The Joy Before Him | Pastor Paul McGee

Hope, as my wife said, hope that you feel welcome.

Amen are here. And we're so thankful for all of

the work of the home, church and family that they have put in

throughout the weeks leading up to this time of cleaning.

And there is all kinds of different people here on Friday

doing different things. And the kids were practicing, I

must admit, as they were up here singing today, my mind went back

to being a kid and singing in a little kids choir.

And I remember one time it was a Christmas program.

And so I can, I can identify with those that were sitting

down and doing stuff like that. We had three risers in the

church that I attended, 3 risers and I was on the top riser.

And I did the thing that you're not supposed to do, Katie.

I locked those knees as I stood there.

And as those knees were locked, my head started getting lighter

and a little lighter, and I just about passed out on the 3rd

riser and had to step off the back and just go like flat on

the floor back there. They're singing, you know, Hark

the angels. And I'm here on the floor.

And so I get it. I get it.

But we're so thankful. Amen for their participation

this morning as well. I'm going to be turning to the

Book of Hebrews. Hebrews chapter #12 Hebrews

chapter #12 today. It's good to see different.

I have several different family members that are here today,

have people here that over the years that have been, you know,

members of this congregation that are here, people that we've

made friends with over the past four weeks.

We've been kind of in a like a Sunday school drive type

campaign contest around here. And so some people have come

during the past four weeks that now they're just family.

They're just family. And so we're grateful for all of

them. Hebrews chapter #12 I'm going to

read the first 3 verses thereof. Hebrews 12, if you want to

stand, you made to honor to God's word, Amen.

Today, Hebrews 12 verses one through 3 is what I'm going to

read to you this morning. And so please, again, please

don't exit right after this service.

We have door prizes to give away.

And we're going to have rain, not in water form, but candy.

Finally after yesterday, Amen. Off off this side of our

building. So please stay for that.

The Bible says wherefore seeing we are also compassed about with

so great a cloud of witnesses. And that's really a reference to

the previous chapter because there's so many names of people

that did this by faith or through faith or according to

faith, so great a cloud of witnesses.

Let us lay aside every weight in the sin which does so easily

beset us, and let us run that with patience.

Another good word for that would be endurance, the race that is

set before us, looking unto Jesus, the Author and finisher

of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured

the cross, despising the shame, and the set down at the right

hand of the throne of God. For consider him that endured

such contradiction of sinners against Himself, lest ye be

wearied and faint in your minds. The writer of Hebrews, he

reflects upon those who have run per SE a race, and I'm those who

are running. How many knows that in this life

sometimes there's just a struggle just to get through a

day. Amen.

But he gives us some encouragement, Amen.

Of where we can find some hope. I'm going to, for a little while

this morning talk to you about this.

The joy before him, the joy before him.

Can we bow our heads? I'm going to pray today that the

Lord would touch us in the next little while.

Father, I'm thankful today for every song that has been sung.

Lord, every musician, God, those that have gathered together on

this Resurrection Sunday, I pray God, that you would touch our

hearts and minds afresh, God, to the truth of a death and a

burial in the resurrection. Help us, God, to be encouraged.

Help us, Lord, to be equipped, God, for our own journeys and

our own life here below. God, you've not left us without

hope. Lord Jesus, we love and

appreciate you. For in the name of Jesus Christ

that I pray Hallelujah and the church can say Amen, Amen.

You may be seated this morning in the lovely name of Jesus

Christ. The writer to Hebrews is writing

a very, very powerful picture in painting a picture.

And if we're not careful this morning, we'll miss what he is

really saying because he's using some metaphors of a race.

When we read this passage and we start to read about a race being

run and they're being clouds of witnesses or groupings of people

and witnesses around about us. I don't know about you, but my

mind very quickly goes to thinking of the stadiums and the

arenas that we have in this world today that can host events

like races and sporting events. And I begin to imagine a massive

arena or a large crowd and not one seat is vacant.

It's completely filled. And there's voices that are

echoing, you know, just from the talk back and forth of the

people and history, according here to the writer of Hebrews is

even watching. We picture sometimes when we

read this passage, that type of setting, it's it's almost like

Brother Reese. We're almost seeing Abraham of

Ode, you know, standing in the stands or even Moses leaning

over a rail. See what's happening out there

in the arena, David watching people perhaps as they run and

put their all in it. Our mind oftentimes goes to a

track because the metaphor of a race is given.

And we see sometimes ourselves even involved in a race.

We're, we're running, we're, we're breathing heavy, some of

us more heavy than others. And we're breathing heavy and

our legs are burning and our heart seemingly is pounding

almost out of our chest. And we're, we're trying to stay

in a race because we're, we're thinking as we read this,

there's all of of heaven, a generation gone by that looking

down upon us. And that's one way that maybe

you could picture this, but that's not the exact way that it

should be pictured. When the writer says that we are

compassed about was so great a cloud of witnesses.

He's not just describing a bunch of people that's in seats that

are spectators that's just come to watch you run your race, but

he describes them as witnesses more plainly.

It's the same word martyrs in Scripture.

And that matters to us because these people that are in the

audience or these people that are witnessing, testifying to

us, these are people that have run their race in the past as

well. They're not just casually

observing our race and leaning on their shoulder and thinking

what they you should be doing or shouldn't be doing, but these

are people that have done what you are doing, living their

lives and they're trying to give us hope.

They're trying to give us hope. The Bible says they live their

lives and they resisted some of them even to blood, meaning that

they died for their 'cause they died for the race that they were

running. And so they're not just they're

watching you according to scripture.

They're they're testifying to you, they're witnessing to you.

They're testifying to you because their lives is not so

much that their position in the heavenly so they can look down

on our performance, but they are recorded in Scripture from

Genesis all the way up even to the writer here of Hebrews.

And when we read them their stories, their voices are

speaking into our life of the race that they ran, the problems

that they face, the difficulty that they came across.

Whenever you read of Abraham, you hear his voice and his story

of how here's a man that showed that you can trust God when it

seems like it's hard to trust. When you read the story of Moses

in the Old Testament and you read how he walked away from

being, you know, Pharaohs daughter, son, and everything

that Egypt had to offer. We read a testimony of a man

that's saying, you know what, it's worth it to walk away from

some things. It's worth it to put some things

in your rear view mirror. And there are sundry others.

There's David and there's Jephta and there's Daniel.

There's all kinds of others that are testifying to us that, you

know what, if it doesn't look like it's going to work out,

just hold on. And God is worthy to be believed

in and to hope in and put confidence in.

And so this great cloud of people in the Scripture, again,

they're not just leaning over heaven's balcony looking at us,

but they're providing to us and giving to us a collection of

testimonies that come straight from your Bible.

But the tension builds a little bit because we're not just

running in front of people, so to speak.

We're running in light of what we know of their stories and of

their testimonies. And if we're honest this

morning, let's be honest, sometimes another's testimony

doesn't always inspire us. Sometimes it intimidates us.

Because now I'm not just an imagining a crowd.

I'm reading real stories, real counts of other people just like

me, Sister Hill, that face some similar things just like me.

I read Abraham believed God and then I think about how I'm

trust. I'm having trouble trusting him

right now. I I read how Moses endured some

affliction and how I get inconvenience when they don't

have him a drink at the gas station.

I'm reading about all these others.

The Bible says some received their dead back to life again.

Some had faith because their children are people that were

related to them, were sown asunder.

And then I'm thinking about I'm having problems today just

holding on. I mean, their their their

relatives over there being torn in half.

And I'm, you know, I'm just having a little bit of a bad

day. And so their stories sometimes,

yeah, they're supposed to inspire.

But but Tony, sometimes they intimidate us.

I mean, they did that. They went to that through that.

I'm I'm wearying battling here, man.

You know, my little sore here on my thumb.

It just don't even compare with a lion's den.

So the rider even adds to add insult to injury.

If you weren't feeling bad enough to add insult to injury,

He says you need to lay aside every way and you need to lay

aside every sin that so easily besets you so that you can run

this race with endurance or with patience.

I mean, imagine I'm just trying. You were all just trying to live

life. Some of us no doubt feel like we

have a purpose and a mission in this life.

But now we're starting to feel a little heavy.

It's starting to feel a little burdened down because the truth

of the matter is this, he said. Lay aside the weight, and weight

isn't always sin. Sometimes the weights that we

carry in life are just that. It's just life responsibilities

that you have in life that show up regularly, like Monday

morning. Don't give up.

They're always there. Just things of life expectations

that just pile up on you. Cassie, you know, I got to do

this. I got to do that.

And if it's not what other people's expectations than the

ones that you dream up in your own mind, your little To Do List

with the little boxes that you make, you know, and I need to do

this. I got to do this.

This has a due date. All of these things sometimes

just become pressures, pressures from others, pressures from

yourself. And then when you realize, man,

I, I need to let go of some of these things, I'm getting

weighed down. And you start to realize, you

know, I'm really, I'm not rebellious.

I'm, I'm not walking away from God.

I'm just heavy. I got all this way.

And then there's the other reality.

We do deal with sin. We do deal with the entanglement

of sin. And it's the besetting sin.

The scripture says it's that thing that keeps showing up in

your life. To be honest with one another,

We probably all have at least a something that shows up more at

our door as a sin than any other thing.

We have a struggle, A mindset that we just can't break, a

cycle that just repeats itself over and over.

An internal struggle may no one else knows about, but we know

about it. And it shows up so regular and

it's chasing you and it's wrapping itself around you and

it's restricting your movement and it's keeping you from doing

some things and making some steps, if you will, some headway

in this race. And then you take all of that.

And you realized in according to scripture that this isn't a

short race, this isn't a 50 yard dash, this isn't a Sprint.

Just put all your energy into it for a moment and then it's over.

No, the writer calls this race the word that is translated

race. It comes from the word Agona,

which is where we get our English word agony.

So when he said run your race, he's saying run your agony, run

your despair, run your pressure, run your heartache, run

everything, run that long, grueling, painful endurance

race. All of us have it.

Run that you, you just got to run that, he says.

You got to run that thing that that pushes your limits.

You do. You got to run that thing that

that kind of tests you and drains you.

And here's the real danger, though, in running the race.

Most people in a race are not just going to exit left while

they're running. Say I'm done.

No, but as you run, things take place in your heart and mind.

You're quitting silently before you quit, evidently to everybody

else. You're not going to make a

dramatic exit, but you start to fade quietly inside, not putting

everything that you put in it whenever the gun went off.

And so things start to happen. The beliefs that you used to

have begin to shrink your passion as you run.

They start to cool down a little bit, maybe even a little

sensitivity to God that begins to dull inside of you.

You're still in the race, but there's something inside of you,

happened inside of you, that's no longer what it used to be,

not longer the passion that you used to have.

And so deep inside of you, something starts to come up into

your mind, and that is this. I know I started this race, but

how am I going to finish this race?

I know I began well, but I'm not sure I can finish well.

How am I going to finish with what I'm struggling with in my

heart and my mind, all the expectations of the people, all

the examples of yesteryear, and this is a long race.

How am I going to just do this? And we put on our humanity cap,

right? Because us as humanity, when we

see a problem, men maybe perhaps more than ladies sometimes,

Well, let's just fix it. You ladies.

Have you ever told your husband or a man a problem and instead

of him listening to you and hearing you out and validating

how you felt, he's beginning to tell you how you could fix it?

I see women looking over at their husbands today, and I'm

going to close my eyes just for a moment.

But all of us, to a certain degree of humanity, we have that

gene. There's a problem.

I just go fix it. I mean, give me a wrench, a

hammer. I don't even care if the tool

doesn't apply. We'll get it done.

We're going to fix this thing. So we, we look to what, what we

know, right? We look back through the stories

that we've already read in scripture.

We go back and we read the Abraham and the Daniel.

We look at their stories and man looking for that inspiration.

But then it turns into comparison.

I, I, I can't do that, that that feels like pressure And I, I

just can't run this race, you know, because I'm trying to live

up to somebody else's race. And then I shift again.

I begin looking at Paul McGee. I'm like, come on, Paul, right.

Do the self talk. Come on, Paul, what's wrong with

you? You can do this.

I just my stride thing. I can't, I can't make it to the

end like this. I got to make my stride a little

longer as I take these steps and I tell myself, you got to try

harder, Paul. You got to do it more.

You, Paul, you need to be more disciplined, get to push

yourself. I know your veins about ready to

pop out in your face, but just push yourself.

It's OK. I focus on myself.

I focus what's missing inside of me.

And I'm saying, come on, I can do this.

But as I do that, Sister Sheila, I realize there's a little guy

in there saying I can't do this. I got inconsistencies.

I'm struggling here, I'm exhausted.

And there's still a whole lot more of this race in front of

me. And so in my mind, I'm asking,

what is it going to take to keep me in this race?

And it's at that moment the writer of Hebrews directs our

attention right at this right moment, and he redirects

everything. And when he does, he doesn't

say, well, you need to go study Abraham more.

You need to go study Daniel Moore.

You need to go look at Matthew Moore.

No, he doesn't say you need to look at yourself more and figure

out all that about you. He doesn't tell us that hey man,

he gives us another strategy. And just a few words he says

looking on to Jesus. Now this is very simple today,

but when you look unto someone or you look unto Jesus, that

means you look away from everything else.

If you look unto Jesus, you got to look away from the pressure

of all the testifiers of yesteryear.

If you look unto Jesus, you got to look away from the comparison

that you've been doing. If you look into Jesus, you got

to look away from yourself. You need a site correction

today. You need a site, someone came

in, I've been looking the wrong direction.

And as long as your focus is wrong, listen, your strength

will always run out because Jesus is just not another name

among the others in the story. He's not just another example

for us to study, the writer said.

He is the author and the finisher of our faith.

No, you go back to Chapter 11 that that Hall of Faith chapter

where Sarah did this by faith and Noah did this through faith

and that one did that one by faith and all that's good.

But Christ Jesus is the author and finisher of faith.

He's not doing something by it or through it or according to

it. He is the writer and the

completer of it. He's the author and the finisher

of faith. He's a pioneer of faith.

He's the one that went first. He's the one that's cut the

path. He's the one that's made a way

where there's no way. He's the one that perfected it.

He's the one that showed up. He's the one that's already

finished it. He's, he's the one that can

supply what we need to finish it.

How's, how's that different Pastor McGee, than all these

others? Amen.

In Scripture, well, the Bible tells us in Hebrews 11 that all

these cloud of witnesses that it speaks of, that they all ran and

died in the faith, never fully receiving the promise in their

lifetime. The Bible says in Hebrews 11/13

these all died in faith, not having received the promise,

having seen them afar off. But when Jesus ran, he finished.

Now, no John 1930, many of you celebrated perhaps Good Friday,

where the scripture says Speaking of Jesus on the cross,

that he, Jesus said it is finished and he bowed his head,

gave up the ghost, he died. Yes he did.

But Colossians 215 also tells us that he having spoiled

principalities and powers, he made a shoe of them openly.

How did he make a show of them openly?

Because he didn't stay dead. He didn't stay in the grave.

He resurrected and made a shoe of them openly triumphing over

them. In verse number two of our text

says, and he is sit down. What does that mean?

You see other places in Scripture, for instance, in the

book of Acts, the Bible talks about the first martyr of

Scripture. Sure, Amen.

And that he's being stoned and he's looking up.

Then he sees Jesus, The Bible says standing, and you see that

at different places in the holy Jesus standing.

But here in Hebrews, the Bible says that Jesus is set down.

Why? Because there is something that

has been completed, something has been secured, something has

already a settled outcome. He's ran his race, he's finished

his course. He not only died, but he got up.

So look unto Jesus. But if I'm going to look at him,

I need to understand something about him because the race that

he ran was harder than anything I've faced.

He endured hostility, yes, the Bible says from sinners.

He was rejected, according to Scripture, by his very own.

He was beat, you know that. He was mocked.

He was stripped, he was crucified.

He wasn't just going through physical pain in this race.

He was going through psychological shame in this

race. Public shame.

There was no more a public shaming than being crucified.

Intentional humiliation, the kind of shame that's designed to

degrade a human being and dehumanize a human being.

That's what was taking place on Calvary.

And so when we think about this race, there's a question that is

unavoidable this morning. And that is this what kept him

there? What kept him in the race?

What kept him from coming down? What kept him in that place when

he had all power to stop it at will if he wanted to?

And the answer is quite simple, verse 2.

Who? Jesus for the joy that was set

before him. What?

You have the joy that was set before Him.

I'm not diving deep in this, but today's world, social media and

all around people all the time are talking about you got to

know your why, got to know your why.

They get that from some leadership gurus who may be

selling products and stuff. And the main little line or

phrase and all that is that people don't buy what you do.

They buy why you do it. You got to know your why.

Well, Christ is sharing with us His why behind the cross.

He says it was for the joy. He didn't say it was because of

obligation. He says it was because of the

joy. Didn't say it was because of the

pressure society. He says it was because of the

joy. Didn't say it was a survival

mode. What?

What was this joy? Christ saw something.

He focused on something. He fixed his attention, Brother

Fred, on something that was beyond the here and now, that

was beyond the cross. And he made, he started to make

a calculation. If you could just envision a

balance, He begins to make a calculation.

On one side he has all the pain that he's suffering.

He has the nails that are in his hands and feet.

He has the crown of thorns, the whipping.

He has the humiliation of his neck.

And as he has, he has the words that are being spoken to him and

the mockery and the shame being spoken to him.

And then on the other side, he has this joy.

And as he begins to do the calculation, he determined, you

know what the joy. The joy is worth.

The pain the joy is worth. The shame the joy is worth.

The nails, the joy is worth. The laceration the joy is worth.

But what is this joy? But we stand flat footed.

We say we know with clarity that everything that's taken place,

this mission, this purpose, this is going to bring glory to the

heavens and yell. That's fantastic.

We say without a doubt that we know him knowing that he's not

going to stay in the grave. The the psalmist David and even

some of the prophets plainly said that his soul would not be

left in the grave. Hallelujah that Holy One would

not suffer corruption. He knows that.

And so, yes, the resurrection is a great component to that joy,

yes. But ladies and gentlemen, if we

stop there, we've missed the heart of it all.

Because through the suffering, through the bloodletting,

through the agony, Yes, He saw something ahead of him.

Sister Sheila. It wasn't a crown first or an

established throne first. He saw people first.

He saw lives that would be redeemed.

He saw souls that would be restored.

He saw sons and daughters that would be brought into glory.

He saw the lost that would be found.

He saw the broken that would be made whole.

He seen those that were far off that would be made near.

What are you saying? I'm saying the joy that was for

the Lord. It was you and it was me.

It was every one of us that are setting in this crowd today.

He kept running the race because of you.

You were His joy. You know what that means,

Brother Mason? That means in a moment, he

didn't make just a general decision or a broad decision.

It wasn't a distant idea. He made a personal determination

that joy. They are more important and a

greater value than the pain. They are greater value than the

nails. They are greater value than the

agony. They are greater.

They're greater than the humiliation, than the let's say

like this. They are worth it.

I say that I sense right away someone already inside with

their internal dialogue. Yeah, maybe everybody else

except me. I know the fabric of humanity.

You'll give someone else the leeway to be appreciated, to be

loved, when you'll hold yourself at Bay and say, yeah, that's,

that's that's applicable for everybody except me.

But in that joy, there was no strings attached to the people

that he placed in that scale. Listen to me, Sir, a man today,

you were not an afterthought to his suffering.

You're not some like side effect of the cross or some type of

added bonus to the resurrection. You're the joy that was set

before him. Why is that important today?

Why is that important now? Because we live in a world, we

have many adversaries, or so it would seem, that we'll do

everything they can to convince us otherwise.

We live in a society today that's telling people they don't

matter, that's telling people they're replaceable, that's

telling people they're insignificant, that's telling

people that your life doesn't carry any weight and it doesn't

carry any meaning. But the death, the burial, and

the resurrection all stands in direct contradiction to all of

that that's being fed to you by society because the cross is

declaring your value. The cross is revealing your

worth. And that resurrection just seals

the joy of it all. His people were his reason.

You were his reason. Someone say me, I was his

reason. He came to redeem us all.

Isaiah 53 Old Testament prophet, amazing verse again prophesied

of the suffering servant which we know to be Christ Jesus in

the New Testament. Listen to what the passage says.

Verse 10 says. Yet it pleased the Lord to

bruise him. He had put him to grieve.

Look at this now, when thou shalt make his soul an offering

for sin, something's going to be sacrificed.

Blood's going to be shed as a result of that, something is

going to be killed. When thou shalt make his soul

Speaking of that suffering, Speaking of Christ, when you

make that suffering, that soul an offering for sin, look, he

shall see his seed. What is that says?

When you offer him for sacrifice, he's going to see the

joy, his seed, his spiritual seed and offspring.

He shall prolong his days in the pleasure.

What's the prolonging of the days?

Well, they killed him, but he's alive.

How do you? Yeah, he had some torture on the

cross, but the prolongment is that he didn't stay dead.

He shall prolong his days. The pleasure of the Lord shall

prosper in his hand. Look at verse 11.

And he shall see the travail of his soul and and shall be

satisfied. I'm going through grueling pain,

but I'm satisfied. How so?

For the joy that set before me. For the joy?

Yeah. For the for the RE Singers, the

Tony Angels, the Kevin Cruises and the Ethan Wrights and the

Aaron Browns and the Katy Rotors, I'm wondering how I'm

going to finish. And when I look to him I

understand I was his reason for finishing.

Someone say man, he shall see the travail of his soul and

shall be satisfied, not because the cross ended and not

necessarily because the tomb was empty, and not just because he

had glory among all the heavens, but because of his seed, because

of the people he loved, because of who he was doing this for and

why he was really doing it. So everything shifts, Dr. Mason,

because I understand. I've been trying to find the

strength to finish my race. I've looked at myself hopeless,

tried to measure the effort of others before me, compare my

progress hopeless. But my strength for my race was

never meant to come from me. Your strength is found in this

truth. You're the reason he didn't

quit. When he could have come down and

stayed, when he could have come down and stopped, when he could

have come down and no longer endured, He looked beyond that

and he saw you and he saw me. And here's the fact of the

matter that we must understand today.

It is like a vortex. It's like a Figure 8.

It's an Infinity. If you will loop your why then

is his? Why?

What are you saying? He continued.

Because I was his joy. And now I look at him.

I continue because I realized I was his joy.

He was my joy. I was his joy and an affinity.

Luke starts to happen and I begin to realize I can't quit on

him because he never quit on me. I can't give up on him because

he never gave up on me. I'm not doing this because of

pressure. I'm not doing this because of

somebody else's race and the way that they ran it before me.

I'm not doing this out of obligation.

I'm doing this because something has changed inside of me.

I'm going to lay a side way. I'm going to lay a side sin,

yes. Oh, because there's a greater

affection, a greater, more so than my sin, more so than the

daily grind. I have my joy in the Lord

because I was his joy. Yes.

See, when you see him clearly, when you understand what he did

and you realize why He did it, something should shift inside of

us. What used to weigh me down

doesn't have a hold on me anymore.

Because as I run this race, folks, it's not so much that

we're running towards a little, you know, tape strung out across

the lanes type of finish line. Casey, we're not running toward

a line. We're running toward a person.

We're running toward a person, Lord Jesus Christ, and the one

that we are running toward is the same one that ran for you,

the one that endured for you saw you won't be much longer here

today. But I'm convinced there's

probably people in this room right now that's probably

saying, Pastor McGee, I'm still running, but I'm exhausted.

Pastor McGee. I haven't quit, but I've been

close a day or two to quitting. And there are others that

probably think, well, you know what, I don't even feel like I'm

worth finishing this race. There's others that may have

been running and maybe you've been running in the wrong

direction. I love those football games of

the Little Tikes. And he gets the ball and he's

going to run toward his end zone, but he's running toward

the opponent's end zone. I mean, he's putting his all in

it. I mean, you know, he's got grass

up there and his mask and everything, but he's just

running the wrong direction. We can't fault the little guy

for all of the strength and energy he's put in it.

He's just headed in the wrong direction.

There may be some here today. Say, Brother McGee, I'm doing

everything I can, but just realized today I'm running in

the wrong direction. I'm doing it for the wrong

reason. If you'd stand with me this

morning, what I've come to remind you is this is that

there's something here today that can change all of that.

But whenever you feel like quitting, you got to remember

that you were his joy. You were Kevin, you were, you

were his joy. And as a result of that, he

remained. He stayed, he completed, he

finished, He stayed for you. So I hope then by his grace this

morning, you'll keep running and if you've not started the race,

maybe today will be your gunshot start to enter the race.

Because his joy has become my joy.

He did it for me. That's what we got to realize

this morning, folks. He didn't, it's not like, oh, he

did it for the white people. He did for the, we did it for

the Asian people. He did it for this ethnicity or

that. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no,

no, no. If you're standing here today,

you walk out this building knowing he did it for me.

And that's where the buck stops. Ask you this question, why you

still beating yourself up as though you can do something to

change. It does.

The answer is not found in you. The answer is found beyond you.

Oh, come on, put your feel, put your name in the blank.

Come on, such and such. You got to do better, got to be

more disciplined. Put your shoulder to the

grindstone, yell at yourself a little bit.

That really helped. Monday still came with all the

expectations. Do you know that whenever He

settled with his joy on you, it didn't erase that there was

still agony, pain, disappointment?

And whenever I realize He's my joy, those things don't go away

either. I'm sorry.

It's just part and parcel the facts of life.

But Him doing what he did for me is more meaningful than what I'm

presently going through. You've walked in these double

doors this morning. Some of you, some of you, you

just came here on Easter because it's Easter and your life and

what you're going through right now in life is a mess.

You maybe even question whether or not you's going to show up

because life is just that bad right now.

You came because that's what you're supposed to do, right?

Resurrection Center. You got to find a church you go

to and you drug your bleeding, battered life in here.

I'm pointing you this morning looking to Jesus.

You were his joy. Now let him be your joy.

We bow our heads all across this place today.

If you don't know the Lord this morning.

My God is a gentleman. My God is a gentleman.

He will not force himself upon you.

He will not force himself upon you, but He will gently invite

and woo you. Into a relationship with Him.

And I don't know what you've experienced through this

service. I know as I've stood up front

here this morning, I have felt the tugging of the Spirit of the

Lord upon my own heart afresh. And again I have felt those

never ending arms of love enwrapped me in this place

again. And although life is what it is,

in just a few moments that I've been here, there's been a sense

of peace, there's been a sense of contentment, there's been a

reality that I'm in the presence of somebody that loves me and

that brings great hope. And it makes my heart swell to

understand that this altar is open today.

If you want to come and pray or if you want to stand at your

seat or kneel at your seat, whatever your posture may be

right now, they're going to sing.

And before we do anything else that's left in this day, we're

going to spend some time recognizing that we were His

joy. And that should cause a shift in

us. When we understand that that He

becomes our joy and we can finish this race, we can make it

through some hard days. We we can rise above some of the

expectations. They're still going to be there,

but we have new inspiration and it's that we were his joy and

now he's become our joy. Can we talk to the Lord right

now? They're going to sing.

This altar is open. Maybe you have a friend or a

relative next to you don't want to come forward, but you just

like to clinch their hand and say, hey, would you just pray

with me today? That's perfectly fine.

God's a gentleman here today, but he's looking for you.

He's trying to draw your attention to him.

Get it off yourself. Get it off all everybody else's

story. Hey man, want you to get your

attention on him. I did what I did for you because

of you. This was for you.

Hallelujah. Let's talk to him.

Can we sing today?