Intro: The writings of Paul and the letters and words of our brethren in difficult places in the world have one thing in common - joy in their situation. They, who suffer hardship and toil that we never encounter, seem happy and content. We, who live in the richest country in the world, often seem discouraged and discontent. How do we explain it?

1. Cultural

• Some cultures are more free in their modes of expression.

1. Physical

• In many parts of the world, sin and disease and death are more close and immediate threats than they are here.
• Our standard of living is so high and our health care so good that we have muted the link between "bad living" and "bad health". People used to presume that "clean living" was the way to good health. Don't smoke, don't drink, don't run around with bad people doing bad things, and you'll be healthier and live longer, they said. You don't hear that nearly so much anymore.
• We now spend hundreds of millions of dollars trying to erase the fact that those who sin habitually with their bodies receive in themselves the recompense of their error (Rom. 1:27).

1. Economic

• With our living standards so high, we are not as motivated to seek a better place in the next life. After all, if it’s not so bad here, why would we want something else?
• We can have more money and possessions and comforts in this life by just working harder. On the other hand, to a Christian living in Communist China, living in a repressive and poor country, there is very little additional physical comfort to be had by working harder tomorrow than today, and constant risk of losing everything. Thus, it may be easier for him to focus his attention on improving his prospects in the next life.
• We are so easily distracted by all of our material and social opportunities in this one that we may be selling our future spiritual lives for immediate gain.

1. Psychological

• Humans tend to pay more attention to immediate results than to far-off ones. That’s why it’s so hard to save money for the future, to give up that extra piece of cake in order to look slimmer in a few weeks, and to go and exercise to live longer someday down the road.
• Perhaps the immediate results of conversion are more apparent to those brethren than to us. Perhaps they see much more clearly the vast gulf between their former lives and their new ones. Perhaps they see more clearly how far they were delivered by the gospel of Christ from darkness into light. Eph. 2 talks about this in detail.
• Many Christians tend to see it more like a change of clothes than a death and resurrection. We are not so different afterward from what we were before. Thus, we may not feel as keenly and immediately the full effect of conversion, including the joy and relief at having escaped condemnation.

1. Spiritual

• There may be another explanation, more insidious and harder to guess from the outside. But each of us should make careful and honest examination of our own hearts to see if this is our problem. That is, we may not feel the great joy that is ours to have in Christ because we have not taken full advantage of what He offers us.

Paul was clearly dealing with a similar problem with the Ephesians; they had not realized the full riches of their inheritance. He writes in Eph. 1:17-18, "That the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give unto you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of him: The eyes of your understanding being enlightened; that ye may know what is the hope of his calling, and what the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the saints,". From that point, he proceeds to point out to them things God has done for them.

In Eph. 3:14-19 [read], he expresses his view of the riches of the covenant that God offers us. It’s apparent from reading this passage that Paul felt that joy, he felt the blessings of God on him all the time. Paul understood it and had absorbed it into the very core of his soul. And he wanted very much to get it across to the Ephesian brethren to whom he felt so close, and to us as well.

No one can question Paul’s commitment to Christ. I Cor. 10-11, and especially I Cor. 11:16-33 detail his sufferings and the price he had paid to be a Christian. I believe this is a crucial factor in Paul’s understanding of his salvation, and his joy in living for Christ. I believe that for us to feel that true joy in the Spirit also requires full commitment to God.

• You feel restricted - can’t do this, got to always do that, etc.
• You don’t see the reward, and don’t feel very joyous.
• You always feel guilty, because for many half-Christians, that’s what keeps them coming to church.
• The laws of Christ seem like long lists of commands to keep, and it never "feels" right.
• There’s not much motivation to teach anyone else, because after all, who’d want to make someone else this miserable? How could anyone possibly be attracted to this sort of life? It’s sort of a fatalistic approach, in that we may presume that everyone else will be as burdened by God’s law as we are.

• Instead of seeing commands like "love one another" as being difficult and odious, the full Christian is challenged by it, and recognizes that God would, and that if he is to be like God, he will too.
• Since the full Christian lives for one purpose, which is to be like the Father, knowing what the Father is like is the most important task on earth.
• This sense of purpose provides comfort, direction, stability, and contentment.
• The full Christian knows just where he belongs and what he’s working toward.
• Self-help gurus talk about having "congruence," wherein you write down what are your "life goals" and then make sure that everything you do is dedicated to achieving those goals. When all your actions are in line with your goals, you achieve "congruence," and with it a great sense of self-worth and fulfillment. Well, it turns out they’re exactly right, but somewhat late to the party. The writer of Ecclesiastes teaches that to fear God is the whole duty of man. And the Bible tells how to bring our actions in line with that goal. God has revealed himself to us for exactly that purpose - so that we can be like Him.

In Eph. 4-5, Paul expounds on this very thing. He explains in detail how to come in "congruence" with the will of God, and thus to take advantage of and fully realize the grand storehouse of spiritual gifts God offers us. He details one thing after another that we can do to be like God. If we are immature and not fully committed to the goal, then we see these as difficult tasks to try to do. If we are mature, we see them as the keys to happiness, that secret elixir that man has sought since the beginning of time (c.f. Ecclesiastes).

God has revealed to us the mystery of the gospel, the good news (Eph. 1:9 - "Having made known unto us the mystery of his will, according to his good pleasure which he hath purposed in himself:"). He has told us the secret; we must recognize it as such, and be joyful in having found it, not discouraged in trying to accept it. Paul even says we were "created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them." (Eph. 2:10) The human being is much happier when being good than when being evil, in spite of our tendency to value short-term pleasure over long-term contentment. We are made in the image of God, and departure from His nature is painful to us all at some level.

So how can we have this joy? How can we improve our own understanding of what God has done for us? One thing we must do is honestly examine our own sins, and the magnitude of what we’ve done, and of what we’ve been forgiven. We forget, or never realize, that sin is not an accident; we choose to do what is wrong. We openly rebel against God, but don’t want to believe that of ourselves, even when we admit wrong. Our understanding of sin is incomplete, and is colored by our own tendency to excuse ourselves. We do not understand fully how bad sin is, and how bad God hates it. I believe this same lack of understanding contributes to our difficulty in loving God as we should and in forgiving one another as we should (Eph. 4:32).

We have to get away from our tendency to classify sins as "big" or "little" or "bad" or "not-so-bad". Take, for example, the sin of materialism. That’s an easy sin, one that we can practice in private, and no one really has to know. It’s a nice, sophisticated white-collar sin, where as something like adultery or murder are blue-collar, low-down, nasty dirty sins. But in the story of the rich man and Lazarus, the rich man, whose only sin in the story was materialism, woke up in torment after his death. In torment, right there beside the idolaters and witches and liars and adulterers and murderers. In fact, reading some of the "sin lists" carefully yields up quite a large number of "white collar" sins. Morally, all sin is repugnant and abominable before God, regardless of how men view it.

Jesus dealt with this issue in Matthew 7:3-5 when he warns us to first take out the beam in our own eye before trying to remove the mote in our brother’s eye. The idea is not, as some have tried to make it, that you can only point out wrong-doing on others’ part if you are completely perfect yourself (which we will never be, in which case we would never be able to look out for each other’s souls). Instead, the idea is to make sure that we are as scrupulous in cleaning out our own house as we are when we go and try to clean out someone else’s. Don’t ignore and minimize our own sins.

Another very simple thing that we can all do, today or tonight or tomorrow or whenever, is to make a list. Take a good old paper and pencil, and 10 minutes of our valuable time. Sit down without the TV or radio on, away from distractions. Then, think of how God is, and Jesus was here on earth, and compare ourselves. There are going to be some big differences. Ignore those for now, not because they’re unimportant, but because we want to keep things simple. Again, our buddies the self-help gurus tell us that it is very important when beginning a long-term change to start with short-term successes. So start with little things, and make a list of 10 little things you can do to be more like Christ.

• Can you pray regularly one more time than you do now (for some people, one more than now may equal "1", but that’s OK – progress is what we’re after)?
• Could you take more interest in your spouse’s spiritual development?
• Can you make a point to speak to someone at church to whom you haven’t ever had much to say? Could you eat lunch with them?
• Can you memorize a verse of scripture every week?
• Can you control your reactions to people at work, for just one day, in such a way that they will notice a difference?
• Can you invite someone to church with you? Can you send them a card doing so?
• Can you make a special point of thanking God for saving you from your sins the next time you pray?

Little things make a difference, and we have to start somewhere. It doesn’t matter how small the item is; make them as small as you want. Just make sure that for every item on the list, doing it would bring you closer, no matter how little, to God. Get moving in the right direction, and worry about speeding up your journey later.

We all need to spend some time thinking seriously about whether we really intend to be a Christian. Consider whether you are a half-Christian or a full Christian right now. We must ask ourselves some questions:

• What motivates me as a Christian?
• How motivated am I by it?
• How do I view my service to God?
• How much am I willing to sacrifice for it? Am I willing to give up my entire family for God? My job or my house? My credit rating? My friends? My hobbies and pleasures?
• Just how committed do I want to be?

We can change ourselves, but we first have to recognize our faults. We have to realize the magnitude of what we have done wrong, and the magnitude of what God has done right. We have to recognize clearly the great gulf between a life of sin and a life fully committed to God. There should be no mistaking the change in our life when we become Christians.

And this is not something that we can do once every year. It’s not a New Year’s resolution list, a meaningless formality that we go through. It’s a serious and recurring examination of who we are and who we want to be, and what’s important to us. We have to stay the course, and remain steadfast in our faith. We have to do what Paul did and "finish our course and keep the faith."

How much of a Christian am I? We all have to answer this question. The scary thing is, God already knows the answer, because He looks at our hearts in truth, and we look at them through the prism of our own bias. We often look at ourselves and see only what we want to. Where we spend eternity is going to depend on the answer to that question. God knows where I really stand; do I?