When you walk into a room....?

The David Alliance [email protected]  Garth Heckman Joy Unshakeable    Acts 16 Paul and Silas   Read story and highlight: Military city,  MOB RULES:did not want to hear what they had to say… the crowd was blind with rage… they should not have been beaten until trial as Roman citizens.    *Joy starts with focus not feelings.   Happiness depends on what happens… so you have to do the work to make good things happen. *YOU BECOME A SLAVE TO PERFORMING, AND CIRCUMSTANCES.      Falsely accused (Emotionally abused), Beaten (Physically abused in public to humiliate)  Locked away from everyone in the deepest part of the dungeon… Most likely where the raw sewage flowed. (Socially abused) Chained (Mentally abused and in stocks) Archaeological evidence from sites like the gladiator barracks at Pompeii - torture racks.  **AND AT MIDNIGHT: Why Midnight Singing Is Even More Remarkable Than It First Appears   Put the whole picture together: Paul and Silas had been publicly stripped, beaten with rods by state lictors, thrown into the inner prison (the most secure, likely darkest and most miserable section), and their legs forced into a device specifically designed to maximize ongoing physical suffering. And at midnight — the point of deepest exhaustion and vulnerability — "they were praying and singing hymns to God, and the prisoners were listening to them" (v. 25).   THESE WERE NOT QUIET MURMURINGS - The Greek word for "singing hymns" here is hymneō — the same root behind our English "hymn" — meaning they weren't just murmuring quiet comfort to themselves; they were audibly, deliberately worshiping, loud enough that the entire prison population was listening.     **Look at all that is HAPPENING to them. Happiness is based on what Happens. It is called “happenstance”.     But Spiritually they still knew where they stood. They still experienced joy.    *Joy starts with focus not feelings.   Happiness depends on what happens… so you have to do the work to make good things happen. *YOU BECOME A SLAVE TO PERFORMING, AND CIRCUMSTANCES.    Vs. joy which focuses on the outcome not the current circumstances.     Joy is best served with friends. Go to an amusement park with no one??? Why?    Isolation kills joy     Your joy affects others   Are you the one who people love to see walk into a room?   The joy experienced by Paul and Silas freed the other prisoners.      Joy preceded their deliverance   They did not rejoice because they were free - they rejoiced and that is what freed them!