Restore My Joy | Shawn Johnson | Yard Sale

[Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] you guys feeling good i don't know where you're watching church from today but they are fired up in here [Applause] hey if you're watching this on video right now at the littleton campus can you make some noise littleton campus let me hear you arvada campus let me hear you arvada you guys can help celebrate arvada [Applause] lake wood where you at lakewood [Music] and park meadows let me hear you over there in your brand new fancy building brussels belgium let me hear you [Applause] austin texas we love you and at every single location whether you're in a house an office a hike a bike a car a building wherever you're at can you help me make some noise for the three best campuses we have are god behind bars men and women we love you so much god behind bars we love you your family [Music] [Applause] all right you ready for church hey if you're watching online we love you so much thank you for joining us if you're watching online and you're close to a building can i encourage you to get to a building as soon as you can man there's just something special that happens when we get together for worship and i don't want you to miss it if you're not close to a building man we love the technology that god has blessed us with and we love that we get to do church together with you right where you're at so we're in this series called what's it called andrew yard sale you never know what you're gonna find that's the tagline what that means for the whoever's speaking is you never know what you're gonna preach about that's what that means and so here's the whole bible good luck that's what that means and but i'm telling you guys i've been praying i've been praying for us as a church family um i've been seeking counsel i've been really digging in and i feel like god's given me a good word for us today you excited let's pray god i thank you that we get to do church together from literally thousands and thousands of locations around the world i thank you that you're with us no matter where we're at i thank you that you care about us that you see us that you know what we're dealing with you know what we're going through you know what our challenges are and god today i pray for a supernatural amount of peace and joy and confidence and strength and faith in jesus name and everybody said amen five years ago my youngest son was seven is that right babe seven ashton seven and uh it was this time of year five years ago and our whole little little community was doing a yard sale and um the yard sale is now over and um in fact in the middle of the yard sale my son ethan took my son austin's scooter out of the garage and sold it in the yard sale that's a whole different story a lot of discipline parenting issues going on there um but the yard sale is over and we're all wrapping up and i see our seven-year-old son walking down the street holding like a six foot three cardboard cutout and he's just couldn't be happier and i'm like what are you doing and he goes look what i found at the yard sale they gave it to me and it was his new friend his new best friend he named him billy go ahead and put a picture up of billy that was billy leave that picture up for just a sec i want you to really take billy in for a second ashton took billy and turned him into the funnest party favor you've ever seen what he would do is is if you were coming to our house he would put billy right in front of the door and he would unlock it and he would stand back and he'd go come in and people would go ah and ashton would just go [Music] he would put billy in closets when jill would go to the bathroom he would put billy right outside the bathroom door and so jill would come out of the bathroom and ah and then you'd just hear ashton from another room going jill had a women's small group one night at our house he put billy in the downstairs bathroom right next to the toilet and kristen austin our friend walked in there and you would have thought somebody died she screamed so loud when she turned the lights on and billy was in the bathroom with her and then from another room you'd hear ashton ashton left that yard sale with more joy than he ever expected and that is my prayer for every single one of you today that you would leave today's message in this series card called yard sale with more joy and peace and strength and faith than you ever expected i've been a pray i've been praying ephesians 3 20. god do more in our hearts and our minds today than we ever even thought possible that's my prayer and so i'm excited we're going to talk about joy i i realize that i have been i've been talking to a whole bunch of people especially over the last year year and a half where the prayer always goes something like this at the end of our talk i'll say what can i pray for you about and almost consistently i hear this is what i'm going through and i just need man if you could pray for strength enjoy i just feel like that's been its strength and joy and then and then i can't tell you how many times my friends have asked me what can i pray for you about and i find myself saying those same two words just strength and joy right anybody in here been praying for or asking anyone else to pray for them for a little bit of joy yeah six of you clap this fine you're the only six i like hey i bet they're going crazy at arvada right now they're good now forget you people but they're going crazy at arvada you know we're supposed to have joy as christ followers when we put our faith in jesus it says not only does he forgive us of our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness but also his spirit begins to live inside of us and his spirit begins to produce byproducts in our lives and they're called the fruits of the spirit and listen to what they are but the fruit of the spirit is love let's try that again this fruit of the spirit littleton let's go i need you today but the fruit of the spirit is love come on baby joy peace forbearance kindness goodness faithfulness gentleness self-control we're supposed to have joy when we put our faith in jesus and his spirit is living in us a byproduct is we're supposed to have joy and so i started asking myself this week then why is it that so many of us that would be our prayer request today if i'm supposed to have this joy from the fruit of the spirit from god's spirit living inside of me then why so many times do i find myself in my own private quiet times praying for joy jesus said this about our joy he said i've told you this and we're going to go back in a second and look at this i've told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete he said i don't want you to have a little joy i don't want you to have partial joy i don't want you to have some joy i want you to have complete i want my joy to be in you and your joy to be complete and here's what i've learned after studying this this week and spending a lot of time on this and getting all nerdy with the greek and all this stuff what complete joy is not is momentary little bouts of i think i'm happy i think i'm not i think i'm giddy i think i'm not i think i'll laugh i think i'll cry complete joy is not this momentary emotion that we feel that goes up on a good day and down on a bad day and i got it when i get a raise and i lose it when i get fired and i got it when the relationship's perfect and i don't got it when i'm lonely and things are a mess that's not complete joy right there's a difference that's this momentary up and down little giddy emotions that's not complete joy complete joy here's here's what the bible says about complete joy the joy this is complete joy the joy of the lord is our strength complete joy is not momentary emotions over circumstances complete joy says when i'm a part of your life i provide you with a certain amount of strength that begins to supersede every situation you walk through and you can go through good days bad days hell or high water you can't take my joy i might not be laughing today but i have a strength and a peace and a confidence i have a joy that has caused me to have some inner strength and that doesn't that doesn't leave me when the situations change that's what complete joy looks like and that's what jesus said we can have so he said we just read it in in was john 15 i've told you this so that my joy will be in you and your joy will be complete so what we need to do then is we need to look at the this don't we what's this what what what is that what is what's the hinge point there because i want that complete joy so if you have a bible flip open to john chapter 15 we're gonna start in verse five if you have a bible that puts in red the words of jesus this will be in red this is jesus talking he says i am the vine you're the branches if you remain in me and i in you you'll bear much fruit apart from me you can do nothing jesus said i'm a vine you're a branch when you're connected to me fruit happens if you do not remain in me you're like a branch that is thrown away and withers such branches are picked up thrown into the fire and burned if you're not connected to the vine you don't produce the fruit what's the fruit love joy okay so what's he saying here when you're connected with me your life produces fruit which is joy but disconnected from me your life doesn't produce that fruit if you remain in me and my words remain in you ask whatever you wish and it will be done for you this is to my father's glory i want you to bear much joy i want you to bear much fruit showing yourselves to be my disciples as the father has loved me so i have loved you now remain in my love if you keep my commands you'll remain in my love just as i have kept my father's commands and remain in his love and here it is i've told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete could have started in verse 1 and if we had i'd be saying this in 11 verses he said the word remain 11 times we just read seven in seven verses he said the word remain seven times god what should i be doing if i find myself needing joy remain remain remain remain i don't understand what should i remain what i'm i'm not hearing you remain i feel like i don't hear from you today god remain what should we be doing if we want more joy in our life remain right go ahead and put that graphic up if you would here's what jesus is saying i'm the branch you're the vine that bunch of grapes there's the fruit that's joy wouldn't it be crazy if we could see branches talking and we see a branch disconnected from the vine and the branch we see the branch going god please give me more fruit god please give me more fruit and then we see the branch going to some other branches hey would you ask god to give me some more fruit and would you ask god to give me some more fruit and would you ask god wouldn't at some point we go hey you don't need to pray anymore for fruit you just need to connect back to the vine and i started thinking how many times have i been god i need more joy god i need more joy hey guys will you pray for me that god will give me joy i'm just really struggling with my joy like like my prayer is going to magically produce something that god's already told me how i get it i wonder if jesus has ever looked back at me and said son i love you so much stop praying for joy and start connecting to me you need to stop looking for joy start looking for jesus that's where the joy comes from why would a branch that's purposely disconnected pray for fruit and actually expect to see it jesus said that's what i'm trying to tell you guys and i don't want you to have partial joy i want you to have full joy i want you to have complete joy the kind of joy that wells up in a strength that allows you to go through anything that's what i want so there's three things i want to i want to ask you to think about today or points to the message or whatever you want to say so if you're taking notes the first thing i think we need to really start to focus on is remain in him am i remaining in him because if i'm not i'm not going to speak for jesus but i kind of feel like you could pray for joy till your head pops off and might not get it if you're disconnected from the vine if i understand that last passage correctly right and i'm not preaching at you church i'm telling you this whole message is for me today and i'm just hoping you get something out of it so that's where we're at remain in him would you put those four words up my temptation every single week i preach is just to put these four words up and go let's talk about these again because i feel like after you put your faith in jesus if you focus on these four words you're going to experience life to the fullest in ways you just haven't before talking to god doing life with people that push you closer to god getting in his word and saying god you speak to me about my life putting on some worship using this spiritual weapon called worship and letting the words just speak faith and proclaim faith over your life like these four things have helped me so much when it comes to remaining in god these aren't the only ways to remain in god i just want to give you a good start in case you're realizing i want some joy i think i'm missing that i need to start remaining where do i begin go ahead leave the words up for just a second i started i started looking at these well first off let me say this we did a series at the beginning of 2020 before any of us knew what was about to happen and we called it take home faith you want to talk about prophetic right i mean it just was and and and and so we our whole premise was what if we couldn't meet together in a church what could we take home with us to remain in our creator and we had no clue what was headed our way but we went into great detail about these four words that you see at the bottom of the screen so go back and listen to that series if you want to really dig in on some of that stuff but here's what i realized here's what i had a moment a couple weeks ago with god as i was i was talking to god about my joy god i don't know why i don't have joy because on paper everything's so good i just feel like i'm struggling to have joy right now and and the truth is i was doing a lot of praying but it wasn't like a relationship type prayer i i was just asking for stuff as if he were my business partner and santa bless the food bless the kids bless the trip keep us safe help me make the thing help me do the deal help me help me help me help me it's not much of a relationship is it and most of the help me's were like help me do this at church help me do this at church help me do this at church it was just like it's like wasn't it real it's like we're co-workers or he was my boss because when i get in the word see here's what i was doing i'm just going to be honest is i'm in the word all the time for my job see i have to get in the word to do this i don't have to get in the word to do this and then also get in the word for just myself that's what i wasn't doing i was getting in the word for work god give me a sermon god give me something to say god give me wisdom right worship worship when i come here i make some pretty high-level decisions about a pretty amazing worship team that's getting notoriety around the world right now but i haven't used it as like my own personal weapon for a while and what i realized is me and god had kind of become business partners and i'm in my car one day praying and yeah have you ever been asking god for advice or for anything and a thought drops in your mind and you're like i never would have thought of that when that happens to me and it lines up with scripture i just assume that's from god and so i'm going god i just want joy god i just want joy god i just want joy and i feel like i'm doing some of these things and you know he said to me he said he said this he said i didn't hire you i adopted you i didn't hire you when you gave your life to me i adopted you i don't want to work with you only i want to be your father i want to have a relationship what if you just talk to me about life and what if you just got in the word and let me talk back and what if we actually just had something and you actually started remaining in me and i wasn't just part of your job i wasn't just a spiritual responsibility i wasn't just something that you checked off to feel better about yourself as a religious task i didn't hire you i adopted you let's have a relationship son because when you're connected to me like that the fruit is joy remain in him psalm 16 11 says you will fill me with joy in your presence when i decide to remain in him the bible multiple times says joy is the byproduct and let's reread nehemiah 8 10 the joy of the lord is your strength so go ahead and put that graphic up if you would please i've said it but i just want everybody to see it when i remain in him when i spend time in his presence the bible promises me a byproduct of that is joy and that is not giddy emotional momentary it only works on good days and when situations are funny it becomes the strength inside of me it becomes the foundation for which i stand on and now i have a strength inside of me because i was in his presence and i got his joy and that joy is my strength through the lord i can now walk through anything life throws at me and i've got a joy that supersedes any situation that's what we're looking for am i remaining in him and let me just throw out a last-minute challenge is this please don't let this be a good intention i can't tell you how many times i have been in church and i think if we were all honest a lot of us would say yeah me too where i hear stuff like this i get in the word i'm reminded of this and i go that's what i want that's what i need that's what i want my life to be about and that's about as far as it goes guys start calendaring this stuff start thinking about your day before you wake up start thinking about your week before it starts start putting some time on the calendar and if if this is all foreign to you start slow right maybe this week i'm going to read a little bit each day or maybe this week i'm going to pray a little bit each day i'm telling you if this is your church you've got to get into a small group that's the best way to foster relationships they're going to push you towards the presence of god which will get you the joy which will give you the strength which will let you walk through anything so get on the app today don't wait any longer get on the website today get in a group if you can't find one you like hit that start a group button we'll help you but let's not make this stuff good intentions put it on the calendar let's start making remaining in him something that we actually do and allow his promise to play out in our life and begin to change things that's what we want amen amen number two if you're taking notes be thankful oh my gosh we can change our emotions with this one phrase be thankful if you have a bible flip over to philippians 1. we're going to read a few places i think three in philippians 1 and then one in philippians 4. let me give you some quick context philippians is a very short four chapter book of the bible written by the apostle paul from a prison he wants to his dreams are he feels his calling is is to be traveling around speaking about jesus and starting churches that's his dream but he's arrested because some religious leaders didn't like the fact that he was talking about jesus because the religious leaders were actually the guys who were part of the movement to crucified jesus and so if he really was god then that makes them look a little shady and we don't like that so you got to shut down the jesus talk and he wouldn't shut down the jesus talks so they put him in prison so you've got a guy that's away from his family family stuff's a mess relations stuff's a mess career stuff's a mess finances are not there dreams are not there that feeling of i thought i'd be at a different place in my life at this age i thought at this stage of my life this is what it would look like but it looks like this and i can't believe it and nothing's working out paul knows the feeling everything's falling apart he's chained to a roman guard 24 hours a day and he knows i'm probably on my way to be executed for a crime that i didn't commit everything's falling apart and he writes this four book four chapter book called philippians to some friends of his at philippi a church that he was a part of starting and theologians all over the world will agree the the theme of philippians is one word joy how does a guy chain to a guard in prison apart from everything he thought he wanted and needed in life write a book about joy so i said if i'm going to talk about joy i better study philippians i want to see what's going on with this guy how can he have this complete joy that isn't it isn't at the mercy of his situation so i just started reading it over and over and over and one of the one of the big things that just stood out to me is he just made a choice i'm going to choose to be thankful to my god no matter what i see touch hear taste smell in my life right now i'm just going to choose to be thankful chapter 1 verse 3 i thank my god every time i remember you in all my prayers for all of you i always pray with joy i'm chained to a roman guard i can't even whisper prayers and have him be be private i have to thank him if i want to be private so i just gave up on that and i just make homeboy listen to my prayers tough you're chained to me go away if you don't like it i'm going to pray and when i pray i just chose i'm going to stop complaining to god i'm just going to start thanking god and the byproduct in my life was joy verse 12 he says hey i want you to know guys you know what i've been through you know what i'm going through you know i'm probably going to be executed in here you know what's but get this what has happened to me has actually served to advance the gospel i'm not even going to complain about it i'm going to use where i'm at as a situation to just witness to somebody i'm in a prison i don't want to be in a prison but they can't shut me up i'm in a hospital i don't want to be in a hospital but they can't shut me up i'm not married and i wish i was i'm married and i wish i wasn't we'll talk about that later whatever's going on i'm just going to be thankful to god for where he's got me and thankful to god for what he's done for me and thankful to god that jesus died for me and thankful to god that we're going to heaven and i'ma help somebody figure that out today and as a result it has become clear throughout the whole palace guard and to everyone else that i'm in chains for christ because they can't shut me up and because of my chains most of the brothers and sisters have become confident in the lord and dare all the more to proclaim the gospel without fear i'm thankful that i'm chained up today because i'm building up somebody's faith because they're seeing my joy they're seeing my witness didn't stop with the ch when the chains got clamped on and now their faith's being built up so i'll just praise god for that and joy will be my byproduct in verse 18 [Applause] verse 18 he says i know i know everything sucks and yeah there's no people in my life right now i can't hug my friends i can't hug a family member i can't chase down my dream i can't do everything i thought i was gonna but you get but guess what it's not gonna stop me i'm just gonna continue to rejoice that's just what i do that's just who i've chosen to be i'm gonna continue to rejoice and then he sums it up in chapter four summing it all up friends if you want joy that supersedes your situation like i have joy that supersedes my situation i'd say you do best by filling your minds and meditating on things true noble reputable authentic compelling gracious start thinking about every way that god has shown you grace start thinking about the best and not the worst make a different list stop focusing on all the things that suck and start focusing all the things that god has done for you make a different list start focusing on the beautiful not the ugly things to praise and not to curse and then he says you want what i have you want that complete joy jesus told us about put into practice what you learned from me red rocks church if we want what he's got let's put into practice what we're learning from him let's start making a different list here's what i want to challenge you to do this week go right down minimum 10 things that you're thankful for you're like i don't have anything to be thankful let me help let me help you get started thank you jesus that you died on a cross for me thank you god that you love me just the way i am thank you that you value me even when i don't value myself thank you that you provided me for a way to go to heaven and be with you for all of eternity and i've never earned it or deserve it thank you that i have some clean water to drink today we got a whole lot of things to be thankful for that we forget make a list of what you have to be thankful for you can make a list of all the things you're complaining about but the truth is it's like a photographic memory you probably won't even have to because you just got it but if you want write those things out write down everything that's wrong and then do what paul says i'm just not going to focus on the things to curse i'm going to focus on the things to praise and put this list on top of that list and go this is where i get to i get to choose what i focus on today i thank my god for this i thank my god for this i thank my god for this what if you did that now now let me just say this i know that everybody that is listening or watching this right now is not a part of social media but i know that the majority are but here's what i also know even if you're not on social media every single human being because we're just broken in a broken world we will all deal with the temptation to compare our lives to somebody else comparison is an absolute thief of our joy and the reason i bring this up is because this because countless people in this church family including myself find ourselves doing this almost every day and here's what you're doing the entire time there's a battle going on in your soul every time you do this because we're seeing everybody's highlight reel right and so we go oh my gosh their family is so happy you didn't see the fight they had right before they fake smiled for that picture but they're not gonna post that right we know the truth i wish i had a family like that i wish i looked like that wish i drove that i wish i lived there i wish i had that i wish i vacationed like that wish i got invited to that i wish i wish and it's a stealing joy i'm not a get off social media i'm on it i'm off it i try to gauge where my soul is at but i would say this if you're going to be on social media for 20 minutes today telling your soul that what you have is not enough would you spend at least 20 minutes looking at the other list today and thanking god for the things that you have to be thankful for and if you run out of things then call somebody up and start telling them what's on your list and just start bragging to somebody else about what god's done because there's got to be a counter balance because we've got too many things in our lives trying to steal our joy and our contentment right now so take that 20 minutes and at least counterbalance it and you want to get crazy joy what if for three days you didn't even look at social media and then spent 20 minutes thanking god oh my gosh what would happen right we've got to look at a different list and number three live on mission and there is something about living on mission when it comes to what god has commissioned every single one of us to do with our lives with our time with our talents with our treasure that brings joy that just seems to supersede situations doesn't it i talked to a girl who's been in gbb for many years god behind bars for those of you who are joining that don't know what that means and she went to jail for many many years and just got released and i got the opportunity to talk with her recently and she said i found more freedom and more joy inside of that penitentiary than i've ever had my entire life because i gave my life to jesus and i started sharing my faith and discipling other believers and raising up women of faith inside the denver women's correctional facility and i've never had more joy and never felt more freedom she told me that then when i was in that prison living on mission there's something about living on mission that brings joy into our life that supersedes the situation around us i saw this in the very first verse of philippians the very first chapter the very first verse he hits the introduction he says paul and timothy servants of christ jesus went that's it isn't it that's how you write a book on joy when your whole life is in the toilet as far as everybody else is concerned because no matter where they got me no matter where i'm locked up at no matter what i'm what i don't have no matter what i wish i had no matter how bad the dream is going no matter how far off i was in estimating where i'd be at this point in life you can't take away my faith my life is about jesus christ i'm a servant of christ i'm building his kingdom you can't take my joy that's a joy to supersede situations jesus said let me tell you the mission the very last thing he ever said before he left this world he said let me make sure you know the mission he said jesus came to them and said all authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me so i'm about to go be with my father until i return to take you to heaven forever so here's what i want you to remember don't forget the mission therefore go and make disciples of all nations baptizing them in the name of the father and the son and the holy spirit go help lost people find jesus go make heaven more crowded that's your mission on this planet take your time take your talents take your treasures and get on mission and when you're on mission then there's a crazy joy jesus tells a story about it to help us understand it in luke 15. he says suppose he tells a story to guys who understand shepherding and lost sheep but he's talking about reaching lost people and he's talking to a group of religious people and he's talking about people who don't know him yet who don't have faith in god yet who aren't on their way to heaven yet he says suppose one of you has a hundred sheep and loses one well doesn't he leave the 99 in the open country and go after the lost one till he finds it doesn't he take all his time talents and resources and go try to find somebody who's lost and when he finds it what happens he joyfully puts it on his shoulders and goes home look he's tired he's been on the run he's been on the go something's wrong something went wrong something's missing but all of a sudden i went after a lost person i'm filled with joy he calls his friends and neighbors together and says hey come rejoice with me i found my lost sheep jesus is telling us that's what happens with us your life can be falling apart in so many areas but when you remember my time my talents and my treasures no matter what my situation are they are going to be used to build god's kingdom there's a joy that comes with that that can't be superseded is your life on mission a lot of really successful rich people commit suicide every year well why they have all the stuff that most of us think would make us joyful because they get a whole bunch of time and a whole bunch of talents and a whole bunch of treasures and it's off mission and it ends up meaningless listen you can have all the time in the world you could be a self-made billionaire and retire at 20 and have more free time than you know what to do with and apart from being on a mission given to you by your creator it can bring spurts of fun and spurts of giddiness and even some laughter but not a lasting joy it won't stick with you on a bad day just won't you can be the most talented person and the smartest person the most gifted person on the world and if all you do is build your kingdom with it it won't bring you a lasting joy that supersedes situations on the bad days just won't you can have all the money in the world but if all it does is build your kingdom i'm telling you there's there's something that you were you were hardwired to crave to be on mission by your creator and when we're off that that joy is just missing it just is and we see it with paul he says i'm just focused on building god's kingdom so it doesn't matter what's happening around me there's a joy that rises up in me this is why and i think this is going to click for you this is why i have said things like on paper my life looks so great why don't i have joy because i got the wrong things on paper i got the wrong things on paper because on paper i got a good family and a good job and i live in a good country and i'm safe and i got food and i got plenty i've got extra i've got a closet that has multiple clothes in it i have multiple bathrooms we have multiple cars in our family on paper i ought to have joy no no i got the wrong things on paper because what brings me joy is am i actually remaining in my creator he didn't hire me he adopted me and am i acting like that am i choosing to be thankful on a daily basis no matter what my situation looks like is my life on mission see when these things are on paper then on paper i'm probably going to have some joy sometimes when we go i don't know on paper everything's working out we got the wrong things on paper don't we i learned this just i had a beautiful reminder banyan come up i had a beautiful reminder of this oh gosh i don't even remember maybe four or five years ago i um i hadn't you know really kind of hit the wall with my anxiety as i did two years ago but i was definitely struggling with anxiety four five years ago and um i had a shoulder surgery and they put me on vicodin when i got home from the from the surgery so i was taking vicodin well what i didn't realize is vicodin was like just my system would not work with vicodin and i started having real crazy like claustrophobic feeling panic attacks that i could not get under control i'm walking around the house i'm sometimes in tears sometimes i'm walking outside like i was a mess and then sunday morning rolls around and my wife's like let's go to church i'm like i can't like i could i can't function i can't talk to anybody i'm a disaster and she's like you don't have to go out in the in the sanctuary just stay just stay in the back and so she drove me to church and like twice i wanted her to stop and pull over the car just so i could get out and breathe like i was a mess and we got to the lakewood campus and i couldn't go out and talk to anybody and i didn't even see the staff so i just stayed back in this little office where there was a tv and i was just like still crying and god help me god help me god help me and then i'm watching the service and it happened to be a baptism sunday and i'm watching the the amazing campus pastor josh kingry baptized people and i just something happened in my soul something changed and all of a sudden i had this thought i get to be a part of that because several years before that we did our very first ever big end-of-year kind of giving series and we were going to raise money to try to buy some church buildings because we were leasing all of our spaces and we were about to get kicked out of all of them and i told god i wanted to be generous and he asked me to sell a harley and i was like [Music] you have gone too far and after much arguing with god i did and it was part of me and my wife's offering for that and i got to i was in the middle of panic attacks like couldn't hardly control my emotions i was miserable i was crying i was a wreck couldn't talk to anybody and all of a sudden i'm watching a tv screen and i'm realizing i got to sacrifice something that was very treasure it was my treasure i loved that thing i got the sacrifice part of what god had given me to be on mission and to build his kingdom and look right there that person right there gave their life to god at the lakewood campus they're going public today at the lakewood campus with their faith i got to be a part of that and a joy started to come over my my emotions and i wasn't laughing but it was a strength because the joy of the lord turned into my strength and i got through a really tough situation when our life is on mission it changes things church would you put up that recap here's what we want to do i want to remain in him i'm going to stay thankful and i'm going to live on mission now listen go back and study john chapter 15. there are so many other lessons on joy in that chapter these are just three of them it talks about obedience it talks about getting in the word it talks about remembering how loved you are it's got so much for you just go over it this week over and over and over and then hit philippians one through 4 over and over and say god speak to me about the joy or lack thereof in my life today because he doesn't want you living joyless he wants you to not just have joy but be complete in his joy amen all right and here's where it all started one last verse and i'm gonna pray psalm 51 12. remember the title of the message did i ever tell you the title i didn't tell you the title did i well it didn't work very well title of the message is restore my joy [Music] because here's where it all starts restoring me the joy of salvation make me willing to obey all the things we talked about today happen after salvation i learned this when i was 24 years old as i was walking out to the car after leaving a church service and giving my life to god and realizing i've never experienced a freedom like this in my life i've never felt joy like this in my life it starts at salvation and so if you're watching this or listening to this and you know like i've never put my faith in jesus i need to ask him to forgive me of my sins and be the lord of my life so when he died on the cross that actually applies to me i want my sins forgiven i want his spirit to live inside of me today and i want to go to heaven forever and and sure is shooting i want the joy that you're talking about today it starts at the point of salvation who says sure is shooting i don't know [Music] let's pray god thank you so much that you're with us that you love us that your son died for us that when we choose to connect our lives to him the byproduct is a joy that we crave with every ounce of our being a joy that takes us past situations a joy that turns into strength and begins to supersede situations i want to ask two questions with everyone's heads down and eyes closed first is this you are already a christ follower maybe you have been for years the truth is today you go man i i need joy god's speaking to me today there's there's some things i want to do but i want to just start with saying god help me to learn the rhythms of how to live connected with you so that i can experience your joy if that's you raise your hand i need some joy right now we're just going to pray together amen a whole bunch of us amen the second question is this you don't have a relationship with jesus yet but you can just tell this is my moment i can feel it in my heart god is tapping on my shoulder right now i want to make him the lord of my life i'm not going to be perfect but i want to put my faith in him i want his spirit in me and heaven forever if that's you raise your hand right now and i'm going to pray for you go ahead put them up at all locations keep them up praise god put them up brussels let's go come on god behind bars austin texas all the denver campuses let's respond to what god's doing amen god i thank you that you're with us right now i pray for everyone who raised their hands seeking joy today god i pray that you would remind them that you've already made a way for them to experience some amazing joy i pray that you would remind them that they have so much to be thankful for i pray that you would remind them that you've given them a life-changing mission to be a part of and god i pray that you help them begin to take some steps of faith towards you begin connecting back to you remaining in you and experiencing that joy that turns into strength that supersedes our situations and god i thank you for the eternal lives that are being changed right now literally around the world as people for the first time are saying i need jesus i choose jesus i want you god i thank you god i pray they would experience your presence in a real and authentic way and everybody at every location said amen let's stand up let's worship

Channel: Red Rocks Church

Views: 36,082

Keywords: redrockschurch, Red Rocks Church, RRC

Id: oXppSJil_1s

Length: 44min 29sec (2669 seconds)

Published: Sat Jun 19 2021