Joy | Pastor Adam Peterson

Let me welcome everybody in the room, let me look into the camera, and welcome everybody that is joining us online right now. We are so grateful for you. And then to all the men and women in the correctional facilities, we say it every single week, but you are our church family. We are in our summer series, week eight of this beautiful AI image called Juicy Fruit. This is a 10-week series, so we got two more weeks to go. It'll take us all the way through the month of July. And in this series, what we're doing is we're looking at what the Bible calls the fruit of the spirit. So if this is your first Sunday and you wanna get caught up on other past messages to look at some of the other fruits we've talked about, you're more than welcome to do that. We have a YouTube page, we have shout out YouTube if you're watching right now, we have an app you can download. But here's the fruit that we've been looking at in Galatians chapter five. Before we read this verse, let me give you a little bit of context just so you understand what this is talking about specifically. One of my jobs as the pastor of Rise Church,

as one of the lead voices in teaching you God's word is to help you to try to understand this as best as you can. So that's what I'm gonna do right now. If you already know this, just lean in one more time. That Jesus is the savior of the world. And there needs to be a moment in your life where you realize you're not the savior of the world. And I hope you've already had that moment. If you haven't, let it be right now. You are a sinner. He is a savior. And here's the really, really good news of Christianity. Jesus is a better savior than you are a sinner. And the moment, come on, hear me, the moment you as a sinner see your sin and you see the need for Jesus to come and save you and rescue you from your sin, if you call out to him, the Bible says very clearly, you don't have to earn it, you don't deserve it, but it is a free gift that he gives you, that Jesus came to die on the cross for your sin, for my sin, and when we call upon him, he comes in and he brings complete forgiveness, he brings grace, he brings mercy, and he washes our sins completely clean. Come on, somebody. So that we can have a relationship with God. And that relationship with God is only possible through his son, Jesus.

And so if you know Jesus this morning, then you know that's what's happened for you. If you do not know Jesus today, if you walked into our church, you're watching online, and you have never encountered a real relationship with Jesus, it is available to you today. And I'm so glad that you're in church. And the moment you call upon Jesus, he saves you, he forgives you, and then God gives you this gift of the Holy Spirit, which is supernatural, and we don't really understand it, but it is God's presence that is with us at all times. And the Holy Spirit will then come into your life, and he goes, all right, Jesus saved you and forgave you of your sin, but you're still kind of a mess, let's get to work. Because there's some things that he wants to do in you and through you, and he wants to change you, and so Galatians 5 says this, that the Holy Spirit starts getting to work to produce this kind of fruit in our lives. Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. And I don't know about you, but that's a pretty good list. And those are things that I want in my life, and not only for me, the people in my life are gonna benefit when those things are being produced in me. You know, my wife likes me a lot more

when I'm living out these nine fruits. My kids like me a lot more. The people in your life are gonna be grateful that the Holy Spirit is at work in you because he is producing all of this in you. If you want this, say yeah. Yeah! And so what we've been saying in this series is simply this, that fruit, those nine fruits, they grow from a life that's rooted in Jesus, meaning you can't produce it on your own. Jesus is gonna do it in you and through you as you walk and you follow him. If you follow after your own pleasures of life, you do your own thing, you're gonna lack that fruit department. But the moment you surrender and you walk in obedience to God, man, he's gonna start working in you in an even greater way. And then we said this just because it rhymes and it helps you remember it, the deeper the root, the sweeter the fruit. Meaning the more you walk with him, the sweeter that fruit's gonna come out of your life for yourself and then for others. And today we're gonna look at this fruit, the fruit of joy. Come on. And specifically, specifically,

we're gonna kind of answer this question. How do we lose our joy? And how do we get it back? How do we lose it? What causes us to lose our joy? And if we have lost it, how do we get it back? back let's start with John chapter 15 Jesus says these words I am the true vine and if you go on to read more in John chapter 15 he says he's the true vine and we're the branches and as branches if we stay connected to the vine then we are by just naturally just supernaturally really gonna produce fruit but if we don't stay connected to the vine we're a dead branch and a dead branch can produce nothing and so Jesus makes this statement and this is where I want to start this morning because he says I'm the true vine meaning this there are other false vines in the world hear me very clearly there are false vines in this world that will promise you something but they cannot deliver on the promise there are false vines in this world that will promise you peace there are false vines that will promise you hope the promise you love they'll promise you joy but they cannot deliver here's what I wrote down if you want to experience true joy you have to stay connected to the true vine how many of you want the joy of the Lord in your life all right and if you didn't raise your hand we got work to do let's go so we're gonna answer two questions this morning the first one is simply this how do we lose our joy simply this life how do you lose your joy just live just live your life and you're gonna interact with people that are gonna cause you to lose some of your joy from time to time if you know what I'm talking about say amen if you're sitting by him right now just wink at me don't look at him just wink at me you're gonna go through life sometimes and circumstances are gonna cause you to lose your joy and so how do we have joy no matter what we go through I'm so grateful for God's Word because it says this dear brothers and sisters meaning I'm talking to all y'all when troubles of any kind meaning anything you walk through when they come your way

consider it an opportunity for great joy now I'm grateful for God's Word I'm grateful for brother James that wrote God's Word and gave us this scripture I wish he didn't write this if I were honest with you I wish he would have been like man when troubles come like it's okay if you get ticked every once in a while now something should bother you but I love this promise as much as I don't like it I do love it because James is saying hey listen it doesn't matter what you walk through you can always find joy now we're not finding joy and the troubles that we walk through we're finding joy in the God that is greater than our troubles can I get a good amen and so if you're here this morning and you would say man I'm actually kind of walking through some troubles right now like life is not easy and maybe you notice in your life that it is stealing some of your joy and lean in because God wants to speak to your heart today because he wants you to get your joy back and so let me read this verse one more time and then we're gonna jump ahead since dear brothers and sisters when troubles of any kind come your way don't be distressed don't be discouraged consider it an opportunity for great joy and he goes on to say this for you know that when your faith is tested your endurance has a chance to grow so let it grow like let it happen don't go through that and go well I'm just ready to give up don't give up keep trusting in God your faith is being tested right now are you gonna run from God are you gonna keep running to him are you gonna just go God I'm done with you are you gonna say God I trust you and I'm gonna keep trusting you because in that moment endurance is being strengthened in you so James says let it grow because when your endurance is fully developed you will be mature and complete needing nothing meaning the dark difficult hard days that you're walking through are not wasted God is at work and the hard days that you're walking through right now God is actually producing something in you he said he's taking you to the gym and he's building some muscle in you that you would never have had you not walked through the difficult days and so what are we finding joy in God thank you that the difficult days I'm not staying stuck in them they're not gonna take me out

you are gonna bring me through it not my strength your strength and when I come out the other side I'm gonna have a greater endurance to get through life and now this is not popular preaching but I got to tell you it because I just need you to understand it the endurance he's trying to produce in you right now you're not gonna like this the endurance he's trying to produce in you right now through the trouble that you're walking through is To prepare you for the next trouble that you're gonna walk through And if you're like man pastor, like would you be a little more positive this morning? Okay, I'm positive You're gonna walk through hard days now and you're gonna walk through a hard day Some of your most difficult days might still be ahead Can we can we just be real for a moment 2026 we're halfway through it right some of you the rest of 2026 is gonna be the most difficult days. You've ever had in your life Some of you the first half of 2026 has been hard We're not promised easy days. We are promised like by Jesus that we're gonna walk through troubles But we also have this promise that man God's not wasting it. He's at work There is endurance that he's building and we can always find joy in the midst of all of it And then I wrote down this thought That the light of Jesus shines so brightly in the follower of Jesus who walks with joy even when life is dark Let me give you some context for what I'm talking about here it means that when you are going through difficult days and Lost people who don't know the God that you know see what you're walking through But see how you're responding to it. That's the light of Christ that's shining through you Because they're looking on going if I were going through what you're going through I would be responding differently than how you are and then you look back at them and you go I don't even know how I'm making it. It's only by God and Now they see the God at work in you that they don't know that's the light of Christ Shining in you and through you to a dark world and people are always gonna be drawn to that So come on, let's go. Let's find the joy in God So what do we do? well Philippians same guy that wrote the fruit of the Spirit verses writes this and

Most scholars believe he's writing these words from jail from prison for preaching about Jesus and so from jail from prison He writes these words rejoice in the Lord always and That would have been a great opportunity rise church for every single one of you to go. Yeah I'm Paul told me to rejoice always I'm in church. I'm not in prison What a better time to rejoice than right now because he said it. No, no, no, no, it's too late But it's almost like Paul knew it was gonna be too he ought it's like Paul knew they're gonna miss it I Got a guy on the west side of Jacksonville in Jacksonville in the year 2026 and he's gonna be preaching these words and I'm gonna write rejoice in the Lord always and he's gonna write These words and I'm gonna write rejoice in the Lord always and he's gonna say that verse but all of his church is gonna miss It except for about three or four people. So I'm gonna hook that pastor up And Paul says so I'll say it again rejoice Amen So we're not we're not just joyson man. We're rejoicing. All right, we're gonna we're gonna Joyce and we're gonna Joyce again What does it mean to rejoice it simply means this to express like to shout Shout Let it all out. Okay to express deep joy deep joy and gladness For God's salvation and God's promises and then I added this last line even in the midst of hardship What am I rejoicing in not in what I'm walking through? Not in what I'm currently facing Not in the boss that I've worked for not in the people that I were not in my sister Not in my I said that cuz I don't have a sister. I I'm rejoicing in God and what he's done for me and what he has promised me With gladness in my heart with joy and thanksgiving for who he is in every good thing that he's done And I wrote this down that joy is a fruit of the Spirit Not a fruit of our circumstances

See, there's a lot of people that will misinterpret joy and happiness Happiness is a great thing, right? I like being happy. I like happy people I'm some y'all need to look a little more happy this morning. You're in church. Let's go The happiness is based on what is currently happening in your life Which means that happiness could be gone this afternoon but joy is rooted in who Jesus is and Jesus is amazing and Jesus is wonderful and Jesus is It's always good, therefore I can always find joy in everything that Jesus is. So, how do we lose joy? We just live life. And if we allow life to consume us, we'll lose our joy, but if we stay focused on Jesus, we'll find our joy, which is the second point. How do we lose our joy? It's when we lose our focus. It's when we drift. It's when at one point, man, God, you had all of my attention. You were the center of it all, right? But now I've allowed my focus to be put on everything else that's going on around me. Hey, and you're not the only one. Can I express myself as your pastor? I lose my focus from time to time. I'm grateful as I read God's word that we see men and women all throughout scripture who love God and follow after God,

but then from time to time, they lose their focus too. There was a guy in the Old Testament, you probably heard of him if you're new to church. His name was David. David was a teenager when a guy named Samuel showed up to his house one day, and God anointed David to be the future king of all of Israel. He didn't become king immediately. It happened, it took a few years, but he was going to be the next king. This is God's man. In the meantime, David shows up to a battle one day that his brothers were fighting against another country, another army, and there's this giant named Goliath who is taunting everybody, making fun of the people of Israel, making fun of God. David's like, why aren't any of you jokers fighting this guy? They're like, we're all too scared. Look how big he is. David's like, I'll take him down because I'm not gonna go in my strength. I'm going in God's strength. David steps up with a sling and some stones and takes the giant down by God's strength. David then eventually becomes king, and he's an amazing king who follows after God, but he has a moment, and the Bible doesn't give us all the details,

but there's a moment with David where he loses his focus, and I don't think it was overnight. I think it was over time because that's how it works in our lives. Over time, we stop prioritizing God in our lives. Over time, we stop prioritizing God's word. Over time, we stop prioritizing the church of Jesus Christ, the body, and over time, we lose our focus, and it might be as simple as your phone. It might be as simple as your finances. It might be as simple as anything, but if we take our eyes off of God, the focus, we're gonna find ourselves maybe going down a path that we never thought we would go down, and that's what happened for David. He lost his focus. One day, he's at his house. He's the king. He's on top of the palace rooftop hanging out, chilling. He sees a woman. She looks beautiful. He goes, I want her. He brings her over, sleeps with her. She gets pregnant. The only problem was she was already married, and so was he. He's like, I gotta figure out how to hide and cover this whole thing up. He couldn't figure it out,

so then he had her husband killed, and if you're like, well, dang, I thought my sin was pretty bad, but I've never had that happen. Okay, but at the end of the day, we're all sinners, right, and David has this moment where he realizes the weight of his sin and how it's affected him, how it's affected others, how it's affected his relationship with God, and David was a songwriter. You read throughout scriptures in the book of Psalms, those are songs that a lot of them written by David, songs of praise to God, but in Psalm 51, it's not necessarily this song of praise. It's an honest, real prayer of forgiveness that David is crying out to God, and he says these words in Psalm 51. Have mercy on me, O God, according to your unfailing love, according to your great compassion, and I wanna stop there because I highlighted those words because I love that David knew even though he had sinned, even though he had disobeyed God, even though he had done something terrible, he still knew that that God, that the God he served was a God of mercy, was a God of unfailing love, and was a God of compassion. I hope that you know that about the God that we serve. He's not angry at you.

He loves you. Now, he doesn't want you to stay stuck in your sin. He wants you to repent and turn from it, but he is not out to get you, but he does know what's best for your life, and so if you're here this morning and you would find yourself stuck in some sin right now, you've taken your focus off of God, and you know you have, and you put it on something else, and it has caused you to walk down a path that you didn't think you would ever go down, you can relate to this, and my encouragement would be to you today, repent, confess your sin to God, call upon his mercy, call upon his unfailing love, and call upon his compassion, and this is what he says, blot out my transgressions, wash away all my iniquity, and God, would you cleanse me. me of my sin." This is what Jesus came to do. This is good news. This means nobody is ever too far gone that God can't save them. Nobody is ever too far gone that the love of God cannot come and redeem and forgive your sin. And this is what David prays, this real, honest, raw prayer afterwards. We're gonna jump a couple verses to verse 12. He says, God, I know I've messed up and I know it's affected my relationship with you. Would you restore to me the joy of your salvation? What's he saying? God, I lost my joy when I took my eyes off of you. God, I lost my joy when I lost my focus. God, I lost my joy when I chose false vines. I want my joy back. I want the joy of your salvation back in my life. And as I was preparing for this message, Rise Church, it was just in my heart, and I hope that you can hear this, and I hope that you can receive this

today, and I hope that you can take a deep look in your own life. When is the last time you sat down and you just said, God, I want the same joy today that I had day one of my salvation? God, I can go back to that moment, and I don't know how your moment went down. I can just tell you my story a little bit. But I've been following Jesus for 25 years. I was a 17 year old, just young kid, broken and lost, making a mess of my life, and know I was missing something. And I cry out to God, if you're real, would you show me? Because I grew up in church, and I knew about God, and I knew about Jesus, and I knew he loved me. I knew he died for me, but it wasn't real to me. And so the prayer was simply, if you're real, would you show me? And in a moment, I can't explain it, but the supernatural love of God just overwhelmed me in a way that I go, oh wow. And I felt like the Lord just spoke to my heart. I love you, Adam. I know everything about you, and I still love you. I have loved you your entire life, and if you will follow me, I will put you on a path of purpose that leads you to experience my goodness every single day in your life. Now at the age of 17, I had no clue that it was gonna lead me here, but I'm telling you, that's what obedience will do. It'll take you to places you never thought you would go. But if I'm honest with you, there have been days in my life where I have not experienced the joy of my salvation, because I've taken it for granted. Because I've forgotten where I was. I've forgotten the mess that my life was, and I've forgotten where God has brought me. And as I was reading these verses and preparing for this sermon, I just felt like the Lord was like, Adam, I want to restore to you the joy of your salvation. You're a pretty joyful person, and you find joy in me, but I want to take your joy to a whole nother level. And it's not gonna come from anything else other than remembering how much I love you. Remembering how much I rescued you. And some of you, man, come on, let's just get to that place again where we go, God, if it weren't for you, I don't know where my life would be. Play that game today. Don't play it too much. It could get dark real fast. But play that game with somebody in your life. Where would your life be without Jesus? Guess what? I wouldn't be here. This church probably wouldn't exist.

My wife and I are celebrating 20 years this year. We probably wouldn't be. She would have left me a long time ago. I got three kids. I don't know if I'd have three kids, one kid. I don't even know if I'd be in my kids life. I'd be an addict somewhere, because that's where my life was going. I'd be a broken mess. And so you want to talk about real true joy? To go, that's where I would be if it weren't for you, God. But because of you, look at the life that I get to experience, and it's only because of your goodness. And I'm telling you, there is a joy that God has been stirring in me, and I want you to experience it too. But it's only gonna come from remembering Him. So go back to that moment today. You don't have to know the exact day. I don't know the exact day. I remember the moment. And every day, God, I want that joy. I don't want anything to get in the way. I don't want to lose my focus. I want to remember your amazing love, because that's, I want to get overwhelmed with gratitude and gladness in my heart, because that's what's gonna fill me with joy. And David goes on to say this, oh, and when I get that joy back, when I remember that, when my relationship with you gets restored, and I've got joy again, I won't be able to keep it to myself. I won't be able to contain it any longer. Here's what I'm gonna do immediately. I'm gonna start teaching other transgressors your ways so that sinners will turn back to you. David is saying this. I'm gonna do for others what I needed done because I had taken my eyes off of you. I'd fallen back into sin and I needed somebody to lead me back to you. That's what a prophet named Nathan did. Came along, led him back to God. And David's like, that's what I wanna do for other people. I want them to experience what I've experienced. God, would you change me, fill me with joy,

and then I'm just gonna tell everybody about you. Deliver me from the guilt of bloodshed because I had a guy killed and he felt guilty about that. Some of you got some guilt and shame from your past. Jesus wants to wipe that clean off of your life. He wants to set you free. He says, oh God, you who are God, my savior, and my tongue will sing of your righteousness. Meaning, when you bring my joy back, I will not be able to hold it in. I will sing your praises because I'm so grateful for what you've done. And then he says these words. Open my lips, Lord, and my mouth will declare your praise. Give me the opportunity. Like God, when my joy gets so full in my heart, I am going to let it rip. And a lot of the psalms that we have in scripture are because David got his joy back. And he started praising God. Pastor Jay, come on up here. This is where I know our church has joy, but there's a greater level of joy that he wants us to experience together. This is where I know Sunday mornings are good. And if I stop singing for a moment and I look around, I can hear you guys, you're loud. But I know the moment all of us come collectively into this house, and we come with an attitude of, can you believe how good God is?

Can you believe what he's done for us? And somebody's like, yeah, he never gave up on me. Somebody else goes, me either. Somebody goes, he's been faithful to me. And somebody else goes, me too. Somebody's like, he forgave me. Somebody else is like, yes. And collectively, we remember him. There is going to be a level of joy that breaks forth in this house. It's gonna get loud in here. The reason our worship sometimes is quiet is because we have forgotten. We've forgotten the joy of our salvation. And then it's gonna get so rowdy, it won't stay here. Now you're telling people about it in your neighborhood. Now you're telling people about it in your workplace. Now you're telling people in your schools. Let me tell you who God is and what he's done for me. I have to, I can't keep quiet. Now I'm not gonna be mean about it. I'm not gonna be weird about it. I'm just gonna joyfully tell you who he is and what he's done for me. And God wants to get your joy back. God gave it to you. Nobody can take it unless you let them. Even the devil cannot steal your joy unless you let him. So Holy Spirit, would you produce some joy on the inside of us?

Now can I close with something just in this? I wanna share with you what brings joy to heaven. If you've been around Rice Church long enough, you know my favorite chapter in all of scripture is Luke 15. And in Luke 15, Jesus tells three stories. If you've never heard these three stories, they're incredible. I'm only gonna tell you one very quickly. Go read the rest on your own. But the story he tells is of a shepherd who had a hundred sheep. And 99 of the sheep did exactly what they were supposed to do, stayed exactly where they were supposed to stay, but one of the sheep wandered off. One of the sheep didn't listen. One of the sheep disobeyed and was lost. And the logical response of the shepherd should have been, well, 99 out of 100, that ain't bad. Some of you students, you haven't seen a 99 on a test score in a while. You'd be like, phew, I take a 99 all day. 99 ain't bad, but not this shepherd. Says he drops everything and leaves the 99 to go find the one that was lost. And when he found the one that was lost, he didn't yell at it. He didn't scold it. He picked it up on his shoulders and he carries it home. And then he gathers together as many.

people as he could, and he throws a party because the lost sheep is home. That's Christianity. Jesus is the shepherd. We're the lost sheep that wandered away. He came and he found us. He left heaven to come to find us, to bring us home. And this is what the Bible says in Luke 15 verse 7, how Jesus concludes that story in the same way. There is more joy, meaning there's already joy in heaven, but the joy level increases in heaven over one lost sinner who repents and returns to God. Over one lost sinner that says, I don't want to be lost anymore. I want Jesus in my life. Then over 99 others who are righteous and have it straight away. And the 99, that's just the ones that have already come. You're the one that was already lost and now you're found. There was already a party for you. There was already joy in heaven for you. And now all of heaven goes, he did it again. He brought another one home. Oh man, that one was so lost and Jesus never gave up on him. He rescued him. We got another daughter. We got another son in the family of God. And all of heaven just starts celebrating. And if that's what brings joy to heaven, that's what should bring joy in our heart, the joy of salvation. It's the only thing that's going to fill your joy up. Remembering Jesus and then celebrating what he's doing in other people's lives. It's why our church exists. We want to see people come home. And we want to give somebody an opportunity for that right now. Every head bowed, every eye closed. It's not an accident that you walked into church this morning. It's not an accident that you're in this place. It's not an accident that you're watching online. God brought you here. He's trying to get your attention. He loves you. Now let me say first and foremost, if you're the one that's walking through hard, difficult days and your joy is just struggling, God wants to meet you right where you are. And he wants you to find joy in him again. And he's going to take you through those hard days. You're going to make it. And endurance is going to grow in you. If you currently would call yourself a follower of Jesus, but you feel you've lost your focus, you're putting it on other things, and some sin has creeped into your life, hey, repent and receive the mercy, grace, and the forgiveness of God today. It's available. But if you're here today and you want to begin a relationship with God for the first time ever, you want to say yes to Jesus. Today is your day. It is a free gift. Just receive it. And with nobody looking around, I'm going to count to three and just ask you to shoot your hand in the air. Raising your hand doesn't do anything for you. It's what

God is doing in your heart. I just want to celebrate with you. Today is your day. God has been trying to call out to you. You're the lost sheep. And he's ready to bring you home. If that's you, when I count to three, just shoot your hand in the air. One, two, three. Amen. Amen. Amen. Yeah. Come on. Come on. You can put your hand down. Incredible. Incredible. Church family, I want you to look at me. And I want to set you up for success. So here's how I'm going to say it. We're about to lose our mind. We're about to get loud. We're about to let the joy of the Lord bust out of our lungs and our mouths and our hands. I hope that you were encouraged by God's word. If you were, say amen. If you were reminded today that God is a God of joy, say yeah. Yeah. And now help me. Because the Bible says that there is more joy in heaven when one sinner repents and returns to God. And what we had this morning, while your heads were bowed, while you were praying, what we had this morning, what we already had during the 830 service, is people that are saying yes to a relationship with God, repenting, saying, I don't want to do my own thing. I want to follow Him. We got lost people coming home. Come on. Give Him the highest praise in this place. Thank you, God. We don't take it for granted. Yeah. Hey, and if you raised your hand, look at this. This is the family celebrating on your behalf. Welcome home. Welcome home. Amen.