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At times I have wished that our spiritual battle was really a physical melee with swords and guns and obvious foes. The horrors of modern day war, sometimes seem worth having something tangible that you can see and feel. There have been times that temptations and hardships have come from the devil in my life that I wished that he were a flesh and blood person that I could beat into submission, or that life itself was a man with which I could vent my frustrations. Maybe I sound sort of crazy, but perhaps at times you have shared the same frustrations that I often have about the limitations of our physical bodies. We are prone to sickness. We get tired. We have emotions that either spur us to action or cause us to travel the way of the sluggard. We have feelings that we too often wear on our shoulders and are easily offended. We are limited in our physical life span. We are all slowly aging and becoming more "tireder" and more decrepit.

I point out those attributes because all of us have them and the angels, which includes the fallen angel the devil, do not. Jesus really chose the lowest residency into which to be born, by coming in human flesh. That's why the book of Hebrews says that "he made himself lower than the angels." Because angels do not have to worry about money, depression, blood pressure, stress, aging, emotions, feelings, sickness, tiredness, etc... Their spiritual bodies are beyond that, and so the devil has somewhat of an advantage over us in the physical. That is why if you trust in your own self, Satan will beat you every time because you do not have within yourself the physical ability to beat Satan. But oh, thank God that He chose to dwell in such a lowly creature and to manifest His power within us so that we could overcome the traps of Satan and the disappointments of life. Because He came to earth and became "lower than the angels" then one day we will rise above the earth and become "greater than the angels!" We'll -- like the angels -- be beyond sickness and heartache and depression and feelings and aging, but -- unlike the angels -- we will also still know first hand about the love and salvation power of God as we sing the one song that the angels cannot sing: the song of the redeemed!

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In our text, the Apostle Paul has been in prison trying to get to Rome to talk to Caesar for over two years. He was arrested in Jerusalem on false charges and in order to escape the corrupt Jewish government there, had appealed to Caesar and was taken to the sea port of Caesarea where he was to board a boat for Rome. Paul was excited about going to Rome, not only because he wanted an opportunity to witness to Caesar, himself, but because he had been looking forward to visiting many of the churches already established there by some of the people that he had won to God. To Paul's chagrin, instead of being shipped directly to Italy, he found himself in the care of a corrupt dictator, Felix, who realized that Paul was innocent but refused to release him because he hoped that some wealthy friends of Paul's might pay a huge amount of money for his release. The night before Paul's first hearing God had spoken to him and told him "fear not" because you are going to be a tremendous witness for me in Rome, yet Paul find himself stuck in a prison under the care of a man who wants to release him and yet wants a bribe.

I point out the details and context of the situation of Paul only to be honest with you how I and probably most of you would have acted in his situation. You know it's the will of God for you to witness in Rome and to have great revival there. You have been so excited about going to Rome that you don't even mind going as a prisoner. You've written a letter to the church in Rome saying over and over again about how much you can't wait to get there. You're at the place where you can board the ship, and then some idiot let's you rot in jail for two years while he tries to see if he can make money off of you. Meanwhile, I would have probably going crazy and asking God a lot of questions. "Why I am I here?" "I thought that you spoke to me God that I was going to Rome?" "What good is my ministry in this cell?" Some people would have even given up on God and stopped living for Him, because I've seen people get mad at God over a lot less. For two years, Paul cannot see his friends. He cannot travel. He cannot fulfill the direction of God for his life. He cannot do anything but wait. Have you ever been at a time in your life that you felt like you were just wasting time and that God had you "on hold?" That's what Paul felt like as we go into our text.

After approximately two years of sitting and waiting for something to happen, Felix was replaced by another ruler named Festus. Before Festus shipped Paul off to Rome, he called some friends of his, King Agrippa and Bernice his sister, and called Paul to defend himself against the charges put up by the Jewish people. Felix was a lost cause, but Paul had heard that King Agrippa -- although not a believer in Jesus -- deeply and totally believed in the Old Testament scripture as the true Word of God. And so Paul stands up and makes a tremendous statement considering what he has been enduring the last two years, and is also a phrase that holds truth beyond it's surface meaning:

"I think myself happy, king Agrippa." Paul was basically saying that he was glad to finally have an opportunity to answer the charges in court. But the way he said it lets us in on the secret to Paul's tremendous anointing and faith. "I think myself happy."

Can I tell you that is God's will first and foremost for His children to be happy and contented in every possible situation? Paul wrote in another of his letters that he had learned "in everything to be content." He also wrote that the kingdom of God was "righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost." Another time he assured the church that to "be thankful" is the "will of God concerning you." Jesus Christ did not die to produce a bunch of prune-faced, depressed, church goers who look as if they were sucking on a lemon when their favorite dog died. He died to produce in this frail, limited, and painful human body a people who are so different -- so peculiar -- that people can tell from their day to day attitude that they are the true children of God. We talk a lot about our outward actions and our physical appearance and our mouths and many other areas of our witness, but what about your general everyday attitude? What about the position of your lips -- whether or not they continually scowl, or form pleasant smiles? I've been in churches that got up and talked about the "joy of the lord" or even sang about it, and I wasn't convinced by their facial expressions that they even knew the meaning of the word "joy" let alone the "joy of the lord." They were saying that they were happy, but somewhere their brain forgot to notify their face of the development!

It's God's will for you to be truly happy. In fact you ought to be one of the happiest persons at your work or school. People ought to come up to you and tell you "you look so happy." People used to tell me that before, but it's been a while, so perhaps I am preaching to myself tonight as well as each of you. Life is too short to wear a frown all of the time, and simply put, if Jesus Christ is King of our life, then it ought to show on the outside!

It is the will of God for you to be happy. But it is also the will of God for trials and bad days to come. Persecution is the perfect will of God according to scripture. In fact, Jesus told us to expect it:

We should not be surprised when the world has it out for us or when persecute us: they were doing it to Jesus long before we ever came along. It's the perfect will of God for you to go through trials because only through being broken do our lives become melted down like that "gold" that I preached about this morning. Only through going through things, is God able to remove the impurities and mold and shape us into the image that He wants our lives to fit within. It's the perfect will of God for us to go through things. Just because you become a Christian believer doesn't mean that your life becomes perfect or that everything will always be non-stressful. In fact, in many cases the persecution and trials increase the moment that you try to do something for God. Job was persecuted simply because he was the most righteous man in the land. He was persecuted and targeted by both God and Satan simply because he was doing everything RIGHT! Jesus said that it rained on the "just and the unjust" just so the world could see that God is fair!

Peter wrote along the same lines:

And so did James:

If all of that is true, then, that it is God's will for us to be genuinely happy, and it is also God's will for us to endure some trials and hardships, then you MUST get the revelation of Paul in order for you to always be able to fulfill the complete will of God. Paul's revelation is this: I don't have to have everything to go right in order to be happy. In fact my happiness is derived by my attitude toward God and my situation rather than by the situation itself. In other words, Paul said, how I allow myself to view and focus upon my situation determines whether or not I am genuinely happy or not. And Paul put it in a clever way: "I think myself happy."

Everything is going against him, he's bound in a courtroom in fetters on false charges before a bunch of accusers who want his life. He's spent two years doing nothing waiting on the will of God to unfold in his life and yet he looks at Agrippa and says "I think myself happy." The opposite would have been true if he would have let himself get despondent and depressed like some of us would have: if he would have been sad he could have said "I think myself depressed." His mental well being was based upon how he let himself think in his circumstance!

What emotional state do you "think yourself into?" When everything starts going against you and attacks seem to come at all sides, do you "think yourself into a defensive shell?" Do you "think yourself into a recluse?" Do you "think yourself into depression?" What you allow to flow through your mind and for your thoughts to dwell upon, is going to "think you" into your state of mind. I'm not talking about the power of just positive or negative thought. I'm talking about the way we allow ourselves to view our situations within ourselves. You are going to either "think yourself happy," or you will eventually "think yourself sad." I've known people to allow their mind begin to run with what ifs and condemnation and negativity and they "think themselves" right out of living for God! Sin is first conceived within the mind and so is obedience! What do you think yourself into!?

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The issue is that however you view your circumstances is usually what your circumstances are going to become. One of the most powerful verses in scripture that proves this is found in the stories of the spies that were sent to "spy out" the promised land ahead of the children of Israel. 12 men were sent with the intentions that their descriptions of all of the wealth and of the beautiful vineyards and houses and streams would spur the people into an eagerness to push into the land that God had promised. God had taken great pains to get the millions of Israelites from Egypt to this special land of promise and He wanted the people to be excited about the blessings of God.

The problem came when the 12 spies saw the huge giants in Canaan Land and instead of realizing that a God who just wiped out the entire Egyptian army in one fell swoop of the Red Sea, certainly will have no problems with a few long legged giants, they began to be afraid. They begin to allow their mind to focus on how much bigger and stronger the enemy looked. They began to focus on their own shortcomings and before it was over, they had "thought themselves into scaredy-cats." Instead of bringing up a positive report of how beautiful the land was the scriptures say that they reported out of fear. The verses actually read:

"we were in our own sight as grasshoppers, and so we were in their sight." That is a powerful lesson on what we "think ourselves into." Instead of depending upon the Lord and trusting upon His strength, the spies began to focus mentally on their shortcomings and faults and lack of strength. And notice that when they "were in their own sights as grasshoppers," then "so were we in their sight." In other words the enemy might have been scared of the Israelites of whose God they had heard had wiped out the entire Egyptian army, but when they saw the fearfulness in the Israelis eyes and the way that they viewed themselves, then all of a sudden the enemy was not afraid!

Every one of us have been through a trial and a situation where our worst fears began to take over our minds. Every one of us have been in situations where we allowed ourselves to imagine hurts and situations that were not even there but yet caused real problems because we acted as if they were real. We all have "thought ourselves into trouble!"

That's why worry is such a danger to the child of God. Let's call worry what it is: a lack of faith and trust in God. If we are really trusting in God, then what do we have to worry about? He is all powerful and all knowing! But "worry" is a sure sign that you are trusting in your own power to try to get out of a situation. Worry is doubt and unbelief therefore worry robs us of our joy and our of true happiness. And the devil is a coward. He attacks the areas of our life of which he has no danger of being attacked himself. He attacks with sickness because as an angel, he has no blood and therefore cannot get sick. He attacks our human emotions and tries to get us so panicky and worried that it affects our relationship with God. But let us learn to be like Paul. I'm not sure what God is doing in my life. I'm having to patiently wait just to have an opportunity to see what is going to happen. Everything has gone wrong that can go wrong, and I'm the most lonely that I have ever been. Yet "I think myself happy!" I refuse to even allow my mind to wander to doubt or disbelief. I refuse to even entertain thoughts of quitting or walking away. I refuse to allow this prison cell to dictate to me my attitude and my response to others. "I think myself happy." I'm going to remind myself of all that God has done for me. I'm going to be content in whatsoever I find myself facing. I'm going to be joyful in the worst situations because it might just be during that storm that I have the greatest opportunity to do the most powerful work for God!

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Perhaps I am belaboring the point, but I want to point out to you that the men and women who were a success for God all had one thing in common: the ability to "think themselves happy." The ability to control their thoughts and minds and focus on the goodness of God in the worst of circumstances.

I like the story of Daniel and the lion's den because in the story, Daniel is the one who gets thrown into the den of hungry lions and yet the king is the one who can't sleep because of worry. The king is pacing restlessly in his fine palace while Daniel snuggles up to one of those cute little kitties whose jaw is firmly held tight by an angel and restfully sleeping! The king may have had a throne and a palace but he did not trust God and therefore was still miserable! Yet we find the next morning the king being soothed and comforted by the one who had been thrown to the lions! Daniel had the ability to "think himself happy." He never spoke an evil word against those who had conspired to have him killed. He understood that "revenge" would lead to unhappiness and ill-contentment. He just reminded himself of the faithfulness of his God and then cheerfully allowed himself to be lowered into the pit!

The scripture records in I Samuel that David and his men were out one day fighting for what they thought were just causes and they came home to find that while they had been out an enemy had come in and burned their homes and taken all of their belongings as well as kidnapping their wives and children. As the grief and full impact of what had happened began to sink into the men's thoughts, they began to get angry at David, as if it was his fault that it had happened.

I want you to realize that David was in a serious predicament. He was at the lowest of lows. He had had his first wife taken away by Saul because of he was jealous over the acclaim that David had gotten for killing Goliath. He was forced to live outside of the promised land where he had to fight day and night against the enemies who wanted to kill him to say that they "had killed the one who had killed Goliath." He's been anointed king but cannot even live in the country where he is to be king over. And he comes back to find everything that he owns gone or burned and his wife and kids gone. AND the only friends that he has all begin to turn against him and blame him for something that he had nothing to do with. He's all alone and in the worst of situations and so David has a choice: he either becomes bitter and loses out with God or he does what the scriptures say that he did:

He encouraged himself in the Lord his God! He refused to get mad at God. He refused to even get bitter at the traitors around him. When no one else would help, he encouraged himself in God! David went to the man of God in the very next verse and asked God for help. He began to remind himself of what he felt like standing on that battle field with that giant so many years ago and he remembered the talks and promises that God had made on a shepherd field long ago when David had learned to trust in God. And David refused to allow himself to think in a defeated mode. He refused to allow himself to be negative. Decisively, he led a charge on the enemy which got all of their things and families back, and the men who had been about to stone him became the men who would risk their lives for him when he became king. They were glad to follow someone who could "encourage himself in the Lord." Someone like that inspired confidence! Someone like that obviously had a relationship with God worth following!

You can't discourage someone who can encourage themselves in the Lord! There have been times when I wished someone would have called and I wished my wife had the words to say, but they did not, so I got alone with myself and I encouraged myself in the Lord! I began to remind myself of everything that God has done for me, from the time that He washed my sins away on. I refuse to allow myself to get into a pity party. I refuse to "think myself" into depression or into a mindset of failure. I focus on the power of God and in so doing, not only encourage myself but put my trust completely in Him!

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Not only must we learn to "think ourselves happy" in times of distress or duress; in times that we are lonely, confused, or persecuted. But we must also "think ourselves happy" in our attitude toward the things of God, serving God, and the man of God. In our other Moses told the children of Israel:

That's pretty heavy words! The children of Israel would be slaves to their enemies because they served God without being "joyful about it" and with "gladness of heart." It is not enough to serve God. It is not even enough to serve God faithfully if you've got a bad attitude about it; if the spirit of joy and happiness is not the driving force behind your actions and praise!

Jesus washed the disciples feet on the night of His arrest in the role of a common servant and then told them:

Notice that last verse: if you get the revelation of the joy of serving, then you will be happy if you do them! We must get the revelation of the joy of serving God and each other! It is not a drudgery to live holy. It is not a drudgery to come to church and worship. It is not a drudgery to work out differences with my brothers and sisters and it is not something to be dreaded. It is a joy, if I approach it humbly with a towel on my hand wanting to help others become more comfortable and welcome in the kingdom of God. But if I have the attitude that I am "owed" respect." If I have the attitude that "I am to be served." If I have the attitude that "I am better than everyone else" and do not care about the well-being of others, then I will be extremely unhappy serving God and the kingdom of God. And the sad thing is eventually my unhappiness in serving God will lead to my cursing -- as it did the children of Israel -- and my being enslaved to my worry and my flesh and my fears!

If I am going to be an overcomer, then I must "think myself happy." I must remember that my God is in control and as long as I keep faithfully and happily serving Him, everything is going to be alright! If God fails me, then I will be the first person that has ever lived who He has failed! But He cannot fail, and therefore I must encourage myself in the Lord!

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I close with this:

The books of Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, Philemon, 1 and 2 Timothy, and Titus were all written by the Apostle Paul from a Roman Jail. You have to know that to tell it, because the letters are joyful and happily written. Some of the more somber and "serious" letters written such as 1 and 2 Corinthians were written while Paul was still free! Paul chose to be happy, and the funniest thing was that because he "thought himself happy" Paul was actually freer than the soldiers who had to guard him. No doubt Paul pointed this out to his captors. {adlib if needed} They had to be seriously on the job and worried about his escape while Paul could choose to be happy if he wanted to be! He answered only to Jesus Christ!

In one letter, Paul gets in an argument with himself about whether or not it would be better to die or to live. It is not in a depressing tone. To live, says Paul, is to be able to win more souls to Jesus Christ. To die, is to be with Jesus Christ. "It's a tough decision!" What do you do with someone like Paul who "thinks himself happy" if you are the enemy? There is nothing that you can do! Even after he was killed, his happiness is still being preached thousands of years later! Don't you think the devil helplessly hates Paul's happiness!? You'd better believe it, and that's why he does not want you to get the revelation that you do not have to give into circumstances and the demands of an imperfect world. You can control your thoughts and choose to be happy.

Of the "prison epistles" I want to end by pointing out two scriptures that I think best illustrate my point. In writing to the church in Philippi, Paul writes:

Did you catch that? While captive in prison, Paul was winning people that were members of Caesar's household! Those in the palace were so struck by this prisoner's happiness and message, that they wanted it for themselves!

And the other passage of scripture in the same chapter:

Choose to think on the goodness of God and things which obey this verse. Refuse to dwell upon the negatives of people and upon self-pity and fear. Learn the secret of Paul's ministry and faithfulness: "think yourself happy!"