The Way of Joy | "The Way" Week 10

Hey, wasn't Dr. R. T. Kendall great last week? If you were here, if you didn't, you should go watch it. He brought an incredible word, as he always does. And we've already, this week, I already booked him twice for next year. So we're excited to get him back. I told him, hey, you're 91. I don't know how much longer you're gonna be around. So you're coming, all right? As many times as I can get you. I do wanna give one quick caveat. I wanna just pause before I get into the word. And I prayed about this all week, whether or not to do it. 'Cause who am I to correct R. T. Kendall? And I'm not correcting R. T. Kendall, but what I'm about to say to you, is something that he wrote about in his book, Total Forgiveness. So he knows and believes what I'm about to say, but he didn't say something last week that is in his book that is very, very important to add as an addendum, so to speak. His very first point he talked about total forgiveness, and he gave us instructions on how to know if we have totally forgiven that person. Powerful message, life-changing message for our church. But his number one point that I wanna just bring some addition addendum to, he said, "The proof that you'll know you've totally forgiven them is you tell no one what they did to you."

And I know what he means. He means don't go and gossip about it. Don't go and spread rumors. Don't let your bitterness come out of you. And again, he talks about them as book at length, but he just didn't get to say it in his message. And as your shepherd, I feel the need to say this. If you are being abused, if you're a teenager and you have been molested, if you are a wife and you're being battered or being abused in any way, shape, or form, you must tell someone. You must tell someone. If you have, it's okay to call the police. If you're a child and you have been touched inappropriately, you need to tell your parents. And I know that that's RT Kendall's heart. He talks about that in his book, but he didn't say that last week. And I just felt the need to add that, to make sure that you know, as your shepherd, as the pastor of this church, there are things that you must tell someone. You need to tell a teacher, you need to tell your parent, you need to tell a pastor, tell your counselor, okay? Okay, and I know that RT would agree with me 'cause he wrote about it explicitly in his book. So I just wanted to give that clarity, okay? So now we can go. All right, turn me in your Bibles to the book of Deuteronomy.

Deuteronomy is what we're gonna be today, chapter 28. You can start flipping there. We're gonna be all over the place. My sermon's not gonna be all over the place, but we're gonna go all over the Bible, all right? So we're gonna move a lot from one end of the other, old Testament and new Testament. Like every week, we have resources that follow every message. So if you go to victor.church/resources, there is a devotional that you will get. You can download this devotional from this website that every single, daily devotional, that coincides with the sermon that you're gonna hear today, okay? So we'll talk more about that later in the message, but just wanna make sure we're giving you those resources every single week and make sure you're diving in. I've only got 30 minutes. Well, let's not kid ourselves. I'm preaching way more than 30 minutes usually, but I've only got a limited amount of time. If you're a first-time guest, we usually go about an hour and a half in our sermons. So I'm kidding, calm down. We'll have you out in no time. All right. So Deuteronomy, chapter 28 for context. Deuteronomy, chapter 28 is this passage where Moses is talking to the Israelites right before they go into the Promised Land.

Now, in this text, you can read it tonight. He's giving this abundance of blessing. He's saying if you follow the covenant that God has given to us, these are the abundance of blessings that's going to come about. But in the same chapter, he says, if you don't, here are the curses, okay? So he's being very blunt with them. But right in the middle of this chapter, there's a verse that I wanna highlight that really jumped off the page to me and it'll be kind of the launching pad for where we're going today. So Deuteronomy, chapter 28, verse 45, this is Moses. He says, "If you refuse to listen to the Lord your God and to obey the commands and decrees He has given you, all these curses will pursue and overtake you until you are destroyed. These horrors will serve as a sign and a warning among you and your descendants forever." Now listen to this, verse 47 is where I want you to lean in. If you do not serve the Lord your God with joy and enthusiasm for the abundant benefits you have received, left hungry and thirsty and naked and lacking in everything. The Lord would put an iron yoke on your neck, pressing you harshly until he has destroyed you. Oh, praise God. We can all go home now. Aren't you encouraged?

I only read that text not to make you depressed. I only read that text to point out this idea that he says, he says, if you will serve the Lord your God, but then he says the way in which you're to do it. So it's, it's not just that we do what the Lord tells us to do. It seems as though it's the manner in which we do it. That it's not just we serve the Lord. It's that we serve the Lord with joy and enthusiasm. What an interesting thing to say. And this is maybe one of the great contradictions in modern Christianity. Um, I'm going to throw off some questions and they're not rhetorical. I actually want you to answer me. These are yes or no questions. Okay. Here we go. Do you believe that you have been forgiven by Jesus? Yes. Do you believe you've been redeemed? Do you believe that you have received the full adoption as a son of God? Yes. Why wouldn't we be joyful? Even if that was the only thing that we ever got to know and to experience. This is all through the scriptures. It talks about the joy of our salvation. So most of the time, at least me, I don't know about you. Most of the time I have what I would call situational joy. It's like I need the search. Once the circumstances line up to the way that I need them to line up. Now I'll be joyful. If I have a good day, now I'll be joyful.

Right. Maybe you're a student and you're saying, once I can finish this degree, then I will have joy. Right. Maybe you're single and you're like, man, maybe you're in high school. And you're like, if I could just find me a girl, now, now I'll be joyful. Maybe you've been single for many years. Maybe it's a marriage that gets better. Maybe it's a business situation. Maybe it's a job that you really need. And it's what I would refer to as situational joy. And we keep waiting for the circumstances to give us permission to rejoice. And this, this message that I'm bringing today, oddly enough, when I first had kind of the, the, the genesis of this season that we're in called the way, where we're learning how to be followers of the way. And remember the very first week. And I told you about Michelle and I were in Paris celebrating our 25th anniversary. And we had this tour guide and he challenged me with some things. And I really made me dig down deep and realize, yeah, what does it mean? To be a Christian, oddly enough, this message that I'm preaching today is one of the very first ones that popped in my head. And I don't really know why, but for some reason, this, this idea of joy. And so the title of the message today is the way of joy, the way of joy. And Michelle and I have this, this neighbor that we had when we first got married. Wasn't a believer. His name was Patrick. And Michelle and I used to marvel at the joy this guy had. And then we would encounter Christians and I wouldn't have passed for them. We would encounter Christians that I was like, that's the meanest person I've ever met in my entire life. And so what I want to talk about today is this concept of joy and what is joy and

what does it mean to have joy and how do I get it? All right, let's pray. Lord, would you teach us your ways? I believe that one of the attributes of followers of the way is that we possess joy. We possess joy. And so God, I pray that one, you would help us to become more joyful, but to teach us today from your word. God, we're about to dive into your infallible word, but it's coming from a fallible tongue. And so I need you, Lord, to help me to communicate it in a way that brings honor to your name and glory to your kingdom and help us all, Lord, to be followers of the way and may joy become a part of who we are and actually be a witness to those around us. In Jesus' name, everybody said amen. How about this transition? Go to Leviticus chapter nine. All right, we're going to go to Leviticus of all places. So we're going to go to Leviticus. It's all the way to your left, and then we're going to go to Philippians, which is way to your right. OK, so if you want to jump ahead, you can put a finger over in Philippians, but I'm going to hang out in Leviticus for just a second. So Leviticus gives us this, this, this idea in verse 24. So Leviticus chapter nine, I'm just going to read it and then I'll explain. Verse 24 says, fire blazed forth from the Lord's presence. Now, this is what I want you to listen to. When the people saw this, they shouted with joy and they fell face down on the ground. Now, your translation you're reading may not say joy, but it says shouted. And if you look up this word shouted in the Hebrew, guess what it means?

To shout for joy. And this is what we all want, right? We want the fire to fall on our situation. We want the Lord to show up and for fire to fall on my marriage, on my finances, on my career, on whatever component and aspect of your life. This is really what we want. And we've attached our joy to the fire that we're waiting for God to sin, right? That's kind of what we do without really realizing we do it. We say, I'll be joyful when God shows up and does what I've been asking him to do. So we connect it to that, we tie it to that. So I want you to flip back now, like four or five pages, go to chapter six, Leviticus six. So in Leviticus six, the Lord is giving Moses instructions to tell the priests on how to prepare for the fire, okay? So we're kind of going, going almost like forward in time, the fire has not yet fallen here. And he's saying, hey, the fire from heaven is going to fall, okay? And as a priest, this is what I want you to do when it falls, okay? So Leviticus six, chapter eight, it says this, I'm sorry, chapter six, verse eight. It says, the Lord said to Moses, give Aaron and his sons the following instructions regarding the burn offering. The burn offering must be left on top of the altar until the next morning.

And the fire on the altar must be kept burning at all times, all night long. In the morning after the priests on duty has put on his official linen clothing and linen undergarments, he must clean out the ashes of the burn offering and put them beside the altar. Then he must put on regular clothes and carry the ashes outside to the camp to place them to become ceremony and clean. So what he's saying is, hey, listen, you got to keep the fire burning all night. And we're about to have a shift change. The priests from the previous day are leaving and the new priests are coming in. The new priests are going to come in. And what you're going to do is you're going to take the ashes from the altar and you got to take off your garments and you put on regular clothes, go outside the camp. He's saying, you're going to go about some day-to-day tasks. But while you're doing your daily tasks, while you're taking the kids to soccer, while you're running the spreadsheet, make sure that the fire is tended. Okay, he goes on to say this, verse 12. Meanwhile, while you're doing all these menial tasks, meanwhile, the fire on the altar must be kept burning. It must never go out. Each morning, the priest will add, listen to this wording, the priest will add fresh wood to the fire

and arrange the burnt offering on it. He will then burn the fat of the peace offering on it. And he says, verse 13, again, as if we're forgetful. Remember, remember, the fire must be kept burning on the altar at all times. It must never go out. So then, a couple chapters later, the fire blazed forth from the presence of God and consumed the offering. And all of a sudden, the fire was lit. And then it was up to the priests to make sure that the fire from God that caused everyone to shout for joy must never go out. Now, so whose job was it to keep the fire burning? It was the priest. Now, you might be saying, whoo, good, I'm off the hook. I'm not a pastor, I'm not a priest, I'm sure not a priest. I don't have to do anything. Well, you flip over to Hebrews and in the New Testament things shift, things change. Because in Hebrews, I'm sorry, not Hebrews in 1 Peter chapter two, it says that we are now a royal priesthood, a holy nation. So we have become, we operate as priests because now there's not a temple. Guess where the temple is at? Your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit. Teaser for next week's sermon. So now it's up to the priest. You are the priest of your own temple.

And when fire falls from heaven and you shout for joy, you must tend that fire. You must cultivate that fire. You must make sure that even in the days of where you're going about your menial tasks of doing life and forgetting about God and at times and forgetting about church and forgetting about the things of the Lord, it is up to us to keep the fire burning to make sure that it never goes out. Well, that's a cute sermon, John. tend the fire, but like, what does that even mean? And Tuesday morning when I roll over, what do I do? And Tuesday night when I get home from work and it was the worst day ever, what does it even mean to tend the fire of joy? Joy, you can't escape the Bible without realizing that the Lord really wants us to be joyful people. It's all through Scripture, Old Testament and New Testament. In fact, in the ESV version of the translation, there were joy or joyful or rejoicing, as mentioned in the Bible at 430 times. It's inescapable that the Lord wants us to be joyful. Jesus Himself said, "I came so that you may have life and have it to the full." Like, there is a fullness and that's what I'd like to say at Victor Church. We live life to the full because we're chasing after the fullness. And so, what does this look like? I want to pick one passage because I don't have time to preach all of them. But there's one in Philippians, if you've already flipped over there too, we're in Philippians chapter four. There's one passage in Philippians four that I believe is the easiest to understand. And Paul really does a masterful job of taking a really complicated thing that's hard to do and simplifying it in a really easy, simple way. And so, I want to take this text and we're going to unpack it, but let's read it first.

So Philippians chapter four, verse four, for many of us, this is a very common verse you've heard. I'm going to try my best to present it in a way that is unique and gives you practical ways to become more joyful. All right? Verse four of chapter four, it says always, somebody said always, be full of joy. I mean, Paul, right off the bat, it's like we're just going for the juggler. We're just going to say you should do it all the time. Always be full of joy in the Lord. I say it again. Rejoice. Let everyone see that you're considerate in all that you do. Remember, the Lord is coming soon. Don't worry about anything. Instead, pray about everything. Tell God what you need and thank Him for all He has done. Then you will experience God's peace, which exceeds anything we can understand. His peace, which will guard your hearts and minds as you live in Christ Jesus. And now, dear brothers and sisters, one final thing, fix your thoughts on what is true and honorable and right and pure and lovely and admirable. Think about things that are excellent and worthy of praise. Keep putting into practice all you learned and received from me. Everything you have heard from me and saw me doing, then the God of peace will be with you. 11 verse 9, he says, keep putting into practice. So what we're talking about in this season is the practices of the way. How do I, what does it mean to be a Christian? And Paul lays it right out for you. He bookends this text by saying, always, always be full of joy. And then he ends it by saying, practice, practice. So I'm left to believe that joy is not a feeling. What if joy is not a feeling? What if it's something we must practice? And what if Paul was smart enough that between these two bookends of saying, always be joyful and practice doing it, that he would give us ways to practice? I believe he did. I'll show him to you. I think there's three of them. We're going to exegethe the text, which means I'm not even going to preach. The Bible is going to preach. I'm just going to look at the scriptures of what it says. We're going to

pluck them out and apply them to our lives. Are you ready? All right, let's go home now. All right, I'm going to do it anyways. Here we go. Number one, we go back to verse four. I'm sorry, verse five. Verse five says, let everyone see that you are considerate in all you do, which is so weird. It's almost like Paul has ADD and he's like, hey, always be joyful. And he's like, oh, I got distracted. Hey, be considerate too. I think that he's giving us a sneak peek into what it means and a practice of the way to become more and more joyful in life. Okay, so if you're taking notes right down, number one, number one is when you're inward, go outward. When you're inward, go outward. I believe that joy has a hard time breathing on a life that is completely consumed with itself. Really hard to find joy in here. He says, rejoice always. He says, you want to know how? Be considerate to other people. So we have to understand what this word consider it means. This word consider it in the Greek as they're facing, outward facing, gracious posture toward others. How many of you have ever been on mission strip, raise your hand, mission strip, even if it was a local mission strip? How many of you have ever been to a prison? Visit a prison, let's say it that way, okay. We need to clarify, you know? We have prison ministries at all of our campuses, so you never know, you know? I go and preach in the prisons. It's one of my favorite things to do. Like, I love to preach in prisons. They're, they got nowhere to go. I can preach for two hours and they're happy as can be, man. They're like, preach longer. We don't want to go back to ourselves. Just keep talking, you know? I always go into a prison thinking that I'm going to bless them. I always walk out blessed. I walked out the one that got ministered to, even though I did the preaching. If you've ever been on a mission strip, you go on a mission strip thinking, we're going to start food. It's going to be awesome. We're going to go help these people and you walk away full of joy because you went to be a blessing and it turned out you got blessed. There's something to this, there's something to this, there's something to this. Jesus is quoted in the book of Acts that's saying it's more blessed to give than it is to receive. There's something to this. There's something about finding joy in the most unlikely of places when I look less at myself and look more at other people. Remember the text that I read all the way back in Deuteronomy when I read it and it was depressing and we almost left right there. At the very end, it says, "The Lord will put an iron yoke on your neck." If you serve the Lord without joy, the Bible says, "There will be an iron yoke

put on your neck and it will oppress you." Okay, so go over to Isaiah. And Isaiah, I want to show you this text. I'm not going to wait because I'm in a hurry. Isaiah chapter 58, at the end of verse 9, listen to this, verse, the end of verse 9 it says this, "Remove the heavy yoke of oppression. Stop pointing your finger and spreading vicious rumors." And then it gives, watch this connection. It says, "Feed the hungry and help someone in trouble." And here's what happens. "Then your light will shine out from the darkness and the darkness around you will be as bright as noon." It's like you want to know how to get darkness out of your mind. You want to know how to get depression and loneliness out of your mind. Do something for someone else. And I know it's crazy, right? It's one of the hardest times because when you're in a dark place, it's the hardest to come out of your shell. And the enemy knows this. That's why he likes to keep us in dark places. But really, what it's telling us is when you lose your joy, the best thing you can do as a practice. Remember, joy is not a feeling. It's a practice. So what you can practice is you encourage someone. You can bless someone. You can serve someone. You can be generous. You can consider somebody else. So if I'm discouraged, you know the best way to get out of discouragement, be an encouragement to someone else. Just pull out my phone and text somebody says, "How's thinking about you? I just want to encourage you. You're an amazing man. You're an amazing father. I love you so much." I will actually find more joy in being a blessing to someone else than waiting on someone to bless me. So if I feel forgotten, overlooked, no one sees me, no one cares about me. I'm giving my all to this job and no one cares and I'm sinking deeper and deeper into depression. I'm sinking deeper and deeper into hopelessness. The best thing you can do is not lay on your bed and sulk. The best thing you can do is get out of your shell and go and find somebody else who's been overlooked and say, "I see you. I see you." Enjoy hides in the most unlikely of places. And I think this is why Paul is saying and how he starts it off by saying, "Hey, rejoice always. Now be considerate in all you do. Think of other people." And locked in this practice is where you will find joy. You'll actually find joy in this unlikely place. So sometimes I don't need to think my way out of discouragement. And that's the temptation, right? It's to think my way out of this. I'm going to think my way out of discouragement. The truth is I need to serve my way out of my own self-absorption. No way, man, it's cool. We'll keep going. Okay, Philippians 4-6, let's keep going to point two. Verse 6 says, "Don't worry about anything. Instead, pray about everything. Tell God what you want and thank him for all.

So point number two, this is gonna blow your mind. When you worry, pray, pray. Paul is giving us a practice. He's giving us something to practice. He's saying, "I got an instead for you." 'Cause he uses the word instead. He says, "When you worry, pray, instead, pray." Don't worry, I have an instead for you. So he introduces it as an instead. If you go all the way back to this text in Deuteronomy that we looked at at the very, I'm sorry, in Leviticus, Leviticus 6, it says, Leviticus 6, it says, "Each morning, the priest will go, "and he will add wood to the fire, "and he will arrange the offering." These two words, add and arrange, add and arrange. This word, arrange, I'm gonna tell you what, this word, arrange in the Hebrew, in the original Hebrew language is the word arach, and it means to arrange, to set or to lay out in order to set forth. Now, this really cool thing happened in David, David, King David, he's writing one of a Psalm, and we know by reading the Psalm that I'm about to read to you, he uses the exact same Hebrew word, and he's referring to the same Levitical text that I just read in chapter six, okay? So he says, "Hey, priest, this is what you gotta do "to keep the fire burning. "You're gonna add wood to it,

"and you're gonna arrange things on the altar." Now, watch how David says this, he uses the same Hebrew word, David says, "Every morning, "I lay out the pieces of my life on your altar. "I lay them out, I arrange them. "I arach my prayers, the pieces of my life on your altar, "and I watch for fire to descend." Okay, so David said, "I am choosing every morning "to make some arrangements in my life." So now we're forced to deal with this challenging thought that every single morning, every single one of us, myself included, we get to arrange our own life. Every day, we arrange our thoughts, we arrange our attention, we arrange what gets our attention, we arrange what gets to be first. We arrange what's gonna be the loudest voice in my mind today. And if you're like me, sometimes I don't always get this right. I try to get it right every day, I don't always do so, but for a lot of us, the alarm goes off before your feet ever touch the ground, you reach over and you grab this stupid little device and you pull it over and you turn the alarm off and then you open your email and you see bills and spam mail, right? And then you switch over and you go over to the news 'cause you need to see what happened overnight in the news, right? You gotta know what happened. And then you switch over to Instagram, but before you know it, you have covered a lot of territory

and before your feet ever have touched the ground for the day, you have already arranged your altar. You've already made the arrangements and your inbox reminded you how much work you had stressed you out. The news reminded you how crazy the world is, ticked you off. And then Instagram reminded you how not cool you are and you've compared yourself to every other mom and every other business owner. And so before we ever even get out of bed, we're discouraged. And then we go to work and we deal with stuff all day and kids and our bosses and then we get home and we sit down at eight o'clock and we're like, why do I have no joy? 'Cause we didn't practice. We get to choose how we arrange these areas of our life and so choose to arrange your life from the very moment you wake up. It's a choice, it's a choice. Joy in some regards is a choice, it's a choice. It's not a feeling. If there's a feeling, we know how that's going. It's a practice and Paul is laying this out for us to say and I've got ideas for you. And then he says, and then he uses this word instead. He says, worry about nothing, pray, but instead pray. Instead, it's almost like Paul knew I was going to preach the sermon, he's like, I got you John, I'm going to give you the practices

so that they know what to do on Tuesday morning when they start feeling joy vaporized before them. Just show them this, so I'm just going to show you this. I'm calling it the three teas of instead, okay? The three teas of instead. Here we go, you ready? I'm just pulling these right out of the Bible. He says, tell the Lord what you need. Number one, tell. Yeah, write that down, tell. You want to know a practice that you can do on Tuesday evening when you're discouraged, do this. Number one, tell the Lord what you need. that's Okay, number two, this says, thank him. Thank him for all that he has done. Thank him. This is the one that I don't always get the best right. Remember when the 10 lepers came to Jesus 10 lepers came to Jesus Jesus heals all 10 of them. This is they all turn and walked away only one of them came back to Jesus and said, thank you and that maybe that's a representation of me and you that 10% of the time I get it right. And I think Paul is saying you want to find joy that joy grows best in the soil of gratitude. And Paul is saying, never forget what the Lord has done for you. You need joy. You want joy. Do these things. And even if you go back to Deuteronomy 28 the scripture we open with he says. Serve the Lord with joy and then it says this not forgetting the abundance of what I've given you. Says the same thing in Deuteronomy eight kind of covers cover some of the same stuff of Deuteronomy eight on time to go there, but it says Israel will eat their fill build their fine homes and they will see their possessions multiply and then Moses warns them says, don't become proud at the time and forget what the Lord has done for you. So it's it's odd to me that they're on the banks of the Jordan River about to go into the promised land and Moses isn't saying, hey, do you know the number one way you're going to lose your joy. It's the wilderness that we just walked through it actually wasn't the wilderness. He didn't warn them about the wilderness. He said the most likely place you're going to lose your joy is in the promised land. Because you're going to forget. You're going to go into a season of abundance and you're actually going to forget everything that I've done for you through the wilderness seasons. And so it's like it's like abundance has this weird side effect. Amnesia. And the Lord is is warning us that in seasons, we if we're not careful, we will creep and drift into forgetting the goodness of God. So that's step two and then and then the third one is just that it's then then then you will experience God's peace. So he says, tell him what you want thinking for what he's done.

And then you're going to experience peace. In fact, the Bible says that it's a piece that will be on your comprehension. You won't even be able to understand it. It won't even make sense. What does that mean? It means that circumstances no longer determine my level of joy because I've gone through a practice. I've learned to practice joy. I've learned to not let circumstances determine my joy. I've learned the spiritual discipline and the spiritual formation in my own soul to arrange to arrange my soul in a proper fashion to not let the world arrange my soul. I'm arranging my soul and I'm telling God what I need. I'm thanking him for what he's done in the past and then I'm experiencing this boy just this joy that's just exceedingly abundantly more than I ever thought possible. In fact, before we go, let's just practice. All right, close your eyes real quick. We're going to practice. I'm going to show you what to do tomorrow morning. They take you 30 seconds. Okay, before you grab your phone. Before you turn on the TV. Before you do anything else every morning. This is all you're going to do. Okay, three teas. The three teas of instead do it right now in your own Lord knows your thoughts. You don't have to say that loud. Tell the Lord what you need right now practice. What do you need. All right, I know you're listening 30 things. Just one calm down, you know. All right, let's do the second one. Just thank him, thank him for what he's done. Thank him for your family, thank him for your job, thank him for your kids, thank him, thank him for breath in your lungs. Thank him that you're sitting on a pad of chair and not a hardwood pew like think of something. Thank you, Jesus. If you can't think of anything else, the shed blood of Jesus Christ washed away our sin. And it's gone as far as the east is from the west. Thank you, Jesus. That's why all through the scriptures, David refers to it as the joy of our salvation. Because we can always find joy in that. And then I hope you're experiencing even now just some sort of a peaceful moment like, yeah, you're right. I got his good. God's always been there for me. So why wouldn't he be there for me in the next? This is, this is the soil where you can find joy. let's go to verse eight. Verse eight says this, it's almost like Paul again. Paul's like, I got you, John. I knew you had three points and I'm going to make this one the last one because Paul says this. And now dear brothers and sisters, one final thing. Fix your thoughts. Fix your thoughts on he's going to like Paul is so good to us. He's just going to tell us exactly what we need to do. What is true and honorable and right and pure and lovely and admirable? Think about things that are excellent and worthy of praise. So point number three, last but not least, when you go dark, find the light. Okay. If you're like me, your mind has a way of drifting and your brain is a crazy place. Don't look at me like that. Y'all are just as crazy as me. You get dark thoughts, man. Like I'll wake up at two in

the morning and I'll have one thought. It usually starts with what if I have one thought and I'll lay there at my ceiling at two in the morning and in 10 minutes, my brain has written a 400 page fiction novel. Whole whole story played out to the end. Good, bad, the ugly, like they make a heck of a movie, you know, like I thought I thought all this up. And it was all based on a lie. And this what Paul saying is like, hey, you know what comes to rob you of your joy? It's between both your ears. And he says, I got an idea. Fix your thoughts. Fix your thoughts. Fix your thoughts. And I think we want to, we're waiting on somebody to come and like comfort us and help us. And that's great. You should have friends that do that. I'm not against that. I'm not opposed to that. It's a good thing. But Paul doesn't say find someone else to fix you. He says, fix your own thoughts. Fix your thoughts. I don't mean to be mean or rude, but no one, what if no one's coming to save you? What if joy is something that the Lord wants you to work through, right? The Bible says David encouraged himself in the Lord. His whole family had been wrought, had been stolen. They had kidnapped him and his entire army's families. And the Bible says that David sat down and encouraged himself. That's ninja powers right there. To be able to encourage myself and the Lord and Paul's like, I'll tell you how to do it. You want to know how to do it? Fix your thoughts. And then later in Corinthians, Paul would say, take every thought captive and make it obedient to Christ. You know what make it means? This is you have to make it do it because it's not going to do it on its own. And then in Romans, he says, you want to know how you'll be transformed by the renewing of your mind. This battle between your ears, this waging war between our ears. And I love Paul. He gets so practical for us. He says, I want you to ask yourself these questions, all right? Ask yourself these questions. And I don't have time to cover all of them. But spoiler alert, this week's devotional, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, we talk about every one of them, okay? And this is what Paul's saying. He's like, fix your thoughts. And let me tell you what you need to fix them on. And there's a question you ask yourself when you're not feeling joyful. Ask yourself this question. What is true? What is true? Well, I don't feel like anybody loves me. What is true? What is true? I feel like my past has ruined me and I'm never going to be able to do anything with my life again. No, no, no. That's that's that's a lie. What is true? And then Paul says, I guess some other questions you should

ask yourself, you should ask yourself, what's admirable? What's admirable? When I have that thought to smack that guy next time I've seen him, the Lord's like, no, what's admirable? You know, what's admirable? What's right? What is right? What's the right thing? What's pure? What's pure? What is lovely? What is admirable? He says, he says, ask yourself the question. What is excellent? And he says, ask yourself the question, what's worthy of praise? What's worthy of praise? So Paul gets really practical and gives us all of these weapons. So let me just summarize. Number one, when you're tempted to be inward, go outward, okay? When everything's percolating in here, that is your prompting, okay, I got to get out of this. I'm going to drive myself into the ground. It's time to step out of myself and do something for someone else. And joy will be right there. Joy is not here. Joy is there and serving, okay? When you worry, pray, we're going to practice the three instead, the three teas of instead. We're going to tell, we're going to thank, and then we're going to have peace. And when we go dark, we're going to find the light, okay? Because joy is a spiritual dish. these and find and carve out and mine out our lives, we will find joy on the other side. Are we always going to get that right? No, no. You're going to mess it up. Maybe tomorrow you'll mess it up, but then we're going to be reminded. We're going to ask the Holy Spirit to remind us. No, no, I got practices that I can step into and God is shaping me and molding me into all that He's making me to become. Why? Because we're all becoming followers of the way. We're all on our own journey. Okay? Let me pray for you. Lord, we thank You. We love You. That You're with us. That You're for us. That You lead us and You guide us without You. We're nothing. So Father, teach us to become followers of the way. Teach us to practice. Be our coach that takes us through these practices. Lord, help us to become better and better at practicing joy. And may that joy actually become a witness to those around us. We're so grateful that You joined us today. At Victory, we pray big prayers to a big God and we expect big results. If you would like to receive prayer, you can submit a prayer request by visiting victory.church/pray. If this message or any of our messages have impacted your life and you would like to partner with us through giving, you can do so at victory.church/give. Thank you again for joining us. At Victory Church, we live life to the full.

a.