Speaker 1: Hey, what up?
Speaker 1: It's Mark Carter on, the Pastor of Fierce Church.
Speaker 1: Welcome to our podcast.
Speaker 1: I'm so pumped that you're able to join us today.
Speaker 1: I hope this encourages you, inspires you, strengthens you, gives you hope to keep pressing on, and it's my prayer that this sermon gives you a more expansive view of God's love for you.
Speaker 1: Enjoy the message.
Speaker 1: I start thinking of powerful names.
Speaker 1: I don't think names are particularly powerful anymore, but I'm thinking about… so just go with me, it's nerdy the Lord of the Rings.
Speaker 1: I'm thinking of Sauron, and it's kind of like a whisper.
Speaker 1: You don't even want to say it because it's dangerous.
Speaker 1: You don't know that that Lord of Darkness won't lash out if you say his name in the wrong place because it's a formidable name.
Speaker 1: Well, of course it's not really a formidable name, but there is a formidable name and it's Jesus.
Speaker 1: There's so much power in the name of Jesus that if you just bring that power before an enemy that's in the way, a thing that won't move, a difficult situation that's sticky and just can't seem to heal or can't seem to get past, if we just bring… Say, hey, man, I tried all my stuff, but let me just bring you to the name of Jesus and see what you do with that.
Speaker 1: I want to do that right now in prayer.
Speaker 1: So I want you to grab whatever is the most difficult situation.
Speaker 1: You've got the stuff.
Speaker 1: You're like I don't know how that's ever going to work, and we're going to bring that right up face to face with Jesus Christ.
Speaker 1: Ever say Jesus, why don't you go ahead and take that for me, because your name is formidable.
Speaker 1: Let's do it.
Speaker 1: Bow our heads right now, jesus, there is nothing that is hard, even a little bit, for you.
Speaker 1: We recognize that there's some stuff we're dealing with that you put us here and you want us to go through this and you plan on holding our hand and helping us squeeze through the pain.
Speaker 1: But there's other stuff that is lying to us and it's telling us that it's a giant Goliath and there's no getting past it and it's here forever and it's permanent, and it's stuff like addictions, it's stuff like eating disorders, it's stuff like weariness, it's stuff like loneliness, it's stuff like disease.
Speaker 1: It's stuff like lack of financial margin, and we don't care what it is, lord, we're tired of using our name.
Speaker 1: We want to bring it face to face with the name of Jesus.
Speaker 1: Lord, here it is, here's all of our things.
Speaker 1: We pray, jesus, that you'd use your power on it and we command it to step back in Jesus' name, amen.
Speaker 1: Well, this is my first day and I already like this church man, so I think it's good.
Speaker 1: It's not really my first day.
Speaker 1: I don't just go to churches and walk up on stage if you're new with us today.
Speaker 1: But hey, I'm excited because we're talking about joy today.
Speaker 1: Hey, you can have negativity for free all day long, but if you want positivity, if you want joy, you're going to have to push for it.
Speaker 1: You're going to have to get it.
Speaker 1: You're going to have to take it.
Speaker 1: You can have negative every day, all day long, but if you want joy, you got to go take it.
Speaker 1: It's free, but it don't seem to come cheap.
Speaker 1: Before we do that, hey, real quick pastor announcements.
Speaker 1: We have a newish website.
Speaker 1: It's like a couple of weeks old.
Speaker 1: We've got a tool.
Speaker 1: If you've ever many of some of you might be new and you're like you've never been to the website before or maybe that's how you found out about fears.
Speaker 1: Others of you, you've been around for a long time and you go to the website the one we used to have, like me, and I'm like I can't find a dog on thing on this stupid website.
Speaker 1: So we made a hub for you.
Speaker 1: Super easy, barely an inconvenience.
Speaker 1: If you just go to fearschurchhub, most of the things you're looking to find if you've been around for a while is right there, so you can just go right there.
Speaker 1: Here's something else that I find exciting.
Speaker 1: So we started to call schools and social workers and said, hey, what do students need right now?
Speaker 1: What are they going to be needing over the next season?
Speaker 1: And they told us well, they need a lot of clothes, they need a lot of stuff like winter gloves.
Speaker 1: And so we're going to try something.
Speaker 1: We're going to try this one for all campaign.
Speaker 1: It's a monthly campaign, month by month.
Speaker 1: It's not financial, it is you're going to find the thing that we list on the bottom of the screen for one month, when you're in the supermarket, when you're at the department store, wherever you are, and you just remember, oh, I want a student to have one of these, and you just grab it and you just bring it here to church.
Speaker 1: Just get one.
Speaker 1: We just got one to get one for everybody.
Speaker 1: So just grab one.
Speaker 1: And then next month we'll do something else, and then next month we'll do something else.
Speaker 1: We'll have a little bin in here next week and you can start throwing your winter gloves in there.
Speaker 1: Does that sound like a deal?
Speaker 1: All right, let's get back to God's word.
Speaker 1: We've been talking about the fruit of the spirit.
Speaker 1: We're in this series called Nine, nine Fruit of the Spirit.
Speaker 1: We started a couple weeks ago talking about love.
Speaker 1: Last week Erica talked about Peace Force fantastic sermon.
Speaker 1: I was excited to hear it.
Speaker 1: And now we're going to talk about joy.
Speaker 1: I gotta tell you about joy, man, I don't think I ever, really I don't think most of my Christian walk.
Speaker 1: I've been walking with Jesus for like 27 years, 28 years, and I don't think this was really like a thing I was zeroing in on as importance.
Speaker 1: And as I studied the New Testament, I'm like, oh my gosh, I've been missing a chunk of what Jesus has provided for those who would trust him completely.
Speaker 1: So we've been coming through this verse Galatians 5, 22,.
Speaker 1: But the Holy Spirit produces this kind of fruit in our lives Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness and then self-control.
Speaker 1: It's in the next verse, and we said the first week that they're all expressions of love.
Speaker 1: So love is kind of first, and they're all different expressions of how we love people in Jesus' name.
Speaker 1: It's Jesus living through us, and so the book ends.
Speaker 1: Love and then self-control on the other side.
Speaker 1: So it's all love, but we have to operate in self-control.
Speaker 1: We have to give ourselves to do it.
Speaker 1: We have to decide to do it.
Speaker 1: If I decide to go ahead and love, god will love through me.
Speaker 1: But I've got to decide.
Speaker 1: I've got to have the self-control to be able to do it, and He'll do it just like I could do it through you, more than it would have worked on your own.
Speaker 1: If you just tried to do it on your own, it wouldn't have the same kiss of the Holy Spirit.
Speaker 1: And so we're going to be seeking, during this series, to grow in all these.
Speaker 1: I just want to remind everybody a walk with Jesus is progressive through life, and so you don't have to be there yet, you don't have to have to like conquered and crushed.
Speaker 1: All these goals, man, we're all just, we keep on walking toward heaven.
Speaker 1: We're walking hand in hand with the Holy Spirit, hand in hand with one another, and sometimes you get a little bit ahead and sometimes you fall behind.
Speaker 1: Wherever you are with any of these fruit.
Speaker 1: Hey, you don't need to do perfect, let's just keep going, let's just go to the next step, let's just keep taking step after step.
Speaker 1: Now, what you got to know about joy is it is both.
Speaker 1: It's a noun, okay, it's a thing.
Speaker 1: It's a thing that we have.
Speaker 1: You've had joy, I've had joy, you had something new happen.
Speaker 1: You're like yay, that's joy, but it's also a verb.
Speaker 1: Every time you hear in the Bible rejoice, that just means verb joy, like do joy, go ahead and rock joy.
Speaker 1: So it's both.
Speaker 1: It's a thing, but it's also a thing we do.
Speaker 1: It's an action or, to say it a different way, it is an emotional response that we have, but it's also a decision that we make.
Speaker 1: So here's what we're gonna say today the Lord provides supernatural joy to those who seek it.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna give you a definition here.
Speaker 1: Joy is the spirit produced.
Speaker 1: In the context we're talking about is the spirit produced, faith accessed, inner heart, celebration of the victory one has been given in Christ, even before the victory is fully manifest, based on one's complete trust in God.
Speaker 1: Joy comes actually by trusting that somebody else knows the full story, and it doesn't have to be you and I.
Speaker 1: Someone else is in charge.
Speaker 1: Someone else is running the joint, someone else is supernaturally taking care of business.
Speaker 1: That's what's happening.
Speaker 1: So occasionally my wife and I will go out to our favorite restaurant, which is Wall Fire, and we'll get the calamari almost every time.
Speaker 1: Over the years, a few times it's been like eh, what happened?
Speaker 1: What happened with the calamari?
Speaker 1: It's not as crisp as it usually is.
Speaker 1: There's just weird.
Speaker 1: And yet, because we've had so many positive experiences, we're like no fear, the rest of the night will be good.
Speaker 1: We've built some trust with this establishment.
Speaker 1: We know they're gonna take care of us and you know what they do.
Speaker 1: Now, of course, they're just humans and they're gonna get stuff wrong from time to time.
Speaker 1: But when things begin to go wrong in our life, we're like what's up with this calamari?
Speaker 1: It's not time to lose all hope in the one running the joint.
Speaker 1: Jesus Christ, okay.
Speaker 1: Just because the calamari isn't quite as crisp as you thought or you'd hoped doesn't mean he's lost his mind or taken a break from the throne.
Speaker 1: It's all gonna be just fine.
Speaker 1: But we gotta have trust.
Speaker 1: If we keep having trust, we can continue to walk in joy.
Speaker 1: Listen to this.
Speaker 1: This is so dope.
Speaker 1: John 15, 11, jesus talking to his disciples and he says something that you would almost miss.
Speaker 1: These things I've spoken to you so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be made to the full, your joy may be to the full, so that my joy may be in you.
Speaker 1: So we're talking about walking in the fruit of joy, the joy of the Holy Spirit.
Speaker 1: We need to understand it's not just like Jesus says, like here's some joy.
Speaker 1: He's like here's my joy.
Speaker 1: I want you to be experiencing joy with me.
Speaker 1: That's rejoicing in the Lord.
Speaker 1: It's you and Jesus rejoicing together with Jesus's joy.
Speaker 1: Come on, somebody.
Speaker 1: That's pretty doggone awesome.
Speaker 1: What else we know about that is?
Speaker 1: I mean, have you thought about this y'all?
Speaker 1: It is God's will that you have joy.
Speaker 1: Isn't that what Jesus just said?
Speaker 1: I've spoken these things to you so that my joy may be in you and so that your joy may be made full.
Speaker 1: It is God's will.
Speaker 1: Sometimes we wanna know, man, I wish I knew what God's will.
Speaker 1: He probably just wishes I'd just be a better person, or something like that.
Speaker 1: Well, whatever else God's will is for your life.
Speaker 1: It's that you walk in more and more continual joy, the joy of Jesus himself.
Speaker 1: Is that trippy dude that trips me out.
Speaker 1: Listen to this, we're gonna go deeper.
Speaker 1: Romans 14, 17,.
Speaker 1: For the kingdom of God, it's not a matter of what we eat or drink.
Speaker 1: Okay.
Speaker 1: So Paul the Apostle.
Speaker 1: He's talking to the Romans and he's saying hey, some of you guys are really excited about.
Speaker 1: You think eating this is gonna make God more happy and some of you think not eating this is gonna make God more happy.
Speaker 1: He says, yo, it ain't about what you eat.
Speaker 1: It ain't about getting better with specific or particular rules here's where it's about but of living a life of goodness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit.
Speaker 1: And joy we're gonna come back to that one because it's really important but it's joy in the Holy Spirit.
Speaker 1: Joy is like a birthmark for those that have trusted Christ.
Speaker 1: It's like it's proof of the genuine article.
Speaker 1: I know my wife's voice.
Speaker 1: You probably know people's voices who are near and dear to you.
Speaker 1: You could hear their voice in the dark and you would still know it was them, because you know the voice when the fruit of the Spirit is coming out through a human.
Speaker 1: That is the voice of Jesus to the world and you know it's real when it sounds like him.
Speaker 1: What does it sound like.
Speaker 1: It sounds like love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faithless self-control.
Speaker 1: But joy is in there, the joy of Jesus.
Speaker 1: Oh, I recognize that joy.
Speaker 1: That's Jesus's joy.
Speaker 1: He's the one.
Speaker 1: Now, here's our problem is that we put our joy, or we try to derive our joy, from fleeting things.
Speaker 1: We try to get it out of stuff, and it's often the stuff that the world tells us we should be getting joy out of.
Speaker 1: There's the cultural gods of the day.
Speaker 1: They're stuff like beauty, stuff like wealth.
Speaker 1: They're gods that say bow down to me, and if you're really good, I'll give you joy, I'll give you help, I'll give you excitement, I'll help you be more beautiful.
Speaker 1: Maybe I'll get you more money than maybe you'll be happy.
Speaker 1: And those are just false gods.
Speaker 1: They're just idols.
Speaker 1: They make a lot of promises.
Speaker 1: You can spend your last breath for them and they don't care about you.
Speaker 1: Of course, jesus Christ spent his last breath for you because he cares and because he's the true God.
Speaker 1: But we get all of our excitement and all of our devotion into these gods and then they disappoint and then we lose our joy, because our joy was in those things.
Speaker 1: But that's not really where we were ever supposed to get joy.
Speaker 1: So here's a little illustration.
Speaker 1: Let's pretend that you're in a season of life and your season of life is like this apple oh gosh, geez man, that's a hard life you had right there.
Speaker 1: Oh my gosh, I feel bad for you.
Speaker 1: Already we prayed for you.
Speaker 1: You got better.
Speaker 1: Here you are now.
Speaker 1: Okay, this is a season of your life, but the truth is, on earth, you still get holes in the apple, you get little bruises this is sin and hell and all kinds of stuff bleeding and leaking into your and my life.
Speaker 1: And we're like, oh my gosh, why do I even have to deal with this?
Speaker 1: Now, I don't have joy because of these things.
Speaker 1: Now, you may notice, yes, those are there, but you have a lot.
Speaker 1: That isn't that.
Speaker 1: There's still a lot left of this apple.
Speaker 1: And if we're going further with this analogy, it's also not the only apple you have.
Speaker 1: Let's say that you've got.
Speaker 1: Maybe you've got a whole bag of apples.
Speaker 1: These are seasons of your life that are yet to come, that have not happened, or they're seasons you've experienced a lot of non-spotted, non-bruised, non-blemished things in your life, all that God gave you, that he wants you to have joy in.
Speaker 1: These are seasons of your life.
Speaker 1: But if we really want to have joy, we want to not only overlook the fact that, yes, there are some bruises here.
Speaker 1: We want to not only take stock of our entire lifetime of seasons in Christ.
Speaker 1: We want to look at the whole dog gone orchard, baby, because the whole orchard is the life to come.
Speaker 1: It's all that is yours and mine in Christ, if you've completely trusted Jesus to deliver you from your sin.
Speaker 1: It's everything.
Speaker 1: And let's pretend that this orchard is a wrap around the whole world.
Speaker 1: There's so much good, there's so much blessing, there's so much promise that is ahead of us.
Speaker 1: That God says even when there's stuff that is, yeah, that's not convenient, that's not easy or that's ridiculously hard, yeah, but don't put your joy in that.
Speaker 1: Put your joy in all that God has yet to give you, all that is to come.
Speaker 1: Shayokartl, that's hard, yeah, it's hard.
Speaker 1: That's what the message is about.
Speaker 1: We're gonna learn how to make it a little bit easier, because we can just get so negative, so focused on here's what's going wrong, and Jesus would just say precious.
Speaker 1: Let me just remind you there is so much, if you just think about it, that is going right, that I am doing for you and have done for you in Christ.
Speaker 1: It would just blow your mind if you were just practice thinking about it, no matter how hard the temptation or the trial is.
Speaker 1: What are we saying?
Speaker 1: We've got to let go of circumstance-based joy.
Speaker 1: We've got to get that down inside of us.
Speaker 1: We've got to let go of circumstance-based joy.
Speaker 1: Instead, let's focus on what God is doing right rather than what else is going wrong.
Speaker 1: What has God done right in my life versus what has everyone else done?
Speaker 1: Or what have I failed to do?
Speaker 1: Or what is my current blemish or current hangup or current bruise in my apple?
Speaker 1: And we've got to practice.
Speaker 1: If we will practice, if we will practice looking at Jesus and the things he's done for us rather than at the bruises, my friends, that really is the closest thing to seeing by faith on planet earth.
Speaker 1: That's us absorbing and reflecting on all the things that are ours in Christ, and it will release joy.
Speaker 1: So how do we get better at it?
Speaker 1: Well, I got to tell you I'm not, as I mentioned, I'm not particularly good at this, yet I'm like getting the revelation that I'm supposed to be doing this.
Speaker 1: So we're going to go to God's word and not my word, to make sure that we get it right.
Speaker 1: Principles of a joy filled lifestyle.
Speaker 1: Here we go.
Speaker 1: Here's number one Joy starts with the right relationship with God.
Speaker 1: It starts with the right relationship with God.
Speaker 1: Let's start at the start, baby.
Speaker 1: It starts with.
Speaker 1: The kingdom of God is not what we eat and drink, but it's righteousness, peace or living in the left of goodness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit.
Speaker 1: That peace is really important because that peace is not just peace we have.
Speaker 1: It's peace we have because we have peace with God through Jesus Christ.
Speaker 1: There's a whole lot of people they're trying really hard to be good enough.
Speaker 1: They're trying to like do their performance, they're trying to bring God to all their stuff all day long.
Speaker 1: And if they don't have a good enough, then they don't have joy Because they're just thinking about all that they haven't done or all that they've done wrong.
Speaker 1: And when we come to God through Jesus Christ, he says I don't need your good enough.
Speaker 1: Let me just tell you I love you now.
Speaker 1: I love you as is.
Speaker 1: I don't need you to add to it, I don't need you to take anything away from it.
Speaker 1: And, my friends, I know that some of you know this, but we got to preach this gospel to ourselves every day, because that's part of what's wrong with humans is we'll keep giving ourselves rules to try to appease God with, and yet he keeps saying that's not relating to me, right?
Speaker 1: You're not going to have joy that way.
Speaker 1: You've got to have joy the way I've ordained, the way I've anointed, and that is by having peace with me, by trusting that I've done all the heavy lifting for you.
Speaker 1: Check this out John 59,.
Speaker 1: Just as the Father has loved me, I have also loved you.
Speaker 1: Let's reflect on.
Speaker 1: You're going to get uncomfortable for a second.
Speaker 1: Let's reflect on the idea that Jesus loves you with a passion and with a celebration that you're afraid to think about.
Speaker 1: That's how much he's passionate for you.
Speaker 1: That's much the Father is passionate about you.
Speaker 1: Listen to this the penalty that Jesus Christ paid on the cross that did not allow the Father to start loving you.
Speaker 1: The Father loved you and so he sent Jesus.
Speaker 1: He loved you already.
Speaker 1: You started love, you know you start loved.
Speaker 1: And then, yeah, sin does make a mess, but because of the cross, it's only a mess, it's not a deal breaker, it doesn't end the relationship, and we've got to walk in that if we're really going to have joy.
Speaker 1: So you guys know this.
Speaker 1: We've got kids, we've been around kids.
Speaker 1: Let's say that you come home and they've entirely torn apart the kitchen.
Speaker 1: They've like the toilet's overflowing, there's all kinds of material on the floor, there's spouts of liquid going everywhere and you're looking at this place and you're like, wow, this is a mess and this is bad.
Speaker 1: I don't like this.
Speaker 1: This is going to improve my life for a little while here.
Speaker 1: It has hurt and damaged the environment.
Speaker 1: But you're not going to say deal breaker, that's it, not my kids, right?
Speaker 1: No, you're going to be like, hey, this is a problem, let's deal with the problem.
Speaker 1: But it doesn't affect my heart for you, it doesn't affect the fact that you're mine and I love you.
Speaker 1: My love wasn't based on you keeping the kitchen clean.
Speaker 1: My love was just my love.
Speaker 1: And now you've made a mess, let's clean it up.
Speaker 1: That's what happens in the cross.
Speaker 1: God says to you and I okay, you've made a mess, your sin did make a mess, but it's not a deal breaker.
Speaker 1: I love you.
Speaker 1: Let's spend some time cleaning up the mess and trying to mess less.
Speaker 1: But it has nothing to do with how I feel about you.
Speaker 1: Come on, somebody, somebody's all shouting this is good gospel right here.
Speaker 1: Why is that so important?
Speaker 1: Because a first part of the fruit of joy is understanding that I will have joy when I start enjoying the fact that God enjoys me.
Speaker 1: Let me say it again I and you will have joy when we start enjoying the fact that God is right now actively, before the kitchen is cleaned up completely.
Speaker 1: Right now he is delighting in you and enjoying you.
Speaker 1: Sometimes before I drift off to bed, it sounds weird, but I'll think about some of my kids.
Speaker 1: I'm like man, they're so cool, they're so awesome.
Speaker 1: God, I'm so thankful that you gave me.
Speaker 1: I just love her personality.
Speaker 1: It's so dope and I'm just thinking about her.
Speaker 1: How much more is your heavenly Father thinking about all your little particularities and nuances that make you up?
Speaker 1: He's not just being like, oh man, they made a mess.
Speaker 1: He's delighting in you, he's enjoying you and if you and I will start enjoying his enjoyment, we will have much more of the fruit of joy.
Speaker 1: Come on, somebody.
Speaker 1: Here's number two Joy chooses a positive outlook over a negative one.
Speaker 1: Here we go, here we go.
Speaker 1: Joy chooses a positive outlook over a negative one.
Speaker 1: You know, my friend, it's an easy time to have a negative attitude, but I mean this entire, the entire world.
Speaker 1: It's easy to have a negative attitude Now that there's things like the Internet.
Speaker 1: Now we just know more about what's bad, and so it's super easy to just have a negative attitude.
Speaker 1: If we're going to have joy, it's because we're going to make a decision to have a positive attitude, and it's going to be a decision, it's going to be a choice.
Speaker 1: Remember we said that joy is a volitional act, it is a verb, it is an action that we choose.
Speaker 1: We're going to choose to walk in joy.
Speaker 1: If we really want to jumpstart our life, we want to jumpstart our joy, we've got to start looking at what God has already given us and the realities we're already aware of, and start rejoicing in them and saying, wow, this is pretty doggone, great.
Speaker 1: We've got to choose a positive attitude over a negative attitude.
Speaker 1: Now, I'm not trying to step on anybody's toes, I'm not trying to offend you.
Speaker 1: Sometimes, when my family and I were driving up to Central Wisconsin, upper Wisconsin, and we'll go through a land especially like when it's spring or summer that smells like poo poo, it smells like manure, and every time I have a similar thought.
Speaker 1: I'm like how do these people do anything.
Speaker 1: I'm thinking about the farmer and his wife, thinking about these guys sitting at the dinner table and eating, or whatever they're eating, taking a big whiff of that manure, and I'm like, how do they do anything?
Speaker 1: I'm like, how do you have a passionate moment with your spouse when this is your environment?
Speaker 1: How does that work?
Speaker 1: And yet, often, my friends, when we live from a negative perspective and we allow that to bleed into our environment through our mouths, our mouths become manure machines and they're poisoning the environment.
Speaker 1: Only, unlike manure, they do no good at all.
Speaker 1: They just make it a crap factory.
Speaker 1: And I think we just all got to think about that.
Speaker 1: For a second man, like is that what?
Speaker 1: Like, do you want that in the air around you?
Speaker 1: And some of it you can't help because it's people, it's coworkers, it's people in your space.
Speaker 1: But for others and I mean this gently, but sometimes families, spouses you got to have like a gentle, loving conversation of like.
Speaker 1: You know, I feel like we have a lot of negativity here and it's making the whole place stink and, by the way, it quenches the Holy Spirit Like he's not pleased with that.
Speaker 1: He's like what the heck?
Speaker 1: I gave you joy and here you are being negative and sucking all the joy out of the air.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so let's try to take care of that.
Speaker 1: Let's just go on to number three.
Speaker 1: Joy actively reflects on the whole orchard.
Speaker 1: It actively reflects on the whole orchard.
Speaker 1: It starts with the right religion, with God, chooses positive outlook over negative one and actively reflects on the whole orchard.
Speaker 1: When things are hard, things are bad and I know that there's people listening right now.
Speaker 1: You're here right now and there's some hard things it does.
Speaker 1: We're not taking away anything.
Speaker 1: We're not taking that hardship away.
Speaker 1: We're just saying, yeah, but there is a super context to that hardness.
Speaker 1: It's the orchard, it's not even just the bag of apples your entire life it's the orchard, it's your eternal life, it's everywhere that you're going.
Speaker 1: And so we start with a prayer Okay, jesus, you've given me the fruit of joy to live inside of me, to be released when I decide to walk in the Spirit.
Speaker 1: Help me, jesus, I'm going to think reflectively.
Speaker 1: Joyous thoughts, you provide the joy.
Speaker 1: Pour in the joy.
Speaker 1: I'll pour out wise, good thinking.
Speaker 1: That'll be the deal, and we'll practice joy and we'll take stock of all the great things that God has done in our lives.
Speaker 1: And sometimes I know this is really hard to do because you don't feel like you have any time, you don't feel like there's a context where okay, when can I really just sit there and reflect on all the great things God has done in my life?
Speaker 1: I'm finding one.
Speaker 1: One for me is in the car.
Speaker 1: Now, what I'll do?
Speaker 1: I like to like rock out to guns and roses or stuff like that when I'm driving around, but I got to turn it down and instead I put on just some real quiet instrumental or some lo-fi or something that just chills me, so I can think and talk to Jesus, thinkingly or thinkingly, talk to Jesus and just begin to reflect on just how much of the apple is unspoiled, how much is blessed and delicious.
Speaker 1: And I say this because I want to just suggest to all of us if you're really too busy to think, you're too busy to have joy, because you've got to think to have joy, you've got to reflect if you want to walk in greater joy.
Speaker 1: So you want to stay positive in a negative world, we got to focus on the good things.
Speaker 1: Here's some things that I, as I've contemplated, have come to me.
Speaker 1: First We've talked about it a little bit the fact that God loves you.
Speaker 1: He could have not loved you and he decided to love you.
Speaker 1: He also decided to make you aware, most of us, of your need for him, and if you don't really understand your need for him, just go ahead and ask him because he'd love to let you know about it.
Speaker 1: But if you're aware that you need Jesus I mean, bro, just think about, think about all the people that came before Jesus.
Speaker 1: They didn't get to walk with God in the way that you get to now through Christ.
Speaker 1: Think about the fact that all the people that he could have chosen to awaken to the understanding that they needed Jesus as their intimate friend and sin coverer.
Speaker 1: He chose to do that to you.
Speaker 1: That's pretty awesome to reflect on.
Speaker 1: What about the fact that, if that is you, then you were one of the lost sheep.
Speaker 1: You were one of the lost coins.
Speaker 1: You were one of the lost children?
Speaker 1: That Luke 15 is about three parables in a row demonstrating how God says I really am into the lost people thing, like when I find somebody that was missing, my heart rejoices, heaven celebrates.
Speaker 1: Have you thought about the fact that, yeah, that's not somebody else, that's you.
Speaker 1: That's you that he's throwing a party about.
Speaker 1: That's you that he's ecstatic about what about this?
Speaker 1: The ridiculous promise Romans 8, 28, that he's gonna work everything together for your good, for those who love him and are called according to his purpose.
Speaker 1: You're like I know that because it's in the Bible.
Speaker 1: If you do, don't let that fool you.
Speaker 1: Don't let that keep you from reflecting on that.
Speaker 1: Dude, that is what you could never buy, something like that.
Speaker 1: There's no app that would just take your universe and make everything work together for your good.
Speaker 1: But there's a God who will do it, who didn't have to do it, but did it because he loves and delights in you.
Speaker 1: Come on somebody.
Speaker 1: It ain't like God's gotta do anything.
Speaker 1: Yo, god doesn't have to.
Speaker 1: Sometimes we're like well, god has to do that because he's God.
Speaker 1: You're missing something here.
Speaker 1: God doesn't have to do anything.
Speaker 1: He chooses every time, personally, to go ahead and love and delight in you and in me.
Speaker 1: How about this?
Speaker 1: He's just declared I'm gonna be with you in suffering.
Speaker 1: You're not always gonna feel it, but I'm gonna be with you.
Speaker 1: Other people don't have that access.
Speaker 1: They don't have that privilege.
Speaker 1: What about this?
Speaker 1: I'm gonna answer prayers that you forgot you prayed and I'm going to not answer prayers that were dumb.
Speaker 1: What a God, what a great God, maybe one of the greatest of all.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna forgive every time you turned your back at me or shook your fist at me or told me to get lost or said to hell with your rules.
Speaker 1: God, he says yeah, I'm just gonna go ahead and cast that into the ocean of forgetfulness.
Speaker 1: He's going how about this one for reflection?
Speaker 1: He's giving you the desire to obey him and he's causing you to obey him more.
Speaker 1: That's trippy Philippians 2.13, for God is working and you giving you the desire and the power to do what pleases him.
Speaker 1: This is it's not all on you, first of all, and God is helping you, even when you don't know that he's doing it, and he really is taking you from glory to glory.
Speaker 1: He really is getting you someplace.
Speaker 1: You can't always see it, but he's doing it and we can celebrate it now.
Speaker 1: When Kenzie and I got married, my parents gave us the gift of a honeymoon trip.
Speaker 1: We got to go to Walt Disney World.
Speaker 1: And I would tell you, before we ever even got in the car to go to the airport to go to Disney World, we were already celebrating, we were living like it was already true.
Speaker 1: We were like what.
Speaker 1: We don't even have jobs yet.
Speaker 1: We got nothing to do and all we're doing is going on vacation.
Speaker 1: After the greatest day of our lives, we were already ecstatic, even though we weren't in Florida, we weren't doing any of the things that we were doing.
Speaker 1: You could have that same ecstatic-ness if we would just think, and let that thing cook in our minds, of all that is yours, all that is coming for those who were in Christ.
Speaker 1: Let me give you some examples, some things that are true, but you're not seeing them yet.
Speaker 1: Okay, some day you're gonna find out all the times that you were weak, but God used that to demonstrate his own strength.
Speaker 1: You couldn't see it, you were blind to it.
Speaker 1: We don't see it down here, but he saw it.
Speaker 1: Some day you're going to trip out of the fact that your name really was written in the book of life.
Speaker 1: I'm not talking about a literal book, but I'm just saying it was already pre-decided.
Speaker 1: God knew I'm saving her, no matter what she freaking does, I'm saving her.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna go get her, I'm gonna soften her heart, show her my love through Christ, and she's going to follow me.
Speaker 1: What about this one?
Speaker 1: The king is really, really, really, really coming back.
Speaker 1: Jesus is coming back Like he's coming back to rule the whole thing.
Speaker 1: People can't get along here.
Speaker 1: That's not gonna be a problem when Jesus shows up.
Speaker 1: He's just gonna reign and rule and nobody's gonna have any problem with it.
Speaker 1: What about this?
Speaker 1: I mean, have you thought about this?
Speaker 1: This is because of Jesus, because of his delight in you, because of his love for you.
Speaker 1: You're gonna have conversations in heaven with people that you on some of you never thought you'd talk to again.
Speaker 1: You're gonna be reunited with people.
Speaker 1: You're like I can't believe I'm with you again.
Speaker 1: Here we are.
Speaker 1: You're going to have conversations with people that, like dude, they're from a thousand years ago.
Speaker 1: They're so smart about things that you really loved in life, but you guys never cross paths.
Speaker 1: And you're gonna sit down and you're gonna have some kind of meal with them forever.
Speaker 1: You're gonna keep knowing and enjoying people, and sin ain't gonna mess up your relationships.
Speaker 1: You're just gonna drink it in and enjoy it and it's gonna be wonderful.
Speaker 1: That's because God loves you, not just because God has to.
Speaker 1: I really believe this one's gonna happen for me and for you.
Speaker 1: I believe we're going to.
Speaker 1: For those who have trusted Christ, who have made him their Savior and King who are riding him to heaven, not their own good, righteous works.
Speaker 1: We're gonna find when we get there that there is like a mile high binder set of all the sins we just didn't even know we were committing.
Speaker 1: And God's like see all those, yeah, I forgave those anyway.
Speaker 1: You didn't even know, I didn't feel like bringing it up, you're just forgiven for all this stuff.
Speaker 1: You weren't even aware what's happening and I think maybe we're gonna just if we could just get it now and start to celebrate it now.
Speaker 1: Think this through Heaven valued you, heaven came after you.
Speaker 1: Heaven purchased you before you even gave a rib.
Speaker 1: We all probably there's some kind of club, there's some kind of place that you've wanted to belong and they didn't accept you.
Speaker 1: They didn't accept you when you're like, ah, rejection, the coolest place in the universe wanted you before you even knew you should want it and they paid the price, the ultimate price, to make sure you got in.
Speaker 1: Come on somebody.
Speaker 1: Just think about that and should produce oh my gosh, joy.
Speaker 1: What is going on now?
Speaker 1: They can take that away.
Speaker 1: Nothing, nothing can take it away.
Speaker 1: Let's keep going.
Speaker 1: Joy grows around positive people grows around positive people.
Speaker 1: Philippians 1, 4,.
Speaker 1: Always offering prayer with joy in my every prayer for you.
Speaker 1: I listen to Paul say that to Philippians and I'm like you know.
Speaker 1: I pray for people.
Speaker 1: I don't know that I have joy when I think about most of them, you know, and yet here he is, he's got joy praying for these people.
Speaker 1: Do you know that?
Speaker 1: That's how the family of God should be?
Speaker 1: There should be a joy.
Speaker 1: We should be delighted when we see one another.
Speaker 1: Oh my gosh, here are the godly in the land in whom is all my joy.
Speaker 1: We should be celebrating one another more often and you know, when you're around people that celebrate you or that you get to celebrate, there's something about the positivity that just turns you up, just gets you joyful.
Speaker 1: I think if we would all just make a decision, I'm going to, with my face and my body, let people know I like that they're around.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna see what that doesn't do to that manure filled environment, see if that doesn't help it, we can decide to do that Now.
Speaker 1: For some of us, part of the problem is you're in a place where people work very hard to keep everybody unhappy, including themselves, and maybe you.
Speaker 1: We've got to recognize that for what it is.
Speaker 1: And for some of you I want to encourage you don't give up on them yet.
Speaker 1: You got some negative Nellies in your life.
Speaker 1: Don't give up on them yet.
Speaker 1: Here's why because it might be that they're watching your life and they're beginning to pay attention and three years from now they're going to crawl out of that pit and be like well dog on.
Speaker 1: They were doing it.
Speaker 1: I'm just going to try the whole positive thing.
Speaker 1: Who knows whose life you might change right now by your example, but you're not going to figure that out until you're in heaven that you had that power in their lives.
Speaker 1: Here's one more Joy keeps a clear conscience.
Speaker 1: Joy keeps a clear conscience.
Speaker 1: One of the best ways to maintain our joy is to try to keep a clear conscience and when it gets, when we have like a convicted conscience, to try to get rid of that ASAP.
Speaker 1: Here's what I found we can't have joy and being embracing sin at the same time.
Speaker 1: And here's my theory of why that is.
Speaker 1: For me to have true joy, like Holy Spirit joy, that means I have to be reflecting on the fact that Jesus is enjoying me and giving me his joy, but if I'm embracing something that he knows is harming me, he is not joyous in that moment.
Speaker 1: Therefore, he is not giving me the fruit of joy.
Speaker 1: Give an example You've been in Walmart and you've seen kids have meltdowns before.
Speaker 1: Let's say that you're in Walmart and you see your kid have a meltdown and he hauls off and slugs another kid and he's like, yay, see what I did, and he's really celebrating, he's really excited about it.
Speaker 1: You might be celebrating that you love that human, but you're not celebrating what they did.
Speaker 1: What they did was wrong.
Speaker 1: So when we embrace sin, god is like I celebrate you, but I can't celebrate that.
Speaker 1: That's wrong.
Speaker 1: I'm not gonna prove to you that I'm okay with that.
Speaker 1: That is hurting you, it's hurting everybody.
Speaker 1: That's messing the kitchen.
Speaker 1: I'm not gonna give you joy.
Speaker 1: And so what do we gotta do?
Speaker 1: As soon as possible, dude, conviction is a mercy and it can be really heavy.
Speaker 1: As soon as possible, we gotta ask for forgiveness.
Speaker 1: Maybe you gotta call somebody up and apologize.
Speaker 1: Maybe you gotta just Lord, I'm just.
Speaker 1: I'm resisting you on this, but I'm doing it and I need forgiveness.
Speaker 1: A couple months ago this has happened twice in my life I had had an interaction with Pastor Brandon and I had told him something and I kind of like skipped over something, but it made it kind of a lie.
Speaker 1: I was like, well, I'm just gonna give you the shortcut, I don't wanna explain all this stuff.
Speaker 1: And it was one of those like accidental things.
Speaker 1: You're not even thinking about why you'd do it.
Speaker 1: But then the spirit of God began to convict me and it was heavy, yo, and I was like, god, it's not even a big deal.
Speaker 1: I mean, brandon's not gonna care, this isn't a big thing.
Speaker 1: And yet it was a big thing to Jesus.
Speaker 1: He's like well, you can forget the joy thing.
Speaker 1: Then I'm laying there overnight.
Speaker 1: I don't know if you've had a moment where you're laying overnight and the conviction is still there and you're like I'm trying to go to sleep.
Speaker 1: Shut it, I'm trying to go to sleep and in his mercy, he just kept that thing on my heart.
Speaker 1: Have you experienced that, yo?
Speaker 1: Well, let me encourage you to find the freedom that I did.
Speaker 1: The next morning I called up Pastor Brandon.
Speaker 1: I was like I'm such a freaking moron dude, I'm so sorry I said this stupid thing.
Speaker 1: And he's Brandon, so he's like super gracious and you know it didn't.
Speaker 1: But it was so good for me to humble myself before the Lord and repent and to humble myself before my friend and repent.
Speaker 1: And I just wanna encourage you.
Speaker 1: There was joy that very second after it left my lips.
Speaker 1: There might be some joy waiting for you if you just.
Speaker 1: I know it's hard, dude, I know it might be humiliating, I don't know what you gotta do, but whatever you gotta do, it is worth it.
Speaker 1: Just go ahead and ask for forgiveness and apologize.
Speaker 1: Here's one more model that we can take from Jesus.
Speaker 1: See, jesus isn't asking us to do anything that he didn't do as he was looking at the cross.
Speaker 1: Hebrews 12, 2,.
Speaker 1: Fixing our eyes on Jesus.
Speaker 1: That's how we're gonna do it.
Speaker 1: How do we do it?
Speaker 1: We fix our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of our faith.
Speaker 1: For the joy set before him, he endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down with the right hand at the throne of God.
Speaker 1: For the joy set before him, he was just going back to where it was.
Speaker 1: He was the son of God returning to heaven.
Speaker 1: But for the joy set before him, you know what part of that joy was.
Speaker 1: Part of it was, yes, to be back in heaven with the Father.
Speaker 1: But part of that joy was mission accomplished.
Speaker 1: He got the mission accomplished.
Speaker 1: He got you Mission accomplished.
Speaker 1: That's his joy.
Speaker 1: Jesus, my joy was you.
Speaker 1: My joy was coming to get you and knowing that that was going to be fulfilled and that gave me enough power to make it through the cross, because the celebration, the celebration, the joy that was in Jesus' heart about that reuniting, jesus has done everything for us.
Speaker 1: My friends, I know that it's hard.
Speaker 1: I'm not saying it's not, and we'll pray together about it right now, in just a second.
Speaker 1: I just want us all to consider.
Speaker 1: It is hard but supernaturally, the fruit of joy is available to us if we will reflect on it and follow the promptings of the Holy Spirit.
Speaker 1: Let's pray right now, god.
Speaker 1: I pray for an extra powerful strengthening right now for everybody who is up against us, saying they don't know how to see you in it, they don't know how to rejoice around it, they don't know how to get past this bruise and the apple.
Speaker 1: Master, just because you're awesome, would you pan out and give them the perspective of the entire orchard and all that is theirs and theirs to come because of Jesus Christ, and now strengthen them with power to press on for the joy set before them, which is to see you again soon, in Christ's name, amen.
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Speaker 1: You would share such things.
Speaker 1: Whatever challenges you're facing, I know you can make it.
Speaker 1: Don't give up.
Speaker 1: Hang on to Jesus.
Speaker 1: He won't let go of you.
Speaker 1: Jesus loves you so much and we love you.
Speaker 1: I hope someday we get to meet in person.
Speaker 1: Thanks again for listening.