Joy, Joy, Joy

My subject today is joy!!

Let me at the beginning this morning take a quick survey. How many of you have ever been discouraged. I know were all saying when are you talking about this morning or this afternoon.

Okay I’m preaching to the right group today.

You know it’s going to be a bad day when:

∑ you turn on the morning news and they’re displaying emergency routes out of the city

∑ you wake up in the morning and the sun rises in the west

∑ your boss tells you not to bother taking off your coat

∑ your horn gets stuck following a group of hell’s angels

∑ when you jump out of bed and miss the floor

∑ wake up in the morning and your dentures are locked together

∑ when you call your answering service and they tell you none of your business

∑ when you step on the scale and it reads tilt

∑ when you call suicide prevention and they put you on hold

Well we all have bad days don’t we. We all get discouraged. But my subject today is JOY!!!!!

Now, I am not so naive to think that we will always be on the top of the world walking on the mountain, for there will be occasion that we will have to travel in the valley for a while. But neither am I so spiritually ignorant that am not aware that God has provided for us in times of those valley experiences.

∑ In this life we will have tribulation.

∑ In this life we will have trouble

∑ In this life we will have difficulty

∑ In this life we will have trials

∑ sickness

∑ hard times

∑ the storm will rise

∑ the winds will blow

∑ the waves will crash against your life

∑ there will be discouragement

∑ things won’t go as planned

∑ sorrow

∑ weeping

∑ financial difficulties

∑ dark days

∑ uncertain times

But the thing that God has provided for us in the hard times of this life is JOY!!!!

Psalm 30:5 - For his anger endureth but a moment; in his favour is life: weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning.

Turn to your neighbor and say: “Neighbor, weeping may endure for the night, but joy cometh in the morning”.

Isaiah 61:3 - To appoint unto them that mourn in Zion, to give unto them beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness; that they might be called trees of righteousness, the planting of the LORD, that he might be glorified.

Turn to your other neighbor and say: “Neighbor, He’s given us joy for mourning. And he’s given us the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness”

This joy that I have

The world didn’t give it to me

This joy that I have

The world didn’t give it to me

This joy that I have

The world didn’t give it to me

The world didn’t give it to me

And the world can’t take it away

SING

What is Joy? Mr. Webster says: it is the emotion evoked by well-being, success or good fortune or by the prospect of possessing what one desires.

Joy is a strong feeling of happiness; a manifestation of happiness through an outward rejoicing or excitement.

To the people who don’t know Jesus those definitions might be true. But to the Christian (someone who should know Jesus) something different applies as it relates to our JOY.

This outward rejoicing comes from an inward satisfaction that I know Jesus Christ.

Nehemiah 8:10 - Then he said unto them, Go your way, eat the fat, and drink the sweet, and send portions unto them for whom nothing is prepared: for this day is holy unto our Lord: neither be ye sorry; for the joy of the LORD is your strength.

1 Pet 1:5 - Who are kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.

6 - Wherein ye greatly rejoice, though now for a season, if need be, ye are in heaviness through manifold temptations:

7 - That the trial of your faith, being much more precious than of gold that perisheth, though it be tried with fire, might be found unto praise and honour and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ:

8 - Whom having not seen, ye love; in whom, though now ye see him not, yet believing, ye rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory:

1 Peter 4:12 - Beloved, think it not strange concerning the fiery trial which is to try you, as though some strange thing happened unto you:

13 - But rejoice, inasmuch as ye are partakers of Christ’s sufferings; that, when his glory shall be revealed, ye may be glad also with exceeding joy.