Joy and Gladness Required!

All right, if you could stand for the reading of God's word. Old Testament, Psalm 145, verse 1 through 9, all right?

I will extol you, my God and King, and bless your name forever and ever. Every day I will bless you and praise your name forever and ever.

Great is the Lord, and greatly to be praised, and his greatness is unsearchable.

Our generation shall commend your works to another and shall declare your mighty acts on the glorious splendor of your majesty and on your wondrous works.

I will meditate. They shall speak of the might of your awesome deeds, and I will declare your greatness.

They shall pour forth the fame of your abundant goodness and shall sing along of your righteousness.

The Lord is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love. The Lord is good to all, and his mercy is over all that he has made.

New Testament scriptures from Colossians chapter 3, beginning in verse 12. So put on, then, as God's chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, bearing with one another, and, if anyone has a complaint against another, forgiving each other, as the

Lord has forgiven you. So you also must forgive. And above all these, put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony.

And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which, indeed, you are called in one body.

And be thankful. Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, and with thankfulness in your hearts to God.

And whatever you do in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the

Father through him. You may be seated. Take your

Bibles, if you please, and turn to Deuteronomy chapter 28. Deuteronomy 28.

You follow as I read verses 45 through 51.

All these curses shall come upon you and pursue you and overtake you till you are destroyed, because you did not obey the voice of the

Lord your God, to keep his commandments and his statutes that he commanded you. They shall be a sign and a wonder against you and your offspring forever.

Because you did not serve the Lord your God with joyfulness and gladness of heart because of the abundance of all things, therefore you shall serve your enemies, whom the

Lord will send against you in hunger and thirst and nakedness and lacking everything. And he will put a yoke of iron on your neck until he has destroyed you.

The Lord will bring a nation against you from far away, from the end of the earth, swooping down like the eagle, a nation whose language you did not understand, a hard -faced nation who shall not respect the old or show mercy to the young.

It shall eat the offspring of your cattle and the fruit of your ground until you are destroyed. It also shall not leave you grain, wine, or oil, the increase of your herds or the young of your flock until they have caused you to perish.

Let's pray. Father, now as we look at your word, we pray that it would be effective in causing us to change, to be the kind of people you've called us to be.

But Lord, above all, I pray that you would help us to approach this text with gospel lenses that we might see the lesson it has for us today.

God, help us now as we consider your word, as we think through it, as we seek to understand it.

And we'll thank you in Jesus' name, amen. God threatens terrible things if we will not be happy.

So said the Puritan Jeremy Taylor. Now, we recoil at that thought. You mean

God expects us to be happy? I thought happiness is defined by spontaneity. You can't command happiness.

Huh? No one can do that. How could God even demand happiness? Well, that's exactly what

God does in our text this morning. Here's our text, verses 47 and 48. Because you did not serve the

Lord your God with joyfulness and gladness of heart because of the abundance of all things, therefore you shall serve your enemies whom the

Lord will send against you in hunger and thirst and nakedness and lacking everything.

And he will put a yoke of iron on your neck until he has destroyed you.

We've arrived this Sunday on the Sunday that we reflect on what the Bible has to say about thankfulness, about gratitude as we come to the

Thanksgiving season. And so for this Thanksgiving season, let's take a trip to the plains of Moab.

We're standing in the plains of Moab ready to cross the Jordan into the land that God has promised his people.

Now, God has forbidden Moses to go with them because he obscured the glory of God by losing his temper.

And so he says, Moses, you can't go. And so Moses, before he dies, stands before the people of God and delivers this sermon.

It is the book of Deuteronomy. It's the last sermon that Moses preached. And in that sermon, he rehearses the covenant of God and that God had made with his people and they reaffirmed their commitment to that covenant and their loyalty, their allegiance to their

God. And as we come upon these people on the plain, we overhear the conversation.

We overhear the sermon. They now hear the blessings and cursings of the covenant. And in this section of Deuteronomy, God is saying, if you remain true to the covenant that you have made with me and I've made with you, there will be incredible blessings.

But if you disobey that covenant, if you do not remain loyal to me, here are the curses that will fall upon you.

And our text this morning falls within the curse part of that sermon.

I know what you're thinking. Great, we're going to hear a sermon about the curses of God if we're not grateful.

Well, not really, not kind of, but not entirely. All right, and here's why.

This certainly is God's word and God intends for it to have an impact on our life.

However, with the coming of Jesus, this text points to and is fulfilled in Jesus.

And so we have to come to this text with gospel eyes. We have to come to this text, not barely write to this text.

We have to come to it through the gospel. For this text and all of the

Old Testament, the entirety of the Old Testament finds its fulfillment in Jesus. And because of that, we have to come back to it with a little different frame of reference, the gospel.

And as we do hear God speaking about serving him with joy and gladness, essentially synonyms for thanksgiving, we need to hear and know what

God thinks is essential for a life of thanksgiving. And we all would agree, we all say it.

This isn't the only time of the year when we should be thankful. We should be thankful every day and we have those pious things that we say, but they are true.

And what we want to look at is what God tells us, what we ought to know if we're going to live a life of thanksgiving, if we will be thankful.

So what do we need to know? First of all, know what the Lord commands.

Know what he commands. We have an obligation. What is it? To serve the

Lord. We have to serve the Lord. As Israel rehearses this covenant, they hear the heart of that covenant.

You must serve Yahuwah. You must serve this God, the only true and living

God. Now, you've all read the account of the Exodus. And what was the message to Pharaoh?

The message to Pharaoh was, let my people go so that they might serve me.

So that they might serve me. Serving Yahuwah set them apart as the people of God.

This was their identifier. This was their essential identity.

These are the people who serve that God named Yahuwah. And they would say, in response to all the nations around them, that, and this is the only true and the living

God. And so they were set apart from all the other nations. This is their essential identity.

We are the people who serve this God. Now, every day you go to Honda and you serve that company and you become part of that, you become part of that company.

It becomes your identity. You are a Honda employee or whoever you work for.

That's who you are. That's part of your identity. You serve them. And so the

Israelites were servants of Yahuwah. They were servants of the Lord. And in their identity, they would bless the nations of the earth.

Now, as you read through the Old Testament, especially Deuteronomy, you see that the purpose of God setting them apart as a nation was that they would be a light.

It was like the mission of that people to be a light to all the other nations of the world.

It was this nation, these servants of the only God, who in covenant faithfulness would bring light to the nations, a beacon of truth, calling the other nations to serve the living

God. Now, that's our identity as well. We are servants of the living God as he has revealed himself in Jesus Christ.

And Jesus completes the story of Israel. In fact, Jesus becomes

Israel and he becomes the light to the nations, right?

And then we in union with him become light to the world. That's our calling.

Our identity as servants of God shines out as we follow the commands of our

God. As we serve Jesus, we are then to be lights to the world.

That's our identity. But we have not discharged our obligation by merely serving him.

We must serve him with joyfulness and gladness of heart.

Let's imagine tomorrow you go to work and as you walk through the doors of Honda, there's a guy sitting there.

You've never seen him before. And you say, who are you? And he says,

I'm the gladness checker. If you're not happy being here,

I fire you. Are you happy today? How would you like that?

Well, this is what God says. He says, you haven't discharged your obligation merely by serving me.

You must serve me with joyfulness and gladness. Here is God's covenant obligation.

Not only that we serve him, but that we must serve him in the right way.

In the right way. See, this is why it's important for us to be characterized by Thanksgiving.

Did you hear the New Testament reading in the space of those three, five verses, I think it was, how many times did you hear the word thanks, thanksgiving, or gratitude?

In those few passages. You see, we have to serve the Lord in a particular way, with joy and gladness.

We ought to be characterized by thankfulness. That is how we discharge our obligation in serving our

Lord Jesus Christ. We serve with thanksgiving, with gratitude.

Now someone says, Lord, why is this such a big deal with you? Why is this such a big deal with you?

Well, it's a big deal because it communicates the state of your heart. It communicates the state of your heart.

If you're not glad, it communicates something about your heart. If you're not thankful, it communicates something about your heart.

If you are thankful, it communicates something different. What does he say? Serve me with joy and gladness of heart because of the abundance of all things.

Now, remember what God had promised them. A marvelous land. You all know the phrase that the

Old Testament uses, a land of flowing with milk and honey. It's just this incredibly fertile, prosperous land.

And it's prepared for you. If you read as they're standing on the banks of the Jordan, what does Moses tell them?

Hey, there will be houses, there will be vineyards, there will be olive plants, there will be all kinds of things all ready for you.

It's all given to you, it's prepared. You have nothing to do. Victory, and he promises victory over anyone who try to take it away from you.

If you remain loyal and serve me with joy and gladness, no one will ever be able to take, all armies will be conquered who try to take it from you.

You will always be filled with food. Your animals will always produce. You will have a boatload of children.

You will have a great and happy life. That's what he promised them.

And on top of that, God had delivered his people from slavery, had he not? From back -breaking work, oppression so hard they hated their lives.

Slaving not for their own prosperity, slaving for the prosperity of someone else with no return.

And it was, life was so hard, it was impossible. It was impossible to enjoy the wife and the children that God had given you.

You see, the lack of joy and gladness reveals the heart of unspeakable ingratitude for the grace of God.

They had experienced the liberating grace of God when they were brought out of Egypt.

Now, what about us? What about you? Jesus liberated you from the chains of sin by suffering the curse of God.

Think about this for a moment. His father despised him as he took upon himself our sin.

And the same father looked upon you, a filthy, worthless person in his sight.

He looked on you with pity and he killed his own son for you.

You ever think about it in those terms? What do joy and gladness communicate about your heart?

Has it been transformed by grace? Has it been transformed? It's a big deal because it communicates what you think about your

God. It's a big deal because it communicates what you think about your God. Now, the last place

I worked before I came here, seems like yesterday, 40 years ago, was Brock Manufacturing.

And our company had a rule. You know what that rule was? Some of you have heard this before.

You know what that rule was? You could not back your car into the parking space.

Now, why is that? Why would they tell us employees, do not back your car into your parking space?

Because it communicates something. It says, I can't wait to get out of here. Right? I can't wait to get out of here.

I'm backing in so I can just get in and go. I don't have to back out slowly. I'm out of here.

Right? That was the rule. I mean, so you go to Walmart, and you're checking out, and you say to the cashier, well, it must be getting near the end of your shift.

And she says to you, sure is, and it won't end too soon, I can tell you that.

What does that tell you about the company there? What's it tell you about that store? Right?

When we serve God with joy and gladness, with thanksgiving, what do you communicate about your

God? What do you communicate about your God? It's a big deal because it communicates to the world your position.

Israel was a people who were set apart from the rest of humanity. The whole picture of the

Exodus and the covenant is simply this. I'm setting you apart from all the other nations as the one people of God.

No other nation can make that claim. You can, you're in covenant with the living God. And that means you are distinct from everyone else in this world.

You see? But if they served, they were essentially a holy people set apart.

But if they served God begrudgingly as a burden, would they look any different than the nations around them who serve their gods?

Would they look any different? No, they would not. They would not look any different.

So you serve the Lord with joy and thanksgiving, with joy and gladness because that, you've been set apart by covenant, now show it.

Show that you're different. You see, if we would express our holy position in Christ, then we need to serve him with joy and gladness.

We need to be thankful people. So the first thing to know is what the Lord commands you to do to serve him.

And that is serve him with joy and gladness. Well, if you would grow in thanksgiving, know what the

Lord will do. Okay, first of all, know what the Lord commands. Now know what the

Lord will do. Do you see what God does? He threatens terrible things to people who will not be happy.

Do you see the threats, the curses that he speaks to his people? They are horrible beyond belief.

They're horrible beyond belief. Let's just, you want to read some? Let's just look, drop down to verse 52. They, the enemy, shall besiege you in all your towns until your high and fortified walls in which you trusted come down throughout all your land.

And they shall besiege you in all your towns throughout all your land, which the Lord your God has given you. And you shall eat the fruit of your womb, the flesh of your sons and daughters whom the

Lord your God has given you in the siege and in the distress with which your enemies shall distress you.

The man who is the most tender and refined among you will begrudge food to his brother, to the wife he embraces, and to the last of the children whom he has left so that he will not give to any of them any of the flesh of his children whom he is eating because he has nothing else left in the siege and in the distress with which your enemies shall distress you in all your towns.

The most tender and refined woman among you who would not venture to set the sole of her foot on the ground because she is so delicate and tender will begrudge to the husband she embraces, to her son and to her daughter, her afterbirth that comes out from between her feet and her children whom she bears because lacking everything, she will eat them secretly in the siege and in the distress with which your enemies shall distress you in your towns.

Do you feel the weight of this curse? And by the way, it happened that way.

When you read Jeremiah, when you read Lamentations, you see that's exactly what they did. They resorted to cannibalism.

This will happen if they do not serve him with joy and gladness of heart, within gratitude. He threatens the very things from which he delivered them.

Horrible slavery. They were hungry. They would become hungry, destitute, and oppressed just like they were when they were slaves.

And guess what happened? This produced a people who were overflowing with gratitude, right? Isn't that what happened?

I mean, with threats like this, certainly, certainly you would be a thankful people. No, curses did not ring true.

I mean, the curses were fulfilled. This is exactly what happened. You see, he had showed them grace by delivering them and these covenant obligations flowed from God's goodness and grace to them in delivering his people from oppression.

Yet, in the face of even that grace, they did not fulfill these covenant obligations and they reaped the curses because that covenant did not transform them.

Those curses bounced off of their hearts of stone. It didn't produce grateful people.

And you might say to me, but we're made of the same stuff as they are. What's gonna make us grateful?

If such horrible, unbelievable curses did not produce a grateful people, what hope is there for us?

This is why you must know what the Lord has done. You must know what the

Lord has done. Because we're made of the same stuff and the first covenant actually revealed the ungrateful depravity, made it so obvious,

God acted in Jesus. That's the difference. Look at what

God has done. The triune God takes upon himself the covenant obligation of joy and gladness.

Let me show that to you. Turn to Ezekiel 36. Ezekiel 36, verse 22.

Therefore say to the house of Israel, thus says the Lord God, it is not for your sake,

O house of Israel, that I am about to act, but for the sake of my holy name, which you have profaned among the nations to which you came.

And I will vindicate the holiness of my great name, which has been profaned among the nations and which you have profaned among them.

And the nations will know. Now, how have they profaned his name? Well, for one, they were not joy.

They had no joy, no gladness in serving the Lord and thus they profaned his name. So what does he say he's going to do?

And the nations will know that I am the Lord, declares the Lord God, when through you I vindicate my holiness before their eyes.

I will take you from the nations and gather you from all the countries and bring you into your own land.

I will sprinkle clean water on you and you shall be clean from all your uncleanness and from all your idols,

I will cleanse you. And I will give you a new heart, a new spirit I will put within you.

And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my spirit within you and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules.

The father makes a new covenant with his people in which he obligates himself for the sake of his name to produce joyful, glad hearts.

He is going to move, he's going to make a new covenant and in that covenant, he will change you.

And then the son ratifies that covenant by his death and he purchases for us all those things.

Jesus purchased your joy and gladness. We say that every

Sunday. We say that every Sunday as we come to the Lord's table where Jesus says, this is the new covenant in my blood.

You see, by his death, he guarantees the promises of that covenant.

By his death, he purchases for us joy and gladness. Consider this.

Jesus gave up the joys of fellowship with the father. He came to earth and became the man of sorrows so that through his sorrow, we would reap joy and gladness of heart.

Do you see that? And then the

Holy Spirit takes what the father has promised and what the son purchased and he applies them to God people.

What do we read in Galatians five? For the fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self -control.

Holy Spirit works those in us. See, see what the

Lord has done in the gospel. That is why we can serve.

That is why no amount of curses is gonna change us, but the gospel will and the gospel has.

And we can serve God with joy and gladness. We can show our holy state by our gratitude.

God's name will be honored among the nations because of what he has done.

Well, you say, so there's nothing left to believe then, right? That's all I gotta do. It's a done deal, right?

There's no obligation on our part. Why are you preaching this sermon? It's all done, right? Well, you and I know that's not our experience and we still find ourselves fighting against the sin of ingratitude.

We still sense the necessity of obedience to this command. All right?

So you know the Lord's command. You know what the Lord will do. Now, know how you can obey that command.

How can you obey that? He wants us to know that. Well, first of all, we need to understand that we still live in a fallen and broken world and that the full redemption purchased by Jesus has not been fully applied yet.

For example, just like God's people of old, we still contend with a pagan culture that is always trying to seduce us with idols.

I love what Dave Powison wrote. We have a culture that is in love with recreation, entertainment, and amusement, and we are too easily enticed by the endless array of distractions our culture so willingly supplies.

And so we're sometimes seduced into thinking that amusement equals joy.

We pursue amusement, and then all the bad things go away. There are still idols out there seducing us.

We have bodies waiting for that full redemption. And when those bodies suffer from pain or fatigue, they tempt us towards attitudes that are not joyful or grateful.

Let's face it. It's hard, isn't it? I remember the first Wednesday of October, 2009.

I had a horrific toothache. Now, that wouldn't stand out except for the fact that I was at the

ACBC Conference, which to me is great, and one of my good friends in ministry,

John Street, was preaching, and I wanna be there for him, and I wanna rejoice in what my friend

John says because he's got incredible insight. But man, I had a toothache, and I remember sitting there going,

John, stop, would you please just end this thing?

Would you? I wasn't grateful and joyful at that moment.

Why? Because I have a fallen body, and sometimes it makes it hard to be joyful and grateful when it hurts.

You know, I always say, when you're in pain, your universe ends at the end of your nose. Isn't that true?

Sinners still plague us and attack us, making joy and gladness harder to grasp.

Of course, sin still resides in us, making it difficult. Now, look,

I had a difficult conversation yesterday with Becca. It was a difficult conversation, and she spoke words of wisdom to me.

She said, honey, you've taught me. Those are the words

I hate to hear. Pastor, didn't you say? She said, honey, you've taught me that happiness and holiness always go together.

You can't have one without the other. You can be thankful for what

God has given us. She said that without knowing the content of this sermon, which was an immediate rebuke to me, you can be thankful for what we have.

You can be happy, right? Sin resides in us, causing us difficulty in expressing these things, but here's the point.

Here's the point. Is it difficult? Yes, but you can fight through to joy, gladness, and gratitude.

You can fight through. Look at 2 Peter 1, verses three and four. 2

Peter 1, verses three and four. His divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness through the knowledge of him who called us to his own glory and excellence, by which he has granted to us his precious and very great promises so that through them you may become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped from the corruption that is in the world because of sinful desire.

All right, you can fight through to joy and gladness and thanksgiving. It begins with Jesus.

Notice, his divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness through our knowledge of him.

We have the divine power for joy and gratitude communicated to you through your knowledge of Jesus.

Do you wanna be joyful and grateful? Then get to know Jesus. There's a time in my life where I thought some years ago, okay, if this is true, then

I need to get to know Jesus, and I dived into the gospel of Mark. What is Jesus like?

The more you know Jesus in the word as you commune with him, the more power you have for joy and gratitude, for joy and gladness, the more power you have.

All right, it begins with Jesus. Number two, it includes faith. Do you notice he talks about promises here?

This is something that has really changed my, or really enriched my thinking about growth, and that is,

God's given us promises, and if I believe them, I will have fellowship with the divine nature, and I will escape the corruption of the world that are there through desires.

Do you see that? You've heard me say this a thousand times. Here's a thousand in one.

Every time you're at the crossroads of temptation, God's way or sin's way, you gotta have faith, because sin and its desire is saying to you, give in to me, and you will be fulfilled.

The reason why you blow your top is because desire is there saying, you just have, let them have it, let them have it, and you will feel better, and they will surrender, and then you have the promise of Jesus who says, the thief comes to kill, steal, and destroy.

I have come that you may have life and have it to the full. Do not blow your top. You need to handle that in a way that honors

God, but then you got this desire saying, no, no, no. No, if you do that, that person will get away with murder, and you have

Jesus saying, I'm telling you, it's better my way. Who are you gonna believe? Who are you gonna believe?

And so, gratitude and joy come by faith as you believe the promises of God in the light of temptation.

Here's the third one, how you can fight through it. It means recalling that your Father is more intent on your gratitude than even you are, and he will see you grow.

Now, we see the curses here. The gospel transforms those curses of the old covenant into God's loving correction intended to transform you.

It's not threatening you with cannibalism, by the way, but I do know this. Jesus took the curses upon himself so that God freely loves you, and he can correct you, and still be holy and just.

Number four, it means rehearsing the power of the gospel to yourself.

It means rehearsing the power of the gospel to yourself. Romans 611, so you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.

Here's another starting point at the moment of temptation. I can say, I don't have to obey the dictates of sin.

I'm dead to that old master. I'm dead. I can say no to sin, and I can say yes to Jesus.

Some time ago, again, you know how it is. Marriage brings out the best and the worst in us.

You know, one day my wife disappointed me. I was hoping to go with her to town that evening, and she changed her plans, and I was a bit irritated, disappointed, feeling sorry for myself, starting entertaining thoughts that were not so loving concerning my beloved, and it looked like a day was developing that would not be characterized by joy and gladness of heart.

But I said to myself, this is ungodly, because God wants you to be joyful and glad, and I could say,

I am not enslaved to these emotions. I can be joyful and grateful.

See, that's where it starts. You recognize that the tyranny of sin has been destroyed by the death of Jesus.

You can say no to sin and yes to God. Here's number five, how you fight through.

It means recalling the character of God. It means recalling the character of God.

Does your attitude reflect an outlook that says, glad? You mean with a monster master like Jesus, you expect me to be glad?

Hmm, is that what your attitude is saying?

How do you see your God? In this, the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only son into the world so that we might live through him.

In this is love, not that we have loved God, but that he loved us and gave his son as an atoning sacrifice for our sin.

Apostle Paul writes, but I received mercy for this reason that in me, as the foremost sinner,

Jesus Christ might display his perfect patience as an example to those who are to believe in him for eternal life, to the king of ages, immortal, invisible, the only

God, the honor and glory forever and ever. That is our God, that is our

God, that is your Lord. The last thing

I would mention is, it means looking to the cross. It means looking to the cross.

Do you wanna see God's love? Look at the cross. I remember sitting in my office one day, a couple women who were trying to tell me that if you wanna know the love of God, you ask for signs.

You say, God, if you really love me, you'll show me a bluebird today. God, if you really love me, you'll do this.

One of the things I said to them was this, look, you know what Jesus said? People who look for signs are part of a ungrateful, horrible generation, twisted.

Don't look for signs. And then I said, you wanna know

God loves you, look at the cross, till the reply was, never forget this.

Well, yeah, but that's kinda like a marriage certificate that says you're married, but you need love. You need signs of that love.

As you go on, I about came unglued. I thought, oh, so Jesus hanging in open shame on the cross, the father killing his own son for you, that's not good enough?

No, no, you want a joyful and glad heart, look to the cross. Look to the cross.

In this fallen, broken world, you can still fight through. The father through Jesus by his spirit will see you through to the joy and gladness that he commands.

So you see, Thanksgiving for us goes far beyond just material blessings for which we ought to be thankful, but it goes beyond that.

We have the immense privilege of serving God with joy and gladness of heart. It is a privilege because by doing that, we magnify our father and our savior and show the great power of the spirit of God.

It's a privilege because we showcase the power of the gospel to a world lost in the darkness of sorrow and ingratitude.

My friends, God still threatens terrible things to people who will not be happy.

Some of you today have no joy in God. You hate him for his commandments. You have closed your eyes to the immense goodness of God that he showers upon you day after day after day, and God forbears with you day after day, showering you with good gifts, expecting that that will lead you to repentance.

He offers you his son this day to pay for your sins so that you can be right with him and experience a better life than you've ever had.

But if you continue in your obstinance, refusing to see his goodness, refusing to find your joy in his son,

God will exact a terrible judgment. The curses of that old covenant point to a much greater, greater punishment.

God threatens terrible things to people who won't be happy. If you refuse to find joy and happiness in his son, you will face his judgment.

But today we have heard from God, know the joy of serving the one who loves you beyond measure.

Let's pray. Father, we come to the old covenant, we tremble with fear.

As we come to the gospel, we find hope. You haven't changed. You still command us to serve you with joy and gladness, to be grateful people.

But Father, we know we can be. You have promised that you will sanctify us.

You have promised that as we walk in this life, because of your son and because of the spirit, we can have joy and gladness.

Now help us to respond to the command and find the power of the spirit working in us.

God, help us to show the people of this world that we are grateful people.

That we serve the living God. That we serve our

Lord Jesus Christ with joy and gladness. Press that upon our hearts, in Jesus' name, amen.