Speaker 1: You good today, excited to be in church this morning, fantastic, fantastic.
Speaker 1: I'm pumped to be here today.
Speaker 1: My name is James.
Speaker 1: We haven't had a chance to meet and it's my privilege to serve out here as campus pastor at Pinewood, and what a what a joy it always is to gather together and worship Jesus and open the word and encourage one another.
Speaker 1: There's something special about what we get to do every single week and today I'm really excited.
Speaker 1: We're gonna launch into a new series and new collection of talks, of messages, called actually happy.
Speaker 1: Can you say that with me this morning?
Speaker 1: Actually happy?
Speaker 1: How many of you want to be actually happy?
Speaker 1: I don't know what it's like at your house on a Sunday morning, but but there's something about Sunday mornings, at least at my house.
Speaker 1: Growing up, in my house these days as well, they're like sometimes on Sunday mornings, actually happy doesn't seem to happen.
Speaker 1: You know what I mean.
Speaker 1: It's like you're trying.
Speaker 1: I remember growing up, my dad trying to get everybody out of the house, you know, and like he's in the driveway honking the horn, you know, and Sam Sam was pretty much on time.
Speaker 1: I was probably not.
Speaker 1: My mom was like nowhere to be seen.
Speaker 1: You know, by the time everybody gets in the car.
Speaker 1: It's like we got to go to church, you know, and, and there's nobody who's actually happy.
Speaker 1: And then you pull into the parking lot at church, right, and what happens?
Speaker 1: It's like, alright, kids smile, right, like you.
Speaker 1: Just your face just changes and it's like I'm actually happy, right.
Speaker 1: And then we kind of live in this world where actually happy maybe is more of a concept, an idea, than a reality in which we live.
Speaker 1: And I'll be honest, I almost decided to scrap this series before it ever began, partly because of some things I'm trying to work through on my own end, of things you know like.
Speaker 1: But also I'm looking around at our world and I'm seeing the brokenness across the globe.
Speaker 1: The Middle East is a powder keg right now.
Speaker 1: There are humanitarian crises in Sudan and multiple countries in South America, and our nation is divided and polarized and we're on the brink of another political cycle that you can already tell is going to be full of vitriol and division.
Speaker 1: And and I'm looking at the scope of our world and what's going on going like is now really the time to do a series called actually happy?
Speaker 1: It feels a little bit like I don't know if you've seen penguins of Madagascar, but the penguins, who are just like smile and wave boys, smile and wave, and isn't that sometimes how we feel?
Speaker 1: That we're just gonna bury our heads in the sand or put a fake smile on and wave at everybody and act like everything's all good.
Speaker 1: But but on the inside, there's not really any happiness there, there's not really any joy to be found.
Speaker 1: And so, as I'm kind of thinking through, like, do we do this series, do we not?
Speaker 1: I'm praying, asking God, like, is this where you want us to go for the next four or five weeks?
Speaker 1: There were a couple of verses that really blew up in my heart, and one of them was a passage we read here a few weeks ago months ago now, I guess and it's from Nehemiah 8.
Speaker 1: We'll get there in just a moment.
Speaker 1: Another was one that you just never have a bad day.
Speaker 1: Anybody ever have bad days, it's just me.
Speaker 1: You got help me out, you got some bad days.
Speaker 1: I mean, okay, good, I feel a lot better already, thank you.
Speaker 1: And I was having a bad day, it's a bad day.
Speaker 1: So I woke up the next morning and I'm like alright, god's mercies in here every morning.
Speaker 1: It's great, it's sufficient.
Speaker 1: You know all the stuff that we all know.
Speaker 1: I'm like praying, like God, give me a word from the scripture today, and it was Proverbs 24 that I read that day and I'm gonna tell you what it said in just a moment.
Speaker 1: The third passage of scripture is where we're gonna be the next four weeks.
Speaker 1: In Matthew 5, the Beatitudes, where Jesus says if you you want to see what blessing looks like and the original language the word literally means blessed or happy we're gonna look at what blessing, happiness, joy, looks like in the kingdom of God.
Speaker 1: But the two passages that God used to confirm for me that this is where we're supposed to be one Nehemiah, chapter 8, and we read this a few weeks ago, like I said, and the verse that really jumped off the page into my heart was not necessarily the one we were focusing on that day, but it was Nehemiah 8, 9 and 10 where it says this Nehemiah, who was the governor, and Ezra, the priest and the scribe and the Levi to talk to people, said to all the people this day is holy to the Lord, your God, don't mourn or weep, for all.
Speaker 1: The people wept as they heard the words of the law and then he said to them go your way.
Speaker 1: Eat the fat, drink sweet wine and send portions to anyone who has nothing ready for this day is.
Speaker 1: Holy to our Lord, and don't be grieved, for the joy of the Lord is your strength.
Speaker 1: Don't be grieved, for the joy of the Lord is your strength.
Speaker 1: And then Proverbs, chapter 24, verses 10 and 11 Solomon wise, this man who's ever lived, writes if you faint in the day of adversity, your strength is small.
Speaker 1: Rescue those who are being taken away to death.
Speaker 1: Hold back those who are stumbling to the slaughter.
Speaker 1: If you faint in the day of adversity, your strength is small.
Speaker 1: Rescue those who are being taken away to death.
Speaker 1: Hold back those who are stumbling to the slaughter.
Speaker 1: So, in a title, this message this morning the joy of the Lord.
Speaker 1: And our goal for this series is really simple we want to cultivate a spirit or a life of joy that enables us to persevere through adversity.
Speaker 1: We want to cultivate a life, a spirit, a heart of joy that allows us to, when life gets difficult and the world looks dark, to persevere, to press on, to move on towards the call of Christ on our lives.
Speaker 1: That's the goal.
Speaker 1: I don't know if you play golf.
Speaker 1: I don't know that what I would call doing on the golf course is playing golf, but I have a set of clubs and I chased the little golf ball around every now and then and what I've learned is that I have expectations before I start a round of golf.
Speaker 1: I expect that I will swing my club and the ball will go straight and I'll be able to find it when it has landed and stopped rolling.
Speaker 1: I expect that I will play bogey golf come out low 90s, you know it's a good day.
Speaker 1: I expect that I will be happy as I play and people will be wanting to be around me and it will be fun.
Speaker 1: I have all these expectations and then I tee off and then expectations and reality collide and what I find is that my enjoyment of the game and my general attitude and outlook on life directly correlate to how well I'm hitting the golf ball.
Speaker 1: And it's not well.
Speaker 1: It's that that's how well I hit the golf ball.
Speaker 1: And so by the end of 18 or 9, or maybe like 3 or 4, depending on the day, I'm ready to throw my golf bag off the tallest mountain I can find and then light whatever survives on fire and never play again.
Speaker 1: And it's this gap between expectations and reality, this gap between what is ideal and what is real.
Speaker 1: Anybody ever notice a gap between the ideal and the real?
Speaker 1: You look at life, or you look at social media, or you look at someone else that you know and you're like, wow, that looks like the ideal.
Speaker 1: That must be where happiness is found, that must be where contentment and joy live.
Speaker 1: And then you look at your own life, right, and it's like, well, this is real and it doesn't look like ideal.
Speaker 1: Have you ever noticed that?
Speaker 1: Right, we live in reality and reality is life is hard and the world is dark and there's a gap between the real and the ideal, and we're gonna call that today the happiness gap, and that's often what we think.
Speaker 1: You know, if I can close the gap between what is ideal and what is real, where I actually am, then maybe my happiness level can increase, my joy can increase, my perseverance through adversity can increase If I can just close the happiness gap.
Speaker 1: And so what do we do?
Speaker 1: We try to close the gap, we look for joy, we look for happiness, we try to find something to make the ideal more attainable, or we try to achieve what others have achieved so we can live the life that they live, or we pursue A, b, c or D in pursuit of the ideal, all in an attempt to close the happiness gap.
Speaker 1: But what do we find?
Speaker 1: The ideal just seems to be more and more out of reach, does it not?
Speaker 1: The more we try to achieve our way to joy and happiness, the further away joy and happiness seems to be.
Speaker 1: And not only that, but the gap between the real and the ideal is full of something that we're gonna call, today, adversity.
Speaker 1: Have you ever noticed the second you decide that you're gonna make a change in your life?
Speaker 1: That's when it really gets difficult to make the change.
Speaker 1: Have you ever noticed that when you decide you want to be better with your finances?
Speaker 1: That's when you have unexpected financial bills that just seem to pop up out of nowhere?
Speaker 1: It's like the car broke, the air conditioner's not working, the refrigerator's just spewing ice and we can't make it stop.
Speaker 1: The dryer sounds like it's gonna blow up, right, and then all of a sudden, you've got like a foundation issue on your house.
Speaker 1: I don't know, but it's like the second we decide our finances are.
Speaker 1: Finally, we're gonna stick to the budget this month.
Speaker 1: It's like what's going on.
Speaker 1: Or the second you decide I'm really going to invest relationally in my friendships.
Speaker 1: In this season of life there's more conflict amongst you and your friends than ever before, or maybe it's your marriage.
Speaker 1: Like this season of life, we're really gonna prioritize our marriage.
Speaker 1: We're gonna get things right.
Speaker 1: We're gonna date night once a week.
Speaker 1: We're gonna speak kindly to one another.
Speaker 1: We're gonna do things in our marriage the right way.
Speaker 1: And next thing you know, you're looking around 48 hours later and it's like why am I fighting with you?
Speaker 1: More than ever?
Speaker 1: It's like the second we decide we're gonna close the gap.
Speaker 1: What do we find?
Speaker 1: It's adversity at every turn.
Speaker 1: And so in Proverbs 24 we read these words If you faint in the day of adversity, your strength is small.
Speaker 1: Rescue those who are being taken away to death.
Speaker 1: Hold back those who are stumbling to the slaughter.
Speaker 1: I read that in a time when it was like, hey, you know what?
Speaker 1: It'd be a lot easier to back up.
Speaker 1: Right now, the adversity seems really present, the pressure seems like a lot.
Speaker 1: The path forward right now looks dark and difficult.
Speaker 1: And I read Proverbs 24.
Speaker 1: And y'all, I'm not the sharpest tool in the shed, like.
Speaker 1: Sometimes I think it takes God a while to get through to me, but then there are moments where it's like you open the word and it's like God, I'm praying for you to speak and something jumps off the page and slaps you in the forehead and you couldn't miss it if you tried.
Speaker 1: If you faint in the day of adversity.
Speaker 1: We all experience days of adversity and I love the clarity of Proverbs 24.
Speaker 1: If you stop there I did a little word search on the word faint just to see what exactly Solomon was saying Like I don't think I've ever actually fainted in the day of adversity.
Speaker 1: It's not like, oh, obstacles, let me like swoon for a minute and hit the floor.
Speaker 1: That's never happened to me, so it'd be easy to go okay.
Speaker 1: Well, I had never fainted in the day of adversity.
Speaker 1: But when you word study Proverbs 24, the word faint, it literally can be translated let go, release, give up or stop pursuing.
Speaker 1: So, like in the day of adversity, if you stop, if you let go, if you release, if you shrink back and stop moving forward, then your strength is small and I was like, oh, I have totally, in the day of adversity, shrunk back.
Speaker 1: I've totally tried to let go and been like you know what?
Speaker 1: It's not even worth it.
Speaker 1: I've totally, in the day of adversity been like you know.
Speaker 1: I think there's gotta be an easier path.
Speaker 1: So I'm gonna let go of this and go a different direction.
Speaker 1: The Hebrew word for faint can we do a little Hebrew lesson this morning?
Speaker 1: Can we talk Hebrew for a minute?
Speaker 1: I'm gonna give you some Hebrew that the Hebrew word for faint is rafa.
Speaker 1: Can you say that this morning?
Speaker 1: Rafa, rafa.
Speaker 1: Remember that.
Speaker 1: Just file that away.
Speaker 1: Remember that we're gonna come back to that.
Speaker 1: Rafa, the Hebrew word for faint rafa, rafa.
Speaker 1: If you rafa in the day of adversity, your strength is small.
Speaker 1: Rescue those who walk towards death.
Speaker 1: Hold back those who are stumbling to the slaughter.
Speaker 1: This is an interesting idea that Solomon mashes together here.
Speaker 1: One if you let go, release rafa.
Speaker 1: In the day of adversity, your strength is small.
Speaker 1: On the contrary, rescue those who are being led away to death.
Speaker 1: Reach out to those who are stumbling towards slaughter.
Speaker 1: This is the language of a captive.
Speaker 1: It's a word picture of someone who is imprisoned and condemned to die, being chained up and led toward their death.
Speaker 1: We'll come back to that as well.
Speaker 1: So Nehemiah, on the other hand, he's living in a time of adversity.
Speaker 1: They've rebuilt the wall, they've rebuilt the temple, but everything that they've been through has left the Israelite people just worn out and they're tired and they're exhausted and they're wondering like hey, what's coming next?
Speaker 1: Like where's the other shoe and when's it gonna drop?
Speaker 1: And so when the moment comes and Ezra unrolls the scroll and he begins to read the word of the Lord, the people, their spirit has been broken by the adversity that they've been through and, rather than rejoicing and celebrating the good, they find themselves weeping and mourning.
Speaker 1: And so Nehemiah, in Nehemiah, chapter eight, looks out at these people whose city has been rebuilt, whose temple has been rebuilt, and Nehemiah says to them this day is holy to our God.
Speaker 1: And that's a beautiful reminder to me and to you that, no matter the adversity you've been through, no matter the adversity that you're walking through, no matter what's facing you tomorrow, when you have a relationship with Almighty God and His presence is in your life and at work in your life, this day is holy.
Speaker 1: I've told our team that shows up at six am to load in and load out, and our kids team and we've talked about a little bit this year that we gotta have this perspective that says, hey, this is the dream, this day is the dream.
Speaker 1: We're not waiting on, one day when to celebrate and honor God and worship Him.
Speaker 1: We're gonna figure out a way to shift our perspective and worship God today, because this day is holy to our God.
Speaker 1: And so Nehemiah reminds the people hey, god isn't working your midst.
Speaker 1: This day is holy, so Nehemiah says, hey, what are we gonna do?
Speaker 1: We're gonna throw a party, have a feast, celebrate.
Speaker 1: And then he says the phrase that we've all probably heard before for the joy of the Lord is our strength.
Speaker 1: Now, joy, joy.
Speaker 1: Hebrew word let's rafa faint give up, let go let loose, release rafa, joy, hedvah.
Speaker 1: Can you say that this morning?
Speaker 1: Hedvah, you gotta get the V, kinda like sound like you're coughing a little bit, clearing your throat.
Speaker 1: Hedvah, right, hedvah, rafa, let go release faint, lose heart, give up.
Speaker 1: Hedvah, joy, joy, happiness, extreme celebration.
Speaker 1: Now, I've read that before and you've probably read that before, and if you're like me, I've always read Nehemiah 8, the joy of the Lord, and interpreted that to mean God is going to give me joy, right?
Speaker 1: Does that make sense?
Speaker 1: Right, god is almighty, he's all powerful, he is sovereign over it all.
Speaker 1: Surely he can give me joy, and he does.
Speaker 1: It's one of the fruit of the spirit, right?
Speaker 1: The fruit of the spirit.
Speaker 1: Love joy.
Speaker 1: Right, it's like number two.
Speaker 1: Love joy.
Speaker 1: When the spirit of God is at work in our lives, it produces joy on the inside.
Speaker 1: But that's not what Nehemiah 8 is talking about.
Speaker 1: Nehemiah 8 is talking about us finding strength on the day of adversity.
Speaker 1: Nehemiah 8 is talking about us being encouraged, being strengthened, built up in the moments where we feel faint, where we feel like letting go, where we feel like giving up and giving in.
Speaker 1: And Nehemiah 8 tells us that the secret to our strength in the face of adversity is the joy of the Lord.
Speaker 1: Translation it's the God who has joy.
Speaker 1: So this isn't joy that God necessarily gives us.
Speaker 1: This is joy that God rejoices with, and I just wanted you to get that picture in your mind this morning.
Speaker 1: Yes, god wants to give you joy by the strength of his spirit.
Speaker 1: But we serve a God who rejoices.
Speaker 1: God Almighty has joy, and when that realization hit me, it was like wait a minute.
Speaker 1: How beautiful is that?
Speaker 1: That we serve a God who has joy.
Speaker 1: God's happy.
Speaker 1: God is in love with his creation.
Speaker 1: God celebrates and rejoices over us.
Speaker 1: God's not waiting on us to blow it so he can be angry at us.
Speaker 1: God is a God of joy, and it hit me how often I think about God's power and his holiness and his righteousness and his majesty and the fact that he is overall and in all and working in all, but I don't often think about the fact that God is a God of joy.
Speaker 1: God of joy, and for me, that began to change the game.
Speaker 1: God is a God of joy.
Speaker 1: Life is hard, the world is dark true, absolutely fact.
Speaker 1: We know that it doesn't take a rocket scientist or multiple PhDs to figure out.
Speaker 1: Life is difficult and the world is dark and at the same time, god is a God of joy.
Speaker 1: See, I think, in more ways than we realize, we're like the people of Nehemiah's day.
Speaker 1: God is at work.
Speaker 1: This day is holy.
Speaker 1: God is doing incredible things, not just in our community but around the world, and if we're not careful, the difficulties of life and the darkness of the world will drown out the good that God is doing.
Speaker 1: And so today, what I want us to do is we begin this actually happy series.
Speaker 1: Let's talk about the joy of the Lord and let's remember the good.
Speaker 1: Let's not be like Nehemiah, chapter eight, and forget the good.
Speaker 1: Let there is a place for mourning and lamenting.
Speaker 1: We're not minimizing any of that, but in the middle of mourning and lamenting, difficulty and darkness, how do we find strength in the joy of our God?
Speaker 1: I'm gonna give you four thoughts today.
Speaker 1: The first is this God's heart breaks when sin harms us.
Speaker 1: God's heart breaks when sin harms us.
Speaker 1: This is actually good news.
Speaker 1: This is good news.
Speaker 1: We do not have a God who is distant from the pain of our world.
Speaker 1: We do not have a God who is disconnected from the very real suffering that we experience.
Speaker 1: And so when we look at our world and we see the powder keg that is the Middle East, we see humanitarian crises in Sudan or South America.
Speaker 1: We see division and polarization in our nation and families being torn apart because of this or that or whatever.
Speaker 1: God is not far removed from the suffering and the pain of our world.
Speaker 1: In fact, god's heart breaks when sin hurts and harms the people that God made in his image.
Speaker 1: And so today we can say with confidence that God is near to the broken hearted.
Speaker 1: God cares about the situation in the Middle East, god is at work in all things for good and for justice, and God is sovereign over the affairs of the world.
Speaker 1: And there's some tension there.
Speaker 1: Is there not Like?
Speaker 1: How do we make sense of all the brokenness and the pain that we see?
Speaker 1: If God's all powerful and he's good, if we're honest, I think we have to realize that sin has dramatic, devastating consequence in our world today.
Speaker 1: What we see all around us it's we can call it God's passive judgment, and what I mean by that.
Speaker 1: There are moments in the story of the Bible where God steps in and actively judges.
Speaker 1: Think Noah and the Ark, think Sodom and Gomorrah, think the guy that touches the Ark of the Covenant in the Old Testament, or Ananias and Sapphira and New Testament.
Speaker 1: There are moments where God actively steps in and judges, but a lot of what God, it seems to be doing in our world today.
Speaker 1: We'll call it his passive judgment.
Speaker 1: He is allowing humanity to reap the consequences of our own sin.
Speaker 1: It's Romans, chapter one.
Speaker 1: People do what they want.
Speaker 1: They chase the desires of their own hearts rather than the desires of God.
Speaker 1: And Romans one, paul, says God has given them over to their desires, and what we know from scripture is that there is a way that seems right to man but in its end is death.
Speaker 1: That sin has a consequence and that consequence is death for us and brokenness in the meantime.
Speaker 1: And so what we see in our world today.
Speaker 1: This seems like an oversimplification, but it's not.
Speaker 1: It's truth.
Speaker 1: God is allowing us to reap the consequences of our sin, which means, which means that until the world bows its knee to King Jesus, the violence isn't gonna stop, the brokenness isn't going to end, the darkness and the difficulties are not going to go away.
Speaker 1: Because our problem isn't a political problem, our problem isn't a physical problem, our problem isn't a relational problem.
Speaker 1: Our problem at the core is a spiritual problem.
Speaker 1: Our sin has broken us and it's broken our world.
Speaker 1: And God's heart breaks when sin harms us.
Speaker 1: And that's good news because it means that God, who is committed to redemption and restoration, is willing to step in and get involved.
Speaker 1: And can I just tell you this morning, if you feel like the adversity is real and you are far from the ideal, the promise of God is that he has one prayer away from you, he's close, he's involved, he sees you, he knows you, he loves you, he cares about you.
Speaker 1: And maybe all the circumstances don't change.
Speaker 1: When you realize that there is joy of the Lord and it's real and he's celebrating over your life, maybe everything that you wish would change, doesn't change, but the promise is that there's strength even in the face of great adversity.
Speaker 1: The second thing that we can take comfort in today is the reality that God rejoices over us.
Speaker 1: God rejoices over us.
Speaker 1: This day is holy to the Lord.
Speaker 1: God rejoices over us.
Speaker 1: We taught Luke chapter 15 this past Wednesday night with our youth, and that is the reality that we see in Luke, chapter 15.
Speaker 1: The prodigal son goes off, squanders his wealth.
Speaker 1: When he eventually comes home, what does he find?
Speaker 1: He finds a father who runs to him.
Speaker 1: The son's just hoping for a spot on his father's workforce and his father welcomes him back into the house as a son.
Speaker 1: The older son who's out in the fields.
Speaker 1: He's done everything right.
Speaker 1: He's so called up in his own self-righteousness that he can't celebrate.
Speaker 1: When the younger son comes back, he finds the father coming to him as well and extending grace to him as well.
Speaker 1: And what does the father say?
Speaker 1: My son who was lost has been found, and this is a cause for rejoicing.
Speaker 1: If your life is hidden in Christ, god is rejoicing over you today.
Speaker 1: He loves you, he's proud of you, he's pleased with you.
Speaker 1: Not because you're perfect, because who's perfect?
Speaker 1: None of us.
Speaker 1: Who's a work in progress.
Speaker 1: All of us, who blows it every single day?
Speaker 1: We all do, we all fail, we all fall short, we all sin.
Speaker 1: We all struggle on the inside with the old self.
Speaker 1: The flesh it's real, is it not?
Speaker 1: The adversity from without is real Sows the adversity from within and sows the voice that says there's no way God could love you because of what you've done.
Speaker 1: There's no way God could rejoice over you.
Speaker 1: Look at how many times you've failed, look at how many times you've fallen.
Speaker 1: But we serve a resurrected Savior today and because of Jesus, we have the chance to be forgiven, to be redeemed, and we're moving toward restoration.
Speaker 1: And in the meantime, we have a God who rejoices over.
Speaker 1: Zephaniah says that God exalts with loud singing over the lives of his people.
Speaker 1: God rejoices over you as a follower of Christ.
Speaker 1: Maybe you're wondering this morning.
Speaker 1: Well, I'm not a follower of Jesus yet I don't know if God's rejoicing over me.
Speaker 1: What happens in Luke 15 is the reminder that when someone who is far from God comes home to God, god rejoices.
Speaker 1: When a sinner becomes a saint.
Speaker 1: And if you don't know God today, there's an invitation on the table this morning.
Speaker 1: The joy of the Lord can become your strength, you can be forgiven, you can be redeemed, you can be set free.
Speaker 1: The shame, the guilt, the condemnation does not have to define your future.
Speaker 1: If we're honest this morning, what it says in Proverbs 24 about fainting in the day of adversity if we don't have the presence of God on the inside, we will faint in the day of adversity.
Speaker 1: We will let go when life gets difficult.
Speaker 1: We will give up and shrink back when things get hard.
Speaker 1: But when God Almighty is at work in your life and you know that God is rejoicing over you, you know that God celebrates when a sinner becomes a saint.
Speaker 1: You know who you are in Christ.
Speaker 1: It gives us the strength to keep pressing on it's last.
Speaker 1: In adversity, god's joy can be your strength.
Speaker 1: If our joy, our happiness, our fulfillment is solely based on circumstances and feelings, it will be fleeting at best.
Speaker 1: It will be fleeting at best and maybe there'll be moments in life where you're feeling great and everything's going your way and the happiness is real.
Speaker 1: You're actually happy.
Speaker 1: But what about the next day?
Speaker 1: What about when the relationship falls apart that you thought was gonna last forever?
Speaker 1: What about when the diagnosis you never saw coming happens.
Speaker 1: What about when the family member that you've been praying for to meet Jesus?
Speaker 1: They go on to eternity and they don't know.
Speaker 1: You don't know what happens in the moments when life is difficult and the world gets dark.
Speaker 1: If our joy is rooted in feelings and circumstances, it goes away.
Speaker 1: I just want to remind you this morning there is a joy that comes from the Lord.
Speaker 1: There is a strength that comes from the Lord.
Speaker 1: I aren't you grateful this morning that when our feelings and our circumstances change, we serve a God who never changes that when we don't even know how to express how we feel, we don't even know how to deal with what we're walking through, we worship a king who's the same yesterday, today and forever.
Speaker 1: He's resurrected.
Speaker 1: He's conquered death, hell and the grave.
Speaker 1: He's made a promise that he will return and when he does, all that is wrong will be put right.
Speaker 1: I love the timing of the cheer from the soccer field.
Speaker 1: That was like perfect.
Speaker 1: I don't know if you all noticed that, but I was like that's pretty cool, go soccer.
Speaker 1: You know, I don't know what happened, I don't know anything about soccer.
Speaker 1: That was great timing, fantastic.
Speaker 1: There's a.
Speaker 1: There's a lady your name's Catherine Wolf.
Speaker 1: She runs.
Speaker 1: She and her husband run an organization called Hope Heels.
Speaker 1: In 2007, catherine Wolf gave birth to she and her husband's first child.
Speaker 1: Six months later, in 2008, she had a massive stroke that impacted the brain stem area of her brain.
Speaker 1: Doctors told her husband she's not going to make it.
Speaker 1: She's not going to survive.
Speaker 1: You're going to be a single father raising this six month old by yourself.
Speaker 1: She's not going to make it.
Speaker 1: They had just moved away from family in the South to Los Angeles.
Speaker 1: Her husband was in law school.
Speaker 1: She was pursuing a career in Hollywood, like they had, they told my God, the ideal life.
Speaker 1: They were living ideal and all of a sudden, in 2008, adversity struck and ideal shifted to real.
Speaker 1: Like that and in that how it happens sometimes, all of a sudden, it's like real life, less than ideal.
Speaker 1: And what do we do?
Speaker 1: Adversity like never before.
Speaker 1: Catherine had a 16 hour brain surgery that doctors were able to use to save her life.
Speaker 1: She spent a year in neuro ICU.
Speaker 1: She spent another 40 days in rehab.
Speaker 1: She had 11 more surgeries to try to help her to see and to speak and to walk and to do all the things that she used to do, and her life has been dramatically impacted by what happened in 2008.
Speaker 1: But somewhere along the way, the Holy spirit began to get involved, began to work in a way that only he can, and Catherine and her husband began to sense this stirring from God to to start an organization called Hope Heals, and their mission they're calling what they exist to do is to tell people that there's a myth in the world, and it's the myth that the only joy filled existence is a pain free existence.
Speaker 1: That's the myth, and Hope Hills exists to say, hey, pain and joy can coexist in the same story.
Speaker 1: And Catherine said this recently in a blog that I read what if we could see celebration as a form of worship, a necessary life giving acknowledgement of God's goodness?
Speaker 1: This is Catherine, who still to this day, has trouble speaking, has trouble standing, walking, because of what happened to her in 2008.
Speaker 1: She says this when we are surrendered to the great author of our stories.
Speaker 1: Our worship doesn't depend on the happy ending.
Speaker 1: Our worship doesn't depend on us closing the gap between real and ideal.
Speaker 1: We no longer celebrate desired outcomes.
Speaker 1: Now we celebrate God's provision, his power and his presence in the process.
Speaker 1: And I love how she closed this article.
Speaker 1: She said we're not minimizing pain, but we are making much of the healer.
Speaker 1: We're not going to minimize the difficulty in the darkness, but we're going to make much of the healer in the midst of what we're walking through.
Speaker 1: We're not going to rafa, we're not going to let go, we're not going to faint, we're not going to grow weary, we're not going to back up, we're not going to give up when adversity comes.
Speaker 1: Rather, we're going to lean in to God's head.
Speaker 1: Don't rafa Lean in to God's head.
Speaker 1: Now, here's the challenge.
Speaker 1: You're going to remember that statement, because that's weird and people can be like what did you learn at church today?
Speaker 1: I learned don't rafa Lean in to God's head.
Speaker 1: And they'd be like what kind of church do you go to?
Speaker 1: What language is that?
Speaker 1: What did they teach you?
Speaker 1: But you're going to remember.
Speaker 1: Don't rafa Lean in to God's head.
Speaker 1: The challenge is to remember what it means.
Speaker 1: Don't let go, don't shrink back, don't faint in the day of adversity, lean in to the strength that comes from the joy that our God has today, because we know that in the midst of the pain there is a healer, in the midst of the brokenness there is a promise.
Speaker 1: In the midst of the darkness and the difficulty.
Speaker 1: There is a king and he's the king of light.
Speaker 1: And so, no matter how dark the world gets, we have been given, we've been given this promise from the light of the world that now we are the light of the world.
Speaker 1: And when does the light shine brightest?
Speaker 1: The light shines brightest in the dark.
Speaker 1: So if you're in the dark today, don't think, don't shrink back, don't give up.
Speaker 1: There is joy and in the presence of our father today and that joy is your strength, there's the promise of a resurrected king that your life, if you're in Christ, is now hidden.
Speaker 1: With Christ, in God, and he's coming back, we can live today as people of promise, even in the midst of pain.
Speaker 1: So, father, I pray today for my brothers and sisters all across this room.
Speaker 1: God, you know every story, you know every set of circumstances, you know every shadow of darkness, you know every deep valley that we are walking through today.
Speaker 1: Father, our prayer today is not that you would change the circumstances Although, father, we do ask that, if it is your will, that, god, you would intervene in the circumstances.
Speaker 1: But even more than that, god, our prayer is that your joy would be our strength, that you would help us to hold on to your promise, hold on to the reality of our resurrected king, the Father.
Speaker 1: You would help us to keep our eyes fixed on Jesus so that we can press on in faith, god, so that your joy can be our joy and our joy can overflow to the world around us.
Speaker 1: God, we love you and we thank you in Jesus' name, amen.
Speaker 1: So as we stand and sing this morning, this is a chance for you to respond.
Speaker 1: If this morning you've got some darkness in your life and you need somebody to pray with you we've got people in green shirts all across this room Grab somebody.
Speaker 1: We'd love the chance to pray with you.
Speaker 1: I'll be over here to the side.
Speaker 1: If this morning you say I need a relationship with Jesus to transform my life, I want to give my life to Christ for the very first time, I'd love to have that conversation with you this morning.
Speaker 1: Or if you say today, I think God's leading my family myself to this place to call this our church home, I invite you to step out, come, take me by the hand.
Speaker 1: We'd love to celebrate that this morning as well.
Speaker 1: But let's respond in worship, let's respond in celebration as we lean on the joy of the Lord for our strength this morning.