Sermon on Joy (3of3)

Lord God, thank you so much for just everything you've given us this year. Thank you for this small church family that we can just have so much joy meeting every

Sunday and also throughout the week, Lord. I just pray that you would bless us going into the new year and that we would be changed forever by your word this morning and God, that we would be conformed into the image of your son, in Jesus' name, amen.

Okay, so this morning is the last sermon in the Joy series, so we'll go back to preaching through a book soon.

It won't be a topical thing next time. And a couple weeks ago, we started the Joy series and we talked about the foundations of joy, how

God, from the beginning of time, created joy and he wove it into the fabric of our experience.

We experience joy in our food, we have joy with our families, we have joy in our work, just to name a few of them.

God created all these things and he infused them with joy so that we, and we've all experienced the joy that he's infused these things with at one time or another.

Then, of course, last week, if you weren't here, it was a bit of a downer. We recognize the obvious reality that even though God created joy and infused everything in his creation with joy, we know that, it's very obvious, it's not all joy all the time anymore.

In this life, joy is mixed up often and tangled often with pain. So in every area that we experience joy, all those areas

I just mentioned, we know that the results of sin have tainted every single one of those as well.

Whether with food or drink or family or work, our blessings have all been cursed one by one. So while they still bring us joy, we understand that they're all connected with pain in this life.

But, of course, the story does not end there. Our God is too good and too merciful and too generous and too awesome for that.

But, we know God had every right to destroy us when we rebelled against him.

We know that. He had every right to let us sort of wallow in our own nonsense and try to find our joy by rubbing sticks together in the wilderness.

He had every right to leave us alone entirely, but he didn't. Even though we rebelled, even though we continue, even now, to be faithless, he still is good to us.

We know that God decided to redeem his people even in our rebellion. We know that Christ came to earth as a man.

We know that he lived a morally perfect life. We know that he went to the cross and died in our place and rose again so that we could live eternally.

All that stuff we learned in Sunday school, right? But God not only saved his people from their sins, he did do that, but not only that, not only did he make it so our sins would be credited to Jesus' account and Jesus' perfection would be credited to our account, not only did he do that, but he also redeemed creation itself and is restoring the world to its former, upright, unstained, joyful glory.

God is reversing the curses that we talked about last week in Genesis chapter 3 and he's allowing us and showing us how to experience joy in the things that he's made, all the things that he's made.

So today I want to talk about how God does this. I don't want to just leave it at the Sunday school level where it's like, who restores our joy?

Well, Jesus restores our joy. Great. That's true, but we want to talk about how he does it.

I want to show you how he does it rather than just tell you. And I think hopefully this will make it more real to us, hopefully this will help us in our own lives when we're not experiencing joy to help us learn how to do that.

So let's begin with some scripture. This morning, we're not going to just do one passage, there's going to be a few different passages, but I want to start with John chapter 2.

John chapter 2, these are the words of God. On the third day, there was a wedding at Cana in Galilee and the mother of Jesus was there.

Jesus also was invited to the wedding with his disciples. When the wine ran out, the mother of Jesus said to him, they have no wine.

And Jesus said to her, woman, what does this have to do with me? My hour has not yet come. His mother said to the servants, do whatever he tells you.

Now there were six stone water jars there for the Jewish rites of purification, each holding 20 or 30 gallons.

Jesus said to the servants, fill the jars with water and they filled them up to the brim and he said to them, now draw some out and take it to the master of the feast.

So they took it and when the master of the feast tasted the water, now become wine and did not know where it came from, though the servants who had drawn the water knew the master of the feast called the bridegroom and said to him, everyone serves the good wine first.

And when the people have drunk freely, then the poor wine, but you have kept the good wine until now, this, the first of his signs,

Jesus did at the Cana at Cana in Galilee and manifested his glory and his disciples believed in him.

That's the, those are the end of God's words. I love this story. I love that story.

It is very simple, but also very deep, like lots of Jesus's parables and lots of his miracles.

They're kind of like this, right? So you can read it and understand immediately what the story is about. Not complicated language, not complicated grammar.

It's very easy. But there's also, you can study it deeper and get a lot more from it too. I'm sure over the years you've heard sermons about this passage.

This is a very popular passage. I'm sure you've heard people say, how was the first miracle of Jesus and what that means.

And I'm sure you've heard different interpretations of what this miracle means and, and why it's important.

And I find all of that stuff really interesting and plausible, but let's just pretend for a moment.

We aren't that clever, right? Let's just pretend that we're very simple and we have very simple hermeneutic.

And the simple hermeneutic is this. What are the words in the page say? That's a weird one,

I know, but let's just keep it super simple. So here's the thing. There's a wedding party.

We know what wedding parties are like. They're awesome. They're fun. And they're running out of wine.

I've never been to a wedding that ran out of wine, but I would imagine that potentially could be a faux pas.

That's a party foul. Embarrassing. Jesus' mother, it's so embarrassing that Jesus' mother, it doesn't say that the bridegroom was looking for help, but Jesus' mother said, we got to help this guy.

I wonder sometimes why Jesus' mother asked him to help. Like I wonder if he'd done something like this before.

I don't know, obviously, but she seems to know exactly what to do. So then

Jesus makes the water into wine and hardly anybody notices except the few servants that he has help him.

And basically what I would assume the master of the feast is sort of like a wedding planner. I would assume it's like that kind of a person.

Like in my head, it's kind of like the guy from Father of the Bride. That guy's hilarious. And he's amazed.

This guy's amazed because the groom is not going to be embarrassed anymore. And also he's amazed because the wine is like the best wine he's ever tasted.

It's excellent. And so he's just so excited and he's like, wow, the party's going to continue.

This is going to be classic. So whatever this miracle means, and I'm not saying this is the only meaning here, but whatever else it means, it definitely means that Jesus was making a way for the wedding party to continue.

He was going to keep the party rocking. The joy of the party, even the joy of a good adult beverage is going to continue.

And it's also going to be enhanced because Jesus was present and he did some work. So whatever else this miracle means, it definitely means that Jesus's presence in this case kept the party going.

That my friends is awesome. You see the show goes on because of Jesus Christ.

This motif is kind of all over the New Testament, by the way. Wine is the most commonly mentioned agricultural product in the

Bible and wine and food are all over the New Testament and always Christ is making things better and more plentiful.

That's that's that's the motif that I'm talking about here. Whether it's wine or food,

Jesus is making it better and more plentiful. Talk about the reversal of of the curse in the garden, right?

What about the what about when Jesus in Mark 7 says that all foods are clean now, right? Like that is awesome.

That is better. It's making food more plentiful. Do you realize the kinds of foods that were on the ban list that Jesus just says, you know what,

I'm going to cancel that ban list. Bacon was unclean and Jesus came and made it clean.

I don't think I have to say any more about that. What about communion, right, communion, we have communion every week here.

Some churches do it less frequently, but this is a God -sanctioned, God -commanded celebratory meal for believers that includes bread and wine.

But in the in the original, you know, celebration of it included other food as well. But think about that.

God commands this. It's almost like a regular church holiday, you know, it's in the old in the

New Testament. It was a fun time. It was a it was a feast. They enjoy each other's company. They enjoyed people.

They enjoyed it every every every as long as they did it. I don't know if they did every week back then, but it was a it was a holiday.

It was like celebrating Christmas again and again and again. Now communion has spiritual significance.

I'm not saying it doesn't, but there's definitely a physical element as well. There's food and there's drink in the church's worship.

What about the loaves and the fishes? We all know that story from Sunday school, right? Jesus feeds 5 ,000 men and also some women and children with just a handful of bread and fish.

Talk about reversing the curse of the garden, right? The curse says it was going to be hard to get food out of the ground.

It said that we would only be able to eat with sweating and toil and work. And then

Jesus hits the scene and he's just handing out wine and fish and bread. He's just like, he doesn't even break a sweat.

All without breaking a sweat, all without much effort. He's handing out food and wine in abundance.

See, this is a image, this is a picture of how joy is being restored to food and drink by reversing the curse that God put on it in the garden.

I recently saw an article, this is, it was in the Huffington Post, so you know it's true. It said that we produce, as you know, in the aggregate, the world produces 50 % more food than we need to feed the entire population every year.

So it said we produce food enough to feed 10 billion people and there are only like 7 .5

billion people on the earth. Those statistics show me that the curse in the garden is in the process of being reversed.

We have so much food we don't know what to do with it. And yet there are still people hungry around the world.

So don't hear me saying that the curse has been completely reversed. It has not. But it sure sounds like we have the tools we need.

Jesus has struck the decisive blow and we have work to do spurting the gospel of the kingdom of God so everyone can eat.

Joy is in the process of being restored in the area of food and drink and we, the body of Christ, need to get to work to help finish the job.

Speaking of work, what about work? That was another curse. Right? Like, what does

Jesus do about the curse in the garden regarding our work? Remember, God says that we would work but it would produce thorns and thistles.

It wouldn't always produce the desired result. Here's a passage. When I was a new believer, one of my biggest problems was my job.

To me, it was in a lot of ways very soul -crushing. It was very monotonous and did not produce the results

I was hoping for. Also, I had a little bit of an ideology problem too. But when

I first became a believer, I found Colossians chapter 3, verse 23. You probably know this one.

This is what Colossians 3 .23 says. It says, whatever you do, work heartily as for the

Lord and not for men. Knowing that from the Lord you will receive the inheritance as your reward.

You are serving the Lord Christ. You see,

King Solomon, we talked about him last week. And in his younger years, he had it all wrong.

He had it all wrong. The toil that we toil under the sun is not meaningless.

At least not anymore. All of your work, whatever it is that you do, has purpose and has meaning.

Because here's the thing. Jesus Christ has come and he has struck the decisive blow against sin.

And so victory and dominion is guaranteed to him. We should be reminded of this every

Sunday as we worship God and as we take communion. Like Christ's dominion over the world is absolutely assured.

Victory is promised. And so now every believer, no matter what work they're doing, every believer is working for the kingdom right now.

And that gives your work meaning. No matter what you do, you are doing kingdom work.

Now I'm going to say something here, and I hope nobody takes it the wrong way. So just give me a moment to sort of explain so you can kind of consider what

I'm saying. So here it is. Here's what I'm going to say. Your life does not have to look radical to be serving

God properly. You don't have to pack your stuff up and move to a third world country to be truly serving

God. You don't have to be an elder. You don't have to be a deacon. You don't have to stand on the street corner preaching.

You don't have to be in ministry, quote unquote, to be in ministry. Now I have nothing against books about these things, like David Platt's book,

Radical. It's a good book. Even the book we're reading now, Chris, you know, you picked this great book.

It's a good book, and it's about this kind of stuff, like doing sort of these radical things that sort of shake up our paradigm a little bit, and I like that.

But what I worry about, what I worry about is that we ought not to forget that God's people all have different roles in his kingdom, and he delegates them as he sees fit.

And it's not always something that the world sees as, quote unquote, radical. The Colossians passage says, whatever you do, you are working for the

Lord. It doesn't say if you are a missionary overseas or if you give away 90 % of your salary or if you're a minister, then you're serving the

Lord. No, it says whatever you do, whether you're a farmer or a machinist, whether you're a teacher or a cashier, whether you're a laborer or a stay -at -home mother, that job is a job that Christ has assigned to you for this time.

So we ought to act as if it's Christ who assigned us to that job because it was

Christ who assigned us to that job. The job you have right now is a job for God's kingdom, so do it well.

Your pay, the pay that you get from your job, whether it's a little bit or a lot, that's pay for God's kingdom, so spend it wisely.

Your children are children for God's kingdom, so raise them as such.

Do all of this knowing that God has good things planned for his church through all of it. So ordinary

Christians, you go to work every day and you're not in ministry, so to speak. You're a stay -at -home mom.

Ordinary Christians are in ministry, not just hypothetically, not just spiritually speaking or some kind of a metaphor.

No, you're actually in ministry. God gave you work to do as his child and as his coworker.

Christ is who you work for, and so your work is redeemed through him. One of my favorite theologians is

R .J. Rushtuni. He's controversial, but I like him, and he's great on this particular topic,

I think. He basically says that because victory has been assured by Christ, our work isn't a drudgery.

It doesn't have to be anyway. He says that Christians are reminded that life is not an aimless existence, but rather there is a goal that lies beyond.

He says for a non -Christian, it's just another day on the calendar.

There's just continuous work, and it's just another day. There's really no goal. It's like being on an anthill or being a bee in a beehive.

It's just like the work is an end in itself for nonbelievers. Without the fact of victory, without the goal that we know is going to be accomplished, work becomes a drudgery.

Work becomes a curse. But with the fact of victory, secured by Christ, anything you do is furthering the extent of his victory.

And so anything can be joyful because all of it helps bring Christ's enemies under his feet.

Every single one of you who does work that helps bring his enemies under his feet, even if your work isn't obviously what we call ministry, you're doing kingdom work.

For every Christian that's at GE or wherever you work, that's another piece of ground the kingdom of God has gained in the world.

So Christ has guaranteed the victory. And so we know ultimately our work will not bring forth thorns and thistles.

It will produce results for Christ. It will produce the exact results that Christ wants them to produce.

And so there will be growth of his kingdom. That's how our work has been redeemed. I think that the more you feel like your work is kingdom work, with a guaranteed victory in mind, the more you'll be able to work heartily because you're working for Christ.

If you really believed, if I really believed in my heart that my job mattered to the king of the universe, wouldn't

I have joy in doing it every day? Wouldn't I be excited to do a good job for him? Well, guess what?

We don't have to pretend. That's not just a pretend game. It does matter to the king of the universe.

So have fun, work hard and leave the results to God. And after you're done working, come home to your family.

Speaking of family, what about our families? That was another curse, right? God says in the garden, he says the wife will be contrary to her husband, and the husband shall rule over the wife.

What do we have for that? Colossians 3 actually again addresses this exact thing.

Colossians 3, verse 18 shows us the reversal of the curse. He says, Paul says, wives, submit to your husbands as is fitting in the

Lord. Husbands, love your wives and do not be harsh with them. You see how this, when

I read this, I was kind of almost taken aback by how directly it reverses the curse of the garden.

It directly addresses the curse in the garden. It's a contradiction of the curse. So the question is, how do we do it, right?

How do we do it? It's easier said than done. I think we all agree. How does Jesus' work apply in this one?

Well, I think Paul in a different book makes this clear. He makes it explicit how Christ shows us what to do.

Ephesians 5, Paul says, wives, submit to your own husbands as to the

Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its

Savior. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands.

Husbands, love your wives as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish.

In the same way husbands should love their wives as their own bodies, he who loves his wife loves himself.

So you see, as we're reading these kinds of things and as we're conformed into Christ's image, we can see, we start to learn how

Christ treats the church. And so we can know more and more how we should treat our wives.

We see how Christ forgives the church, loves the church, serves the church, gives himself up for the church.

And so we can see an exact example, a perfect example of how husbands should treat their wives.

And likewise, wives, as they're conforming to the image of Christ, as they read the scriptures, as they understand

God better, they see how to relate with their husbands because they see how

Christ relates to the church. Christ redeems this whole relationship, the whole family dynamic, by leading the way and providing an example of humility that we ought to have in our families.

Every week I read Philippians 2 and we read about, we hear about Christ's example of humility.

Every week, and I'm going to keep reading it every week until it completely takes over how we engage in the world and how we treat people, especially in our own family.

I want it to become part of how we think. See, joy is being restored and the more like Christ we become, the more joy will once again take over our family dynamic.

But it is a process. It's admittedly a process. It's not something that you just flip the switch and we won't be perfect, especially with the family one, right?

That's a tough one. It can be hard to live in light of the fact that the curse within the family situation is overcome.

They're all hard, but I feel like the family one is one of the most difficult. You see,

Christ's coming, we celebrated it last Monday. Christ has come and he's struck the blow, the victorious blow in restoring joy.

So the joy that God created in the garden, right, and then he cursed it in the rebellion, it's now in the process of being restored.

But it's exactly that, it's a process. Christ has conquered and won, but now he sits at the right hand of the

Father while all his enemies are being put under his feet. And we're still here on earth working on doing that, working that out.

And we're not yet perfected. And we still war against sin. We know the victory is ashore, we know we will be changed completely eventually.

But we don't have complete victory just yet and we're still at war. We still have work to do, we're still co -workers with Christ.

And so, because we're imperfect, we won't be able to emulate

Christ perfectly. We won't win the battle against sin every single day. We won't have permanent joy yet.

We will suffer. Suffering is a part of life. And until we're perfected, all of us will suffer in this life, despite the fact that we're

God's chosen people. But we have another secret weapon.

God's people have another secret weapon here. We suffer just like everybody else, that is true. But our suffering is different.

We can rejoice in our suffering. Now, when I was a young Christian, I would hear somebody say that.

And I would say, wow, that's really stupid. Like, that is so dumb. What is that supposed to mean?

Rejoice in suffering? Like, that doesn't make any sense. But as I grew,

I understood. The reason I didn't understand is because I didn't know it came from the Bible. I didn't know what passage it came from.

It comes from Romans. Romans 5 literally says, we rejoice in our sufferings.

I am very thankful that God does not... I'm thankful that God forgives me for being so flippant when

I was younger. Because I am sure I said, wow, rejoice in suffering? That's stupid. But I didn't know it came from the

Bible. Thankful for His forgiveness. But here's what the rest of the passage says.

So I think I probably wouldn't have been so flippant if I heard it in context. We rejoice in our sufferings knowing that suffering produces endurance.

And endurance produces character. And character produces hope. And hope does not put us to shame because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the

Holy Spirit who has been given to us. So suffering is not something to rejoice in just for the sake of it.

Right? Like suffering for suffering's sake isn't something to be happy about. But the reason we rejoice is because suffering produces something valuable in us.

Suffering produces something good in us. So when we endure suffering, we build character.

And as we build character, we gain hope. And as we gain hope, we become more aware of God's love and His provision.

And that is a very, very good thing for us. Now I don't think that—and this is probably debatable,

I would say— I don't think that the Bible teaches that suffering is the only way to learn to get these gifts and to learn these lessons.

I don't think that we should necessarily seek out suffering. But when we do suffer, this is a promise that we will get these good things.

So that's why we can rejoice in it. So when we suffer, we have a promise that says we will get good things out of it.

Peter talks about this, too. In 1 Peter, he says, Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery trial when it comes upon you to test you, as though something strange were happening to you.

But rejoice insofar as you share Christ's sufferings, that you may also rejoice and be glad when His glory is revealed.

So I think, you know, kind of how I interpret this is our lives aren't intended to be full of suffering all the time.

But when it does come, let's not act as though God's abandoned us. Let's not act as if this is—we can't imagine why this would be happening to us.

Let's not act like He's forgotten about us. Let us rejoice because if Christ's sufferings produce something so good, we can be sure that God will keep

His promise about our sufferings as well. You know, I know some people who intentionally seek out suffering.

It's really weird. There's a street preaching cult.

When I say street preaching cult, I mean they started out as street preachers and then they formed their own church where they think they're the only saved people on the planet.

And it's not the one that holds up signs. It's a different one, but much lesser known. But it's just as much of a cult.

So they think that persecution and suffering is a requirement for Christianity. So if you're not being persecuted, you're not a

Christian, in other words. They think it's a requirement. So it's not just faith alone. It's faith plus persecution.

And so what they'll do is—this is how they get persecuted, right? Because they're here in America, right? There's not a systematic persecution of Christians here.

So here's what they do. They'll go street preaching and they'll antagonize people and they'll insult them and they'll say ridiculous things, all while saying, this is

God's judgment on you and this and that. So they'll harass people until they get their result that they want.

And so sometimes people will curse at them. Sometimes people will hit them. Sometimes they'll get arrested. Because if you're harassing someone, you're going to get arrested, obviously.

That's not suffering as a Christian, right? That's suffering as a dope. Peter actually even warns about this in this passage.

He says, if you're insulted for the name of Christ, you're blessed because the spirit of glory and of God rests upon you.

But, he says, let none of you suffer as a murderer or a thief or an evildoer or as a meddler.

Because here's the thing. If you suffer as a meddler, you're suffering justifiably.

I mean, that's what you're supposed to be doing. If you're stealing from somebody and then somebody hits you over it, you can't say, oh,

I'm suffering as a Christian. The point is, our suffering can be a joy as long as we keep these things in perspective.

Because suffering produces good things in us, and so we don't have to despair when we suffer. Suffering produces good results, and so we don't have to give up when we suffer.

We'll bear it. We'll suffer through it for Christ's sake. So, let's make sure we see and we focus on the joy and the end result of suffering, not just focus on the suffering itself.

That's how you have joy in it. In 2 Corinthians, Paul talks about suffering, his own context, his own personal context of suffering.

See, in Paul's time, they did face real systematic persecution for being Christians. We can apply this to our situation, too, if it's appropriate.

It doesn't have to be automatically appropriate in every situation for every Christian for all time.

But if it does apply to us, let's claim to it. Let's lay claim to it. Listen to what it says in 2 Corinthians. We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed.

Perplexed, but not driven to despair. Persecuted, but not forsaken. Struck down, but not destroyed.

Always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that at the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our body.

He later goes on to speak words that I think clearly do apply to every Christian in every situation.

Because even if every Christian won't be persecuted or afflicted in every way, like Paul and his buddies were, we all are in situations where we could easily lose heart.

So listen to what Paul says to all Christians. He says, so we do not lose heart.

Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day. For this light momentary affliction is preparing us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison.

As we look not to the things that are seen, but to the things that are unseen.

For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal. That's why we can have joy in suffering.

Because there's an end goal in mind, so the suffering is not pointless or meaningless.

Scripture says it's preparing for us an eternal weight of glory. I don't know what that is, but it sounds pretty awesome.

So if we can go through a period of suffering for an eternal weight of glory, I think that's a reason to rejoice.

So here's the thing, this is something that I want you to understand more than anything else. All of this joy that I'm talking about, all of the ways that Christ redeems us and restores our joy, all of these ways that Christ reverses the curses of the garden, they're not only for a delayed time, sometime far off in the future.

It's not just this carrot. I've talked to people who say Christianity is like this carrot that you dangle out in front of you, like you'll have happiness and joy one day, just not now.

I don't think it's just for that one day. I think these are gifts right now, they apply to us today.

Because to me, I look at God's restoration of the world, I look at it the same way I look at our own sanctification.

We all recognize that we're being conformed to the image of Christ day by day, so hopefully in a few months you're going to be more like Christ than you are today.

That's the hope. That's how the sanctification process works. So we're not perfect yet, but we're getting sanctified moment by moment.

But then one day when we die, God's going to flip a switch and we're going to be glorified.

So it's all going to happen at once, even as we progressively make progress there. So I look at the world the same way.

I think God is renewing the heavens and the earth little by little and progress is being made, the curses are being reversed, and joy is being restored progressively.

And then in the end, when Christ comes back, when we get the new heavens and the new earth, it'll be done like that.

It'll be completed. And so just because we don't have perfect joy now doesn't mean that we can't have progressive joy now.

We can still have joy right now through Christ and his gospel. So remember this, the gospel saves our souls for eternity.

Yes. But it also saves our lives and our joy right now in this life.

So let's work for the kingdom while enjoying our lives now. But also we will look forward to the consummation of our ultimate victory as God's people.

Let's do that right now. Let's look forward a little bit and get a glimpse of the joy to come from scripture.

God gives us a sneak peek at this joy and it looks like to me, the way I interpret this, it looks like it'll be quite a party.

The wedding at Cana was hopping, but this will be something for the ages.

Revelation 19, we've already read most of this, but I'm going to read it again. The 24 elders and the four living creatures fell down and worship

God who was seated on the throne saying, amen, hallelujah. And from the throne came a voice saying, praise our

God, all you, his servants, you who fear him, small and great. Then I heard what seemed to be the voice of a great multitude, like the roar of many waters and like the sound of mighty peals of thunder crying out.

Hallelujah. For the Lord, our God, the almighty reigns. Let us rejoice and exult and give him the glory for the marriage of the lamb has come and his bride has made herself ready.

It was granted her to clothe herself with fine linen, bright and pure. For the fine linen is the righteous deeds of the saints.

Brothers, let's do these righteous deeds with joy. Let's work for the kingdom of God with a merry heart because we've already won through Christ.

We have already won through Christ. And just because not everybody knows it yet, doesn't mean it hasn't happened.

And because of that, the work that we do for the kingdom of God now, whatever it is, the toil that we do under the sun, our families, our food, our everything.

It really is the good life. So let's enjoy it as we work for the

Lord. Let's pray. God, thank you for just your amazing redemption,

God. Thank you for saving us from our sins. Oh, thank you for saving us from our sins because none of it would be possible without that fact first.

So Lord, thank you for that. But Lord, thank you also for saving us as whole people, as people that are in this world, that are still your creation in this world,

God. That still finds joy in the things that you've created, Lord. God, I understand that we don't always feel joyful.

We don't always feel grateful or thankful. But Lord, help us to feel joyful.

Help us to be able to rejoice in our suffering. That's a supernatural thing that you have to do in us, God. Because naturally, when we're suffering, we're not thinking about what it's going to produce in us.

We're thinking about how we don't want to be suffering anymore. Just because that's what most people do naturally doesn't mean that it's right.

So God, I ask that you give us supernatural ability to rejoice in all things, rejoice in the good things we get, of course, but also in our suffering,

God. God, I know that all of us have struggles against sin in all of the areas

I've talked about. Whether it's food and drink, and what we eat, what we don't eat, what we drink, what we don't drink.

Whether it's through work, whether we like our jobs or we don't like our jobs, or they're frustrating, or they're monotonous, they're boring, they seem meaningless.

Or whether it's even our family dynamic with our wives, or husbands, or just our brothers and sisters, or kids, parents,

Lord. There's just so much, God. I just, God, I pray that you would help us to find joy in these things.

Help us to just keep perspective of the gospel with these things,

Lord. Help us to consider others more important than ourselves, God. Help us to remember that all of what we do on this earth has been assigned to us by you.

So our jobs, whether we like them or hate them, or whatever, our families, they've all been given to us by you.

You've assigned us to those situations, Lord. You said, okay, this is a good job for Adam, this is a good job for Tim, this is a good one for Andrea.

You've assigned us. So Lord, help us to do it heartily, help us to do it with joy, help us to do it well.

And help us to consider the fact that we're working for you, Lord. Help us to appreciate that and to love that.

God, as we sit to celebrate communion yet again, God, I pray that you would change our hearts,

Lord, and help us to love you, and help us to appreciate you for just everything you are, but also the sacrifice you've made on our behalf.