Finding Joy #rejoice #joyful

[0:00] Philippians 4 is where we're going to go. But we will be looking through numbers of scriptures which you'll see projected for you.! And talking about the subject of finding joy. Finding joy.

[0:13] ! And joy, we know joy is a small word, but it's a mighty big truth, isn't it? Joy. And life can be full of trials and tribulations. It can be hard to find joy when the rubber hits the road sometimes and there's much uncertainty, there's turmoil in the world.

[0:30] And in looking for joy, we can sometimes try to find it in passing pleasures and we'll fail if that's where we look. We don't always feel joyful either.

[0:43] Our circumstances aren't always how we'd like them to be. Yet God calls us to rejoice, to rejoice. How can this be?

[0:55] Paul wrote these words in Philippians 4 verse 4. And when he wrote these words, he was sitting in a dark, gloomy prison cell.

[1:06] And notice this is a command. Philippians 4 verse 4. Shall we say it together? Rejoice in the Lord always. And again I say rejoice.

[1:19] Rejoice in the Lord. Look, things aren't so great for Paul, but despite his hardship and the challenges, he says this, rejoice. Always.

[1:31] It's a command. That's a command that we can hopefully think, I should obey that command. The whole book of Philippians is full of this overflowing theme of joy.

[1:45] This recurring theme. Joy. You can look through the whole book and you can see numbers of times it talks about joy and rejoicing. When you think really joy is a choice, not a feeling, isn't it?

[1:58] And as believers we call to joy even when the circumstances are not fitting. Because the joy that we have is above our circumstances.

[2:11] Our joy is anchored in the unchanging truths of the word of God and his promises. When we think through history, men have pursued joy in all kinds of ways. In every avenue you could think of.

[2:23] Some have successfully found it, but others have not. Perhaps it would be easier to think where you cannot find joy. Where you cannot find joy. And here's some quotes from some figures of history.

[2:33] Voltaire, he was an infidel. One of the most pronounced infidels. And he wrote this, I wish I had never been born. Voltaire didn't find joy in unbelief.

[2:46] I wish I had never been born. And then Lord Byron, he lived a life of pleasure. And he wrote, The worm, the canker and grief are mine alone.

[2:57] Lord Byron didn't find joy in pleasure. Joy is not found in money. Jay Gould, the American millionaire, he had plenty of money. When dying he said, I suppose I am the most miserable man on earth.

[3:12] Joy is not found in money. Joy is not found in position or fame. Lord Beaconsfield enjoyed more than his share of both position and fame. And he wrote, Youth is a mistake.

[3:24] Manhood is a struggle. Old age, a regret. He didn't find joy either. And then not in military glory. Alexander the Great, he conquered the known world of his day.

[3:36] And having done so, he wept in his tent. Before he said, There are no more worlds to conquer. He still didn't have joy. There was something lacking. So where is real joy found?

[3:49] Of course we know as believers that the answer is, It's in Christ. It's in Christ. Rejoice in the Lord. Rejoice. And again I say rejoice. Many people have been going about it the wrong way, looking for joy in all of these ways, without finding it.

[4:06] God's word reveals for us the deeper, more enduring joy. And where it is found, it's in Christ. It's a joy that comes from knowing God, isn't it?

[4:17] From a relationship with God. And the joy of the Lord, it says, is your strength. We see that in Nehemiah 8. God's promise is that we can find a real source of joy. And we know Nehemiah through the book, he was a man of prayer.

[4:30] The cupbearer turned governor. Nehemiah proclaims, The joy of the Lord is your strength. It's your strength. And Nehemiah, he led the Israelites to rebuild the wall of Jerusalem after the exile.

[4:46] And there was a time where Ezra the scribe came and read the law, the word of God. They opened it to the people. And there was a deep repentance and revival. And Nehemiah urged the people not to mourn, but to rejoice in the Lord's presence.

[5:01] And we can know that true joy, can't we? The joy that comes from knowing the Lord. The Lord, he's my strength. He's my support. And the true joy is in knowing him, knowing him.

[5:14] And we can know that true joy every day. When you think about it, what is a day that we should praise? Of course, some people think, well, the worship day is Sunday or it could be a particular meeting time.

[5:25] But really, it's every single day, isn't it? As this familiar verse says, Psalm 118, verse 24, we can make every day a praise day, can't we?

[5:36] Every day a day of praise, that we can get up every morning, every single morning, and we can say, this is the day which the Lord hath made. We will rejoice and be glad in it.

[5:47] That every day we can praise him. And so we've got this joy that's a strength for every day, for our daily living, day by day. It's God's presence. He's with us day after day after day.

[5:59] And whatever day it is, it's the day that the Lord has made, isn't it? So it doesn't really matter whether we're feeling humanly it's a bad day or a hard day or an irksome day.

[6:10] This is the day. Whatever the day that we're in, this is the day. And this is the day I'm going to rejoice. Amen. This is the day I'm going to be glad. And so we can have that enduring joy that comes from his presence.

[6:21] And it's not in our own ability or strength. It's in relationship with him. Where is our source of joy? It's the Lord. It's the Lord. It's the presence of God.

[6:33] And think of David, as we touched on today earlier, that David found his true joy in God's presence, didn't he? Here's a good one about joy.

[6:44] So, as David says, thou wilt show me the path of life. In thy presence is fullness of joy. At thy right hand there are pleasures forevermore.

[6:56] Thy presence, that's where the fullness of joy is. It's knowing him. It's knowing God is with me. And he's the source of joy. It originates with him, doesn't it? Our joy.

[7:07] Our joy comes from knowing him, truly knowing him. And we see Philip went down to a city of Samaria and he preached Christ unto them.

[7:18] And the end result was, there was great joy in that city. Wouldn't that be good if there was great joy in that city, this city, where Christ was preached and people trusted, people were saved.

[7:31] There'd be great joy, wouldn't there? Great joy in that city. That's what we need, isn't it? That Christ would be preached and there would be great joy in that city. Friends, there's joy in Jesus, isn't there?

[7:42] Isn't there? And joy, it's not merely some emotion. It's the heart made whole, isn't it? It's not on our circumstance. It's knowing him. It's Christ in you, isn't it?

[7:53] That assurance that you're saved, that you're heaven bound, that you know him, that he's with you. We see the psalmist cried, Psalm 13, 5, But I have trusted in thy mercy.

[8:04] My heart shall rejoice in thy salvation. We've got reason to rejoice because we're saved. Amen? Salvation is our great source of joy, our reason for joy.

[8:16] And we could think sometimes maybe the joy level kind of gets on the empty side. It goes a bit on the low side. How's your joy level? Really, salvation is your reason for joy, isn't it?

[8:29] Salvation is our joy. How is your joy level? Is it a bit lacking? We can be like David in Psalm 51. He cried out, Restore unto me the joy of thy salvation and uphold me with thy free spirit.

[8:42] Of course, the occasion of Psalm 51 was his sin, his time of sin or falling into grievous sin with Bathsheba. We see that he cried out, Lord, restore unto me the joy.

[8:54] Sometimes we have a joy leak and we can lose our joy, but we can restore it. We can get the joy replenished. Amen? You can say, Lord, restore it. Restore that joy.

[9:04] Give me a refill. Replenish that joy. And we can get our joy back. We can get our praise back like David did. God will replenish our joy. Just ask him.

[9:15] And there's great power in joy. It's been said that George Handel composed the famous music of the Messiah in approximately three weeks.

[9:27] And at the time, he was quite suffering. His eyesight was failing. And he faced this possibility of being imprisoned because of outstanding bills.

[9:40] And Handel, nevertheless, kept writing, kept writing these words for this masterpiece, the Hallelujah Chorus, the Messiah.

[9:51] And it was completed. And Handel credited the completion of this work to one ingredient, joy. He was quoted as saying that he felt as if his heart would burst with joy at what he was hearing in his mind.

[10:05] Of course, it was based on the scriptures. It was very much a rendition of the word of God to music. And Handel said it was the joy. It was the joy that gave him the inspiration.

[10:17] And sure enough, as you listen to Handel's Messiah, it brings joy to your heart. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. We can know joy.

[10:28] We can know joy by faith. Paul writes, now, the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing that you may abound in hope through the power of the Holy Ghost. It's like a filling up, isn't it?

[10:39] The God of joy, the God of hope fill you up, fill you with all joy and peace in believing. As we trust him, as we have faith, God will give us more joy, more peace and fill us, overflow us.

[10:52] That will abound in hope and it's by his spirit's power. Paul prays for the believers in Rome that they may abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit. It's God who gives us such joy, isn't it?

[11:04] And we come to him and we can have that same prayerful heart that Paul had. Lord, fill me up with all that joy, that peace in believing as I trust you.

[11:16] Our joy springs out of faith and it's God who gives us joy. 1 Peter 1, verse 8, Peter relates, whom having not seen of Christ, he says, you love, in whom though now you see him not, yet believing, you rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory.

[11:35] And one day we will see him. For the moment we don't see him, we see him not, but we are believing. We will rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory. We'll see his face.

[11:47] For the meantime, it's faith, isn't it? You see him not, yet believing, you rejoice. We know that joy is spoken of as one of the fruit of the Spirit, isn't it?

[11:58] The Holy Spirit produces joy, love, joy, peace. It's in there, isn't it? God's joy. It comes from the indwelling presence of the Spirit of God. We can know this joy and this joy is with us even in time of adversity, even in difficult times.

[12:13] God's people through history even more so had joy in time of trial and tribulation. There's a fullness here to this joy as well. It comes from our Saviour.

[12:24] He says this, he promises, John 15, 11, So, our Lord's telling us there's a joy and it's going to be a remaining joy.

[12:39] It's a joy that will be sustaining, an abiding joy. And the concept is of God's love. There's a joy that we can know and it's a fullness of joy. And that's really, it's salvation truly, isn't it?

[12:51] To know the Saviour is to know joy. That joy unspeakable, that joy full of glory, that joy that is in us that will be fullness, a fullness of joy, an abiding joy.

[13:03] It's the joy of Jesus, isn't it? He says, my joy, my joy might remain in you. It's the joy of Jesus, the joy of knowing Him. And God's kind of joy is an ongoing joy.

[13:14] It's not a joy that comes and goes, that's fickle or by passing fancy. It's a joy that's evermore. This rejoicing, rejoicing.

[13:25] He calls us, as Paul says, 1 Thessalonians 5, 16, rejoice evermore. It's an ongoing standing of joy, isn't it? That we can determine to be joy-filled people.

[13:40] And we can uplift our faith and have that kind of joy, that sustaining joy. We see James exhorts the believers to joy when trials come, when facing various trials.

[13:54] James tells the believers, my brethren, count it all joy when you fall into diverse temptations. So when you have these different tests and trials, these troubles, there's an endurance.

[14:08] He says, count it, count it all joy. Mark it down, it's joy. That trial of your faith is joy. He says, count it as joy. And our faith will help us get stronger and deeper joy.

[14:22] As we know God's faithfulness, even in the midst of such a thing, we know believers in places where faith is tested, their heart, their faith is strong and resilient.

[14:35] It's fervent. And God helps us so that we'll have a joy that will go through, a faith that will stand the test.

[14:46] And we can know joy in such times, such times of deep testing and suffering. And James says, count it, count it all joy. Count it a joyful thing. Count it pure joy.

[14:57] It's almost like, how do you get that? I don't know. How do you get that? You've got to kind of have a mental determination, don't you, to decide to be joyful, to decide, to find joy, to choose joy, to determine to have joy when humanly we want to give up, we want to give in, we can find joy.

[15:18] You can find joy. Maybe you're in such a situation in the midst of such a test of a suffering that your faith can be stronger. You'll get more faithful.

[15:29] You'll be more enduring. You'll have a deeper joy. And our Lord calls us to rejoice in persecution. I know I've been speaking with some, been tested in times, in work situations, in workplaces.

[15:43] More than one person has been going through some testing because they've dared to speak their faith and they've faced some testing.

[15:54] And our Lord encourages us in such a situation. He says, Matthew 5 from 11 through 12, blessed are you, there's a joy, blessed are you when men shall revile you and persecute you and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely for my sake.

[16:12] What are we to do? Rejoice and be exceeding glad for great is your reward in heaven for so persecuted they the prophets which were before you. There's a sense where it's almost like jumping for joy here.

[16:24] There's an exceeding gladness. There's a rejoicing that when you face persecution for righteousness sake, it's not reason to be despairing. It's actually a good thing. God commends you for that.

[16:36] And there's a reward. There's an assurance of heavenly reward. If we can endure persecution, we can know joy and God's faithfulness. And really one of the great sources of joy is salvation itself.

[16:50] We can know the great joy of salvation. The Lord tells of the joy in heaven. To think of that, that when something can happen on earth, there's a corresponding joy in heaven. And that is when one sinner repents.

[17:03] Salvation, it brings that profound sense of joy as a man or woman is reconciled to God. As they come to experience His grace, as they trust by faith His saving love.

[17:17] As they receive His gift. As they turn to the Saviour in faith. And salvation, it brings that profound sense of joy, doesn't it? As we see through Luke 15, of course, there's the story of the lost coin, the lost son, the lost sheep as well.

[17:36] And our Lord relates, there's joy. There's joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner that repents it. Joy in heaven.

[17:48] Joy in heaven. What a blessing that is. And the Lord tells how there's a joy in heaven when a man, a woman on earth trusts Christ. As a sinner repents, as they trust the Saviour to take their sin, to pay for it, to be saved.

[18:04] And that's a real joy. And you can know that joy personally if you've yet to trust Him. To know salvation by faith. Simply trusting. Jesus died for my sin and I ask Him to pay for it by the virtue of His blood shed for me.

[18:19] And to know salvation by faith is unspeakable joy, really, isn't it? It's beyond compare. To know reconciliation with God. To know eternal life. Redemption.

[18:31] In fact, the Bible says redemption brings everlasting joy. We see it said off there in Isaiah 51. It tells us, Therefore the redeemed of the Lord shall return and come with singing unto Zion and everlasting joy, everlasting joy shall be upon their head.

[18:48] They shall obtain gladness and joy and sorrow and mourning shall flee away. The redeemed of the Lord, that's you and me, isn't it? You that have trusted Christ. You that have received His redemption.

[18:59] It says that you have an everlasting joy. It's a joy that it's not going to fade or stop. This joy is everlasting. It's forever. Forever. And we have obtained that gladness and joy.

[19:12] And Isaiah prophesied about the joy that accompanies the redemption of the Lord's people. This promise of eternal joy. You can know it today. And it sustains us, doesn't it?

[19:23] That our joy, our saved people, our joy is true and lasting joy. We can nurture that joy as well as we feed on His Word. Jeremiah 15, 16 tells us how we can feed that joy.

[19:37] Jeremiah says, Of the Word of God, Thy words were found and I did eat them. And Thy word was unto me the joy and rejoicing of mine heart. For I am called by Thy name, O Lord God of hosts.

[19:50] Jeremiah testified that he could have a joy from the Word and he could nurture that joy. As we get more of the Word, we can have more basis for joy, the promises of God.

[20:02] And it produces joy. The Holy Spirit gives us that joy. The joy of the Lord is our strength. And joy is like a harvest too. It tells us how it reads, They that sow in tears shall reap in joy.

[20:17] It's talking really about the ones going, we could reflect of those going witnessing of sharing the precious seed, the Word of God. It says that they shall sow in tears but they shall reap in joy.

[20:30] It says they're going to bear that precious seed, the Word of God. They shall doubtless come again with rejoicing, bringing his sheaves with him. So it's a picture of the harvest that comes as we might share the Gospel and people trust Christ as we share the precious seed.

[20:45] There's a harvest that will be resulting from that. And true joy comes as we share the Word of God as we know that joy of salvation ourselves.

[20:57] When we think of this world and all the situations that people are going through and I know having spent some time in different government departments where mental health is a big feature of our world and of our state, our community, the people that are doing it tough are often subject to mental health.

[21:19] and really knowing the Lord is the best thing for your mental health. Truly it is, isn't it? I mean, we can testify of that, can't we? Of course, Christians can still have mental health problems.

[21:30] We can still have down times. We can still be downhearted. We can still have times of depression where, yeah, we can get overwhelmed. We're still human. We're still flesh. But thank God, the best answer for mental health is to know the Saviour, is to know the joy of salvation.

[21:45] Truly it is. And the world would offer all kinds of remedies but truly Christ is the answer for true mental health. The best thing for our state of mind is to know our Maker, to know our Saviour, to know God, to trust Him.

[22:00] And He gives us reason for rejoicing. Even when external circumstances are against us, it's as we abide in Him and His Word, we can know a fullness of joy.

[22:10] And we see, for example, it happened in Acts 5 where the apostles were beaten, they were commanded, don't speak anymore in the name of Jesus. And they let them go and they departed from the presence of the council rejoicing that they were counted worthy to suffer shame for His name.

[22:28] And they kept on using His name. They kept on preaching. And so we see that they were counted worthy to suffer shame for His name. They rejoiced. Here they were, they'd just been beaten, you know, told off, in trouble with the authority of the day, told not to speak anymore in His name, beaten up, and they rejoiced.

[22:52] They rejoiced. Wow, that's a blessing, isn't it? So for you believers that you might suffer some trouble in the work sites, you know, might face some trouble, some people picking on you for your faith, rejoice that you're counted worthy to suffer shame for His name.

[23:11] Let's rejoice always in the Lord. Amen? The Lord is our source of everlasting joy. And we're commanded to be glad. Here's another command. We could write this on our fridge.

[23:23] Psalm 32, 11, Be glad in the Lord and rejoice, ye righteous, and shout for joy, all ye that are upright in heart. You know, even us Baptists can shout sometimes. Amen?

[23:33] Amen! We can shout for joy. We can rejoice. We can shout for joy. Because we've got something that makes our heart glad. Amen? Be glad in the Lord.

[23:44] We can shout for joy. And we can make it intentional. We can obey this scripture. Be glad in the Lord. Be glad in the Lord. And rejoice. You can have a kind of deliberate joy.

[23:57] Decide to be joyful. Truly we have a glad faith, don't we? We think all the religions of this world, and it's mostly gloomy, isn't it? But we've got a glad faith.

[24:07] We've got a glad heart. Because we're saved. And we know it. Amen? Joy empowers us to face the daily test. And even when we humanly don't feel like it, like in Habakkuk's day.

[24:20] Here's another familiar one. Although the fig tree shall not blossom, neither shall fruit be in the vines. The labour of the olive shall fail, and the fields shall yield no meat.

[24:31] Though the flock be cut off from the fold, there be no herd in the stalls. Yet will I rejoice. Yet will I rejoice. In the Lord I will joy in the God of my salvation.

[24:42] Friends, you can joy in the God of your salvation. If you're saved tonight, you can have joy. And you can have a joy that emanates from your very soul. I love this one about joy too, Isaiah 61.

[24:53] Another one you can put on your fridge. It says, I will greatly rejoice in the Lord. My soul shall be joyful in my God, for He hath clothed me with the garments of salvation.

[25:04] He hath covered me with the robe of righteousness, as a bridegroom decketh himself with ornaments, and as a bride adorneth herself with jewels. Think of it as a bridegroom, as a bride would adorn themselves for their special moment.

[25:19] He's clothed me with the garments of salvation. Amen. We can think of how our Lord has taken away the filthy rags of our own righteousness, and He's made such a transfer, such an exchange, that He's covered us with His own robe, His robe of righteousness.

[25:35] His righteousness. He's exchanged our filthy rags for His robe of righteousness. And it talks about the garments of salvation. My soul shall be joyful.

[25:46] My soul shall be joyful in my God. What a glorious exchange. That's what happens when we trust Christ. And we can delight in that. It says this, Delight thyself also in the Lord, and He shall give thee the desires of thine heart.

[26:00] Is the Lord your delight? Can you find your delight in Him? There's a lot of things we can delight in, but especially this is true. We can delight ourself in the Lord.

[26:11] Delight yourself in the Lord. There's a glad joy that you can know. It's the joy of faith. It's the joy found in believing, trusting Christ. And as saved people, that joy is ongoing.

[26:23] It's an everlasting joy. An everlasting joy. As we navigate the complexities of life and we can find that anchor that is the Word, His promise, His unchanging promises, we can know these truths that as we delight in the Lord, He shall give us the desires of our heart.

[26:42] Because our heart's going to be right. It's going to be in tune with His heart. And we're going to be in tune with His will. Here's another one. Psalm 145. I will extol Thee, my God, O King, and I will bless Thy name forever and ever.

[26:56] Every day will I bless Thee. And I will praise Thy name forever and ever. Great is the Lord and greatly to be praised. And His greatness is unsearchable.

[27:07] Friends, there's so many scriptures we could touch on. Really, I've just touched on only a handful of scriptures about joy, scriptures about rejoicing. Maybe this can be just a little launching pad for you to get your concordance and look through the Word of God.

[27:23] Look at other scriptures that talk about joy, about rejoicing. And make it your delight. Make it your intent. Make it a deliberate confession. I will extol Thee.

[27:34] I will bless Thee. Every day will I bless Thee. I will praise Thy name forever and ever. Father, He's great and He's greatly to be praised. And He's the reason for our delighting that we save people and our rejoicing is not just on a Sunday, it's forever.

[27:52] It's the sense where our praising and singing and worship on this earth is really practice. It's really quite practice for eternity, isn't it?

[28:03] That our delighting, our rejoicing is going to be forever and ever and every day. So make it intentional. And don't wait for Sunday. Don't think that as you go home you stop praising.

[28:13] You've got to praise Him every day. Monday, Tuesday through Friday, Saturday and Sunday again. Every day will I bless Thee and I'll praise Thy name forever. You know, don't be shy.

[28:24] I know some of you are telling me you're truck drivers. You know, you can praise God while you're driving. Amen? When you're driving off to work, you know, you can put some music on if you need that or you can just sing acapella.

[28:38] And you can sing your heart out, can't you? Maybe at the stoplights you might go a bit quieter. But you know, you can praise God, can't you? And you can praise Him in your home time, in your quiet time, in your alone time, in your personal times, in the shower time, whatever time, you can praise Him.

[28:58] You can sing His praises, can't you? And I will bless Thee, I will praise Thy name forever and ever. So your praising is really, it's continual, isn't it? Every day.

[29:08] Make it intentional, deliberate, as you lean into the Lord and you find in Him your delight. Just another couple of scriptures here. Sure enough, we may have seasons of heartache and weeping.

[29:20] Now, this is not to discount and some of you might be saying, well preacher, it's easy for you to say, keep on rejoicing, but you don't know what's going on for me at the moment. And sure enough, there are seasons of heartache and hurt.

[29:33] There's times of weeping, there's testing times, but it says, but joy, but joy cometh in the morning. It says that weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning.

[29:45] After those seasons of heartache and hurt and weeping, but joy cometh in the morning. We can know that God will give us a new day, God will help us to get through the darker times, the stormy times, joy will come.

[30:00] Believe God, believe God. The season of weeping will be gone. You know, there will be a forever morning, won't there? One day, it'll be ever more morning. There won't be any night anymore.

[30:11] There'll be no more night. And one day, we'll be with Him, our Saviour. And friends, for all of us, we can know joy. It comes from Jesus. It comes from Him. Here's the source of our joy, the faithfulness of our God, and we can know and trust Him.

[30:26] And here's another one. Make a joyful noise unto the Lord, all ye lands. Serve the Lord with gladness. Come before His presence with singing. I know sometimes we can, even in whatever ministry, we can feel like, oh, I've got to do this again.

[30:42] Well, we can serve the Lord with gladness. Even though, humanly, we might feel weak and inadequate and unworthy and feeling like we're failing and really not up to the mark, we can serve the Lord with gladness.

[30:54] Even though we feel like we're totally inadequate and not sufficient to what God's put on our heart to do.

[31:06] And sometimes, we can feel humanly disappointed or discouraged, times where the burden is heavy to bear. Serve the Lord with gladness. Amen? So, when you're rostered to the video booth or whatever it be, you know, you've got, you're on the roster, oh, I'm on the roster again.

[31:24] Serve the Lord with gladness. Amen? Serve the Lord with gladness. It's an opportunity to serve, isn't it? I know people aren't like that, but you can get that way humanly, can't you? Where, oh, it's church again.

[31:34] I've got to go to church. Serve the Lord with gladness. Amen? It's not a drudgery to be in fellowship and worshipping and getting together with brothers and sisters in Christ as a blessing there.

[31:47] So, overcome that, that feeling of irksomeness with, I'm going to serve the Lord with gladness. I'm going to determine that I'm going to be glad to be with God's people and doing something for God.

[32:01] Serve the Lord with gladness. Truly, the Lord has done great things for us. Just one last scripture. I know we've gone through quite a few different ones here. It's really just to whet your appetite to how you can foster joy, how you can nurture more joy.

[32:16] Sing unto the Lord. Serve the Lord with gladness. And it tells us here, Psalm 126, verses 2 to 3, Then was our mouth filled with laughter and our tongue with singing.

[32:29] Then said they among the heathen, The Lord hath done great things for them. The Lord hath done great things for us, whereof we are glad. When you think through life and you get through some tragedy, some trial, some tests, people are going to say, the Lord has done great things for them.

[32:45] The Lord has done great things for them. And you can say, the Lord has done great things for me. Amen. Think of what the Lord has done for you, salvation. You're saved. You're heaven bound. He's taken your sin debt, your penalty, and he's paid it for you.

[33:03] He's paid the debt of your sin. And he's given you his precious gift, everlasting life, that have trusted him. You have a treasure that is beyond compare, there's riches beyond measure, that you have as saved people, that you know the maker of heaven and earth, that you know the creator as your father, as your saviour, the blessing of just being his.

[33:31] Great things he has done for us, whereof we are glad. Look at what the Lord has done for you. Look at what he's done. Sometimes we don't really reckon it, do we? I know the song goes, count your blessings, name the one by one, you just can't.

[33:45] You can't count them. It's beyond measure, isn't it? Unfathomable what God has done. So we can find joy. It's in Christ. Amen? Your joy is in Christ.

[33:56] It's in salvation. It's knowing the saviour. He says, I give you my joy, that your joy may be full. It's a joy that's beyond what pretense of joy this world can give.

[34:08] This passing joy of pleasure, of fame, of money, of whatever it be, as those ones found, it wasn't going to stack up. But the joy that we have is everlasting joy.

[34:22] We can find it in him, our true source of joy. Let us pray. Lord, we pray that each one might have the joy that's found in believing, such that as we repent, as we trust, the angels in heaven will be jumping up and down for joy as well.

[34:41] And Lord, that joy that we have, it's a joy unspeakable, it's full of glory, it's a foretaste of heaven's glory, where we have everlasting joy in the here and now.

[34:53] Lord, we thank you for that. We pray that each one might know that heart's trust that says, Lord Jesus, you died for my sin and I trust you to pay for it, to trust you to be my Lord, to be my saviour, to pay my sin debt, all the sin that I've ever had is paid, completely paid in full as I've put my trust in your payment for me.

[35:19] Pray that each one might have that heart's trust today and Lord, help us to be glad of what great things you've done for us, salvation for one, but even the trials and tests that you help us have strength to endure it.

[35:33] Lord, that the joy of the Lord is our strength. Even when we're feeling weak and inadequate, the joy of the Lord is my strength.

[35:44] Help us to confess these things, Lord, help us to have such a heart that we'll get up tomorrow morning and we'll say, this is the day the Lord hath made. We will rejoice and be glad in it.

[35:55] Thank you, Lord, for these things and for our fellowship we'll do it as we continue to encourage one another. In Jesus' name, Amen.