Second Message: Ryan Kwon

Well, thank you.

Thank you for that warm welcome.

Um, your Pastor Kurt and I uh we just hit it off in Israel.

We just connected, we're kind of like kindred spirits.

We spent all of our waking moments together, just laughed and talked meaningfully, and we just really, really connected that day, and I got to learn about you that day.

And since then, I've been praying for you every Sunday morning.

I just pause to pray.

I get up early on Sunday mornings, about four my time, which is early enough for you for this service, and I pray for you.

And so, though I may be a stranger to you, you're no stranger to me.

I've I've prayed for your thriving, I pray for your city, I pray for your growth.

Um, speaking of strangers, I've done some research on your church and realized that you've had white pastors here, black pastors here, brown pastors here.

You've never had a yellow.

All right, so congratulations.

All right.

Some of you are like, man, if we get a yellow, why couldn't we get Francis Chan?

The only yellow pastor I know by name.

You know what?

Francis is a neighbor of mine.

We live in the same city, we're friends, and uh, you know, we're pretty much the same person, you know?

Except two things.

Uh uh, he's bald and he's gifted.

Besides that, we're really like the same.

And so say, hey, Francis Chan came to our church to speak, kind of.

Tell everybody that.

Now, we're in the series called Second Message, and uh, if the gospel message is the primary, the first, what is an important message that we need to hear?

And this morning, I want to speak on joy.

Joy.

Joy in particular that actually empowers self-control.

Because wouldn't you love more self-control in your life?

Let me frame it this way.

Let me ask you this question.

What is something that you desperately want to stop, but you can't?

You know, something you just really want to stop, but you just really, really, really can't.

For some of us, it's addiction-related things like drugs and sex and alcohol, porn, maybe even food.

For some of us, it's more emotional, self-control things like our thought life, words that we use, anxiety, worry.

What if we have more self-control?

The human experience is that we lack self-control and that we all would love more of it.

In fact, wouldn't it be wonderful if you're trying to lose some weight to exercise self-control, that you wave some magic wand and every dessert in the world look like Brussels sprouts?

Wouldn't it be wonderful?

Wouldn't it be so wonderful to wave a wand over you and the penchant that you have to scream at your kid stops?

Wouldn't that be wonderful?

More seriously, I mean, wouldn't it be wonderful if you could stop worrying and having these anxious moments in your life?

It's a human experience that we all endure.

In fact, Paul in Romans 7 would say that um I often find myself doing the very things that I don't want to do.

And so, how do we control them?

If you have your Bibles, and I hope you do, would you please turn to 1 Corinthians chapter 9?

1 Corinthians 9 · chapter mention

And we'll look at a not a pretty familiar passage.

And I my prayer is that I will bring you some fresh insight.

1 Corinthians chapter 9, starting verse 23.

1 Corinthians 9 · chapter mention

And as I always pray at my church, I pray that the Holy Spirit will preach a better sermon than the one that you'll hear from me today.

And so, verse 23, it reads like this Paul says, I do all this for the sake of the gospel, that I may share in its blessings.

Do you not know that in a race all runners run, but only one gets the prize?

Run in such a way as to get the prize.

Everyone who competes in the games goes into strict training.

They do it to get a crown that will not last, but we do it to get a crown that will last forever.

Therefore, I do not run like someone running aimlessly.

I do not fight like a boxer beating the air.

No, I strike a blow to my body and make it my slave, so that after I have preached to others, I myself will not be disqualified for the prize.

Now, Paul here is talking about self-control.

Now, something we all wish we had more of.

And then in verse 25, it says, Every athlete exercises self-control in all things.

In the Greek it's panta, ego, kratia.

Panta meaning all things, ego is the word ego, us, me, and kratia is rule.

So in all things, self-rule.

And Paul says we should be like athletes that applies a kind of self-control in all things and uses a bunch of examples to illustrate this point.

He says in verse 24, runners look to the prize.

In verse 25, he says, Olympians long for the crown or the gold medal.

He says in verse 26, boxers beat the air?

No, they actually aim for the chin to find that victory.

And Paul, likening himself to an athlete, now says, Listen, I discipline, I self-control my body so that I might receive the prize.

So here are the two questions that we want to answer this morning.

First, is what is the secret of self-control?

And secondly, how do we get it?

First, what is the secret of self-control?

Let me first tell you what it's not.

The secret of self-control is not willpower.

Now, most of us have learned that it is through willpower we accomplish self-control, right?

It's like do it, just do it.

In fact, Nike, the global brand, wraps their whole branding around that phrase.

Just do it.

Just do it.

Just apply willpower.

So say I bring to you a rich, moist chocolate cake right in front of you.

There's a part of you in your heart that says, just do it.

And yet in your mind you say, Well, that is like a million calories.

Don't do it.

Right?

And now you have a battle, an inner battle between your mind and the heart.

And what the world will teach us is simply this that we need to apply willpower by how?

By suppressing our emotions.

Suppress your emotions.

In fact, this is uh not a new teaching, this is ancient teaching in the Greek called Stoicism.

That is the brand of philosophy that they believe.

Basically, it says this your heart, your emotion is actually an inferior faculty than your mind.

Your mind, your logic, your thought is a higher faculty than your emotions and the heart.

And so they would say, focus on the mind, think about logic and suppress your emotions.

That's what they would teach.

Now, what's interesting is that the Bible does not teach that.

The Bible doesn't prescribe to this idea that your mind is better than the heart.

In fact, when we're made in the Imago Dei, the image of God, uh, we're made in His mind, His will, and His heart.

As to say that there's not through scripture uh affirmation to say that your mind is better than your heart, your heart is better than the mind.

God gives us both as gifts for us to understand Him and to live out His purpose.

And so, so my family, I am the thinker.

Uh, and my wife is the feeler.

Now you tell me what's more important.

You choose.

It's hard to choose, right?

Because if you only think and you never feel, you're like a robot.

My wife would think, Why are you such a robot?

And and and if she only feels and never thinks, I call her a drama queen.

You see, we're so we're such an edifying family.

Like, stop being a drama queen, right?

And so this is the option that you have.

And yet God gives us both of these things in order for us to not only live out his purpose and his will, but to thrive.

So the Greeks were wrong in this.

So if willpower is not the solution, what is then the secret of self-control?

Could I might I share a biblical view?

It's not willpower, but it's joy power.

Say joy power.

Say it again.

Joy power.

There you go.

Joy power.

Christians gain self-control by not suppressing your emotions, but actually reallocating your emotion to actually a higher value.

Okay, and what that is, the philosophy is called Christian hedonism.

It's to live out your heart towards a greater thing.

You see, uh, Paul says here, look at the athletes.

It's not like they don't have desires, they absolutely have desires.

Do athletes like chocolate cake?

Absolutely.

But what do they like more than chocolate cake?

Gold medals.

And this is why they don't eat the chocolate cake, they rather prefer the gold medal, right?

They want that prize.

You see, self-control is not just a matter of the will, but it's also the matter of the heart, is literally relocating your heart on the greater prize.

Let me give you a biblical example of this.

Uh, in Genesis 29, Jacob uh works for this uh ruler, a tyrant of a boss named Laban.

He does that because Laban and he made a deal.

The deal was this if I work under you and doing this arduous work for seven years, then after you'll give me the rights of your daughter Rachel.

And so he works seven years, every single day, wakes up, does hard things, his hands are sore, his body is uh tired, and he wakes up every single day faithfully serving on under this really, really hard boss.

And yet, after seven years of great faithfulness, he receives Rachel, his love.

And do you know, do you remember what he says?

He says, Those seven years only seem like days to me.

Why?

Oh, because he loved Rachel.

His heart was with Rachel.

He essentially says, Because I dreamt of you, because you are my prize, because you are my goal.

All that labor was rubbish in consideration to the prize that I got.

You see, his emotion, he didn't suppress it, he actually reallocated it.

Well, let me give you another example, a personal example.

Now, some of you might know already because there's rumors, and you guys talk, Christians love to gossip.

So you guys know that I used to be a competitive eater.

Did you know that?

I used to actually do this for a living.

Uh, you know, the hot dog contest and stuff like that.

I did that.

That's me.

Yeah.

And and um, so I love eating.

Naturally, I love buffets.

Naturally.

What what what bothers me is that you don't know how to do buffets.

And so, might I just disciple you this morning, humbly in Jesus' name?

Let me do that real quick.

Okay, so when you go to a buffet, the strange thing about buffets is that you pay up front, and so now everything is yours, right?

So, but the problem is that oftentimes you approach buffets without any strategy.

In fact, you must have strategy because the buffets know the game that you grab the first thing that you see, and what's the first station you see?

Always the salads.

The salads are the first station that you always see.

Then what?

It's the carbs, the bread, the mac and cheese, and the pizzas and the burgers and the hot dogs.

It's always there.

And here you are, just foolishly packing up your plate.

But what is at the very end of a buffet always?

The carving station, the steak, the carving station.

And so my Rachel is prime rib.

Right?

And so what I do is I pass up the salads.

I like salads.

I pass up the pizza.

I love pizza.

I love mac and cheese.

I love me some mac and cheese, but I leave my plate empty and I go to that carving station, unlike my neighbor, who has a pile of food already that they're gonna eat only half of, they're gonna actually ingest and get full for, and I'm gonna actually have an empty plate full of prime rib.

See, that's how you do buffets.

Now you say, Wow, Ryan, you have amazing self-control.

You have amazing willpower.

I say, No, I don't actually have willpower, I have joy power, prime rib power.

See, that's how how was Laban able to do it?

He must have had great willpower.

No, he had joy power.

He actually reallocated his emotion to something else.

And so, what the Bible is saying is self-control is not just a matter of the will, but it's the heart.

And once you put that heart in a particular beauty, it puts all the other things in order.

Thomas Chalmers, a very famous Scottish preacher, in his famous sermon in the 1800s, says this quote, seldom do any of our habits or flaws disappear by a process of extinction through reasoning or by force of mental determination.

Do you see what he's saying?

He's saying you can't get rid of bad habits through just willpower.

But what cannot be destroyed may be dethroned.

See, the only way to dethrone the heart of an old affection is by the expulsive power of a new one.

We only cease to be the slave of one appetite because another one has brought it up into subordination.

A youth may cease to idolize sensual pleasure like partying all around, but it's because the idol of material gain and career success has gotten the ascendancy.

He gives an illustration of a youth, a young person that loves to party, stay up late at night and drinking, but all of a sudden he says, Boys, I gotta stop, I gotta go home and get some rest because I gotta work the next morning.

Why?

Because he is mature, because he has great willpower.

No, his case is no, he has joy power.

What is the joy?

He used to like drinking, but the greater joy now is money.

He wants a career, he wants to make more money.

And so the joy of money has dethroned his joy to party.

So you see, you cannot destroy an old affection, but you could dethrone it.

That's his point.

And so now here's the question then.

Where do we put our joy in?

Where do we put our joy in?

Verse 25, Paul gives us a clue.

He says, They do it to get a crown that will not last.

But we as Christians, we do it to get a crown that will last forever.

And this is Paul's way of saying if you want self-control in all areas, you must set your joy on things that are imperishable rather than perishable, things that will last forever, not temporary.

And let me give us some examples of how we sometimes put our joys into fragile, very temporary things.

For instance, career success, career advancement.

What happens when you place all of your hope and joy and career advancement?

You must study hard, you must look, and you must work hard to keep your job.

You might exercise great self-discipline and self-control, but at the same time, something else comes in, like worry, anxiety, because there are other people that are better than you, smarter than you, faster than you, more connected than you.

And so maybe you're in threat of losing that job because it's temporary.

And so you start getting worried.

You start getting bitter at your boss, at your coworkers, whatever.

And then worse yet, you actually regress back into those addictive behaviors that you might have had to fill up your void, like sex and drugs, and maybe food as coping mechanisms, chips, desserts, right?

So if success and money is your highest affection, it will bring some self-control in some areas, but in other areas you'll actually lose control.

Well, same with beauty.

Isn't there what's gosh, beauty is so fading, isn't it?

Right?

So you apply great self-control to be thin and to look beautiful from a world standard.

But what happens when you start inevitably wrinkling?

You know, how much Botox could you possibly get in life?

Right?

So you can nip it, tuck it, lift it, take it, tan it, tweak it, shape it, suck it.

You can do all those things.

And you do it, and your face eventually stretches so thin that you resemble a lizard from those Geico commercials.

I mean, it's terrible.

It's a bad look.

But we do it, right?

Thinking, you see, in some ways you exercise great self-control and you start losing it in another.

How about hope in children?

What if your joys, your greatest joy is in children?

What if they grow up and they move out of the house?

Or worse yet, what if they start making decisions that you don't approve of?

Then what?

So here's Paul's principle here you're only as stable as the stability of your highest joy.

Did you get that?

I'll say it again.

You're only as stable as the stability of your highest joy.

So Paul says, if you put your highest joy into anything in this world, uh when that breaks down, you will break down.

See?

Your self-control won't last.

So where should we place our joy in so that our self-control lasts?

That it'll be comprehensive.

And Paul says, they do it to get a crown that will not last, but we do it to get a crown that will last forever.

What is that crown?

What is Paul's prize in this context in scripture?

He tells us in verse 23, he says, I do this for the sake of the gospel.

I do all of this for the sake of the gospel that I may share in its blessings.

He tells us two things.

First, find joy in the gospel.

Find joy in the gospel.

Do you have gospel joy?

I mean, do you gather this morning thinking and dwelling on the gospel?

And does your heart just explode thinking about it?

What is the gospel?

In 2 Corinthians 5, 21, it says, He, God made him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, that we might become the righteousness of God in him.

Let me just break this down just briefly.

First, in the first part, it says, He, God, made him who knew no sin.

Who is that?

Yeah, that's a short list, isn't it?

Right?

That's Jesus, who knew no sin to be sin.

What does that mean?

Did Jesus ever sin?

No, that's blasphemy.

Jesus never sinned.

The author of Hebrews says he was a lamb without blemish or spot.

And so, to what degree then Jesus was made sin, only in one sense alone.

That on the cross, God treated Jesus as if he had committed every sin ever committed by every person who would ever believe, even though he didn't commit a single one.

That on the cross, God treated Jesus as if he lived your life.

As if he lived my life.

Now think about all the sins that you committed in your life, let alone even just this week, or all the sins that you have yet to make, yet to commit, but you will.

Well, God on that day treated Jesus as if he had committed them all.

That's mind-blowing.

That's mind-blowing judgment.

His holy judgment coming down on Jesus.

But the second half of that verse is even is even more meaningful.

It says, He made him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf.

And here's the second part that we might then become the righteousness of God in him.

This is the other side of the substitution that is absolutely stunning to me.

Absolutely.

Well, let me frame it this way Have you ever thought of why Jesus lived 33 years?

Why do you live 33 years?

I mean, if I was working on a salvific plan, you know what I would do?

I would go directly to the issue.

I wouldn't spend 33 years doing it.

You can see the father talking to Jesus saying, son, you need to go die to redeem my people.

He says, Yes, Daddy.

But you know what?

I'm gonna take a light weekend bag, like a backpack, because I'm gonna go on a Friday morning, die on a Friday afternoon, resurrect myself by Sunday, and I'll be back by Monday.

I'm all good, right?

Three days.

Three days is all it takes.

And in some sense, that's true, right?

There's no other component in Jesus' life that saves sinners but that weekend.

Then why do you live 33 years?

Why not three days?

Why do you extend that time out?

Why do you do that?

In particular, why did he do that the last three years?

All the torture, being betrayed by his best friends, being spat at, mocked by his own creation.

I mean, how about the 30 years before that?

What you know, the Bible does not have much commentary regarding Jesus' early years.

I mean, have you ever thought about Jesus as a kid, God as a child?

I mean, that's crazy, right?

Did Jesus know calculus when he was two years old?

I don't know, right?

Probably, I'm not sure.

Did he ever miss a free throw?

Probably not.

I don't know, right?

I mean, we have these questions, right?

I'm I mean, it's no wonder why all of Jesus' siblings never believed in him at first, right?

Why?

Do you realize how annoying it would be to actually be a sibling to a perfect child?

I mean, how annoying would that be?

Could you see Mary talking to James as James makes mistakes, gets problems wrong in his homework, or breaks a dish while he's doing dishes?

Mary turns to James every Single day and say, James, what would Jesus do?

WWJD.

I mean, why?

Why are you like this?

Just follow Jesus.

I mean, how annoying, how irritating.

Right?

What were those 33 years about?

I'll tell you what they're about.

When Jesus, launching his public ministry, went to get baptized by John, John looks at him and says, You need to baptize me.

And Jesus himself says, No, you need to baptize me because I must fulfill all righteousness.

That's what he says.

He says, I have to live a full life, a full righteousness.

Why?

The reason why Jesus had to live a perfect life was that that perfect life will one day be credited to your account.

That's why.

See this that on the cross, God treated Jesus as if he had lived your life, so that now we could be treated as if we lived Jesus' life.

That all of his perfect life has come into our account.

It's credited unto us.

And the beauty of this is that it is imperishable.

It's a prize that we have received because God can never change his mind on us anymore, how he feels about you.

His love is not based on your life, but somebody else's life.

That is Jesus Christ alone.

Amen.

It is only because of his life.

And so now God permanently, God is fixed, determined in his righteousness to love us no matter what we do and how we live the rest of our life out.

What a prize! What grace, what mercy.

And if we were to stare into this gospel's beauty and were to receive it, then we would find ourselves to say, God, if you love us this much, there's nothing I would want to do to ever hurt you.

Whatever you demand, I will gladly receive and follow.

If you make the gospel your Rachel, if you make the gospel your prime rib, then you say, God, command me.

And you'll have immense self-control.

Thomas Chalmers concludes his sermon like this: He says, The heart's desire for one particular object may be conquered, like money and beauty.

But its desire to have some object of absolute love is unconquerable.

That's the gospel.

It is only when admitted into the number of God's children through faith in Jesus Christ that the spirit of adoption is poured out on us.

It is then and only then the heart brought under the mastery of one great predominant affection is delivered from the tyranny of all of its former desires.

And the only way deliverance is possible.

So you must try every possible method of finding deep access to your hearts for the love of him who is greater than the world.

Love the gospel, find joy in the gospel.

It's a permanent thing.

But second, find joy in sharing the gospel.

Verse 23, Paul says, I do this all for the sake of the gospel that I may share in its blessings.

So simply put, Paul is not living just in the gospel, he's living for the gospel.

And C.S.

Lewis wrote a little reflection on the Psalms that I find so profound and is regarding joy.

He says, Quote, I think we delight to praise what we enjoy because the praise is not merely expressing, but completes the enjoyment.

It is its appointed consummation.

It is not out of compliment that lovers keep on telling one another how beautiful they are.

The delight is incomplete unless it's expressed.

Now that's very profound.

It's something that we all inherently know and do, right?

Because if we find a great show on Netflix, what do you want to do?

After you watch it, you want to tell somebody about it.

Right?

And when you when you find something beautiful, like some music that you're really enjoying, but hey, listen to this, use my account.

You know?

We do these things.

We we tend to share great things.

Did you watch that game?

Oh my gosh, the Steelers actually beat the Bills in the season opener.

Man, we're gonna go have a crazy great season three and three.

You get excited, you have to did you watch it?

Why?

Because C.S.

Lewis's point is that if you have this great joy, it is not quite finished or expressed or consummated or even complete unless somebody agrees with you and says, Yeah, it's so true.

Like when you bite into a steak, right?

And it's lovely, it's delicious.

Like last night I had a great piece of steak.

Man, I wish my wife was there.

Why?

Because I want to share them.

I'm like, they've tried this.

And she takes a bite and just, wow, that isn't that good.

She's like, yeah, that's good.

Then you see, it is my joy that is being consummated.

It is actually complete.

It is only complete by sharing it.

And when somebody agrees with me saying, yes, it is good.

This is exactly C.S.

Lewis' point, and this is exactly why we share the gospel.

Unless we share the gospel with one another, our joys are only consummated and if finished, then expressed fully.

But many of us, our gospel joy is not consummated, it is constipated.

You know what I mean?

Some of you never share the joy of the gospel.

You come to church, you go out to the lobby, and you ask about all sorts of things, you don't ever stop and say, Isn't Jesus so gracious?

Isn't he so loving?

Isn't he so marvelous?

You'll share about music, you'll share about the game, you'll share about food, but you won't have the joy of the gospel.

It's incomplete, C.S.

Lewis says, unless it's shared with others.

So if you find joy in the gospel, you share the gospel.

It only increases your joy.

When you increase your joy, then you have actually more self-control over those things that you will look at God and say, God, you're so lovely to me, you're so beautiful to me, that I will never want to do anything to hurt your feelings.

I will never want to do anything to harm our relationship.

Because all the more I want you in my life.

That's what it looks like to have self-control.

That is the secret of self-control.

So, how do we get it?

The next chapter in 1 Corinthians chapter 10, 11, it continues to talk about self-control.

1 Corinthians 10 · chapter mention

It says this, verse 11.

These things were written down as warnings for us, on whom the culmination of the ages has come have has come.

So if you think you are standing firm, be careful that you don't fall.

No temptation has overtaken you except what is common to mankind.

And God is faithful, will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you can bear.

But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can endure it.

We see three things here, very applicational, that we could actually take from this place to apply so that we might get self-control.

First, it says, be in the word, be in the word.

Where do we see that?

The very first part in verse 11, the things that are written down.

You know what that is?

It's reference to scripture, it's scripture, God's word.

If you want joy in God, you must investigate God and be in the word.

There's no other way.

And yet, I I know uh because your church is my church and every church, even though it has this unique flavor and culture, we all struggle with the same.

We all struggle in reading scripture, don't we?

Say, Ryan, to be honest, I have a hard time reading scripture, being disciplined about that.

Maybe the problem is it's not willpower, but maybe your problem of not reading scripture is actually a lack of joy power.

See, because if you love something more, you want to be in that more, you want to share that more, you want to be in that relationship.

In the same way, instead of saying, I have to read, I have to be a good Christian, I have to know, those are all have-to's that actually you only have to uh apply joy willpower to.

But what do you say?

I get to.

I can't believe God needs me, I can't believe He talks to me.

See, then it becomes joy power.

But the second thing is it tells us to be accountable with others and to others.

Verse 12 says, Therefore, let anyone who thinks that he could stand take heed lest he fall.

Right?

That's talking about accountability here.

It's saying you shouldn't just trust yourself because you can't handle life on your own.

Your mess that you got into, you did it all by yourself because you were alone.

You and I need community.

We need dear gospel friends.

To think that you can stand alone, the Bible says, is to fall.

In fact, we say something very common.

Uh we have a phrase in our church that we say often, and you'll hear it at the lobby.

Is that your 10%?

We say, Why don't you share your 10%?

Meaning we tend to share the 90, but we don't share the 10, the top 10.

And you know why we don't share it.

Why?

Because it costs too much.

If we share the 10, we fear that we will lose our reputation.

We fear that we won't be respected.

We fear that we'd be so shamed that we can't recover from it.

Might I just encourage you to again find the joy in the gospel.

Listen, when God decided to love you, do you know that he was privy to all of your history, including your 10%?

He loved you for that 10%, in spite of that 10%.

He saw your fig leaves.

He knew that it was just a leaf.

He created you, he knows everything about you.

He's Alpha and the Omega, and we're in between that.

And so he's seen everything about you, and yet he still loves you, he still affirms you.

And in the courthouse, in the throne room of God, why should we then care about what the serfs think if we have the everlasting affection and affirmation of an everlasting king?

That is with you.

He loves you.

The king loves you and affirms you, calls you child, calls you son, calls you daughter.

And so share your 10%.

You're already affirmed, you're already loved, you can't shake that.

Third, be humble that you were his joy.

You were his joy.

This is profound to me because in 1 Corinthians 10 13, it says, if you want to resist temptation, if you want to exercise self-control, you have to see that God is faithful.

God is faithful.

Then the question is, when do we see God faithful to us?

Well, many times, but here's one of my favorite spots in Hebrews chapter 12, verse 1.

Hebrews 12:1

Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race that is marked out for us.

See, it's a very similar passage to what we just studied.

How?

Fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and the perfecter of our faith.

For the joy that was set before him, he endured the cross.

Mark that.

He didn't say, for the will that was before him, he said, No, the joy that was set before him endured the cross, who endured such opposition from sinners so that you will not grow weary and lose heart.

First, it says, uh, if you want to endure and have self-control, you must look at Jesus' self-control.

You're like, did Jesus have self-control?

Did he need self-control?

Of course he did.

I mean, before he died, uh he he begged the Father to take the cup away from him.

Right?

So of course he knew that the wrath was coming.

Of course he knew he was gonna suffer.

Of course he knew he was gonna be betrayed.

Of course he knew that he was going to be forsaken.

And so, of course, he needed to apply self-control because he knew he was gonna be struggling and yet he was still faithful.

Then the question is, where did he get the self-control to do that?

Well, you might say, well, he's God and he has unlimited willpower, right?

Well, I suppose so.

That makes sense to me.

And yet that's not what the scriptures are telling us here, because it doesn't say that God relied on his willpower.

It says, in fact, that he relied on his joy power.

You see, in verse 2, it says it was for the joy that was set before him that he endured the cross.

There it is, the secret to self-control.

I've been telling you this whole sermon that the secret of self-control is not willpower but joy power.

I mean, Jacob says, Man, I was able to go through those torturous seven years, and it's just seemed like a few days.

Why?

Because I had joy power.

I mean, I'm able to pass up all the carb goodness in my life and pizzas and fries and potato station, all that thing, all those that I love.

And yet I'm able to pass by why?

Because my joy power over prime rib.

Even Paul himself in Philippians 3 says, I count everything loss and rubbish in light of knowing and gaining Christ.

Joy power.

Right?

So the question is then, what was Jesus's joy?

What was Jesus' Rachel?

What was something that Jesus didn't have before the cross that he wanted?

I mean, it couldn't have been the Father, he had the Father.

It couldn't have been heaven, he had the heavens.

What was something that Jesus desperately wanted so badly before the cross that he actually got after?

What was Jesus' Rachel?

Well, one thing.

Jesus' Rachel was us.

You and I were his joy.

So much so as he endured the cross, as he took all of wrath and judgment for mankind to endure that, he thought, man, I I just have to go through this.

No, he said, I get to go through this because I'm staring at the faces of the people of God that I will redeem with my blood.

And when that thought comes into my mind, this is nothing in comparison to what I will gain.

Brothers and sisters, through my blood, God's children inherited and adopted and certified through the blood of Jesus.

And it was that joy that He was able to gladly endure the cross for you and for me.

And when we dwell on that, then all of a sudden Jesus becomes our ultimate joy.

When that happens, the things of earth will grow strangely dim in light of his glorious grace.

See that Jesus' eyes were fixed on you.

So now, will you fix your eyes on Jesus?

That's how you'll get self-control.

Let us pray together.

Jesus, I can't believe that we were the object of your joy.

The pain on the cross was great.

But your joy to see us redeemed was greater.

Help us to just simply reflect on that.

To find joy in the gospel, to share it with others that our joy would only increase, that we'd be so glad to lay down our lives at your feet for the account of all the things that we already have in you.

You are a good, good God to us.

And we love you, and we commit this morning to you.

We pray in your matchlessness name.

All God's people said, Amen.

Amen.