Be Joyful (Not Happy!)

Long he is today and he shall be in the week ahead.

He asked us to pray for him, and we're going to do that.

In fact, we're going to take some time in each of our worship services between now and when Jason and Allison and little Joshua come and join us.

Just a couple of seconds, a couple of minutes to pray.

So would you join me as we pray for him and pray for ourselves as well?

Heavenly Father, we are so thankful that you arrange details.

It's not the devil that's in the details, it's you.

You.

You work your wonderful way and plan out in our lives and even in this broken, fallen, rebellious world.

We thank you that you have called Jason to this place.

We thank you that he has responded to that call.

We thank you that you led this congregation to affirm and recognize what you are doing.

And so, Father, we want to pray for him and for his family, and we pray for ourselves.

We pray for him that you would help him with all the many things going on as he disengages from the church in Racine and He begins to engage here.

We pray specifically for the sale of his home.

It's under contract, but we all know anything can happen.

And so our prayer, we don't tell you what to do, but we express our desires.

Our prayer is that that would close as scheduled smoothly so that Jason and Allison can concentrate on leaving and coming.

Father, for us as a congregation, we pray that we would be preparing our hearts.

We pray that we would be open to your word as it is preached.

We pray that you would enable us to follow godly leadership.

We pray that we would focus our eyes forward on that which you are going to be doing in the weeks and the months and the years and perhaps decades ahead.

Lord, our eyes are on you, and we thank you that we can trust you.

We bring all of these things to you, not that you don't know it, but we need to pray it, and so we do in faith and trust, in Jesus' name.

Amen.

Well, we're going to be looking this morning as we continue in this series of selected favorite passages in Philippians, my favorite passages in any case.

I hope you will get some benefit out of each of these.

This morning we're going to be looking at a single verse, and the verse says, be joyful.

What it does not say is be happy.

And you will totally misunderstand this verse and what God is saying and what God has promised us if you get the words mixed up.

Words are important and how we use them really matters.

Anyone who spends much time around Jane and me will realize we're verbal.

If you knew our kids, you would know we raised verbal kids.

No surprising one of them was a lawyer, turned missionary, but uh now this is not this is not just by chance, because for us, for a variety of reasons, we really believe that words are important.

Maybe it came in part through our first few years overseas.

We spent 30 years ministering in another language.

Um and you don't learn another language to really use it effectively unless you focus on words.

Uh you're forced to say, what does this word really mean?

And I want to say this, how do I say it in the right way in this language?

So it forced us to realize words are important.

I remember an experience not unlike most missionaries have when they're early on in their language study and you're struggling to get the right words, it produces no end of opportunities to create mirth and joy and laughter in the hearts of the people that are hearing you because you say some of the foolishest things.

Foolishest, how about that?

You can go ahead and laugh.

That word does not exist.

Words are important, you need to use them right.

So I remember specifically I was not yet ready to do what I agreed to do.

Fools rush in where angels fear to tread.

I was asked to teach a course in New Testament introduction at the Bible school and seminary that I'd gone to to teach at, and I was in way over my head linguistically.

And I remember a particular class period where I was talking about a biblical character in the book of Acts, a businesswoman named Lydia, who was wealthy.

And my command of Flemish or Dutch was not so great.

So I was preparing ahead of time.

How do I express that?

And someone who has a lot of resources.

So I looked up someone who is well endowed.

So I used the Flemish expression talking about Lydia, of a woman who is well endowed, uh, who is busty.

And um, of course, the students got no end of uh of mirth over that, and I will never forget uh the word for wealthy, and it's not uh, I'm not even gonna repeat it at this point.

But words matter.

Use the wrong word, and you miscommunicate.

Whether we realize it or not, words also reflect the way we see things and our worldview.

Uh in our family as the kids were growing up, uh, we were kind of like uh uh verbal Nazis uh with each other.

Um and so even to this day, uh if I on a Saturday evening just theoretically were to walk into the living room and say, hey honey, I need a I need a dish of ice cream, the response back will be, need you need a dish of ice cream or you want a dish of ice cream?

Well, it's obvious I don't need a dish of ice cream.

But somehow or another I would prefer to say it the way I want to say it because, well, because that's what I want.

But if I misuse the words, where does it start and where does it stop?

Um, for example, um, I and this is just me, all right.

I'm just you know being real honest.

Um I will never call this a stage.

Never, ever, ever.

It's hard to know what to refer to it at.

I call it a platform.

Now, the problem is for me, and maybe it's just me, but I don't think so, the word stage is generally understood to be a place where someone performs or entertains and where an audience is entertained.

The worship team up here is not performing.

Now, if they have a concert on Saturday night, that's a whole different matter.

This is not a production.

This is not a performance.

Their goal is to facilitate worship, not to entertain.

And there is no way in the world that I am here trying to entertain you.

Some of you will have realized that.

Um you see, when we talk about this as a stage, then you become an audience, you become passive, and then you start expecting that you get what you paid for with your ticket.

Well, sometimes you do get what you pay for here, but uh but you see the point I'm making.

When we call something by the wrong term, that's reflecting something and that has impact.

I am not a CEO of a Christian organization.

I am a pastor.

I am a shepherd of the flock of God.

Now, it may be necessary for me to do some CEO-ish things, but don't ever think that the role of a pastor is to run the church.

I assure you, I know Jason Holme very well already, and Jason does not see himself as a CEO, a new incoming CEO at Faith Evangelical Free Church.

That's just not the calling.

So he may do some CEO-ish things, but if you understand him as coming here to run the church, you are misunderstanding.

And if you expect him to be something other than a man of God with the gifts and abilities and the limitations that he has, like all of us, whose primary task is to open the word and to love and shepherd a congregation.

If you're expecting anything else, you'll be mistaken and you'll be disappointed.

That's just not what this is all about.

And the the list goes on and on, I suppose.

The words we use reflect a worldview.

There was a time, a couple of decades ago, where the word gay, the word gay, meant light-hearted and cheerful.

Now, we know that the word gay has a very different meaning now.

The word gay has been co-opted by the homosexual community, and I understand why, and quite frankly, I have significant respect for homosexual people and respect for them as creatures created in the image of God.

But I refuse to have a good word like gay be co-opted and hijacked for something that is not cheerful and full of mirth.

When we live, when I live a lifestyle that is not what God wants, there's nothing happy about it.

So we try to be careful about those kinds of things.

Now, I get it, words, meanings of words change over time.

And I'm a dinosaur, so the word gay has changed its meaning, and I don't accept that, but I recognize it.

However, my friends, God has spoken to us in words.

We believe in verbal, plenary inspiration of scripture in the original languages.

What that means is when the writers of the Old Testament and the New wrote, they chose words.

And God so guided them in a supernatural way that the choice of words and the end result of what they wrote was exactly what he wanted to communicate.

And it communicated exactly in that time, space, language, and culture.

Hence the importance of trying to get back and say, what does this word actually mean?

This particular word.

We recognize words change, but the word, we must respect the words of Scripture, well translated, rightly understood in their meaning, because words are important and how we use them matters.

Now we're free to allow words to evolve, but we are not free to play fast and free with the words of Scripture.

We're not free to do that.

You can do that if you want.

You can redefine things, but then you do violence to the text of Scripture, the Word of God.

You thumb your nose at God, and you move into an area of great personal peril.

So when we're talking about joy and happiness, we're talking about significantly different things.

And that's what this passage is going to force us to deal with.

So let's examine this.

Philippians chapter 3, verse 1.

Philippians 3:1

This is not a difficult verse.

Uh it's just difficult to live out.

It's difficult to live out.

And so I want to try to sensitize us to what this is really is saying.

Finally, my dear brothers, dear friends, rejoice in the Lord.

He doesn't say be happy in the Lord.

Be happy.

Don't worry, be happy.

That's not what he's saying.

Finally, my brothers, rejoice in the Lord.

And then he says something very significant.

To write the same things to you is no trouble to me, and it is safe for you, or most of the translations correctly make that a noun, is a safeguard for you.

So rejoicing in the Lord and using that term correctly, like using all of the scriptures correctly, is a safeguard for our souls.

So what we have here is a command.

It's not a suggestion, it's a command.

It's instruction.

And it's not instructions to be happy, it's instructions to rejoice.

And we will see how those are really very different.

So let's just move forward.

He uses the term finally.

Now, I'm really tempted to pass over this little word, but since I'm making a big deal about words this morning, uh, and it's actually significant, just a little, this is all a freebie for you.

Um this word finally has caused any number of uh liberal scholars, if you want to use the term, um, to assume that he's saying, okay, now I'm gonna say the last thing I have to say to you.

The only problem with it is there's two more chapters.

Now, unless Paul was just kind of like a preacher who's really going strong and says finally, and then he's going for another half hour, or unless he starts and says finally, and then something else pops into his head, and I suppose those things are true.

But the fact of the matter is that this term can be finally like the last thing, but it is also very frequently used as simply of say, okay, we're moving on to the next point.

Now, moving on.

Okay.

Again, no big deal, but the use of words is a big deal.

So what he says, and I just, you'll not be surprised that I love this.

Um, some things are too important not to be repeated.

Let me repeat that.

Some things are too important not to be repeated.

Finally, my brothers, rejoice in the Lord.

To write the same things to you is no trouble to me, and it's a safeguard for you.

So what he says is that to write the same thing is neither burdensome nor futile.

Um this doesn't bother Paul to repeat himself, and it shouldn't bother us that Paul repeats himself.

This is if it irritates you when key truths from the Word of God are repeated, then I would just say, let's go someplace and we'll duke it out with each other.

He says it's no trouble, it's not an irritant.

In fact, to repeat key truths of Scripture is a safeguard for your soul.

It's incredibly beneficial for us.

Some things are just too important not to repeat.

God is still on the throne, is in my book one of those things that is worth repeating and repeating and repeating.

Some of you have found that helpful, some of you find it irksome.

That's all right.

I just want you to know that that is such a foundational truth in my book that I'm just going to keep repeating.

In fact, I have in churches that I've pastored and where I've spoken for the last 25 years, 20, 25 years, I suppose.

Uh, years ago, I was pastoring a church in Germany where half the congregation were teenagers, and I would repeat every single Sunday, today is blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, and God is still on the throne.

And I could see some of them kind of yawning and everything.

And I get that.

There was one kid, um, just did my heart good.

About eight years later, he wrote me an email.

You know, teenagers eventually grow up, and he said, I want to thank you for repeating that and repeating that and repeating that.

Boy, do I have that email uh framed someplace or another.

Um But some things are too important not to repeat, because certain things need to become part of the warp and woof of our souls.

It's a safeguard for us.

Not abstract uh or minor thoughts, but major, major themes.

And so what Paul does is without any hesitation, in the book of Philippians, uh he repeats rejoice, rejoice, rejoice, rejoice, rejoice, rejoice, rejoice, rejoice.

I don't know how many times I just said it, but uh this is the book of joy.

Um when I started uh this mini-series in Philippians, I was keenly aware that there's a women's Bible study, I think, that has been focusing on Philippians uh all year long, and that's wonderful.

Um Ray Leventure was uh decided for a couple of weeks back he was gonna start uh for the primetime Bible study on Wednesdays, the book of Philippians, and then he heard that I had just started a series on it, and I said, Ray, go for it.

It's rich enough, and I'm not gonna cover everything by any means.

But this is a book.

This is a portion of God's word that is permeated by repetitions and exhortations and examples of being joyful.

Philippians 1 4.

We're not gonna go through all of them but a few.

I thank my God in all my remembrance of you, verse 3, chapter 1.

Always in every prayer of mine for you all, making my prayer with joy.

Praying with joy, interceding with joy.

The Philippians were going through difficult times.

They were impoverished, they were persecuted.

It was not a happy situation for them.

And so he was praying, he was interceding on their behalf, and there was a sense of joy as he interceded for people in difficult circumstances.

When we pray for one another and we're aware of the very troublesome things that we all encounter in life, does joy enter into our thinking whatsoever?

Well, how can we be joyful because somebody is dying of cancer?

Well, that's a good question.

Is the person a believer?

Paul just got done saying much far better.

Is the person not a believer?

Maybe God will be using this to bring that person to faith.

A zillion examples, but when I go through personal difficulties and trials, one of the things that I've come to do is to not just kind of smile and paste it on and say, oh, how happy.

Don't worry, be happy.

But to say, I wonder what God is up to in this circumstance in my life.

Huh.

To be curious about what God is doing.

Now I don't always know, but to even ask myself the question, what is God's good purpose in this?

Because I believe, and we could repeat and repeat and repeat and repeat that as well, that God has good purposes in bad situations.

That's a promise of God.

God allows us to experience at one level horrible things, and He uses them for good.

So at least the question in my mind, I wonder what God is up to.

And even posing the question that way, it helps me focus on God instead of the problems.

And every once in a while, then I see God doing something, and I said, you know, that's just like God to use these circumstances in that way.

Now, I think Paul could pray for people, intercede for people with joy because he had a rock solid conviction that God was good.

Good he is and good he does.

It may not feel good, it may not look good, I may not understand how he could ever use this for good, but my eyes are on him.

And when my eyes are on him, I can begin to be on the lookout for the goodness and the grace and the mercy and the compassion of God.

And when we get fixed on who God is, there is a joy that grows from that.

Maybe one more of these verses.

Let's take chapter 1, verse 28.

Talked about this passage a couple weeks ago.

Paul chained between people from the Praetorian guards in prison, not knowing whether he would live or die, torn between living and therefore being able to serve further and be fruitful the kingdom, or going home to be with him.

And he said in chapter one that this is a, I'm sorry, I chapter two, thank you.

Don't ever believe what's on the screen, it's not inspired.

So in in chapter two, um he says, um, I am glad and I can rejoice with all of you.

Actually, in chapter one, what I was looking for was, My desire is to depart and be with Christ, for that is far better, but to remain in the flesh is more necessary for you.

Convinced of this, I know I will remain and continue with you for your progress and joy in the faith.

And these believers, like Paul, were going through all kinds of things.

And yet he could see and he accepted the reality that God was working out good here in these matters.

I won't take the time to go on either to these or the other 150 times in the rest of the New Testament that Paul talks about joy, joy, rejoicing, and again I say rejoice.

It's just permeating all of that, all of the New Testament.

Now, the believer's joy in this passage, in this verse, finally, my brothers, rejoice in the Lord.

It's always rooted in God and directly related to our relationship with Christ.

Joy is not found apart from our relationship with Christ, not biblical joy.

So what we really have here is saying that joy is something that has to do with God, and that's one reason why, more than 150 times.

It's directly related to our relationship with Christ.

It's a fruit of the Spirit.

Scott, thank you, Scott, if you're here for covering for me last week.

Uh talking about the fruit of the Spirit.

Um, it's it's one of the results of God's Spirit working in our lives.

Are we glum, joyless Christians?

Well, sometimes we get caught in that syndrome.

But what God is doing is he's producing spiritual fruit in our lives.

And it's not necessarily happiness, that's not the fruit of the Spirit.

Happiness, joy, joy is an outworking of the Holy Spirit and Christ at work in our lives.

Jesus' very coming was like put in an envelope as it was delivered of the announcement of joy.

I bring you glad tidings of great joy, for today in the city of David a Savior is born to us, who is Christ the Lord, a message of great joy.

It's always tied to Christ.

Joy, and we'll be looking at what joy is not, but when we put together what joy is in Scripture, it is an inner spiritual reality.

It's not something we put a smile on our face, it's not something we force, it's an inner spiritual reality, and it deals with a supernatural delight in God and God's goodness.

Joy has to do with a greater and greater delight in God and his goodness, and here's what's important: unrelated to circumstances and not a function of our situation.

Biblical joy is often spoken of in the midst of awful situations.

James chapter 1, where he says, consider it pure joy, my friends, my brothers, when you face many kinds of trials.

James 1 · chapter mention

And we looked at that several months ago.

Joy in the midst of the most difficult trials.

That's something that God does within us.

That's something that as we get attuned with what God is seeking to accomplish, that we begin to focus on what God is up to.

And in the midst of severe trials, we consider it joy because, and that passage goes on and explains, because God is working this and this and this and this and this and this out in your lives, spiritual benefit through the difficulties of your life.

Have you not ever experienced that?

I sure have.

In the very difficult times, while I'm not happy, the longer I live when I face difficulties, I begin to get it.

God's doing something good.

That's not just he's good, he's good, he's good.

I believe it.

I'm a little fire engine who could.

God's good and I can.

God's good and I can.

That's not, we're not talking about self.

We're talking about the reality that God is good and we begin to recognize that.

And as we see, and as we echo, and as we begin to live out the reality of scriptures, in the midst of difficulties like David, we say, good you are, and good you do.

I don't feel that right now.

I really don't.

And I'm not suggesting you pretend that you do.

There's no benefit in that.

But we put our minds and our hearts on who God is and what God has said.

So we focus on God.

And the Holy Spirit enables the truth of God and the Word of God to come to our mind, and it enables his Spirit works with our spirit, and we begin to see the situations we're in in a different way.

We don't see the situations necessarily as good.

That's not what he's saying.

There was nothing inherently good that David was going through when he said, Good you are and good you do.

It didn't change the fact that God was good and God does good.

And that reality began to change David.

And that's the way it works.

John chapter 16, we won't take the time to turn to it, but Jesus compares this to what happens when a woman goes through childbirth.

John 16 · chapter mention

Now, I'm obviously the wrong person to uh to talk very much about this.

But what he says is yes, there is great pain.

Great pain.

And yet there is not just a happiness, but there is a deep joy when our hearts are where they should be, and we're beginning to see who God is.

And ultimately, much of the experience of pain begins to fade away, and you're seeing the good things that God has done.

Um I never experienced that, but I experienced my head exploding in a major cerebral hemorrhage.

I've talked to you about that too much.

But um I look back on that situation a time where I should have died and realized that at the moment God was sufficient for me.

At the moment I knew that God was good.

And even if I died, and even when Jane and I parted from each other at that helicopter as I was uh taken to another hospital, even if I never saw her again, God was still good, and I wouldn't be happy about not seeing her, but I didn't, by God's grace, I could see the goodness of God in the midst of that.

And when I look back on that, that's what I see.

It's very interesting.

God has wired us together in such a way that we have no active memory of what pain feels like in the past.

We know things hurt in the past, but we never, that's a grace of God given to us.

We don't re-experience pain.

Pain is the real pain is always in the present.

And as we look back, then just as a mother that just was delivered of her child, there is a different perspective.

Now, joy is not happiness.

I've said that several times, but I want to explore what the idea of happiness is.

Well, when in doubt about the meaning of a word, then wing it, right?

When in doubt about the meaning of a word, look it up.

Maybe not in an urban dictionary online, but look it up in a really good dictionary.

Happy, and there's various meanings of happy, but the primary meaning of happy is what you'd expect, characterized by good luck, good fortune, being marked by pleasure.

Circumstances that, you know, when when the sun is shining, life is a beach, and things are good and your belly is full, and, you know, all, you know, there's this pleasurable sense.

And there is nothing wrong with pleasure, my folks, my friends.

That's not what Paul is saying.

He's just saying, don't mix the experience of pleasurable experiences with joy.

Um the dictionary goes on and explains the origin of the word happy, and it comes from the Middle English word.

I've never met a Middle Englishman, but uh the Middle English word, so back in the English language as it was developing, the word hap.

It's very surprising that the word happy has as its root hap, which in the time meant luck.

It's what happened, it's the good fortune.

Whatever happens, the happenstance.

Happiness comes from happenstance, the things that happen, the good circumstances and the good events.

That's what makes us happy.

Nothing wrong with that.

Nothing at all wrong with that.

Uh the reality is, however, is that stuff happens.

Stuff happens.

Um dykes burst, as many of you vividly remember.

Some pumps fail.

An 18-year-old kid goes on a missions trip, dives off a diving board in a swimming pool, and breaks his neck.

Your colon perforates.

Whatever it is, it happens.

That's just what happens.

And happiness is dependent upon what happens, the circumstances.

So if they're good things, then it's appropriate to feel good about it.

If if bad things happen, then we know the experiences of deep sorrow and frustration and so forth.

But that has nothing to do with joy.

Nothing really to do with joy.

Happiness is fleeting and circumstantial.

Joy in God is indestructible and permanent.

Happiness is fleeting and circumstantial.

Joy rooted in the character of who God is and what God does is indestructible and it's everlasting.

Well, real quickly, how do believers experience this?

What would it look like for you and me to experience this?

I'm gonna make reference to these three passages of scripture.

We're not gonna spend a lot of time with them, but uh.

So he says in Hebrews chapter 10, verse 32, but recall the former days, speaking to these believers, remember in the past, after you were enlightened, and after you had seen the light, after you had come to know Christ, in the in the early days of your life, perhaps, of your Christian life, you endured hard struggle with sufferings.

Hebrews 10:32

Sometimes you were publicly exposed to reproach and affliction, and sometimes became partners with those who were so treated.

So the background is believers were being persecuted.

And some of these people themselves had suffered great persecution, and others had chosen to identify with those who were being persecuted.

Verse 34 for you had compassion on those in prison, and listen to this it ought to blow you away.

And you joyfully accepted the plundering of your property, since you yourselves had a better possession and an abiding one.

So here's the picture.

Times of persecution, believers, they lost everything.

They lost everything.

It would be as though a fire came through your neighborhood and destroyed your house.

Some of you experienced that with a flood.

I happen to have had a couple of friends whose houses burned down in different fires.

And they lost everything.

They lost their wedding pictures, they lost their jewelry, they lost their car, they lost all the junk.

And yet, in these cases that uh that I'm familiar with, they could joyfully accept the destruction of all of their earthly goods.

They really could.

That's not theory.

It wasn't theory then, it's not theory now.

There was, I mean, it was a hassle.

You had lots of ashes, and the house was a mess, and you had to rebuild and everything.

But you know, Ernie and Carol.

Never any stronger.

That's how believers experience it.

When you go through and you lose everything, if you know that you have a better possession, and that probably points back to what Christ is doing, or may point ahead to chapter 11, for example, verse 10, for Abraham was looking for a city that has foundations whose builder is God.

They were looking forward to that which God was going to do.

And so, because you know that this stuff is just stuff, but there is something that cannot possibly be taken away from you, that you can have a different attitude, not forced, not pseudo, not put on, but just because you know who God is and what God is doing, and even if if you don't get that house back in this life, you have something better by far ahead.

And if we focus on that, that becomes a reality, and we can have joy when we lose everything.

Now that's the way it was for those people.

Hebrews 11, verses 24 to 26.

Hebrews 11:24–26

By faith, Moses, when he was grown up, he refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter, and he chose instead to be mistreated with the people of God.

That's an interesting thought.

Moses chose to be mistreated with the people of God rather than to enjoy the fleeting pleasures of sin.

And here's the point.

He considered the reproach of Christ.

This is Moses in the Old Testament, what God was doing.

He considered the reproach of Christ greater wealth than the treasures of Egypt, for he was looking forward.

He was looking to the reward.

There was a city whose maker and foundation was God.

So Moses is an example of a believer with feet of clay for which he experienced God's chastisement, wasn't allowed to go into the promised land, etc.

And yet, and yet he chose to be mistreated.

Can you imagine choosing to be mistreated for Christ's sake?

That's not theoretical.

If we stand up and are a winsome but strong witness for truth in our culture, we will be set aside and mistreated.

There's many places in the world today where to stand up and name the name of Christ is to intentionally experience suffering and persecution.

That's not theoretical, my friends.

And those who have the privilege of doing that, and I use the word advisely, those who have the privilege of doing that experience the blessings as well.

Finally, uh Hebrews 11, um I'm sorry, uh Hebrews 12, 1 and 2, and we'll close with this.

So finally.

Since we're surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight and the sin which clings so closely.

Let us run with endurance the rates set before us.

Looking to Jesus.

See, it's always related to Christ, and Christ is our example.

Looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was the joy, the joy that was set before him, endured the cross, not just the thorns, but endured the separation from the Father, the experience of hell.

Despising the shame, he endured the cross and is now seated at the right hand of the throne of God.

For the joy set before him, he could go through hell.

Jesus is our source of joy.

Jesus is our example.

We can ignore what the Bible says about joy if we want, and we can substitute a paltry, flimsy idea of happiness.

But if we do that, we do a disservice to the Word of God, we thumb our nose at God, and we harm ourselves.

To say and believe what God says, it helps us, it assures us that it is a stronghold and a protection for our souls.

So I I just want to make a plea to think aright about joy.

And joy is most powerfully experienced in the most difficult circumstances.

No, we don't have to wait until then.

We can practice now.

We can can can can stretch our muscles a little bit, and we can choose joy over being sour, dour, kind of Christians.

Would you pray with me?

Heavenly Father, if that happens, if we by your grace and through the empowerment of the Holy Spirit, can choose joy which safeguards our soul, then that is a mighty working that you are doing in our lives.

That's nothing of ourselves.

But Lord, we ask that you would accomplish that in our lives.

Joy, joy, joy inexpressible and full of glory.

Joy that makes no human sense.

Joy that looks strange against the backdrop of our circumstances.

Deep, abiding, true, God-focused, spirit-engendered, faith-filled joy.

Oh God, may we a family of faith, faith evangelical free church, may we be a people of joy.

That's my prayer this morning.

In Christ's name, Amen.

Let me ask you to stand in for the benediction.