John 17:13 (A Prayer For Our Joy)

Thank you for subscribing to the Shepherds Church podcast. This is our Lord's Day Sermon We pray that as we declare the

Word of God that you would be encouraged Strengthened in your faith and that you would catch a greater vision of who

Christ is May you be blessed in the hearing of God's Word and may the Lord be with you

Well today we're back in our main series, which is the gospel of John It's the series that we've been in now for three maybe coming close to four years

I'm not sure been been in it for a little while And we're gonna be jumping back in today to the gospel in chapter 17 to this sort of unmatched and Unrivaled prayer this prayer that stretches.

Oh, yeah. There's a lot of verses This is what happens when you give me time off This prayer that soars above the heights of human language this prayer that will minister to the tiniest babe

And yet will also baffle the greatest scholars this prayer that has such an intensity and depth of love that it could have never been prayed by mortal man a prayer that was authored by the author of prayer a

Prayer that was prayed by the one who invented prayer the one who receives our prayer the one who delivers our prayer to the father a

Prayer that is a mediatorial prayer, which just means that he works for us to bring us to God he mediates relationship between us and God a

Prayer of a true and perfect and great high priest Who loves us and cares for us and serves us and in this prayer?

We get to see what he thinks about us and our well -being Now if you think about well -being well -being is a

Multifaceted phenomenon and it occurs not just in our heads and not just in our hearts But it works itself out across the gamut across the entirety of who we are as a person

Well -being or as the Bible would call it shalom is that all of you is integrated

All of you is at peace every bit of you is under the blessing of God and when that happens

We will have joy It is the great physician himself who prays this prayer and is it any wonder that he is the one who?

ministers to us cares for us heals us and brings us to a place of This kind of shalom so that we will have joy

Now if you remember we've been in John 17 now for four weeks. We've done this four different times the first week we talked about the model of praying and we looked and we saw how

Jesus is the model of praying and at Every point in his ministry. Jesus is stopping and praying He's getting away from the hustle and bustle of things and he's getting before God He is our model for dependence on God and if there's anyone who did not need

Prayer if there's anyone who didn't need To go through the motions of what we see in Jesus's life

It is God in the flesh Jesus Christ and yet he does this for us to model that we must depend upon God He's the one who modeled a prayer saturated life so that you and I would have prayer saturated lives

He's the one who modeled how to pray when to pray where to pray why to pray We saw that in week one

In week two, we saw how he prayed for our eternal life our eternal well -being our eternal joy and his prayer

Was that those who know him? Would be caught up in all of the joy and blessings of heaven forever

Week three we prayed a prayer that focused on his lordship Those who are saved coming under the lordship of Jesus Christ come under the authority in the dominion of Jesus Christ We saw that when

Jesus ascended to heaven and sat down on his throne to rule he sat down to rule over his church

When he sat down upon the throne we came underneath his lordship so that every facet of our life is now under his

Dominion, he's the Lord over our bodies the Lord over our minds our thoughts our convictions our opinions and our attitudes

He's the Lord over our hearts and our emotions and our feelings and our affections He's the

Lord over our bodies our physical actions our directions. He's Lord over Everything there's no area of your life that the

Lord himself does not call his Because he ascended he is our

Lord the last week that we were the last time we were in their series at the beginning of December before our

Christmas series we talked about the fourth aspect of this prayer Jesus prayed for unity He prayed that his church would be one as he and his father and the

Holy Spirit have always been one in heaven and this one was especially convicting because we live in a time period of great dissension divisions and divisiveness

The Church of Jesus Christ does not look united From the top to the bottom from the

Baptist to the Methodist from the Presbyterian to the whatever the Church of Jesus Christ does

Not look to be in great unity and I believe and we talked about this in that Message that the church needs to repent of that and Before Jesus returns.

I believe his prayer will be answered that the church will be one as he and the father are one We're not gonna

I don't believe that we will see Jesus return to a fractured broken pessimistic limping

Diseased and sickly church. I believe she will return to a glorious triumphant Unified bride

Who loves him and who worships him that's what

I think I think that's what Jesus thinks Now that doesn't mean we unite in error it doesn't mean that we accept everyone for everything that we accept the

Universalist and the Unitarians and that we and that we just say theology and doctrine doesn't matter We talked about that.

We correct the heretic We correct the brother who is an error in their doctrine.

The Bible says that you grab them out of the flames So there let's not let's not call this uniformity that everybody whatever they believe is

Okay, that Jesus doesn't have an opinion on things. No, that's not what we're talking about But we are talking about a heart position and disposition of Jesus's church that we start with unity

And if we're going to divide that it must be over primary doctrines

So that was what we talked about in week four now today We're gonna come back to this prayer and we're gonna look at it from a different angle

We're only gonna look at it from one single verse today again. You gave me too much time off And we're gonna look at something that it's extremely

Neglected in the Christian life. I think one of those aspects of the Christian life that that we must

Repent of for not experiencing it to the degree that Jesus prayed it Jesus prayed it because he cared about it.

He cared about it because it's good and He prayed for our joy and if we're not experiencing that I pray that we repent and I pray that our repentance would not look like we just got whacked over the head and that and that we have to grovel and and Show God how serious we are by by putting on sackcloth and ashes sometimes that's important,

I guess But I pray our repentance actually would be to restore us to a place of joy

The repentance would be joyful that our repentance would be that we would lay down the things that are causing us to be broken and that we would just embrace that God is good and That it would impact us from the tops of our heads to the bottoms of our feet

And that we would be a joyful people today, we're gonna talk about three things when it comes to joy in this verse

We're gonna talk about what's the ground of joy? We're gonna talk about what is the root of joy?

And then we're gonna talk about what is the fruit of joy? So we're extending a little bit of a metaphor here. What's the ground?

What's the soil that joy is planted in? What is the root that causes joy to grow and what is the fruit of?

Joy, and that's what we're gonna be talking about today So if you will turn with me to John 17 verse 13

We'll read it together. We'll pray and then we will get started John 17 verse 13

Jesus says but now I come to you and These things

I speak in the world so that they may have my joy made full in Themselves, let us pray

Lord you Are the author of life you are the one who has the words of life where to let us as we reflect upon your word today

To see that your word gives life Let us remember that it's you who made us not we who made ourselves

That you know what we need, you know our frame You know what the things that will bless us and minister to us and care for us

Lord You designed us so, you know exactly what fuels us So that God if you say

Christ if you say in your prayer That we should be full of joy

Lord. I pray that we would hear that That we would repent whenever we fall short of that and Lord I do pray.

I Pray that your church the Shepherd's Church the Reformed Church the church

Lord I pray that in this next decade and century that we would be known as a church

That is joyful Jesus name we pray.

Amen Now in the same way that a tree in order to grow needs soil and It needs its roots to be able to go down deep in order for it to bear much fruit today

We're going to be talking about those three aspects of what joy is and we're going to be grounding Joy in the

Ascension of Jesus Christ Jesus says in this passage, but now I come to you

He's talking about the Father. He's saying God now I come to you Which is a fascinating thing for Jesus to say because it's 50 days away from the

Ascension He hasn't forgotten that he's going to be arrested in Maybe less than 30 minutes from this moment in John 17

He hasn't forgotten that and he hasn't forgotten that he is going to endure The sham false trial from the from Caiaphas and the

Pharisees. He hasn't forgotten that he hasn't forgotten that he's gonna be on radical sleep deprivation from the moment that he's arrested and Taken into custody to the moment that he's paraded in front of pilot and then to Herod and then back to pilot

Jesus is going to be awake for nearly 36 hours He hasn't forgotten that when he said now

I come to you He hasn't forgotten the beatings or the bleedings the holes in his wrist and the pain in his back

That was searing as his back scraped against the back of the cross. He hasn't forgotten that He hasn't forgotten that he is going to give up his last breath and die

That his disciples are gonna take his body down and put it into a borrowed tomb He hasn't forgotten that he's gonna go down to Sheol and minister to the dead saints from the

Old Testament and preach the gospel to Them he hasn't forgotten that he's gonna rise from the dead and spend 40 days

Ministering to his people before on the Mount of Olives on the 50th day. He ascends to heaven.

He hasn't forgotten that But what Jesus is doing is he's periscoping what

I mean by periscoping Jesus is looking past Everything that's getting ready to happen and he is summarizing this next 50 days in light of his ascension

He's saying my death my arrest my beating my burial my resurrection All of that the resurrection appearances that happen over the 40 days

All of that is under the canopy of I am coming to you. My job is finished.

My mission is finished I am coming Which teaches us something about how

Jesus viewed his incarnation His incarnation was not about getting arrested

That wasn't the sum total of of his effort His incarnation wasn't just about him coming to die

There's been millions of trillions of people maybe who died. That wasn't the end goal for Jesus It wasn't even about his resurrection

Those were stops in root to the finishing of his work

Which was the ascension? This tells us exactly how important Jesus thinks the ascension is to him.

He says now I am coming to you Without the ascension we would not be saved

Without the ascension of Jesus to the right hand of God. We wouldn't be able to glorify God We wouldn't have eternal life.

We wouldn't be able to submit under his Lordship. We would never have unity. We would never have joy

Jesus is saying that it's going to take more than me getting arrested to accomplish what

God has sent me to do It's gonna take a whole lot more than dying Everyone in this room will do that.

Jesus did something more It's gonna take a whole lot more than a resurrection even Lazarus underwent that It's going to take the resurrected

Lord Ascending to the ancient of days being welcomed by the angels of heaven being celebrated for his victory

Sitting down on the throne to reign to finish the work that God had called him to do and as he sat down in all of his glory and powerful or power and dominion he finished the work and In that moment

Jesus sent forth his spirit to his church so that every single Christian That has ever lived in every generation that has ever been

Can know him and have his joy if Jesus finished the work at his resurrection You and I would have to travel to whatever town he was in that day to see him

Because he ascended Because he sits at the right hand of God and sent forth the

Spirit of God You and I can know him all over the face of the earth His work was finished in his ascension, which means that joy is grounded in the ascended

Christ We don't get the joy of Christ without the ascension. We don't get the joy of Christ without him

Raising to life raising to the throne of God and seated sending forth his spirit.

We don't get it and This is so important to me Yes at least in the last year and a half or so because I realized something about The sermons that I've been listening to all my life if you think about it

And maybe you're in a similar boat that than I am We've heard maybe a hundred sermons in our life on the life of Christ We've maybe heard ten thousand sermons on the death of Christ We've maybe have heard a thousand sermons on the resurrection of Christ But how often do you hear about the importance and the necessity of the ascension of Christ?

The job wasn't over until he sat down to rain and that's what he says here

I now come to you so that They may have joy made full

Without the ascension you do not have his joy Without the ascension you don't have the spirit who authors joy and it's a gift to the spirit that you would have joy

It's his ascension that connects us to the father who's the maker of joy It's Jesus who went to heaven not to Experience the joy of heaven all for himself before his brothers.

He shared it with us through his spirit It is through his ascension that he intercedes for us to bring us ongoing joy

It is through his ascension that we gain the victory and that we will have the victory which brings us great joy

It is through his ascension and through his work that we are that we will return to him and Have great joy.

Do you know our life really is an imitation of him even down to the to the smallest parts?

Jesus came and lived a life of pain and suffering died was resurrected and ascended

That is the story of our life now as he is the first fruit of a new creation For he who has been raised he's went to where we're going

You and I live right now in a life that is filled sometimes with suffering and with pain But in our death, don't we ascend to be with him and that's not even the end of the story

But that's not what this sermon is about He ascended So that we would imitate him follow him and that we would have joy

He says that I am going to the father so that They can have full joy his ascension

Assures every single Christian in this rooms Joy, and I would say

That if you think joy is impossible Then you have to argue with the Ascended Lord who sits at the right hand of the father who said

I did this so that They would have joy and as we said in Sunday school again another plug

You my dear friend are not that powerful He Ensured that you would have joy in every aspect of your life not just on the good days

When your team wins or your stock market thing that you did Does really well?

You would have joy Jesus is promising on even on days when your dog dies On days when you're sinned against on days when you're cheated on and days when you lose

Everything that you own and days when you're fired from your job in days when your pancreas stops working in days when your kids disappoint you

Which rarely happens? In days when the world looks gloomy and awful

Joy brothers and sisters is not achieved by you You don't work hard and get it joy is achieved by the finished work of Jesus Christ And his work was finished in his ascension into heaven.

He earned it for you And what does this tell us this tell us that we need to repent

We need to stop as we talked about earlier feeling defeated Because the

Ascended Lord promised that you and I are more than conquerors We need to stop feeling abandoned

Because the Ascended Lord said I will never abandon you nor forsaken you We need to stop dwelling in negative putrid emotions that the world slops at like pigs at the trough and we need to stop being weighed down by the things that makes everyone else miserable and Understand how good and how glorious Christ is and brothers and sisters.

I don't care what you're going through today I do care but listen to what it might be me. I mean by that Christ is better Christ is better than your pain.

He's more beautiful than the ugliness He can minister to your sorrows and give you great joy.

I Want you to embrace that because it's yours. He purchased it. He bought it. He paid for it and he ascended to give it

It's yours So Don't give in to the lies lift your eyes to Jesus so that you can have full joy

He says full joy, by the way, let's stop there for a second He didn't say partial.

He didn't say a smattering or a scintilla of joy. Those are fun words He didn't say

I'm gonna leave you running on fumes How often do you feel like that though? You feel like you're running on fumes?

That's not what he promised you He ascended in order to give you full joy My question to you is do you believe that?

Do you believe that or have you been jaded by? life Do you believe that Jesus in his ascension and in his power and in his dominion can bring you joy

And if you believe that Because it's very Christian to say that you believe that Why does our life not look like that?

This is so convicting because I'm like everyone else New England is horrible in the wintertime

You look at the vitamin D map it's blacked out like a redacted CIA document There's no vitamin

D here in New England So I get it. I get a case of the fields for a couple months every year.

I Get it But the question is not where we're at Every one of us stumbled into here today in various different places with backgrounds with pains with hurts with betrayals

With all the baggage that we all carry every one of us came in in a certain way The question is not where you are.

The question is where you are going Are you going to ignore the promises of Christ are you gonna fight for joy?

Are you gonna take out the hatchet and start hacking? Your pessimism

Are you gonna live with it? That's the question

Because joy is rooted grounded. I mean in his ascension We don't act like orphans brothers and sisters.

We're princes and princesses. We are Royals in the kingdom of Christ What are you gonna do about the truth today as You hear the word of Christ.

What are you gonna do about it? Are you gonna sit in your sadness in your gloom? Are you going to fight for the joy that was purchased for you?

Because it's grounded in his ascension. The second thing we learn is that it's rooted in his words

Look at me. Look one more time with me says but now I come to you and these things I speak in the world so that They may have my joy made full in themselves

It's not Artificial joy, it's his joy being worked in you and it's two -part It's grounded in his ascension to heaven and it's rooted in his words

Why is it rooted in his words because Jesus came to teach us the truth of who God is We said earlier

The third plug for Sunday school is anybody listening and coming next week We said last week that the knowledge of God is the most needful knowledge of them all

It is what grounds us. It is what shapes us It is what makes us joyful if you can you cannot be joyful if you don't know who

God is So Christ came to tell us who

God is He said when you see me You've seen the Father When you've heard my words, you've listened to the very words of God Peter acknowledges this in John chapter 6

Jesus said are you gonna go away? Are you gonna leave me Peter and the disciples and Peter said where can we go?

You have the words of life You have the words of joy. Where else could

I go? all the pain does it matter the The struggle that we go through it's much smaller and it's annoying but it's worth it because you have the words of life

Jesus communicates to us who God is and he does it all across his entire ministry He communicates the character and the nature of God He communicates through his parables what

God's kingdom is like and what it means for God to be king over your life and for you to Be his servant he communicates what it means for us to be transferred into his kingdom as citizens to serve him and to and to Extend his gospel to the ends of the world

He talks about the fact that you don't belong to Satan anymore that you've been Raptured out of that kingdom and brought into Jesus's kingdom because Jesus bound to the strong man.

What a glorious message that is You were born behind enemy lines and Jesus rescued you

Why do we struggle with joy so much? Why do I struggle with joy so much? I don't belong to that kingdom anymore

He promises us eternal life that we didn't deserve He tells us how to live righteously and guess what righteous living is not a burden to you

Righteous living actually ministers to you and brings you great joy Fish Function the best in the water bald eagles have great joy when they're soaring you brothers and sisters were made for righteousness

And obedience to God and when you do that, it brings joy Proverbs says that it's the wicked man who suffers

Because wicked sin evilness brings Damage into our life it is obedience to Christ that restores us and this is not legally

I wish the Church of Jesus Christ today would forget Would forget this accusation of legalism when it comes to obedience

For ten years. I've been in Michigan. Let me just Let me just say this real quick because I think this is important For ten years.

I've been in ministry and there's been so many times where I've said Obedience to God is important and I've been challenged by folks who say well don't say that that's legalism.

I Am NOT saying that we must obey God in order to be saved because no one in here can do that what

I am saying is that now that you have been given the greatest gift that you've ever been given and Now that he has rescued you out of Satan's kingdom and he's transferred you into the kingdom of light

Obedience now is a gift for you Before you were a Christian obedience was a noose around your neck now obedience is a gift for you to bless you

Why wouldn't I tell you to obey as a Christian if it blesses you it does

All of Jesus's words were for our joy He assured us of God's presence.

He promised grace and forgiveness he told us that there's hope in our suffering you look through every word that Jesus spoke and That means the whole

Bible because Jesus is the author who sent forth the Spirit to author the entire word if you look at the word

It is for your joy So what we've learned so far is his

Ascension Grounds us in the joy. It accomplishes the joy and his words teach us how to live in that joy now as we close

I'd like to take a Survey of the Bible We're not gonna go to all of these but I do have them there if you take a picture of the screen you can reference them so I had to decrease the font actually to get them to fit so What is the fruit of joy?

How does joy work itself into every aspect of your life? I believe that the scripture teaches that there's not a single facet of your being that God doesn't want to bring his joy into There's not a hidden closet where you can be gloomy and glum

There is not a room that you get all to yourself to complain about your problems Every Facet of your existence

God is going to and wants to and has written in his word that he is going to bring

You into joy. That is why Jesus said my joy will be made full in them.

What does fullness mean? It means fullness in your experience. It means fullness in your mind fullness in your heart fullness in your worship fullness in your experience of salvation fullness in your joy of all things

Every area of your life He intends to bring under his joy

Can you imagine like how incredible that would be if that's the way we lived?

He's gonna bring joy in our worship. God wants you to be joyful in worship. Did you know that we say that every week?

Because we forget it God wants us to be joyful in worship. I don't care if your neighbor likes your tone.

I God has given us the tool to do that. He's capable of carrying a tune in a bucket as my grandma wants Affectionately said

God does not authored limping distracted Haggard quiet dole worship

So when that's the kind of worship we have it's not from him Look just a couple verses first Chronicles 1516 then

David spoke to the Chiefs of the Levites to appoint their relatives the singers with instruments of music earlier in that passage where joy is going to break out.

Do you know why joy has to break out? Because we are so hard and crusty that in order for it to actually come out of us something has to break.

Psalm 95 1, Oh come let us sing for the joy of the Lord let us shout joyfully to the rock of our salvation.

Psalm 100 verse 1, shout joyfully to the Lord. Oh the earth! Can you imagine what it's gonna be like on the day when the entire planet is shouting to the glory of Christ?

We've got to recover this aspect not our just our church the church has to recover this.

You see there's there's we talked about division earlier. I've been to churches where shouting happens and in those churches also they roll on the floor speak in tongues and bark like dogs.

I've seen that. That's not worshipping the Lord that's worshipping something else. And we're prim and proper the frozen chosen and we stand very calmly and we don't ever shout.

Why can't we as a Reformed Church in America be joyful about who we worship?

Why can't we be enthusiastic? Why can't we shout? It's not gonna hurt anybody.

If you don't like it that's okay go to a church where they don't worship God enthusiastically. I don't want that to be us.

There's joy in knowing Jesus. Let us express it brothers and sisters. When you do that it actually causes you to have more joy.

It's kind of like a helix. The more you're joyful in your worship the louder you actually commit to singing the more joyful it actually makes you.

Because it's not just for the glory of God it is but when you glorify God it ministers to you.

So have joy in your worship. There's joy in the presence of God and in your salvation.

Psalm 1611 you make known to me the paths of life in your presence is fullness of joy and in your right hand there are pleasures forever.

Did you know that it is pleasurable to know God? All of the pleasures that the world pedals to you are nothing.

It's like a dog drinking antifreeze. It tastes sweet going down but it kills it.

The pleasures of the world are like that. Not so the pleasures of knowing

God and knowing Christ. It's not just an Old Testament truth.

Look at what it says the angels say this in Luke 2 11. The angel said to them do not be afraid for behold

I bring you good news of great joy which will be for all the people.

That word great in Greek Megale means multiplied. It means like take an amplifier and hook it up to regular joy and make it great.

That's what he has accomplished for us brothers to step into that. And it's not just a spiritual joy.

It's not just it's not just me and Jesus and my spiritual life that has no impact on my physical life.

No there's joy in that too. Look at what he says about about us having joy when our enemies are defeated.

This is fascinating to me. 1st Samuel 18 6 it happened as they were coming when David returned from killing the

Philistine that's Goliath that the women came out of all the cities of Israel singing and dancing to meet

King Saul with tambourines with joy and with musical instruments. If that happened today the gospel coalition and every other

Christian organization would say well that is just offensive. They're just intolerant

Christians. They the Moscow mood as it were and yet God delights in this kind of joy.

God wants us who don't know everything to pray for our enemies and God wants us to rejoice when our enemies are converted and God wants us to rejoice when they are crushed.

Because when they're converted we rejoice in his kindness. When they are crushed we rejoice in his justice.

In all things we rejoice. We rejoice in God's creation.

Psalm 65 8 those who dwell in the ends of the earth stand in all of your signs and you make the dawn and the sunset shout for joy.

I saw a double rainbow yesterday. I went outside and it was there for about one minute and it was gone and I was reminded

God keeps his promises. Brothers and sisters don't live your life in a cubicle or in your bedroom office or whatever it is.

Get outside and see the glorious things that God has made and rejoice in who God is.

Psalm 96 12 the field exalts and all that is in it then all the trees the forest sing for joy.

They're already singing. Brothers and sisters join them. Isaiah 55 12 for you will go out with joy and be led forth with peace.

The mountains and the hills will break forth into shouts of joy before you and all the trees of the fields will clap their hands.

Join them. The whole world redounding for the glory of Christ.

I believe that's what Jesus is waiting on before he returns. Why would

Jesus return to a world that is not filled with worshipers? Why would Jesus return to a world where the human beings are so curmudgeoned and sticks in the mud?

It's our joy to spread his joy. It's our mission to spread the joy of Jesus Christ.

Christianity and the gospel is not for the arrogant and for the proud and for the stuck -up.

It's for the joyful. It's for those who know that they're not worthy and that he alone is worthy and when you get that you can do nothing but have joy.

There's joy and righteousness as we talked about. Psalm 19 111. I have inherited your testimonies forever for they are the joy of my heart.

The law of God is joy. David struggled to go to sleep at night. Not because he was watching some television show.

Not because he was doing whatever. David struggled to go to sleep at night. Stayed awake at night panting over the

Word of God because he knew that it was dripping with joy. Proverbs 12 20.

Deceit is in the heart of those who devise evil but counselors of peace have joy. What better counselor do you have than the

Word of God? There's joy. How often do we pull our

Bible out? How often do we forget that this treasure chest of heaven has been deposited in your house?

How often do we waste hours and hours on Netflix and YouTube and everything else and we neglect the treasure chest of joy that Christ has given us in his

Word. It's almost like we hate ourselves. It's almost like we are trying to be miserable.

There's joy in trials. Consider it all joy. Not some. All. That's a really complicated

Greek word. It means everything. Consider it all joy, my brethren, when you encounter various trials of various kinds.

Our trials and our tribulations are not opportunities for whining. I know.

I whine a lot. I've said it many times. When someone cuts me off in traffic.

How silly and stupid is that of me? That I would waste that opportunity to praise

God and I would be so concerned about my timing or my preferences or or my sweet little blue thunder that I drive around in.

Our trials are not an opportunity for whining. They're an opportunity for joy. Total joy. And God uses our suffering for our good.

You and I are like big lumps of rock. With the right beating and the right scraping and the right cutting, we can be shaped into something beautiful.

We're not butter. We're rock. And sometimes it takes

God taking out the mallet of life to shape you into something beautiful.

But trust me, brothers and sisters, it's for your good. It's not even worth comparing.

The struggles you're going through aren't even worth comparing to the glory that will be revealed on the day of Christ.

So as you hurt, also have joy. There's no circumstance that we can't have joy as a

Christian. None. And I don't know if you've noticed this, but when

God gives joy to very, very sorrowful people, it is a megaphone for the gospel.

You notice parents who had their children die in shootings and they say that Christ is still

Lord and I forgive that person. Have you felt the hair stand up on the back of your neck, how palpable

God's grace is in that moment? When God gives you suffering, he gives you joy to magnify him, not to revel in our sorrow.

I don't know if you remember, we had a lady who went to church here a couple years ago.

Her name was Kathy and she was diagnosed with cancer and she passed away. And she's human like all of us and she struggled like all of us would, but there were moments where that lady, she shined with the glory of Christ and she said,

I will be healed. It'll either be now or it'll be in heaven. And when she said those things, it touched my heart.

And it convicted me because I can't make it from here home without losing my joy.

And here this lady was facing the end of her life and she was beaming for Christ. Are you fighting for joy, brothers and sisters?

Are you fighting to take up joy in your pain? Are you fighting for joy in your worship?

Are you fighting for joy in the experience of your salvation? Are you fighting for joy as you live in a world that is joyless?

Are you fighting for the very thing that will magnify the goodness of Christ to the nations?

I would say, are you fighting for it alone or are you fighting for it with others?

Because the Bible actually doesn't describe a joy that is by yourself. The Bible describes a communal joy, a joy that is among the people of God.

Acts 15 3, therefore being sent on their way by the church, they were passing through Phoenicia and Samaria, describing in detail the conversion of the

Gentiles, and they were bringing joy to all the brethren. They had to bring joy to all the brethren because the brethren lacked joy.

Philippians 2, 17 through 18. This is Paul at the end of his life. He's getting ready to die.

If you know from history, his head gets chopped off. Like, that's what's getting ready to happen to Paul. Paul says, but even if I am poured out as a drink offering upon the sacrifice and the service of your faith,

I rejoice and I share my joy with you. And I urge you, rejoice in the same way and share your joy with me.

He's saying, I'm gonna die. Be happy about it. I'm gonna die. Be joyful. I'm gonna die.

Magnify the joy of Christ so that everyone under heaven can see the goodness of Almighty God.

And if Paul can say that, you and I can say that when Starbucks gets our latte wrong. The question that Paul is getting after is does our life baffle unbelievers?

Does our life mystify them? When they look at us and they say, how in the world are you still standing?

And you tell them, I have Jesus Christ. He has placed us in a dark time, not to be sad about it, but to be lights.

That's why he put you here. Brothers and sisters, there's no reason as a

Christian you should live in New England other than the fact that he's placed you here to magnify his gospel and to bring joy to this place.

Do you have that kind of joy, brothers and sisters? And if you don't, will you lay down whatever toxic emotions that are in you that prohibit you from that so that you can step into that.

Paul says in Philemon chapter 1 verse 7. For I have come to have much joy and comfort in your love because the hearts of the have been refreshed through you.

So brothers and sisters, if you lack joy, be involved in this church.

Be refreshed by others. Look to your left and your right. There are people here who are struggling with joy.

Don't leave church as soon as the amen is shared. Stay. Be a part of refreshing someone else.

Be a part of ministering to someone else. Be a part of caring for someone else because you and I inevitably are going to struggle with this because we're human and because we have bad days and we need each other to refresh one another like Paul is refreshing Philemon.

It's the elders job in the service to point everything to Christ. The singing to Christ, the words that we preach to Christ, the words that we read to Christ, the prayers to Christ.

We are here to point everything to Christ. Brothers and sisters, it is your job to point one another to Christ.

Do not miss your opportunity to minister by leaving here to go on about your day.

You are not an individual. You have been bought and paid for and brought into a community.

And guess what? If you're here, then this is your mission field today. And if you don't like the things that we're saying and you leave, well, find another mission field.

But at least today, stay and minister to your brothers and sisters and point them to the joy of Christ.

We need each other. Let's look at a few more examples quickly. There's joy in God's justice.

Let the nations be glad and sing for joy, for you will judge the peoples with uprightness.

So there's joy in God's justice. There's joy concerning our future. Matthew 25, 21.

His master said to him, well done, good and faithful slave. You were faithful with a few things and I will put you in charge of many things.

Enter into the joy of your master. Joy is coming for all who are in Christ. There's joy in God's anger, for his anger is but for a moment for the believer.

His favor is for a lifetime. Weeping may last for the night, but shouts of joy come in the morning.

There is joy even in his parental affections that sometimes bring us under punishment for our sin.

There's joy in spiritual growth. Philippians 125, convinced of this, I know that I will remain and continue with you for your progress and joy in the faith.

We are here, just like Paul, for your progress and joy in the faith. So there's joy in community.

There's joy in spiritual growth. There's joy in feasting. Nehemiah 8, 10. Then he said to them, go eat of the fat and drink.

Oh no, my whole punch has blocked that out. And drink of the something. And send portions to him who has nothing prepared.

For this day is holy to the Lord. Do not be grieved for the joy of the Lord is your strength. There's no prudeness in this.

He's saying there's joy in the fatness of the great steaks. There's joy in the deep darkness of the red wine.

There's joy in the feasting. There's joy in the good gifts that God has given us. Brothers and sisters, don't be a prude. He's given us this world to enjoy for his glory.

Amen. There's joy on the Lord's day. Acts 13, 52, and the disciples were continually filled with joy and with the

Holy Spirit. That's when they gathered. Continually filled with joy. There's joy in God's protection,

Psalm 511. But let all who take refuge in you be glad. Let them ever sing for joy.

May you shelter them and those who love your name, may they exult in you. There's joy in the protection that God gives his people.

There's joy in obedience. Psalm 100, verse 2. Serve the Lord with gladness. Come before him with joyful singing.

Every facet of our life, and this is just a fraction of the verses, but every facet of our life can come under the joy of Christ because he bought and paid for it and he sat down on his throne to give it.

Do not let yourself be mired in sorrow when eternal pleasure and joy are yours in Christ.

And as we close, let us repent of the times where we fall short of this and let us, as a practical application of our understanding of this, let us come together now and conclude our worship service with joyful, raucous, holy, joyful singing.

Amen? Let's pray. Lord, we thank you that you are good and kind and gracious and loving and merciful and that you love us.

Lord, I pray that in your love that we would be transformed into joyful people.

Lord, I pray that there'd be no Ebeneezer Scrooge or Grinches here. Lord, I pray that your joy would shake the very foundation of who we are and that it would be pointed at you, rooted in you, grounded in you.

Lord, I pray that we would find joy in nothing else but you. It's in Jesus' name we pray.