Recovering Joy

Oh, you maybe see that I just wanted to stir you up a little bit.

And I'll just tell you, quite frankly, some of the things that I tell, you know, our staff and our leaders who are around here, we need to be intentional about prayer.

And that is, yes, coming out Thursday night.

I'll say that.

Thursday night is not a little thing.

Is not, you know, for those who feel super spiritual or like they're good at praying.

Thursday night is the bread and butter what makes this place function.

Because if we're not praying and we're not calling on God to do something, and we're just gathering as a bunch of good Christian people hoping it's gonna happen, then we're really cutting ourselves short of what God wants to do.

But it's not just Thursday night, it's being intentional about our prayer for our church, right?

How many of you know if you're here, this is your church?

So, yes, we pray for other churches.

I love other churches, other pastors, other people.

I have a heart for the body of Christ, but this is my church, and that means I stand here.

This is my territory, this is my assignment, this is where I need to stand and continue to stand and having a done all to stand, and that means what?

That I have a posture in God for this place, for this people.

Come on, this isn't even the message I have, and I don't care if I get to the message today.

Because more than anything, as I began to pray about Sunday morning, I just felt like God's reminding me of things.

It's just God's exhorting me so I'm passing the favor along.

I uh I'm a teacher by default, I was a Bible college guy for a lot of years.

Is it okay if I preach at you a little bit this morning?

Come on.

Sometimes we just need to be reminded of the basic things, and I'm not I'm not saying this to overwhelm anybody because I know how it can be when we begin to be exhorted, we begin to be challenged, that the first thing sometimes we want to do, a defense mechanism comes up.

I'm tired, I'm doing so much already, I'm I've given it all, and I just don't know how I can give any more.

Trust me, it's about getting back to the source.

It's not about making this more complicated or just trying to add more duty on top of my life, it's getting back to the source who is God.

And if we're connected to him, then all of that will begin to flow out from us.

Jesus told his disciples, people who had walked with him for a few years already.

He said, I am the vine, you are the branches, abide in me, and you will bear fruit.

Apart from me, you can do nothing.

You know, I've never done it.

I've always thought to myself, I should put that like right across from my desk in my office, or a plaque or something, you know.

I I love all those little plaques and stuff we Christians put out, right?

Be still and know.

You know, and and you know, the Lord is my shepherd, and all of this, but sometimes we just need square in the face a reminder that says, we can do nothing, nothing, nothing without him.

And if we're beginning to feel tired, exhausted, burnt out, it's because we're not in him.

Now, I'm not saying you're not born again, I'm not saying that you don't love the Lord, but you've allowed other things to choke out the vital connection that is our life in God.

Come on.

So I was telling our leaders that we need to be intentional about prayer.

Because, like I said, it's easy to get familiar to walk into this place and we know people and we're we're we're catching up with our friends, our family.

But what do you walk into this place with a sense of holiness?

Lord, I am entering your holy house.

This is where you move.

You know, if that means just praying in your car on the way here for the staff.

I told them most of us, if we just stopped for the first 10, 15 minutes before we did anything, we would not miss those 10, 15 minutes of prayer.

It would just multiply our ability to do what God has called us to do.

Because the enemy is an expert at keeping us distracted, keeping us burnt out, keeping us tired, because we don't put the first things first.

We're trying to accomplish everything in our own strength and power.

Come on, I'm preaching to myself this morning.

Come on.

I am learning more and more that when things come my way, and you know, in my position as lead pastor, I have lots of things come my way.

And yes, I have to think about them, but I'm learning the first thing to do is not think.

The first thing to do is give this to God because I am gonna waste my life thinking about things, and how does this affect that?

And how does that connect?

And how does this all fit together when God already has a supernatural way of building his body up, of making it work.

And I don't know if this is a guy thing, I know that we guys get uh you know criticized, or or we can relate to this, but I'm sure the ladies do it too.

We want to fix things.

You know, that that can be a breakdown in relationships with husbands and wives sometimes because wives like to tell us things and more things, and just another thing, and it's like, okay, tell me one thing and let me fix it.

Like that's our our go-to, right?

Like, don't load on all of these things.

Let me stop and fix the thing, but again, this isn't about us in our wisdom, our intelligence, our experience, figuring it all out and making it work.

It's bringing God into every circumstance and situation.

Amen.

So I know some of the ministries around here do this.

I'll encourage all the leaders of the ministries of this house that pray for your ministry.

Pray in your ministry.

I see sometimes I come in, I love it.

I see the band gathering to pray.

I see, you know, the camera guy sometimes over there just speaking a word of prayer before they start.

Prayer needs to permeate everything that we do.

Amen.

Let's go to Psalm 131.

And I will try not to make this go long today.

Jamie laughs.

Why do you laugh, Jamie?

This is a psalm that the more I talk, the more I realize why I'm saying everything I'm saying and how it connects here.

Because it's a psalm that makes us just stop and reorient ourselves so that we can really come back to what is the center of our life.

And this psalm is found, if you look at the title of Psalm 131, it's a whole three verses.

How many of you are grateful for chapters like that in the Bible?

If you got some sort of reading plan, it's like, yes, I get my chapters done today.

No, it's it's three short verses, but there's so much in there, like there's so much in all of the Bible.

And this is a verse that ministered to me during COVID and different things like that.

And and the Lord reminded me of it for this Sunday, so I want to share it with you.

It's a song of ascent, it's a psalm of David.

And you know, I stopped before I even got into this particular uh psalm, and I I'm like, I've I've heard that term before, right?

I'm not new to the Bible, a psalm of ascent, a song of going up.

How many of you want to go up in God?

We want to go higher in God.

And I was like, oh, I wonder, are the songs of ascent kind of spread through the book of Psalms?

Or, you know, where are they?

I want to look at a couple of them to understand what's going on here.

How many of you know they're all right here?

They're all gathered together.

Psalm 120 to Psalm 134 are all psalms of ascent, psalms of going up.

So we're kind of smack dab in the middle, almost towards the end, of these praises that the people of God would have on their lips as they're approaching Jerusalem, as they're approaching the temple to worship God.

And it's awesome.

Do yourself a favor.

It's only like three, four pages in your Bible to read all 15 of them, because a lot of them are short like this.

And it's a beautiful picture of what it looks like to approach God, to come back to God, to leave the distractions and the burdens of the world behind.

Because back in Psalm 120, you start with something that looks pretty grim.

He's looking around and everything's wrong.

It's a cry of lament.

Why God?

How many of you are glad there's a lot of those in the Bible?

Because we have a lot of why God moments in our life, don't we?

But it's beautiful, that's where it starts.

But now we're getting towards that place of coming up to the temple.

And and again, it's to re-center, to reorient the worshiper, to get focused on what we're really supposed to focus on.

And I'll just read it to you and we'll then hit on a few things.

It says, Oh Lord, my heart is not lifted up.

I have not raised my eyes, are not raised too high.

I do not occupy myself with things too great and too marvelous for me.

But I have calmed and quieted my soul like a weaned child with its mother, like a weaned child is my soul within me.

Oh Israel, hope in the Lord from this time forth forevermore.

Like I said, when I when I ran along, when I ran into this psalm during COVID, COVID was an a season, and I hate to even bring it up, but it's still kind of there in our memory, isn't it?

It was a time of a lot of people asking a lot of big questions.

What's going on in the world?

What does this all mean?

Like there was the disease itself, but then there was the government response.

And is it this?

Is it that?

Is this one world government of blah, blah, blah?

I mean, now just come forward a few years.

If you're online, you're probably asking the same questions.

Well, now we've got AI and general artificial intelligence and blah blah.

What does it all mean?

How many of you know you can spend your whole life trying to figure out what's going on out there in the world and lose the life of God?

It's the parable of the sower, isn't it?

The cares, the concerns, the worries of this life, they do not allow the word that was sown to produce life in us.

There are weeds in the garden.

Are they not maybe Bible questions?

Sure.

I've got a question for you.

If there really is a one-world government coming together and AI is gonna, I'm just throwing something out there, okay?

You're like, why are we even talking about this today?

It's like, what is you YouTubeing for hours a day about it gonna change?

Other than you will be more anxious and afraid, and you will be less engaged in the things that actually will produce life for you, your house, and this church and our nation.

So, I mean, I don't know about you, Donald Trump and Elon Musk, and the guys in the World Economic Forum don't consult with me what they do or don't do.

They don't care how many YouTube videos I watch about what is happening or not happening in the world.

But you know what will change if I allow myself to be changed in the presence of God, if I allow myself to be light, to be life to other people who need to come to know Jesus.

I read this psalm and I say, Lord, what have I been lifting my heart up to that isn't you?

What have I been giving my heart to that isn't producing life in my life?

What are my eyes looking to?

And you know, even here in these very chapters that I'm encouraging you to read, as this image, as this journey of going up to worship the Lord, and we see this idea of raising our eyes.

I lift my eyes to the mountains, right?

That's what it says back in Psalm 121.

10 chapters before.

That's that's where the shift happens, by the way.

Psalm 120, the journey begins.

Lord, there's all these problems down here, but now Psalm 121, I'm shifting my point of view.

I'm looking up, I'm looking towards God's house, I'm looking to what I have been called to be part of.

I lift my eyes up to the hills.

Where does my help come from?

You know this verse, people.

My help comes from the Lord who made the heavens and the earth.

We look further on into these other psalms.

I could just stand here and read them all to you, and I would preach myself happy.

I don't know if I would keep you engaged, but I would be so happy to just stand here and read all 15 of these Psalms to you.

Because it's this progression of, okay, yes, the world is gonna do what the world's gonna do.

Yes, there are maybe enemies, yes, there's strife, there's these things, but I lift my eyes not to those things, I look to the Lord God, the maker of heaven and earth.

I don't even have time to do all of this today, but when you get to the end of the Psalms of Ascent, it's just simple, joyful praise.

How many of you know that's the best thing you can do for your soul?

Is just step by step get the weights off, get the burdens off.

You know, Hebrew says that these are the things that hold us back from running the race that is before us.

What does it say there?

Just like the psalmist says, I lift my eyes to the maker of the mountains.

It says in Hebrews, I look to Jesus, the author and the finisher of my faith.

I lay beside weights, I lay beside burdens, I lay beside sins that so easily ensnare.

And we the point of all of this is to get into a place where the joy of the Lord can really take over.

I need more joy of the Lord.

How about you?

More joy of the Lord because we wonder why the church isn't doing more, isn't stronger because we lose our joy.

The joy of the Lord is our strength, the fruit of the spirit is love.

Joy.

I love that.

Love, front and center.

I mean, love is what it's all about, but the very next thing out of the apostle Paul's mouth is joy before self-control.

Thank you, Jesus.

Don't get me wrong, self-control is important, it's a fruit of the spirit.

But you know, if the second fruit of the spirit was like self-control, it'd be I'd be beating myself all day.

Like, I just gotta have more control, I gotta be more disciplined.

But if we could get love right and then step into the joy of the spirit of God, then all of the life of God would begin to flow and it wouldn't be a burden.

I'm using my hands a lot today, people.

You a hand talker?

I don't know if that's the Latino influence or my Hungarian background, they're pretty loud folks, too.

Can you say joy?

Joy, come on, Lord.

If we're full of the Spirit, we should have joy.

If we don't have joy, then maybe we're not abiding in the vine.

Maybe we're not abiding in Jesus, maybe we're dutifully carrying out our religion, but we are not abiding in Jesus.

I don't know about you, but I think Jesus would have been a lot of fun to hang around with because he was full of the Spirit of God.

It overshadowed him, it poured out of him.

You know, there's so many things we could look at.

I didn't come prepared to preach joy, but I am declaring joy over faith alive.

I'm declaring joy over your life, I'm declaring joy.

Oh come on, wouldn't you like a little more joy in your house, a little more joy in your marriage?

And you can't extract joy out of other people.

You can't extract joy out of just simply hobbies and things like this.

Joy needs to be something you find in God.

They were singing this morning at some point, and they just touched on joy, and I was tempted to run up here and grab the mic and throw them a curveball.

I remember being on a road trip in Guatemala one time, and we were heading up into the northern part there.

It's a jungle area, it's where you see all the cool Mayan temples and ruins and stuff like that.

Not cool because I'm into pagan worship, okay?

Just cool because the mystery, the adventure of it, right?

Um, but we're driving up there and we just start singing in the car.

In the 15-passenger little van, little fold-down chairs.

You know, not the most comfortable ride, but we're, I don't know what.

Well, I know what it was.

It was the Spirit of God preparing us to pour out on that community because we showed up and the we we gave a lift to the one pastor who was kind of connecting us to all these different communities.

And we found out later that he was kind of under this heaviness, this cloud of stuff that he was dealing with in a lot of the communities that he was in.

And he steps into the car, and there is just a presence of God in this 15-passenger vehicle, and we're singing like VBS kids' church songs, okay?

It's just like I got the jojo jojo down in my heart.

Oh, you guys aren't into it yet.

Come on, I've got the jojo jojoy down in my heart, down in my heart, down in my heart, I've got the joy, jojo.

Joy, joy, jamin in my heart, down in my heart.

Just say, come on, and I'm so happy, so very happy.

I've got the love of Jesus in my heart.

And I'm so happy, so very happy.

I've got the love of Jesus.

Oh, I'm not getting there.

I should have started in a different key.

Okay.

Oh, and we could and we but we were like way down the line to like uh uh what oh, where does it go to?

You you guys know the song, right?

You're like da da da.

Thank you very much for the because there's the peace that passes all understanding, right?

Oh, way down in the depths of my heart.

But we're just doing this, and then there's some of these old gospel songs too.

We were singing, uh, I got something on the inside.

Oh, nobody?

You guys didn't grow up in the same Pentecostal circles I did.

It's working on the outside, oh the joy in my life.

No, nobody.

I've got something on the inside, it's working on the outside.

Oh, what a joy in my life.

Oh, what a I can't remember now.

In my life.

Come on, sometimes you just gotta sing yourself happy, people.

Oh, there's so much the enemy robs us from because he keeps us locked into this thing up here.

You wanna be locked into limitation, get locked into trying to figure everything out.

Now I know God, and I know he's a God of wisdom and understanding, and he has a he will grant revelation and knowledge and revelation to his people, but he's also a God that says, This is more than human philosophy.

It goes beyond these things.

Paul talks in Corinthians about how this the wisdom of this world looks at what God did with Jesus on the cross, and it seems like foolishness.

And I'm reminded how many times in the Bible, you know, Paul says, I'm willing to be mad for Christ.

And David, he's I'm gonna be more undignified than this.

There's too much dignity in a lot of our souls that's holding us back from the true joy of the Spirit of God.

I was up here worshiping this morning, and God was reminding me again, just like David brought the Ark of the Covenant into Jerusalem.

And again, I'm meditating on these psalms of ascent in my mind, in my heart.

I'm just, Lord, we're going higher, we're coming up to your house.

We want to encounter you, we want to see you, your glory better is one day in your courts than a thousand elsewhere.

I'm picturing David going before the ark of the Lord, and it talks about how he he throws his outer garments off and he's dancing.

And we all know the story, right?

And she's like, Well, what a fine spectacle you made of yourself, oh king of Israel.

Dancing in your undergarments before all of the young ladies.

I don't know what that looked like, right?

But and I'm you almost need a disclaimer with that story, right?

It's like I want you to be good fundamentalist, literalists, grab hold of that word and go for it.

But please, let's keep it decent in the room.

But I'm up here worshiping this morning, it's just God's reminding me, and I'm reminding you, church.

Like as the pastor of this house, my job before it's being a good preacher or teacher or decision maker is to be the chief worshiper in this house, is to bring the presence of God and be unashamed with what that looks like.

I told you I'm preaching today.

Oh Jesus.

Jesus, what do you want to do today?

Do we still have that sense of anticipation, of expectation, of joy, or are our have we lifted our hearts to so many things?

You know, and sometimes, and I can be guilty of this, and the Lord was reminding me, correcting me, it's a lot of that trying to figure it all out, and you know, oh, I I think I see what's going on in the world, or I'm I'm I'm so deep, or I'm so in the no, it's pride, which is a sin.

Oh, that went over pre.

God can do more with a simple.

This is not to belittle or to exalt people of different intelligence, but God can do more with the simplest believer whose heart is on fire and loves the Lord and is full of his joy.

God that attracts the presence of God more than the deepest, you know, got it all figured out, can present it with all the right words.

Paul said, I am not here to give you eloquent words, I am here to enjoy the presence of God with you.

I'm here talking spiritual life and reality with you.

I I'm paraphrasing, forgive me, because this is a different sort of morning.

Why is it a different sort of morning?

Because God is reminding us that it doesn't have to be so complicated.

It doesn't have to be so complicated.

We're the complicated ones.

God is deep, God is rich, there's no end to what you can learn, and it's beautiful and it's rich, but we overcomplicate all of this when it's simply Jesus loves me, this I know.

You know, it's as simple as Jesus forgave me, even me.

I was a sinner in need of grace, and God in his mercy sent his son to die for me, and I received his sacrifice, and that made me a new person because God no longer sees me, he sees his son, he sees the blood, he sees what Christ has done on the cross, and it doesn't even end there.

Isn't that awesome?

Isn't it awesome that we're not just sinners saved waiting to go to heaven?

We are saints filled with the Spirit of God.

Come on, come on, Jesus.

I want to load you all on a bus and get you all singing.

Like, seriously, we went to that same region a couple of times.

There was nothing like that time.

Everywhere we went, there was just joy and strength, and again, we waste so much of our time trying to make things happen, and God just reminds us if you would just enjoy me.

Isn't that funny?

Like, isn't that funny?

If we enjoyed God, then prayer wouldn't be a duty.

If we enjoy God, then sharing about Christ and what he's done in our life will not feel awkward, fearful, and strange.

If we are enjoying God in our life, but isn't it funny how religion robs us of all our joy?

Where we've put everything that gives joy, it's almost like, well, that's sinful, or what?

Bring God into your life.

There's no joy like it.

I don't even know how this all connects.

I wanted to talk to you this morning about the first and greatest commandment because it's about not being complicated, bringing it back to the basic, simple things.

Love him and love people.

Full stop, mic drop, but again, we're not gonna love him if we feel like there's an angry, stern, upset God on the other side of our ceiling, on the other side of our closet door.

We're not gonna drive out here on a Thursday night if we feel that it's a burden that doesn't result in anything.

Can we learn, church, again to take some of the joy that God has promised us?

Joy.

Joy.

And all the crew.

I don't know.

I don't you you got something, right?

You got something.

I don't know.

Like, this is not at all what I was expecting God to do this morning or to speak about this morning.

But if we can get some joy in the house of God today, then we will have accomplished more than what my fanciest sermon could do.

Oh, they're already setting the beat for you.

I don't know how you're gonna do this.

Why don't we stand to our feet today?

Jesus.

I know we shouted, but why don't we just extend our hands to our neighbors?

Like I said, I know we just declared over one another.

Begin to minister just for a moment and declare the joy of the Lord, Lord God.

We come against all those things that have stolen our joy: pain, sickness, Lord God, hardships, those who have hurt us, Lord God, Jesus.

Oh, we claim we reclaim that joy today.

Today we're recovering the joy.

Thank you for rescuing us and forgiving us, Lord God.

But today we're recovering the joy that is our inheritance as the people of God.

We say joy.

Oh, joy unspeakable and full of glory.

Glory is joy.

Come on, glory is joy over my brothers and sisters.

Joy.

Joy.

Joy.

Joy.

Hold on.

Isn't it awesome how light you feel when the joy comes?

All the heaviness disappears.

Do you want to say something?

No.

Let's do one more.

Alright, now that we're all down and on the floor, let's close in another song of joyful praise.

Thank you for listening to me today.