Core Values 2024 - Week 4: Joy

And Amen, you got a Bible. Go to Namiah chapter eight.

We're gonna continue in our in our uh our core

values series, We're gonna talk about joy today, Alan, I mean,

transparency is is like the foundation of everything.

But this is my favorite one. Joy is my favorite one.

I I just, uh, I do everything in my power

to make sure that I maximize not the joy I feel,

but the joy that I express every single day. Amen,

you know you can express joy maybe when you don't

feel joy. I guess today is all about choices, right,

So we we choose to do those things. And I

want to talk to you a little bit today about uh,

about joy and what joy really is because it's, uh,

you know, a lot of times in society we think

joy is the.

Little brother of happiness.

Come on, somebody, it's like it's not quite laughing, but

it's not crying either. Joy just kind of I feel okay,

but I don't feel great. So I got some joy.

I'm not quite happy yet. But that's not what the

Bible talks about, is joy at all. As a matter

of fact, there's nothing emotional about joy. Joy is that

thing that resides somewhere right in here in us down

at the very fabric of our being, and it allows

us to stand strong during difficult times and difficult situations.

In Niemiah chapter eight, starting in verse nine, it says

in Niemiah, who is the governor Ezra, the priests inscribed

and the Levites who taught the people, said to all

the people, this day is holy to the Lord your God.

Do not mourn nor weep. For all the people wept

when they heard the words of the law. The city

walls had just been rebuilt, eight had just been hung.

They built a platform in the town center, and they

had begin to read God's Law for the first time

since Israel had returned from captivity. And they were broken

over the reading of the law, both because they realized

their failings and also because they realized those high expectations

that they were being called to. You know what, our

relationship with the Lord, the enemy will use our failings,

and he will use those high expectations against us. Come on, somebody.

The Lord never uses anything against us. Everything he does

he uses for us. He calls us up. He doesn't

speak to where we are, He speaks to where he's

calling us to. In scripture, when he finds somebody, he

always gives them a glimpse of their destiny, not just

their immediate circumstance, not just their situation. But when he

Foundon was hiding behind a barn trying to get enough

wheat to grind some bread. And the Lord sent an angel,

and the angel shows up, and this is what he says,

to get in. He says, get in you, mighty man

of Valor. Gideon said, whoa, ay, you got the wrong number.

Come on, somebody, because I'm from the smallest tribe, and

my family is the smallest family in the tribe, and

I'm the smallest of my family.

I'm the least of the least of the least.

But God didn't say, hey, little man, He said, get in, you,

mighty man of Valor. See, it's all about destiny with God,

because he already sees tomorrow as well as he knows yesterday.

And he's always calling us into that next great thing,

that next thing that he's doing.

And the people they responded to the reading.

Of God's word, and they were sad and they were broken,

and they said, listen, don't weep Verse ten. Then he

said to them, listen, go your way, eat the fat,

drink the sweet. Now first of all, I'm not calling

y'all off. Y'all's diet.

Come on, somebody, that's That's not what this is about.

He says, eat the fat, drink the sweet, and send

portions to those for whom nothing is prepared. For this

day is holy to our Lord, do not sorrow, for

the joy.

Of the Lord is your strengths.

So the Levites quieted all the people, saying, be still,

for the day is holy.

Do not be grieved. And all the people went their way.

To eat and drink and to send portions and rejoice

greatly because they understood the words that were declared to them.

Let's pray, Father, thank you for your word. See only

change agent on the face of the planet. And I

pray right now, not a little while from now, but

right now. These words take root deep down, Lord, at

that fountain place that springs life. Lord, that it grows

and brings a harvest that's overflowing. That we're consumed by

your call in Jesus' name. Amen, Amen, and amen. So

we are reading and me and Miah says, hey, here's

the key. Here's the key to joy. You're sorrowful, here's

the key. Go about your business. Do the things you do,

and in the process of doing the things you.

Do, look for people that don't have and also do

for them too.

Now let me say that again, because I don't think

some of y'all are buying it by the look on

your face that he says, here's the key to joy.

Just go do the things you do. Go eat the fat,

go drink the sweet. Just go do the things you do,

and on the way, look for somebody that doesn't have

and help them out. Doesn't have what, doesn't have peace,

don't have money, don't have food, don't have clothes, don't

have whatever, they don't have. Come on, somebody, he said,

look for those that don't have and give a portion

to them.

And then when we continue to read that.

Passage of scripture, there's a transformation that happens. He says, Hey,

the joy of the Lord is your strength. And we

get to the bottom and it says, hey, they went

and they rejoiced greatly because they understood the word of God.

Here's why joy is the core value.

Because joy is about you being you and doing what

you do.

And it is acting others. That's it.

Your whole Christian existence is about you doing what you

do and making an impact in other people's lives. We

get so worried about us. Come on, now, we get

so worried about us, We get so worried about the

things that were overwhelmed by the pressure of the things,

and we stop looking for people.

The key to joy is other people.

I believe when you were laying on your deathbed, you

were not going to think, boy, I wish I had

paid my house off. I wish I had I wish

I had drove two new cars that I didn't get

to drive. I wish I had done. I don't think

you're going to I think what you're gonna say is

you're going to look back on all the people you

helped and probably regret some people you didn't.

Because our lives come down to people.

Because there's enough Jesus in all of humanity. And listen,

I'm not just talking about believers. I'm talking about in

all humanity. There's enough of that God residue left that

we look back and we.

Know it's about people. We know it's about other.

People, whether we've hurt people or helped people, and joy

is tied to that experience. But we get so lost

in the weeds. And listen, here's the thing. We get

so consumed with the idea of righteousness and holiness that

it becomes about everything we shouldn't do rather than what

we should do. And the moment you begin to live

in the negative, the don't. Come on somebody. The moment

you start living in the don't is the moment you

lose joy. If the enemy can make you think that

whole Christian experience is about the things you're not supposed

to do, you will live a less than miserable existence.

But the reality is when we live in the dews, listen,

I want our church to be known.

For what we're for, not what we're against. That's why

I spend so much time talking about what we're for,

what we're for, what we're for. Now.

There's a lot of things I don't like. Amen, But

if i'm four of the things I'm for, I don't

have to worry about the things i'm against, Because if

I build the things I'm for, They're going to overwhelm

and over the power of the things that I'm against.

And we get so lost in the pressure of life

and trying to maintain that we forget and just say

Jesus ay, just go, just go, and do you man,

just go and eat and drink and look for some

people to make an impact in You know, there's a

there's a book The Boy, the Fox, the Mole, and

the Horse. And in this book there's this this moment

where the boy and the horse they're lost in the

wilderness and the boys just kind of overwhelmed. Fear has

gripped him and he looks at the horse and he says,

I can't see the way out.

Now. Of course this is just a book.

So the horse looks back at him and speaks, right,

if you get in the wilderness and you have a

conversation with your horse, please call me because we're either

gonna put you in counseling or we're gonna go on

the road.

Amen, make a lot of money.

But nonetheless, so the horse looks back and he says, hey,

can you see the next step? The boy was looking

for a way out, and the horse said, but can

you see the next step? And the boy said, yes,

I can. And here's the profound thing. The horse said,

take it. And it transforms the journey into this scary, overwhelming,

dark thing to a place where I'm just taking the

next step that I can see and now I go

from a place that's trying to kill me to I'm

enjoying the process of going through a place I've never

been before, all of the new experiences and all of

the new sounds and all of the new smells, and

through this wilderness. If you just take the next step. See,

living in God's joy.

Is just about taking the next step.

It's stopping all the worry about what's going on beyond

my field of view. You know, most of us don't

actually struggle with bad things that are wrong. We struggle

with the idea that things can be bad and wrong.

The moment we get a little pressure, we start thinking

about all the things that can happen if the pressure

is not corrected.

Right now, now, there's this this amazing.

Narrative of Jesus where he's with his disciples and he

tells them to get in a boat and go to

the other side of the sea, and that he's going

to meet them there. And Jesus retreats into the mountains

and he prays, and the twelve disciples they get in

this rowboat and they start rowing across the water. And

it says, and the King James, it says, and the

wind became contrary. That means it was blowing so hard

they couldn't row anymore. The waves kicked up in a

storm coming and they're rowing as hard as they can row,

but they're stuck in place, and they're fearful because this

storm's coming, and they that they couldn't go anywhere. Now,

obviously they could have turned around and went back where

they came from because the wind was blowing in that direction. Amen,

they couldn't go that way. They could have gone that way,

but they had enough, they had enough faith to know

that Jesus said, go to the other side. So they

were on their way to the other side, and they

refused to go back. I think there's people in this

room that you've hit some some turbulence in your journey,

but you know enough not to go back.

Amen, you know that that was worse than this that

even they You know, when when when.

Israel came out of Egypt, they looked back at the

leaks and garlics and they wanted to go back, but

Moses said, listen, there ain't no goe like in no onion.

That's good enough to go back.

So they're rowing and they're rowing, and they're rowing and

they're trying to get to their and they can't get

to the other side, and here comes Jesus walking on

the water, and they thought it was a ghost and

they got scared. I have you no, ghosts not real.

You have to raise your hand.

They're not.

If you've encountered something supernatural, it's supernatural, not a ghost, angel, demon.

I'll let you wrestle with that part of it, right.

So they saw something I watch, they saw something that

wasn't there. Their manifestation of imagination put.

More pressure on the situation.

Is your manifestation of your imagination putting more pressure on

the situation. He's like, oh no, we can't go that way.

And now there's a ghost chasing us in the other direction.

And Jesus sensed their fear and he said, no, it's

I fear not. And they're like, come on, man, quit

this fear not stuff. Don't you see we're in a

storm and a little rowboat that you put us in.

And Jesus looks at him and he says, hey, if

that's you, If that's you, Jesus bid me to come

to you. So Jesus looks at the boat and he says,

come jo He's talking to everybody in the boat. Anytime

Jesus speaks to an individual in scripture, he calls them

by name.

Every single time.

So because he didn't say Peter, he was talking to

everybody in the boat.

And Peter gets up.

Now, at some point, there's that moment, there's that moment

where potential is still potential before faith becomes faith. Do

y'all know that moment that that I'm talking about. It's

that moment where you're like, are we sure? There had

to be that moment?

Right?

Peter stands up, And if you've ever stood up in

a row boat, when somebody stands up, everybody knows it's

like the scared cat.

Everybody grabs the side. Right.

But do you know before you can ever be a

water walker, you got to be a boat rocker.

Because here's what the world wants. The world wants you to.

Be stressed out like them. They want you to be

beaten down and depressed and medicated like everybody else. They

want you to worry. What if they want you to

come on because that has become normal in the world

because the world doesn't know Jesus. Had the world known Jesus,

they would not have crucified, the King of Glory. The

Bible says his ways are higher than their ways. They

don't understand him. They can't fathom him because they don't

have the joy on the inside. But somewhere in the

rocking of the boat, I don't know, maybe Peter read

that book. He decided to take a step, and he

picks up his foot and he swings it over the boat.

And I just imagine that when it got about right

there and everybody realized what he was doing, they started,

have you lost your mind?

And his foot hits the water, and Faith held him

up right.

Faith supported him. The laws of physics say it can't.

At no point did Jesus say, Peter, I want you

to sit down and get out a piece of paper

and calculate the water displaced. But and see if your

foot is big enough to hold up your body weight

as it displaces the water.

He just said, Come.

Peter gets out the boat. He takes the step that

he can see towards Jesus, and he quit worrying about

the things that were around. He quit worrying about the pressure,

because he knew the closer to Jesus he was to

the answer.

He was.

Now let me give you the bad news about a

joyful life. Doesn't always mean things work out. There's no

promise that it's always gonna work out. Come on, somebody.

We all go through tough times. We got saved from sin,

not the pressure of the world. So the moment joy

takes over that strength that says, hey, I can do anything,

he steps out and he takes his eyes off Jesus

and he begins to sink. The Bible says when he

began to sink, all the disciples through a life preserver.

He grabbed it.

He almost drowned, and he doggy paddles back and he

pulls himself in the boat.

Not ain't what the Bible says.

The Bible says that when he began to sink, Jesus

reached down and grabbed him and pulled him up, and

Jesus put him in the boat.

And when Jesus got in.

The boat, the boat was immediately on the other side.

So that means when he stepped out of the boat,

because Jesus called him and not the people in the boat,

he was closer to the answer than he was the problem. See,

joy allows faith to manifest in our lives. Joy is

that strength that says I can do anything if I

just believe I can do anything and make it through anything,

because Jesus is on my side.

No. Pastor Clay, I heard him say it.

This morning in All Call, he said, Hey, he's never

lost a battle.

Every battle he's ever fought, he's won.

In Psalm chapter fifty one, starting in verse ten, and says,

creating me a clean heart, O God, and renew a

steadfast spirit within me, do not cast me away from

your presence, and do not take.

Your Holy spirit from me. What a prayer?

What just that that part of the Psalm. What an

incredible moment of of clarity. King David Is is talking

to the Lord, and he says, hey, your spirit is

everything to me. Don't don't don't don't take your don't

take your spirit from you. Listen, you could take everything else.

You can take my money, you can take my robes,

you can take my cars. You could take then, you

can take my fishing poles, you can take my dear rifle.

You can do whatever you will. You can take all

those things. Hold on, Georgia fans, we.

Can have a losing season. Just don't just don't take

your spirit from me. Wow.

Now the spirit literally let Jesus in the wildern into

the wilderness. But he says, listen, don't take your spirit

from me, because your spirit's everything.

Your presence is everything, because there's.

Something about it that, even when things are hard, it

just seems better. Do not cast me away from your presence,

and do not take your spirit from me.

Verse twelve.

Here's where joy comes from. The way you get it

is you just do you and you help others along

the way, But this is where it comes from. Restore

to me the joy of your salvation. Restore to me

the joy of your salvation, and uphold me.

By your generous spirit.

Then I will teach transgressors your ways, and sinners shall

be converted to you. He said, Hey, restore to me

the joy of your salvation. See, I had this moment

where I thought it was mine. I had this moment

where I thought it belonged to me, But it's your salvation.

It saved me, but it belongs to you. It pulled

me out. But you're holding the rope, and I want

you to restore unto me the joy of my salvation.

That moment I want you to think back for some

of y else got to think back a long time. Some

of y'all been saved a long time and some of

y'all are just old.

Come on to that. Can you remember that day?

That day you prayed that prayer and the blood of

Jesus washed your sin away? And it was like, listen,

I have people I almost I would say seventy percent

of people describe it this way. I felt like a

million pounds were lifted off my shoulders. But you know,

you're not carrying sin. Jesus carried sin. What happened is

you were infused with joy. And joy is the equilibrium.

It balances the pressure on the inside to match the

pressure on the outside, so that you don't know there's pressure.

And he said, restore unto me that moment, restoring to

me the.

Joy of your salvation.

And then I'm gonna teach transgressors your ways, and listen,

lost people.

Are gonna be converted. Sinners are gonna be converted.

Because I don't look like everybody else looks when they

go through stuff.

And my life becomes.

A testimony, and my life becomes a sermon that people

see each and every day. My goodness, my goodness, if

if I can live a life where I go through

the same things everybody at work it's going through.

Come on, now, show of hands.

Maybe your boss told say, how many people think you're

overworking underpaid? I better put my hand down boards here,

I mean right, I mean we get that feeling. How

many of you feel unappreciated by the people that you

do the most for? Oh my Andy, did you see

her hand go up just pointing that out for you there,

pal flowers on the way home.

We all feel those things.

There is nothing that happens to us that's not common demand.

But if we handle it different than everybody else handles it.

If everybody knows my kids have lost their mind and

are driving me crazy, and just like their kids are,

but I don't let it affect me the way it

affects them. There is a testimony, and they begin to

see something on the inside of you that's not on

the inside of them, and they're drawn to it.

Come on, somebody for the single people.

If you're approaching singleness in a different way and everybody else,

and you're not out there just chasing every single moment

of intimacy that you can find, but you're handling it different.

You're just sitting back waiting on Jesus. Come on now.

People look and say, why how can you be so

peace filled? How can you handle things so differently? Because

the joy of the Lord is my strength. I don't

need external inputs when the balance is right on the inside. Clay,

you guys can come and get ready, he said, restore

unto me.

The joy of your salvation. I believe the reality.

Is that maybe some people in this room have lost

the joy of your salvation. Not your salvation, not your salvation,

but the joy of it, that first love feeling. Listen,

I just been married twenty eight years. I remember, listen,

I remember the very first time I ever saw my wife.

We were registering for classes at that time at Gainesville

Junior College a long time ago, and she walked in.

I was like, I was like that cartoon wanng you

in my eyes, It's like, that's the most beautiful woman

I've ever seen in my life. My heart started beating fast,

and sweat broke out on my head. And she had

somewhere to be and she was trying to register. But

her last name star with T. My last name starts

with S. So I'm one alphabet in front, I'm one

letter in front of her right, And it wasn't tease

time to be there yet. It was S's time to

be there yet, and they said, well you got to

wait until your time. I'd never seen her before my life,

never said a word to her. And I'm just standing

in line, you know. She cut in front of me, right.

Usually I get mad about that. And I remember yelling,

just let the girl register for classes.

It's one letter. And for some reason this sounded like

a thing that made sense in my mind.

I said, And it's a consonant too, I guess I

would just wanted people to know I knew the difference

between Bibles and consonants.

I don't know.

And she turned around to look kind of blushed red,

and I was just right then, I was like, who

that's like.

That's the target.

Like if I didn't find somebody as good as her,

I never knew it was going to be her. The

Lord orchestrated all that years later, that first love feeling

that just I don't care if I get and this

is really what I thought. I don't got care if

I get kicked out of college.

Look at her, I just dig a ditch. I was

look at her, fall in love with that Jesus.

Of your salvation, that moment where you just knew everything

was gonna be okay, and there's no shame and saying

I want I want my joy back. I want the

joy of my salvation back. There's no shame in that whatsoever.

In just a minute, I'm gonna count to three, and

if that's you, if you want the joy of your salvation.

Back, I want you to come, and we want.

To pray for you. I know, y'all we pray a

lot at this church, yes we do. But maybe you're

here and you've never.

Trusted Jesus as your savior.

Be I want to speak plainly to you, not even

about eternity, because eternity is going to be bad for you.

There's a place called heaven, there's a place called hell,

and without Jesus, there's only one destination.

That's hell.

But I want to talk to you about tomorrow. If

you wake up and open your eyes, there is no

hope for your pressure to be equalized, because joy only

comes from the Lord, and it's the only equalizer. I mean,

we can look ahead towards eternity, or you can look

towards tomorrow when you know you've got to go back

to your job where all those people are are.

They get on your nerves. And your boss is an

old curmudgeon that just's.

Under your skin so far that it's like a tattoo,

and he just can't get rid of him. Come on, somebody,

If you find the Lord today, he can give you

the joy to overcome and equalize that pressure tomorrow.

The choice is up to you.

If you're here today and you want to accept Jesus

as your Lord and savior, you want to give him

your life and receive that joy story. I'm gonna count

to three. When I get to three, if that's you,

I want you to come to our alter team will

come and get ready. Everybody else's stand on the count

of three. If you're here today and you say, hey,

I need Jesus, I want Jesus to save me.

Or if you're here and you know.

You're saved, but you want the joy of your salvation back,

life is beat it out on you the day you

want it back. On the count of three, I want

you to step out and move now.

Listen. I want to guarantee you.

If you're here and you're about to step out for

the very first time, give your life to everybody here

is cheering for you. There's no condemnation in coming to

this place not being saved. That's why we do what

we do. On the count of three, I want that

joy right, I need Jesus. The count of three, I

want you to step out and move Don't look around,

just step out and move one, two, three, step out

and move right now, come on,