Upgrade Your Happiness - Bro. Levell Kensey

yeah good morning everyone it is now time for us to start our sunday morning worship service in our second selection we're going to sing number 95 number 95 the last mile of the way number 95 amen shall we sing if i walk in the pathway of duty oh if i were to the close of the day yeah i shall see the great king and his beauty lord when i've gone the last mile of the way at the close of the day and i know there are joy that always me lord when i've gone the last mile of i proclaim the glass story if i see for his sleep gone astray oh i am sure he will show me his glory lord when i've gone yeah i rest at the close of the day oh and i know there are joy that always i have earned this driven i have tried all his will to obey uh oh at the close of the day [Music] the way amen amen morning lansing good morning it's time to go to god in a word of prayer please let's pray oh great and glory is god you are the one true god it is you o lord who created the heavens and the earth thank you lord and everything that is in them you created everything that is seen and everything that is hidden from us how awesome and amazing you are lord god you put us here for your good pleasures and that is to love you to obey your will and to love one another we thank you for our lord and savior jesus christ who died that we might live and father god we're asking you this morning to be with us be with our worship service that it may be found pleasing and acceptable to you thank you for another wonderful day yes lord and father god you know all about our trials our struggles and our hardships yes you know all about our mental condition our physical condition as well and father god we ask you if not to remove it then give us the strength the courage the faith to endure these troubling times that come our way bless the lands and church of christ and all our brothers and sisters of the faith yes lord be with our minister this morning as you always do o father god thank you for his labor and the word thank you for his commitment and serving you and bless all your ministers oh father god teach your word out of love and father god we also pray and thank you for our virtual worship we believe oh father god that this is a blessing to those who are gravely ill and those who are physically unable to come out and worship thank you for this service thank you for our worship worship and we continue to pray for our world leaders continue to pray for the world o father god help them to realize o father god how much they need you and to turn from their ways of doing things to doing things the way that you want us to do thank you for the holy spirit thank you for your forgiveness of our sin which is in the power of you o father god and father god we pray for those who had a desire to be here this morning but unable to just continue to keep them love them and father we thank you again for jesus christ who's all powerful all loving amen we thank you o lord god continue to bless us and keep us this is our prayer we ask in jesus name amen amen amen as we prepare our minds for our communion service we're going to sing anger sending me along and that's found in our secret selection 311. anger sending me along as we prepare our minds for our communion service oh what wondrous love i see freelancing for you and be by the one who did a tone just to show his matchless grace jesus was [Music] he gave to me terry for the three disciples live while my love and savior well and love is forever all was he weeping there for you and me to him was known we should love him ever more you know what love a matchless love you know [Music] i will the be he gave to me amen amen morning church good morning now we've come to a part of the service wheel to eat the bread and drink of the cup in remembrance of our lord and savior jesus christ scripture reference today is taken from matthew 26 chapter begin at the 26th verse and it reads and as they were eaten jesus took bread blessed and broke it and gave it to the disciples and said take eat this is my body then he took the cup and gave thanks and gave it to them saying drink from it all of you for this is my blood of the new covenant which is shed for many for mission of sins but i say to you i will not drink of this fruit of the vine from now on until that day when i drank anew with you in my father's kingdom and when they had sung in him they went out to the mount of olives we would not get thanks for the lord's body and blood let us pray a heavenly father we thank you for this bread which is our son's body and his cup which is our son's blood we pray all who take this we take clean hands and pure hearts in jesus name we pray amen amen that will conclude communion service now it is time for a person of our service that we really get to give from the heart so i'm ask you to put your hands together because it is giving time thank god that we are able to give thank you jesus thank you very much god loves a cheerful giver as shown in second corinthians nine and seven here at lansing church of christ we have three options for your giving the first is quick pay with zell using the following email address clarice underscore whitaker at lansing coc.com that is c l a r i c e underscore w h i t a k e r at lansingcoc.com or second option to use our online donation services by typing in the following address www.lansingcoc.com and finally using the us postal service lansing church of christ p.o box 606 lansing illinois 604-38 it's the lansing church of christ p.o box 606 lansing illinois 604-38 let's go to the lord thy father in prayer heavenly father we thank thee we thank thee for everything everything in existence comes from the lord thy father and we thank thee for it we thank thee for the ways and means that you've given us to give back a portion that is rightfully yours in the first place lord we thank you that you allow us to be good stewards over the money that you have provided for us because we realize it can be taken away at any time lord we thank you for an opportunity to give today we thank you for an opportunity to further thy kingdom we pray the funds collected here today will be used in a manner that is pleasing and acceptable in thy sight in jesus name we pray amen i know that god is good all of the time and all of the time god is good amen and there has never been a time that god has not been good amen i am just so elated to be able to uh be here in the house of god one more time i know that it's not because i've been so great and so perfect and so good over the past several days but it's because of the love of god his mercy and his grace that he has shown to me that i'm able to be here and i'm sure that you can say the same thing on your own behalf what i want you to do right now is to stand right where you are just stand right where you are right where you are and i want you to repeat after me oh give thanks to the lord for he is good for his mercy endures forever oh give thanks to the lord for he is good for his mercy endures forever you may take your seats today we're going to talk about upgrade your happiness you know as i mature i realize that life has a way of stopping us in our tracks and redirecting our emotions and oftentimes our emotions will redirect our steps and decisions some people gain happiness through their accomplishments some through their possessions but they often find out that those things cannot sustain their happiness amen say it brother if our happiness is contingent upon tangibles we will find ourselves searching for the next exciting tangible thing amen let me bring it closer i've heard people say that happiness is a choice and we must choose it if we want it and i truly believe that statement but as children of god we need to consider upgrading our happiness to god's joy amen amen let me say that one more time we need to consider upgrading our happiness to god's joy because happiness tends to be eventful but joy will last even after the happiness of the event is over amen amen only god can upgrade us although great things happen to us and for us we also experience things that are not so great and sometimes the not so great things will overshadow the great things so the first step to getting you back or to getting a new you is to get upgraded by god we need to trade in our earthly happiness for god's heavenly joy i want to say that again i want you to listen to me today we need to trade our earthly happiness for god's heavenly joy amen amen if you know what i know we know that one of the fruits of the spirit is joy so we know that if we have joy it came from the lord i want you to turn to a familiar scripture that we've been reading for many years and some of us we say it we know it by heart i want you to turn to psalm 118 and verse number 24. psalm 118 and verse number 24. what does the bible say dion this is the day of the lord this is the day of the lord this is the day the lord has made i thought that sounded kind of weird yeah i'm like i'm gonna go with it though all right let's say it again dion take two let's get it again this is the day the lord has made this is the day that the lord has made we will rejoice and be glad we will rejoice and be glad in it now i want you to look at this verse again this verse does not describe what type of day and we know that no two days are the same one day could be filled with news that we don't want to hear but the other day can be filled with news that we can't wait to hear but after being upgraded we will see more than words in this verse the focus is not on the type of day the focus is on who created the day are y'all with me right now amen if we focus on the creator throughout the day and not the events that happen during the day we can rejoice regardless of what we experience during that day amen tangibles the excitement of owning a new car will not elevate us from happiness to joy amen say it bro y'all understanding what i'm saying so when the bible tells us that this is the day that the lord has made we will rejoice and be glad in it what that means is god created a different day for you and i and regardless of what we experience he wants us to rejoice and to be glad in it amen amen but happiness is not gonna get me there sure i'm gonna have to upgrade my happiness through the lord say it brother so that he can give me joy amen amen when i first when i focus is not on the things that we see when our focus is on god he will give us the power to rise above the negativity or the disappointing moments that happens throughout the day are y'all still listening to me amen amen everybody goes through disappointing times yes yes everybody goes through things that they would prefer not to go through but what i'm here to tell you today if you want to have joy you're going to have to ask god for it and ask him to upgrade you from being happy to having his joy that means when things happen i can still have joy although the things that happened didn't make me happy is this confusing brother dion no we getting it it's clear see that's when we can say i've experienced some good times and i've experienced some bad times but i'm still not gonna ever leave the lord because i have joy in my heart amen there are people who may be able to take your happiness but when god fills your heart with joy can't nobody stop you say it say it brother i want you to turn to proverbs i'm going to give you just a little bible workout today proverbs chapter number 17 there is an interesting verse that i want you to look at proverbs chapter number 17 and verse number 22. the bible says what brother dion a merry heart does good a happy heart does good like medicine it's like medicine keep going but a broken spirit but a broken spirit dries the bone now are y'all still listening i want you to look at the importance of having joy a heart filled with joy is like medicine to the body amen amen in other words joy promotes health yes yes but a broken spirit is like a slow death it drives the bones say it brother say it a broken spirit with zap the strength out of us some of us we woke up we got enough sleep but we were still tired i don't know if you've ever been asleep for many hours and woke up and you still felt like you didn't want to get up out of the bed when your spirit is broken it zaps all the strength and energy out of you that's what makes us feel tired sometimes we have to reach down deep in order just to get up out of the bed but when we have joy we can think better we can look better we can feel better we can act better because we have joy that's in our heart our joy is not contingent upon events during the day our joy is contended contingent upon christ giving us what we need to make it through the day amen amen say it brother some folk don't know the difference between happiness and joy but this verse explains a lot some folk wake up every day blessed but sad or not as happy as they ought to be and that's because something was allowed to break their spirit amen amen how can i wake up and experience a day that i have never seen before wake it up feeling good no aches no pains but i'm still sad having a broken spirit snatches things away from us like our happiness and oftentimes it will snatch our will to move forward believe it or not some people feel ill but they are not physically sick they are simply unhappy now don't get me wrong i understand that some things are out of our control and can temporarily break our spirit but none of those things are worth us giving up on or dying for why would you give up on yourself because your spirit is broken am i making sense here now i want to go through some things are you still listening yes a lot of times we allow our spirit to be broken because we force situations into our lives like relationships some of us are in messed up relationships but we're only there because we have a fear of being alone oh we are afraid of losing nothing feel like we can't move on been living our lives many years without the person but now it's like we have an umbilical cord attached to them not only that our spirit can be so broken that we will even risk our soul salvation for these people i'm gonna ask you something how can you be a child of god living in sin because of a relationship and be happy somebody waking up when you are a child of god and you are in a sinful relationship you should never be happy because you're always going to feel conflicted and convicted temporal happiness ain't got nothing on joy breaking trust when people break our trust in a sense to get things back to where they need to be we must trust them more than we trust ourselves i knew you was going to look at me like that let me explain if you break trust with me and i form an opinion in my mind about you based upon how you treated me or treat me in order for me to get back with you to make things cool with you i have to trust you more then i trust what i'm thinking about you so in other words some of us we walk around with a broken spirit because we are exerting too much energy into broken relationships there are some people not in here the ones who are looking at us on youtube who don't feel good today because they are in a relationship that ain't doing them no good and the reason why they don't feel good is simply because they have to go against themselves somebody said when you see stuff you ought to believe it the first time but sometimes we force things into our lives but i heard somewhere somebody say if it don't fit don't force it just relax and let it go some of us need to put on some new shoes get a new attitude and get a new life amen amen amen can i go deeper some people are not happy within themselves and have stopped nourishing themselves they have stopped doing things that bring happiness to their lives they are empty and have become dependent upon others to fulfill their happiness and i want you to know today that if you have to depend upon somebody to bring joy into your life you are setting yourself up for a life of misery amen some people don't even know how it feels to be loved they don't even know how to react when someone wants to treat them as a priority instead of an option amen amen they don't even know what it feels like for someone to look out for them and i'm telling you a lot of these emotions come about because we allow things in our lives to break our spirit but i'm telling you when your spirit is broken you ain't who you need to be some of us we are used to giving so much until we never expect to receive anything good for ourselves we will accept anything now i want to meddle a little bit for those of you who are whipped we got some wilt folk uh older folk you say got your nose open y'all remember that you have to start caring about yourself some of us we're never going to be right dealing with the relationships that we're currently in because the relationship ain't right you know what a car uses four round tires if you put three round tires and one square tire on your car something ain't gonna be quite right about that car see you have to love yourself enough to say enough is enough and i gotta go but some of us the reason why we won't leave the reason why we can't leave is because we are so selfish we don't want to see the person with nobody else well see i would rather see you happy with somebody else than to see you in my life dogging me out it comes down to self-care how we view ourselves what we want and don't want in our lives we shouldn't look at how old we are and let that determine whether or not we gonna take smack off of folk some folk bring all kind of trash into our lives i thought just young folk act silly in relationships we got some silly acting old folk too i'm almost done just stay with me for a little while doing the same mess that you did at 15 16 17 18 you 16 and still acting the same way amen amen but whether you are a teenager or a real adult adult pain is pain and what i'm trying to tell you is if you don't have the joy of god in your heart you are miserable i don't need no woman to make me feel good god makes me feel good amen a woman is just an accessory to my life she doesn't make my life some of us we have to understand that some folks say i don't agree with you you ain't gotta agree with me that's why your nose open some of us we can't even concentrate because we're too busy trying to make everybody accept who we are don't want to look bad in front of hope you know sometimes it ain't a bad thing to look bad in front of some folk maybe that bad look will make those bad people leave your good life are y'all gonna listen to me just for a few more minutes i gotta talk about it it's amazing how we will allow certain people's perspective to become our reality but i've always had the mentality that the way you perceive me doesn't have to become my reality if that's the way you see me then maybe your eyesight is just bad but i would never feel like that if i don't upgrade my happiness to god's joy see some folk call it arrogancy some folk call it being conceited i call it having confidence in who you are i can walk through a crowd of folk who can't stand me and still have my swag because i know who i am in christ jesus but if i'm dependent upon people to make me happy i can't even go to the door of where they are how can god prepare a table for you in front of your enemies when you're too scared to even look at them i'm almost done but i ain't done yet some people you are too down on yourself you've lost your self-confidence you had a good job you lost it now you're under stress you have chest pains not realizing that sometimes god allows things to happen to get us to do something else now i know you didn't want your boat to turn upside down but had it not flipped upside down you never would have slammed to where god wanted you to be i know that you didn't want certain things to blow up but if god had not allowed certain things to blow up you would have been trying to create some new things that you need in your life some people can't hold their head up because they have to accept government assistance this is a real thing and sometimes when we have to accept government assistance we look at it as we're less than other people see now you have to understand that that is not where your joy comes from being laid off being without uh means to take care of certain things that can break your spirit but if you have joy from the lord you'll be able to keep moving forward are you understanding what i'm saying right now amen amen say it brother now let me explain something to you are you listening when you have to accept government assistance don't look at that as a handout look at that as a blessing are y'all understanding that when you have to depend upon folk for your happiness you know you're standing in the unemployment line and i get that who wants to stand there who wants to look like they need help i get that i get that but what i'm trying to say is when you have the joy of god in you you can walk up to that unemployment line yeah i'm here and i need a card and if you can give me two cards dion is this making sense see because my happiness i'm not i'm not i'm i'm not dependent upon the people who are around me to make me happy i'm already stepping up in that peace with the joy of god in my heart so it doesn't matter if they look at me crazy or not i'm a child of god and let me tell you something else just because you don't have a lot to put in service that does not mean that god loves you less than he loves anybody else some folk won't even come to the worship service because they don't have money to put in church you better bring yourself to worship and act like you have a savior amen being brokenhearted it's a hard thing because it makes us look at things negatively i got one more point for you when you want to get you back or a new you there is something that you have to realize come closer listen the key to having joy is to connect to the source this is making sense the key to having joy is to connect to the source and not to depend upon resources see we sometimes fall victim to this and we have to realign our thoughts sometimes when it comes to maintaining joy the struggle is real but we must bounce back because god made us resilient i want to ask you something today church who cares more about you more about your joy than you and god you know i've i've learned and i'm sure you have to everybody who says i love you ain't telling you the truth there are some people who will ask you hey how you doing and before you can respond they talk about something else which let you know they really don't care how you doing but you have to care i want to leave out of here with one scripture brother dion i want you to get for me romans chapter number 15 romans chapter number 15 and we're going to get out of here like vapor romans chapter number 15 and i want you to look at verse number 13. i hope you guys are there romans 15 and 13 the bible says what now may the god of hope now watch this the bible says now may the god of hope keep going fill you with all joy fill you with all joy and peace and peace in belief in believing that you may abound that you may abound in hope in hope by the power of the holy spirit now let's just stop here and let's just go ahead and take it on home i want you to listen how paul puts it to the saints in rome he said now made the god of hope do you know what that means it means that god is the source the hope that we have it doesn't come from the resource meaning people but the hope that we have it comes from god so if i want to have hope i have to connect to the source amen amen i have to connect to god are you with me yes now the bible says now may the god of hope fill you with all joy if i need joy even while things are going bad in my life even when things that are out of my control continues to happen i got to go back to the source and connect to the source because he can fill me with all joy somebody ain't hearing me today you see what may have given me joy yesterday may not bring joy today but when i have god in my life he knows exactly what i need in my life to get me to where i need to be amen amen say it brother that's why the bible says that he can fill us with all joy that was just in peace now wait i want you all to look at this now we're about to end if you have hope if you have joy and you have peace y'all they all they say this are you see i don't need nobody to make me happy when i have all that i need in god i got joy independent of people i have peace independent of people and i have hope why do i need hope because when it seems like my joy is failing me when it seems like my peace is being disrupted i have hope that god is going to restore everything that got taken away from me amen amen say it brother i can't lose my hope but there's something else there look at it it says now may the god of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing so here's the exchange god who is the source amen amen will give me hope all the hope i need he will fill me with all the joy that i need he will give me all the peace that i need in exchange for me just believe oh y'all starting to see this all he wants me to do is trust in him so here it is so if i trust in him i have nothing to worry about because i'm going to have hope i'm going to have joy i'm going to have peace i'm going to have everything that i need in god say it brother say it that's why some folk can't live a better life because they have put their trust in the wrong man amen amen say it it says now may the god of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing that means i'm trusting what am i trusting that you may abound in hope but how am i going to do that when things ain't going right how am i going to do that when it seems like i'm on a losing end well i don't have to work hard because i have the power of the holy spirit working on my behalf let me just say this again brother dion are you getting this dion now listen i'm gonna say this again and i'm gonna take my seat it's time to upgrade your happiness amen amen to joy to god's joy amen say it brother say it you understand and i'm i'm gonna i'm gonna show you how to do this now you don't need to have a job to do this you don't need to get in a hundred dollar line or two hundred dollar nine to three hundred dollar line you don't need to do that you don't need to fake like somebody heals you and you fall you need to do none of that are y'all still with me y'all listening what you need to do is connect to the source amen amen and the source who is god will increase your hope your faith so he is the god of hope where do i get my faith from not because you prayed for me but because i'm connected to the choice oh y'all starting to get this you're making me happy i want to run but the corona may be out there so i'm connected to god he gives me hope but while he gives me hope while he helps to build my faith he's filling me with joy so as i go through this life and things continue to happen to me i don't need to depend upon people's happiness because god is giving me joy then when things happen that i don't like god settles my mind because not only is he giving me joy he's giving me he's all y'all reading the scripture he's filling me with joy he's filling me with peace and all i have to do is keep believing oh y'all got my sermon amen all i have to do is keep believing and not only that he knows how fragile we are he knows that when we are weak his strength becomes perfect so god gives us help all i have to do is connect to him he will give me hope he will fill me with joy he will fill me with peace and i can unbound i can abound in all of that by the power y'all ain't seeing this look again somebody close the bible up i ain't done open your bible back up this is how you can maintain joy when there's nothing to be happy about by the power of the holy spirit now i know there are a lot of spirits out there but let me tell you something can't no spirit whoop the holy spirit so whatever spirit that's trying to mess with me that's trying to take me off my path as long as i have the holy spirit i have everything i need i have all the power all the strength that i need amen amen you know why you can't walk away from a bad situation it's because you don't have the power of the holy spirit you are trying to work on your own power who want to upgrade their happiness we need to upgrade our happiness to god's joy you know i'm going to be real with you there was a time i didn't get this i didn't understand this but what god is letting us know is let that other stuff go whatever that other stuff is let it go trust me i got you you holding on to some doggone temporal happiness when i'm gonna give you everlasting joy but lord how am i going to do it how you going to do it i'm going to give you hope i'm the source not understanding that even if somebody helps us out it's because god made that connection i'm gonna fill you with joy fill you with peace so while you're going through the dark passages in your life you're still gonna have joy because i'm gonna give you peace and you don't have to worry about putting all that pressure on yourself putting all that pressure on your pasta putting all that pressure on your husband putting all that pressure on your wife putting all that pressure on your teacher putting all that pressure on other folks all you need to do is trust in the power of the holy spirit amen amen say it brother say it if you're here today and you're not a child of god you come by hearing the word of god you did that believing that jesus christ is the son of god repent of your sins that means that i don't want to live the life that i used to live you know i told somebody the other day if you have some desires today let's just say for example you have the desire to always stay drunk getting baptized is not going to take that desire away but getting baptized so that god will give you the indwelling holy spirit will help you to get rid of that desire so it's not a magical mystical thing that happens when you go down into the water in terms of our desire we are still the same people in other words if you go down mustard you gonna come up mustard are y'all understanding what i'm saying but you're gonna have help you're going to have the help of the indwelling holy spirit i read somewhere where the spirit raised jesus so if god puts that same spirit in us that was powerful enough to raise jesus from the dead is powerful enough to raise us from our bears amen amen to make us walk right talk right live right so you want to repent that just means i'm making up my mind today not to live the life that i was living i want to live for jesus then you confess the greatest name known to men which is the name of jesus and be baptized in a watery grave of baptism we're gonna ask you to come today maybe some of you are already baptized but you just need to upgrade your happiness to joy now you know how to do that amen and now you know how simple it is god wants us to have joy that's beyond being happy jeff what you got you got something for me you know what jeff actually i'm gonna do something one of the sisters last week asked me to sing uh uh a song i've seen that later i want to sing 403. we ain't saying that in a long time number 403 i want to sing that since we're talking about heaven we might as well sing about it is that all right with you brother dion number 403. no tears in heaven no sorrows given all will make glory [Music] no sadness all will be gladness when we shall [Music] no [Music] and have [Music] the world [Music] will be let's get got some pranks [Applause] [Music]

Channel: Light&Salt Gospel Media Ministries

Views: 410

Rating: 5 out of 5

Keywords: church of christ, church of christ preaching, coc preaching, churches of christ, God, jesus, holy spirit

Id: EbWMwnWJt0Y

Length: 63min 28sec (3808 seconds)

Published: Sun Sep 26 2021