruitful seasons and filling you with food and your hearts with joy.”
And so, Respond to God’s joy-sparking gifts by turning away from worthless things to trusting in the Living God.
Let’s pray, “Father, thank you for all the joy that you’ve sparked within us in our lives. As the song goes, we thank you for the sunshine, we thank you for the rain. Thank you for the joy, thank you for the pain. Father, please forgive us when we respond by turning away from you, loving, even worshipping created things, rather than the Creator. By your Holy Spirit, turn us back to you. Give us eyes of faith so that we can see your kindness and goodness, and give us a heart of thanks, each day, every day, for this is the Day that you have made, let us rejoice and be glad in it. For Jesus’ sake, Amen.”