Joy in God

Well, good morning.

I want to first say before I get started. Man,

I've been here for just over a year, and what

a blessing I know. Wow, thank you for putting up

with me. What a blessing it has been to be here.

It has been so encouraging in the way that you

have welcomed myself and my family into this local body.

It's been amazing. So thank you for loving us well.

We are super excited for man, what God has and

sore for us here. It costs a way for the future.

So thank you guys so much for loving us well.

With that, we're gonna be in Psalm sixteen, as Josh

just said, and so if you'll open up to Psalm

sixteen a follow along, I'm gonna read the whole thing.

It's eleven verses, so Psalm sixteen, starting in verse one.

Preserve me, Oh God, for in you I take refuge.

I say to the Lord, you are my Lord. I

have no good apart from you. As for the saints

in the land, they are the excellent ones, and whom

is all my delight. The sorrows of those who run

after another, God shall multiply their drink offerings of blood.

I will not pour out or take their names on

my lips. The Lord is my chosen portion, and my

cup you hold my lids.

The lines have fallen.

For me in pleasant places. Indeed, I have a beautiful inheritance.

I bless the Lord, who gives me counsel. And in

the night also my heart instructs me. I set the

Lord always before me, because he is at my right hand,

and I shall not be shaken. Therefore my heart is glad,

and my whole being rejoices. My flesh also dwells secure,

for you will not abandon my soul to sheol, or

let the Holy One see corruption. You make known to

me the path of life, and in your presence there

is fullness of joy. At your right hand are pleasures forevermore.

Psalm sixteen David shares where joy is found. And this

psalm is written from a heart that has learned where

true joy and true security are found. Joy isn't found

lasting joy. It's not found in circumstances. It's not found

in success, it's not found in control. Lasting joy is

found in God himself. And so as we go through

the Psalm, we'll see three ways of how we find

joy In God. We find joy and God by trusting

in God. The second is we find joy by living

with God's design, and the third one is we find

joy by living in His presence forever. And those will

be up on the screen as we go throughout, so

if you miss them, they'll be up there. And so

as I was preparing this morning, I was like, man,

in my own life, where do I find joy? And

right away my family came to mind, my three kids

and my beautiful wife. If you don't know, I have

three kids. I have a one, a two, and a

four year old. So we are often busy and we're

often tired, but man, the joy that they bring. And

so one of the cool things as a parent is

getting to watch your kids go from cautious in something

to confidence in that thing. Last summer, we were trying

to teach my four year old, who was then three,

how to jump or how to swim into a pool,

and we thought the best way to do that is

to have her jump into the pool. She doesn't even

like to get her eyes west. We're like, let's just

get her all in there, and so she's standing on

the edge, she's nervous. I'm not I'm super happy.

I'm like arms reaching out. I'm like, come on, you

can do it, and she's looking.

At me, nervous, and then looking at the water even

more nervous, and then me nervous, and then back and forth.

And she was nervous, but she was making sure that

I was right there to catch her. And once she

realized that she could do it and that I was there,

that I was going to catch her, and she didn't

even look anymore. She just launched herself off the hedge

of the pool man. She was having a blast, as

happy as can be. At one point, she would jump,

she would get out, she would do it over and over,

and she wasn't even making sure that I was paying attention.

In her mind, if she was jumping, then I was

catching And man, guys, that right there, that is trust.

It's not because the water is safe. The water is

still not safe. It's because I was there. And you

could see in that moment you could see the joy

that she had, that trust in me had then created.

You could see it through her joy, through the smiles.

You could see it through the repetition of her getting

in and immediately running out and jumping right back in.

Her excitement came from the confidence, her trust that she

would be caught somewhere along the way in life. Use

that we grow up and we become far more self aware,

far more cautious, and we begin to plan instead of trust.

We depend on our own strength until life gets hard,

and then suddenly we find ourselves looking for someone to

catch us. There are moments in life when everything feels uncertain,

seasons when we are looking for something that's solid to

stand on, something sturdy, something dependable, something that's unshakable, And

whether we realize it or not, in those moments, what

we're looking for is joy. And it's a joy that's

not weak. It's a joy that is lasting, and it's

a joy that doesn't depend on circumstances.

No, it's a joy that lasts.

So where do we find that joy that brings us

to the very first point? Joy is found and trusting

God man. David begins and Psalm sixteen with such.

A powerful prayer.

It reads, preserve me, Oh God, friend, you I take refuge.

It doesn't seem to be a prayer of someone who

is panicking. It seems to a prayer if someone who

understands their dependence. What David is saying is God You

are my safety, You are who I turn to. You

are my refuge. But David is simply acknowledging this truth

that he needs God for everything. You see, we often

just try cry out to God. Maybe it's when when

things are falling apart. Maybe it's when that diagnosis comes,

the relationship is breaking. Maybe it's just when finances are tight.

And David he shows us right here, He shows us

something better. He lives in a way of depending on

the Lord, not in desperation of the Lord. See this

really hit close to me. About a month and a

half ago, I ran a marathon, and about six seven

months before that, I did a whole bunch of training

leading up to that, and I was about twenty miles

in and man, I was feeling so good, way better

than I expected to. My legs were strong or they

ever feeling strong, and my pace, man, it was good mentally,

which when you're running four hours, mentally it becomes a

mental game.

You're like, I can do this. Yeah.

I was in a great place and at one point

I was like, you know what, I may actually be

able to do this thing, because I wasn't sure up

until that moment.

Everything felt under control.

Until mile twenty, something changed, something happened. We're three hours

in and I remember running this race and I see

people that are running. They look great, and then they

grabbed their leg and they drop to the ground. You're like, ooh,

I don't know what just happened to them, but I

do not want to experience that.

Well, let me tell you my twenty. The cramps hit hard.

My legs locked up, and every single step became a fight.

The pace that I had been running.

For three hours, it suddenly did not seem possible anymore.

And at that moment, it didn't matter how confident I

had been, didn't matter how confident I had felt. All

that mattered was that I can I keep going. The

last five to six miles they were slow, Boy were

they painful, but man, they were humbling.

I was able to finish.

And as I thought about this experience later, as I

was writing this sermon, I thought, how often is that

exactly how we live our spiritual lives. We feel strong,

maybe we feel capable of ourselves. We feel like man,

we're in control, until we're not. We rely on our

own strength, our own discipline, our own plans that we create,

and then something happens and it changes everything. Maybe it's

we experience a.

Loss, maybe we're just exhausted.

Maybe it's that disappointment has set in. We realize in

those moments how much we really need the Lord. You see,

David wasn't waiting until mile twenty to cry out to God.

We can see that in this psalm. He lived in

daily dependence. He didn't just run to God when he

was exhausted. He ran with God from the beginning. And

that's why he can say in this text, we just

read I have no good apart from You. And that's

the difference between desperation and dependence. You see, Desperation it

cries out when every single thing falls apart. Dependence it

walks closely with God way before those things fall apart.

Desperation it usually shows up when we feel like we

have exhausted.

All of our own efforts.

It comes when our strength runs out and those plans

that we had created they fall apart. And I want

to be clear, there's nothing wrong with crying out to

God and desperation. In fact, we'll find so many prayers

like that in scripture, that kind of prayer. But David

does show with something super important here he shows us

that dependence it's not something that's reactive. Dependence is something

that is relational. It's the steady posture someone who knows

that they need God long before life forces.

Them to admit it. Desperation. It comes at mile twenty.

Dependence starts at mile one. Is learned in the normal

day today. It's in the routines that we make. It's

in the decisions that we have. It's in the responsibilities

that we've set out for ourselves.

And it's in.

Those places that joy is formed long before suffering.

It's where trust is made before trials arrive.

Look at verse two, he says, I say to the Lord,

you are my lord, and I have no good apart

from you.

I'm like man, David. That's a bold statement, David.

You're declaring that You're saying that everything good in this life,

like joy and meaning and purpose and security, all of

that comes from God alone.

Yes, But here's the thing.

We live in a culture that constantly tells us that

joy comes from success, that joy comes from comforts. However,

David reminds us that joy is not found and what

we have, Rather, joy is found, and who we belong to,

what we've given our lives to.

David doesn't say that God gives him good things. He

says that God is his good.

Thing, and that right there is the difference between enjoying

God's good gifts that he's given you and worshiping him.

When God becomes our most important thing, everything else falls

into its proper places. And so if all of that,

if all of that we just talked about is true,

if God is the most important thing in your life,

and He is who you are trusting in, then we

ask is how do we actually live like that?

How do we live in a way that.

Is leaning towards joy instead of leaning away from it?

And David answers that when he shows us in this

text that joy is found and living within God's design.

So this is the point two, finding joy by.

Trusting in God, and then as we do that, we

will find joy by living within his design. Let me

go ahead and reread verses four and five. For us

says the sorrows of those who run after another God

shall multiply their drink offerings of blood. I will not

pour out or take their names.

On my lips. The Lord is my chosen portion, and.

My cup you hold my lives. David's about to show

us two different ways of living. He says, those who

chase after other gods, man, your sorrows are just multiplying.

And another way we can say that is when we

are looking for meaning outside of God's good design, the

results will always be emptiness.

And we see this all around.

Us because the world tells us constantly if we just

had more than we would be more happy, more money,

more success, more recognition, more freedom. And then scripture tells

us tells us a different story. It says that God's

boundaries they're not meant to restrict us.

No, they're meant to protect us.

His boundaries are meant to help you grow closer to him.

We see right here in verse six it says that

the lines have fallen for me in pleasant places. Indeed,

I have a beautiful inheritance. Those lines that are being

referred to, they're boundaries. It's God's design for life, and

David is not complaining about them. Rather, David is rejoicing

in them. He's saying, God, where you have placed me,

it is good. The life that you've called me to live,

it is good. And that is such a different idea

from a culture that equates freedom with the absence of boundaries.

True freedom isn't found in doing whatever we want. It's

found in living the way that we have been created

to live. When we live outside of God's design, things

will eventually fall apart. But when we walk with him,

when we walk within his design, even though it's hard.

I'm not saying, hey, when you find joys, everything's happy

and go lucky.

No, there's still hard moments in life.

But when we do walk in His way and trust

in Him, that is where we find peace. And David

goes on to say in this text, the Lord gives.

Him counsel even at night.

That right there is a picture of a heart that

is aligned with God's word and it is shaping his

inner life. God's word is not just a guide that

becomes helpful for him to make decisions. It's the guide

that shapes his desires. And that is what it looks

like to walk with God daily, not just knowing about God,

but being shaped by God and being shaped.

By his word. So that raises a.

Question, who is shaping us? I want us to think

about the voices that we listen to. Maybe it's the

podcast you listen to on the drive to work.

Maybe it's the YouTubers that you watch.

Maybe it's the music that you listen to, the movies

we watch, the shows we binge watch, I'm guilty. Maybe

it's the social media feeds that we doomscroll on all

day because we're constantly being counseled, whether we know it

or not. And the thing is, those voices that I

just said, none of them are neutral. They're all shaping

the way that we think about life, to shaping the

way that we think about success, relationships, the way we

think about identity, and more importantly, they're shaping the way

that we think and how we think.

Joy is supposed to look like. We often expect.

To find joy from those places we listen, we watch,

we scroll. Maybe it's to hope, to feel encouraged. Maybe

it's even hope to feel fulfilled. And if we're honest

with ourselves, those voices they don't just distract us from God. Oftentimes,

those voices we listen to they contradict the way that

God has called us to live his design for us.

One side tells you, hey, do whatever makes you happy,

protect yourself at all costs because.

You deserve more. And then we have.

God's word, and it says things like deny yourself, take

up your cross, trust in me, walk in my ways.

And so when we throw our hearts in our minds

with counsel that run against God's design for us, it

should be to no surprise when we feel like we

don't get to experience any joy, or that joy is

distant from us. When David had said that the Lord

counsels him even at the night, that means that God's

truth was so deeply planted in his heart it shaped

him when no one else was speaking. That kind of

counsel does not come by accident. That kind of counsel

comes from intentionally getting into God's word.

Pastor Josh said it a few weeks ago.

It's constant weeding and feeding of your garden of your heart.

It's weeding out the sin and ungodliness, and it's feeding

your heart with the knowledge of truth. And so then

the question is it is not if you're being shaped.

The question is who or what is shaping you.

If we want a joy that last, we can't keep

looking forward in places that were never designed to give it.

Joy is found.

We live within God's design, and that starts by letting

God be our primary counselors. We've talked a lot about joy,

a lot about Christian joy already, but we really haven't

defined it. I think we all kind of a framework

of what joy may be in our lives, but I

want to define it for us. Michael Reeves, he's a

well known author. He puts it this way. He defines

Christian joy. It's a deep, enduring delight that comes from

beholding and rejoicing in Jesus Christ. It is not something

that we manufacture ourselves, but something that naturally bubbles up

as we fix our eyes on hill Man, beholding and rejoicing.

In Jesus Christ.

Guys, that's the beauty of Christian joy.

We can't produce it by our own effort. We don't

force it, we don't work our way into it.

Joy grows as we behold Jesus, who he is, what

he has done for us, the grace that he has

shown to us. And so it's never am I doing enough?

It is what am I beholding? Because when we become

like what we behold, we rejoice and what we treasure

the most beholding Jesus. It's not just in the early

morning hours with our bibles open. Although that is very

important and we should be doing that. But we behold

Christ in the ordinary, everyday life. Maybe it's through fellowship,

Maybe it's through prayer, Maybe it's through obedience. Maybe it's

through repentance, through conversation, through relationship, through remembering the gospel. Guys,

God's design is not about taking joy from you. It's

actually to lead you to the only joy that last,

and that leads us to our last point, find joy

by living in His presence forever. David's confidence is super

powerful here and verse nine he says, therefore, my heart

is glad.

My whole being rejoices. My flesh also dwells secure.

Why can David say something like that, Wow, Guys, It's

because he knows his future is secure in God's hands.

Go on to say, you will not abandon my soul

to shield or let your Holy One see corruption. What

David is saying right there is even death does not

get the final word. He's not just saying God will

be with me in this life. He's saying God will

not even abandon me in death. And that right there

is a category of hope that this world just simply

does not have the best that the world can do.

Is try to deny it.

They can try to distract from death, they can try

to maybe delay it, but they world cannot defeat it.

And David, the joy he's speaking of right here, it's

the kind of joy that survives the grave. To be

quite frank, death, it's coming for all of us. We

cannot escape it. And so if death is unavoidable, which

it is, then the question is not, well, man, how

long am I going to live? No, the question needs

to be where does my joy rest? Because when we

find our joy in Christ, we are then receiving a

joy that continues in His presence forever. And that's important

because it it starts beginning for us to.

Ask deeper questions of ourselves.

What kind of joy actually outlast suffering, outlast loss and death?

Because if our joy is rooted in our circumstances, what

happens when our circumstances change?

The joy will fade away.

If our joy is rooted in our health, what happens

when our health fails? If our joy is rooted in

our careers, what happens when our career ends? If our

joy is rooted in our relationships, what happens when those

relationships are then broken?

You see, David is.

Inviting us into a joy that has a stronger foundation

than anything this world has to offer. It's a joy

that's rooted in God himself, and man, if we're honest,

even with that kind of future hope, which is so

encouraging to look forward to, life can still feel unstable.

Life can still feel unpredictable. I'm not saying that it's

going to be easy by any means. There's gonna be

a lot of times where things feel out of control.

I was thinking as I was preparing this morning.

When do I feel out of control? Like it's not

in my control anymore? And the first thing comes to

my mind is when I'm an airplane thirty thousand feet

in the air, and have you ever been there? And

you hit bad turbulence and your heart's racing and your

stomach kind of drops a little bit, and maybe you

grab the legs of the people beside you, you squeeze them.

Don't do that, that's weird, but maybe some people do.

I was on an international flight last year, and actually,

I'm gonna pause a story before we go any further.

My wife saysn't very dramatic, so you can decide after

I tell the story I was on an international flight

and I was sitting on a plane and I was

smushed in between probably two people. Actually don't remember where

I was sitting, but the you know, the seats are

small and I am big, so I was probably smushed.

And I was watching a TV show probably, and I

like to eat, so I was definitely eating. And but

what I do remember is this bad storm, right, a

bad turbulence, and the plane was shaking hard enough where

you know, the seat belt signs come on and then

everyone's like, oh, you know, because tightening your seatbelts, because

that's what saves you when you crash. And then then

you hear USh from this is the flight deck, flight attendants,

please be seated, And I'm like, okay, this is where

we go down because if the if the flight attends

can't even give me coke, then this is probably not

a safe situation at all. And the plane gets quieter

for a moment and you can feel the tension in

the air, and then the pilot comes from the flight

attendant or from this speaker and he says, hey, this

is your captain speaking. This happens literally every day. It's

not a big deal. We're gonna fly right above this

and we'll be in clear skies in just a few moments. Now,

the turbulence did not immediately stop in that moment, just

like in life, We're gonna have this joy, this joy

I'm talking about.

That doesn't mean life's problems just stop.

The plane was still shaking. The storm was real, trust me,

it was real. But guys, the turbulence, it was only temporary.

It didn't change the destination. It just made the flight

uncomfortable for a few moments. And that right there is

the difference between worldly joy and Christian joy. Worldly joy

can only last as long as there is no turbulence.

But the joy that David describes right here, it is

rooted in a destination that has already been secured by Christ,

which means when life does feel shape, when sorrows come,

because they will when suffering, hits will probably face suffering

as sometime when your future feels unclear, I've been there.

The joy we have in Christ it is not threatened.

The turbulence is temporary. The joy is eternal. And that

right here is the confidence that David has right here,

because ultimately, this passage points beyond David. This passage points

to Jesus, and Peter actually quotes Psalm sixteen and Acts two,

and he explains that David was speaking prophetically about the

resurrection of Christ. Jesus is the fulfillment of this psalm.

He trusted the Father completely, even to the point of death,

and God did not abandon him there. He raised him

from the grave. And that means our hope it is

not just for this life.

Our joy.

It is not imprairie. Our confidence does not need to

be weak. So when life feels hard, because it will

at times when grief hits. There's some of us right

here this morning who are grieving when anxiety rises, when

circumstances just seem to break us and tear us down.

Christian joy does not need to pretend that that storm

is not real. We can rest and the confidence that

the storm will last forever.

Because Jesus lives, our future is secure.

And that's why David ends with these words right here

in verse eleven. He says, you can make known to

me the path of life in your presence.

There's fullness of joy.

At your right hand are pleasures forevermore. This is the

promise we and now hold on too. It is real joy,

and it is found in God's presence and it is

for eternity.

And if you're here this morning and you want to

consider yourself a Christian, please do not miss this. Everyone

is looking for joy. We're all trying to find joy

in life.

But apart from Christ worldly joy, it will never last.

It can feel good when life feels good, but it

cannot survive death.

And the hope right here that David.

Describes, it's the hope that Jesus has secured. It's through

his resurrection, and it is offered to you. Christ does

not call you away from joy. He's actually calling you

to the only joy that lasts. And for those of

us who ring Christ this morning, this is where that joy.

This is where it becomes permanent.

It's a joy that unders sorrow, stands firm and uncertainty,

and it looks beyond the grave. It's the joy that

David anticipated and that Jesus fulfilled. And in Psalm sixteen

it invites us to consider for our own lives. It

teaches us something super important. Joy is not in our circumstances.

It's in closeness to God when we trust in Him,

when we live within His design, when we place our

hope in Him. We then get to experience the kind

of joy that endures suffering, It overcomes fear, and it

carries us through every single season. And so the question

today is where are you looking for your joy? Is

it in success? Is it in comfort?

Or is it in Christ and Christ alone? Because when

God is your.

Refuge, when He is your treasure, no matter what happens,

you then get to say, with confidence in your presence

is fullness of joy. Please stay with me and pray. God,

you are so good and you thank you for loving

us so well, even though Lord, we don't always deserve it.

Lord.

I think as we just read about finding joy, Lord,

I just pray that and thank you for all the

things that you've blessed us within this life that we

can find joy in. But I do pray that we

find joy ultimately in.

You, in and in you alone. Lord.

We love you, and we thank you for loving us.

We have all these things up to units and your name.

We pray Amen.