It's already been such a blessing to me personally to be here with you this weekend. Thank you for the invitation to come to have fellowship together. It was a hard drive yesterday. It took about 12 hours, which is not what Google Maps said. You know how that goes. But it has already been so worth it just to sing together. The pleasure and privilege of being able to lift our voices up together in harmony It's an other worldly thing, it's an other worldly thing. And I'm so thankful to be able to participate with you in that. As we worship the Lord together, it has become kind of fashionable, I don't know, trendy, I guess is a way to say it. It seems like when I talk to people, they often say, we worship the Lord when we sing, and then there's the message. church is worship and then the message. And worship is synonymous in many people's minds with a worship band and various kinds of things that we might do to help our singing. And for a long time, that's not sounded right to me. And I finally realized one day, well, preaching is worship too, or listening or engaging in. It's not just one person rattling his vocal cords and other people letting their their, uh, eardrums pick up the sound it, that preaching is worship also done, done well in spirit blessed. So, um, then I began to realize that one of the reasons people may have made this dichotomy here is worship and there's preaching is that preaching is so very different from what we do in the singing, as in the content thereof. And I began to really get worried about that. I thought, is my preaching saying the same thing that the hymns are saying? Am I preaching that there is a rock of ages that is a cleft for me, even me? Is that what my preaching is sending out there? Is my preaching actually noting that when peace, like a river, attend with my way or when sorrows like sea billows roll, whatever my lot, you know, is my preaching saying thou has taught me to say it as well with my soul. Does the preaching harmonize with the singing and brothers and sisters that well should, it well should. So this is a big one before us this morning. This is a task we all have. to bring together those things now our hearts have been warmed to in the singing with what is a few moments of expounding the word. So as Brother Lewis mentioned, we began last night in First John. Appreciate so many of you coming back today. Often takes longer than that to recuperate from one of my sermons. So thank you for speeding that process along and coming on back today. First John is where we'll return this morning. First John chapter one, I'll read those verses again. First John chapter one, that which was from the beginning, that which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon and our hands have handled of the word of life. For the life was manifested and we have seen it and bear witness and show unto you that eternal life, which was with the father and was manifested unto us. That which we have seen and heard declare we unto you, that ye also may have fellowship with us. And truly our fellowship is with the father and with his son, Jesus Christ. And these things write we unto you that your joy may be full. And now we'll get verse five. This then is the message which we have heard of him. John says, if I could summarize 21 chapters of my gospel or the five chapters of this epistle, This then is the message which we have heard of him and declare unto you that God is light and in him is no darkness at all. Let's ask the Lord's blessings once more. Father, now we come again with our Bibles open and we wait to hear from you. My meditations are too weak for this task, Lord. My own words are too limited. my vocabulary paltry. So Lord God, I pray that you would get past all these weaknesses in the vessel. And then Lord, in this congregation, our ears are too stopped up with the cares of this world. Our hearts have been crusted over by various things, maybe sins. Even this morning, we may have found ourselves wandering far. And so Lord, the task before us is beyond us. We ask that you would meet us where we are, wherever that is. Minister deeply by pouring your oil of grace right into the deepest parts of the wounds of our hearts. Make us whole, we pray, by the entrance of your word. In Jesus' name, amen. Today, I would like to talk to you about what I'm calling a fellowship of pure joy, a fellowship of pure joy. When I announce a title like that, it immediately introduces a whole series of difficulties to us. Because if you know me very well, you know that I can be a real sad sack. I'm not necessarily a joyful person by temperament, unlike some others in this room. And so it seems a little odd for somebody like me, who can be extremely melancholy, to talk about a fellowship of pure joy. The idea that there is held before the people of God, the possibility of the experience of joy, even in this broken world. We aren't home yet, brothers and sisters. So the absolute, purity of joy is not to be ours until we get home. But John emphasizes to us today that it is possible that we, even in our broken conditions, have the pleasure and opportunity to enter into a joy which is not of this world. And it is this to which I call us all this morning. If I could draw a model, if I had a whiteboard or a blackboard up here in front of us to draw a model, I might do it this way. I might draw a circle at the top of the board and a circle at the bottom of the board. And I might say, all the good stuff is up here in this top circle. You are down here in this bottom circle. All the good stuff is up there and we are down here. And then I would draw a connecting link between those two circles. I would draw a line between those two circles and say, what first John is saying to us is all the good stuff is up there, but now I would like to talk to you about all the ways in which we can draw as near to that as sinful people can. In every way, brothers and sisters, we should have this great desire to be lifted up to the point that we participate in the incredible joy that God has prepared for his people. This is the way we sing after all, right? From every stormy wind that blows, remember that line that says, and heaven comes down our souls to greet and glory crowns the mercy seat. We sing this way. We say all is vain unless the spirit of the Holy One come down. Well, what do we mean by that? If the Holy Spirit does come down and bless us, we are lifted up in spirit to join the great joy, to participate in the great joy that God has prepared for his people. And we pray that way. Brother Zach prayed that way this morning. prayed about the fact that this isn't heaven yet, but it is a foretaste of heaven. I mentioned to Brother Lewis in the last, I guess yesterday, that I've been scrolling through kind of looking at vision statements by different churches. Look online and see all the different things churches set themselves to do and be. Vision statements, we call them. And they all sound about alike. They tend to be formulaic. Uh, they tend to turn me off to be honest with you, just to be perfectly frank. But the fact is what brother Zach said in his prayer is my vision for the church. You know what that is? My vision for the church is that we would experience enough of heaven week by week to increase our longings for that and put us out of taste with this world. This is the job that we engage in together as local churches. to be connected enough with that which is to come that we're put out of taste with this world and its shenanigans. Now, the thing about that, in case you're one of those people, and I hope there are some here, who are very much minded to engage the world around us, the thing about doing what I just said is it actually produces a greater benefit for this world when we get the world out of our focus, If we can take that off the shelf for a minute and say, I just want to tune in with heaven. The person tuned in with heaven often finds himself now in a place to minister to those of earth around. Well, John is going to help us with this. I think if you can stay with me, some of this is a bit, a bit tedious, admittedly. John is going to help us here. I think. Because as we mentioned last night, he introduces to us the mysterious glory of Christ as the one who has been from the beginning. How did all this get started? It got started in the mind and purpose of God before the world began, Christ who is from the beginning. And then it continues through story after story after story after story as individuals' lives are changed and their mouths can't keep silent. God opens our lips and we pour forth the praises of the one who has changed our lives. The one who has taken us captive and we are happy captives. Listen, everybody is a captive. If you're sitting there thinking, I don't want this Christianity stuff because I don't want to be a slave to something. Then you are a slave already. You're a slave to your own desires. You're a slave to your, perhaps to the world around you, perhaps to Satan himself. Everybody's a slave. Everybody's a captive. Christ's captivity is one that is more liberating than any other kind of liberty. Being enslaved to Christ is more liberating than any other kind of liberty. A remarkable paradox found in scripture. John will hear say, Christ from the beginning, and he will then start talking and not stop. He'll say, you think it's a myth? You think it isn't even true? You think Christ is not all that he says he is? I was there, John says. I heard him. I saw him. I touched him. Increasing levels of intimacy, right? You hear something in a distance and you think, wait, was that? Was that a mockingbird or wait, was that a whippoorwill? What was that sound? Was that a crow? I need to have my hearing checked. Was that a crow? And then you see, and then those very rare occasions you touch, right? All the way down to the most intimate of relationships with our Lord. John says, I was there. And here I am to tell you about it. But I want to focus now our attention. That's not the whole sermon. Don't you always love it when someone preaches for like 30 minutes and then says, what I really want to talk about today is, I thought you already had done that. Please. What I really want to talk about today is verse three. This then, he says, that which we have seen and heard, those things I've just been talking about, declare we unto you that. Here's the purpose. I'm not just saying this so that it might be said. I'm not just saying this to hear my own voice rattle. I'm not just doing this so I can make some noise. or draw attention to myself. No, I am telling you about this one Christ in order that you might have fellowship with us. John writing to his initial audience says, there is a way in which those of you who didn't see him like I did can see him, can experience him and have fellowship with me as if you were there too. Now this should interest us because we're 2000 years removed. John is writing to people, frankly, in a similar situation as ours. People who may not have seen Christ firsthand. And here we are, 100%, 100% of our crowd today, not one of us has seen Christ face to face or touched his flesh. So John is writing to a similar situation, isn't he? And he's going to say, there is a way in which you brothers and sisters, though far removed from the person of Christ in physical form, can have fellowship with those of us who knew him intimately. And John says, that's what I'm about. So in a way, I would like to suggest that this is an invitation. It's an invitation to all of us to come into fellowship with the Lord and with John. To have fellowship with us, he says. Truly, our fellowship is with the father and with his son, Jesus Christ. Now the Holy Spirit is not absent, of course, but John will highlight the two persons of the Trinity. This holy sacred fellowship, he says, which is which is life giving. It's a fellowship that charges us up when we are run down. It's the kind of thing that causes bowed heads to raise up. Don't know the times that I've been in church and there's a heaviness. And then in the holy. Sweetness of God spirit begins to descend. The words are spoken and bowed heads begin to lift up. I've literally seen this happen. Bowed heads begin. I get the best seat in the house you see. That is when I'm preaching and and bowed heads begin to lift up why? Because people are being invited into the fellowship of the living Son of God. And the closer they get to that, the more the bowed head begins to lift. The more the drooping shoulders begin to square. The more the heart begins to sing. John is going to invite us into this. All the good stuff is up there. You're down here, but my job is to lift you as close to that as you can get. I hope that you know that experience. holy sacred fellowship that lifts the bowed head. Now you may know, I don't spend as much time looking at Greek stuff as I should, Greek stuff. But you may know that this word, this fellowship word is a word fairly popular these days, koinonia. And the word implies not just what we think of when we think of fellowship. Fellowship could be anything. You could get together at a community barbecue and talk about the races, NASCAR or something, and call it fellowship. And there is a measure of fellowship experience in a thing like that. But it is, of course, something even deeper than that. The fellowship that's under consideration here is a fellowship of participation in something. This is not just a matter of we happen to have a common interest and so we'll talk about that for a while until the next interesting thing comes along. But there is actually something real there into which everybody is being fed or from which, maybe it's a better picture, from which everybody in the circle is being fed. A participation in a thing that is there and real, not just created by the people present. but something already present into which everybody is plugged. Do you understand? You know, like plugging in the lamp into the power. The idea then is John wants us to participate in this fellowship that is real and living and life-giving. So to participate in this fellowship, we are drawn by grace to be joined into the one who is eternal life. That's what John described or how John described Christ, the one who is eternal life. We are brought into the fellowship of the one who is eternal life. And if you're a believer today, then chapter five, verse 13 of first John says, I've written these things to you that you may know that you have eternal life. Well, that's an amazing transfer, isn't it? Here we introduce Jesus, who is eternal life. And John says, let's draw as near to the joy of that as we can draw. And then he comes to the end of his book and says, I've actually written these things so that you may know not that Christ has eternal life. Yes, that too. But that you have eternal life, that the life principle in Christ is so very strong that those for whom he has purposed this great gift. Those who have been blessed by the gift of faith and have drawn nearby faith to him are blessed themselves to possess what Christ possesses. That's the progression of first John. Just like the progression of light. God is light. And light doesn't stand still. 1 John 1, verse 5, God is light and in him is no darkness at all. Light is as mysterious today as it, well, we may know a few more things about light, but light is still very mysterious. Talk to the experts. Is it a wave? Is it a particle? What is light after all? Mysterious, isn't it? I love that about God. Did you know that if you could figure God out, is he a particle? Is he a wave? What is God? If you could figure God out, you'd get bored with God. The glory of coming back week after week after week to hear the message of the gospel expounded, the glories of God spread forth in the preaching of the word, the glory of that is it continues to deepen our awareness of who God is and also heighten our sense of mystery of who he is. And it keeps us so intrigued, doesn't it? So, so John, John is going to say, this is an invitation into a fellowship of the Holy Trinity. And it is mysterious beyond us. The one who is eternal, whose life force is so strong that for all who draw near to him, they too receive this eternality. of life, even as, as he possesses, we are good at taking life. God can take a life if he wants to, but he can also give a life. We're no good at giving life. God is really good at both. You ever noticed that God is able to take a life and give it back. We're unfortunately, there are those murderers who take life, but they can't give it. God can do both, and here we see that wonderful eternal life, Jesus Christ, and we invited into his presence. Now, this is a kind of friendship that the Lord is calling us to, that I would that all of us could enter into, a kind of friendship with the Holy Trinity. Now, friendship is a rather mysterious thing as well, as you may know. I remember when I was in first grade, the first day of first grade, I would almost ask you to raise your hand. How many of you remember your first day of first grade? I remember nothing else. Daniel's got it. First day of first grade. I remember being there. And the only thing I remember about the first day was that recess time came and we're out on the playing field. It wasn't really much of a playground back then. But you still, you know, kids found things to play. Listen, you don't need all the fancy stuff. Newsflash. We found things to do. Well, there came a point where I kind of slipped away from the crowd a little bit and walked over to a fence post, which flanked the play area. And I walked over to that fence post, and I don't know, but it feels like my arms were up on that post, but I wouldn't have been tall enough, so I'm not quite sure how this memory is coming together, but it feels like my hands, my arms were up on the fence post. I'm standing there, looking out at this gorgeous field beyond, a big valley down below, and a field and a farm, and I'm looking at this scene, just kind of standing there, I've always been this way, staring, and I look over and two posts down, there stands another first grade kid doing the same thing I'm doing. Well, that was strange. And it was as if I was in my heart saying, wait a minute, you like this too? And so I said, ain't that purdy? I still remember, ain't that purdy? Old West Virginia accent and everything. And my new friend said, yeah, it sure is. And we became fast friends from that day forward. I still see him from time to time. From that day forward, we were almost inseparable, just because we both liked the same thing at that instant. That was the moment friendship began. You could tell your own stories like this, right? The Lord is so gracious. I love the way God meets us where we are again and again and again and again. I know we talk a lot about trying to stand on tiptoe and trying to kind of measure up and, you know, cross the Ts and dot the Is and all these things which are important to note. And frankly, I hate to tell you this, that may be where we have to land tomorrow on Sunday with how punctilious all this has to be done. But let's not forget that God is enormously kind to meet us where we are. And so there we stand. There we stand in our loneliness, our emptiness, our brokenness. There we stand, our elbows up on the fence, so to speak, looking out there and longing for something. And we look over and the Lord is standing there, looking there too. There's the Lord standing there and the Lord says, let's be friends. Let's be friends. I don't want to go Arminianism. If you know what that is, if you don't, please don't worry your head at all about this, but I don't want to go there. It's not as if an individual has complete and utter freedom to just say, I'll, you know, be chewing my bubble gum and walk down an aisle and accept God. It's not as if a person has total freedom to do this. We're bound under sin, you see. But at the same time, God is calling all of us into this deeper friendship with the Lord, a place where we find ourselves reaching upward into that fellowship of pure joy that we're about to talk about. So it's something of an invitation to friendship with our Lord. It is at least an invitation to friendship with John. And to be friends with John, is to be friends with Jesus because he's so saturated with Jesus. May your life be that way too. I long to be like that. I'm far from it. I would love for my neighbors and my family and my students, all these people around me, that whenever they're friends with Thomas, that almost automatically means that you just can't help being at least friendly toward Jesus because he's so connected to him. That should be our goal, shouldn't it? Well, pardon the tedium. Let's take a minute and talk about this fellowship of pure joy. Now, to do this, to talk about the fellowship of pure joy that John says, because he says, right, these things write I unto you that your joy may be full. That's it. I want you to have fellowship, and this fellowship is one of joy. Now, all of us have our various ideas about this, I suspect. Psalm 1611, for example, says, in thy presence is fullness of joy, at thy right hand are pleasures forevermore. The delight of being in the presence of God. This is a verse that oftentimes consoles us when we think about those loved ones who go on from this world to the next. Or when we think about our own demise, we think about our own mortality and think about how dark it may come to be at the end of our lives here. And yet to know there's this prospect of everlasting joys in the presence of God there. So we revel in this idea of a place that is nothing but joy. So we've heard this morning where there is no discord, there is no difference of opinion, where there are none of those awkward spots in our relationships where you just hope that the cycle doesn't come around to that again. None of that. No brother against brother, no sister against sister, no gossip behind the back. No manipulation, no pulling the rug out from under, no stab in the back. None of these kinds of things that we are so accustomed to in this disordered situation we find ourselves in now. At the right hand are pleasures forevermore in thy presence is fullness of joy. Well, John picks up on that language right here, doesn't he? From Psalm 1611. John picks up on that language and probably is intending for us to remember that from the Psalms, for he uses the same language. These things write we unto you that your joy may be full. You may never feel like your joy is completely full in this world. What is he asking us to do? To borrow from, to participate in a place that is full of joy. To the extent that you're able to participate in that fullness of joy, you too experience fullness. of joy. Now, most of us like to explain this away because we all live sad sack lives compared to what we should live. Well, almost all of us. To think of every single sin being wiped away, Christ's entire forgiveness for all your sins. To think of an everlasting future that is so full of adventure and delight happiness beyond measure with thousands and thousands, a millions upon millions of people, all of whom love you just as much as can possibly be. And your Savior Christ right there in the center of it all. So suffusing everything going on that everything you do is him and everything you see is him and everybody you talk to is him. To think about a future like that prepared for the people for whom God has predestined it. should set us off into orbit in such a way that we just couldn't shut up. But I also know that that emotion of joy cannot be commanded. It can't be commanded. I can stand here and say, guys, get it together. Come on, let's be joyful. Let's be joyful. Come on, rejoice, everybody rejoice. And we, of course, have people who are good at manipulating in such a way that we might kind of beat up the crowd into some sort of a frenzy and mimic joy. We all know about those things. But then some of us have these other kind of workarounds also. Sometimes we go so far as to say, well, you know, the Bible talks about joy, but it doesn't talk about happiness. Those are two different things. Well, maybe in some ways. But that's really not even true either. You look at the scriptures. And what do you find out? Well, it says rejoice in the Lord. There's joy. It says be glad in the Lord. But notice also, Psalm 144, happy is that people whose God is the Lord. Yea, happy is that people whose God is the Lord. Or happy is that people that is in such a case. Yea, happy is that people whose God is the Lord. Even the word blessed. The Beatitudes Jesus gives in the Sermon on the Mount, the word means happy. Happy, happy, happy, happy. Right there it is. Now, as one brother put it, he said the Bible is indiscriminate in the pleasure language it uses. It uses happy, it uses joy, it uses glad, rejoice. Well, there are maybe a couple more. Pleasure. Frankly, the English language is a bit poverty stricken when it comes to pleasure language. I don't know if you've noticed that or not. There are a lot more words to describe being mad at the world than there are being happy with it. You ever notice our language is kind of messed up like this. We're tilted toward the negative, just in the words that are available to us. But the Bible uses all these words. And so I think the better dichotomy is not to say, well, we believe in joy, not happiness. I don't think that's the right dichotomy. I think the one that we do need to emphasize is this. There is a right kind of joy and a wrong kind of joy. And there's a right kind of happiness and a wrong kind of happiness. There's a right source of joy and a wrong source of joy. A right source of happiness, a wrong source of happiness, you see. I think that's the better dichotomy to make. John is going to say, I would like to invite you into a pure fellowship of joy, a place where it is possible that even when times are dark and hard, there is a joy that does not go away. Yeah, even a happiness that does not subside in thy presence is fullness of joy at the right hand or pleasures forevermore to come into the presence of the Holy Trinity is to be completely filled with joy. It is to be ushered into a place. Maybe it's a location. Or maybe it's a state of mind. Or an attitude of heart. Or a disposition of the soul. To be ushered into this place is pleasure forevermore. And John's writing is designed to lift us as close to that place as we can get. So now, if you're wrestling, please join the club. If you're wrestling and say, well, wait, this all sounds OK, but you know this isn't real life. Brother Thomas, come on, get real with us. Real life is not this fellowship of pure joy. What are you talking about? I mean, I'm going through a divorce right now. My children are rebelling right now. My parents are ill and probably going to die soon. My job is a question mark. I hate going to work every day. My mortgage, I'm behind in it. I'm so deep in debt, I don't know that I'll ever see the end. My own life is full of sin. Can't seem to break the addictions. That's the life I know, Brother Thomas. What are you talking about, anyway? You see why pews empty out? You see why churches close? See, the Bible really isn't relevant to real life, is it? You know not to tune out right there, don't you? John is writing to just that kind of folk. John is writing to just these kinds of people whose lives may be falling apart to whose struggles may be intense, or he may be writing to folks that sometimes we have known this as well, where we are rich and increased with goods and have need of nothing. But the Thomas don't talk to us about the fellowship of pure joy, because after all, that's what I'm living out on the golf course every day. I, we serve families at our school who are, you know, in middle to upper middle income brackets and maybe a little beyond that. Talk to these people and they're, you know, frequently gone on a cruise or they're doing other things that out in West Virginia where I grew up, we didn't know what those things were. And you hear this and think, well, that's the great life, man, isn't that a good life? Look at that, it's such a good life. And certainly I'm not deploring those things. But the point is that many times in our Western world, where we've been blessed so freely by God in material ways, we begin to think that the real joy under consideration is this life of ease and pleasure and safety. That's a big one nowadays, isn't it? Safety. Anybody ever told you, like in the last five days, has anybody said, now be safe as if you can be safe. Now you can be careful that is full of care in the choices and decisions you make, but you cannot be safe. That's the effect of something that you don't have immediate control over. You see, it's all about control. Well, anyway, that's another subject. We are in this time when idols are everywhere, aren't they? No wonder John ends his book by saying, little children, keep yourselves from idols. Stay away from them. Why? Because they are going to compete with this thing, this place, this disposition that God has in mind, this place of pure joy that's going to be sullied by, it's going to be spoiled by the idols that we put in its place. The fellowship of pure joy. Are we out of time? This is getting ridiculous. Okay, so not quite, but if you can stay with me just a little bit longer and then They promised me that there is food here in a few minutes, so that makes it worth it, doesn't it? Speaking of pure joy. The fellowship of pure joy. Could I talk for a moment about the power that joy has in our life? The power of joy. power of joy. You may be thinking of verses like this one, Nehemiah 810, the joy of the Lord shall be your strength. You ever found that to be true? The pursuit of joy has actually been the strength that kept you going when you couldn't otherwise. It's like this is hard, hard, hard, hard right now, but there is a joy awaiting and I will work for that joy. This is valid. Some of you are in college right now. Exams are coming up. All-nighters are coming up. Painful, isn't it? But there's a joy awaiting, isn't there? I remember when I walked across that stage to get my college diploma, it took like five seconds. That's all it took, five seconds. Boop, boop, boop, boop, boop. They call your name and there's hundreds of others and all that jazz. And so five seconds, I walk across the stage, pick up that document, walk back to my seat. I'd been in college for five years. I thought. Five seconds made those five years worth it. There was a joy set before me, see. It's valid and I know it is because this is precisely what Holy Writ says about Jesus. Our Savior Christ endured the pain of the cross. Hebrews chapter 12 verse two. He endured the cross, despising the shame for what for the joy that was set before him. Christ was able to look through and pass the horrors of the cross, and we can't even begin to imagine those woe be unto us if we don't try. We'll do that another time, but but the horrors of the cross endured for us. The very loss of the father father. Into the hands I commit my spirit, but before he says that, what does he say? My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me for Christ to go through this very split in the Trinity. How do you say this? This very dark spot at which the father turns his face away from the son. My God, my God, why has thou forsaken me? To go through that knowing that at the end there's joy. To go into the darkness of the tomb, but to know that eventually there is a resurrection. To go into the very jaws of hell itself, experiencing all of the fiery darts of the wicked one at one time. For every one of his people and all of the future of punishment, wrath, just wrath poured out in one moment to endure this, but to do it for the joy set before him, the delight of being able to stand before his father and to say, behold, I and the children which thou hast given me. Look at the family, God. Look at the family. Look at all those redeemed by the blood of the Lamb. the joy that was set before him doing perfectly his father's will. The delight of this, you see, carry Jesus through the darkest time of human history. We might even say of divine history, those are really the same thing. The joy of the Lord shall be your strength. What is the power of joy? Joy is that which will carry us through the darkness. and the darkest times of our lives. I am not unaware that in a crowd of this size. Someone may be going through the darkest time of your life. If you haven't, if you're not now, you have been. You know. What it was like to get the phone call. You know what it was to find out about that illness. You know what it is to. I don't know what your dark spot is, but God does. Is it possible that what John is talking about could even get down into crevices like that? Well, brothers, sisters, I feel so cheap when I say it this way because my vocabulary is so limited. It seems so cheap to say it this way, but the answer to that question is yes. Answer to that question is yes, but there is a joy of God that can penetrate even the darkest part, that deep cavern of pain that nobody even knows is there. God is able to get down in there with his joy that sustains us. Now. There are times that when we're going through those occasions that we don't feel it. I feel like I get profoundly unspiritual when I go through trials. You ever feel that way? It's like I thought I hear the preachers talk about. It's like trials are when you really grow and you're spiritually strong and God is there and all this. He shows up and shows off and. My experience is that when I go through trials and I feel like abandoned by everybody, God too. That's what makes a trial a trial, isn't it? What makes a trial a trial is not knowing where God is in the thing. You may be one of those. Now, not all my, I have some colleagues, I went through COVID back in the summer and it was awful. And there were a couple of times I thought I might die. And looks like I didn't, but at the time it sure seemed like it might happen. And so, you know, you're working through this and you're just feeling like, what? This is crazy. This is just awful. There is nothing good about this. It's just awful. And I've got a colleague at school who was texting me every day and she said COVID was the best thing that ever happened to me. I don't even understand your type, okay? It's like, I got so close to God while I was going through that. I just, God brought me so near to him. It was so sweet. And I'm thinking, this is so not me. Am I even born again? This is awful. Maybe you're a little more like me. I don't know, but I hope you're not. But if you are, just know that sometimes we don't feel it right then, right? There's sometimes that the feeling isn't there, but the Lord has never told us that we go just on feelings, right? He's never told us just if you feel like it, do it. the Huckleberry Finn kind of way of dealing with life. Just choose whatever's handiest at the time. In other words, whatever you feel like at the time, just choose that morality or none of that. And that's not biblical. We know that. So of course, it's not in trial either. What must be done? Faithfulness? Stick to what we know to be real? Know that in a moment of insanity, which is what happens when sin is, when we are tempted to sin, it's a moment of insanity. Know that we must stick to the commitments we made when we weren't insane. Look, many of you have been baptized. You were baptized in a moment when you were not insane. You were in full possession of your faculties, and perhaps if it was like me, you were just overwhelmed with a sense of the presence of God. Overwhelmed. Couldn't believe that God could be that good to one like me. Your baptism is a moment when you were sane. Three weeks later, when you committed that sin was a moment when you were insane. That is, you'd lost your faculties for a bit. We must stick to that which is connected to those moments that we were saying. Is it possible that there's a joy there that can permeate and penetrate all things? It seems that John is saying so. And these things, right? We unto you that your joy may be full and he doesn't take it back to see. John just puts it out there that your joy may be full. Power of joy. Power of joy is that which takes us through when it seems like we can't get through. There's so much more that could be said. If you think about how joy works, it is a pretty amazing thing. You've often heard, perhaps, that people say, well, to motivate people, you need the, have you ever heard this, the carrot and the stick? You ever heard this? To motivate people, you need the carrot and the stick. And I think what they mean by that is, you've got to have something sweet. Now, carrots don't work these days, but once I guess they did. Hershey's candy bar okay out there on you've got to have the sweet thing out there as a motivation Sweet privilege coming your way Hershey's can't for me. You know mint chocolate chip ice cream made by Breyers. It's hard to beat That's that's the incentive right I'm going to press toward that and And then the other side of the incentive is the stick, which is this is going to come down on your back, and it is going to hurt if you don't do the right thing. The carrot and the stick. Joy is that carrot, isn't it? Think about it. I don't know the times. Let's just be practical for a minute, really practical. It's awful to confess this, but I'm 600 miles from home, so I'll do it, even though the Internet collapses that distance considerably. You know, there have been so many times over the years when it was my responsibility as a pastor to go see somebody who was sick, and I didn't want to. I don't know what to say, and I don't know if they even really want me to pray or not. I don't even know if they want me to show up or not, but I guess I'd better go. That's my job. You drag yourself over to the hospital, find a place to park, and you pay the parking price, and you ride this elevator and that elevator, and you walk through this tunnel and up those stairs and get on another elevator. Oh, Lord, please help me. Good night. My attitude is wrong. And in an elevator shaft, how many times to repent? Lord, you've been so good to come to me whenever surely you didn't want to. I mean, I can't imagine God ever wanting to come to some of the messes I've made, yet he was so good to. Here's somebody who's fallen to sickness and maybe their attitude isn't very good either. Lord, please help me to repent that I may pursue you in the process of helping this brother or sister. And you know what's happened over and over again? Well, you know, of course you've done it too. You leave the hospital feeling like a million bucks. Wait a minute, how'd that happen? I went there to cheer them up and I got cheered up. I went there to minister to them and I got ministered to. You ever gone to the funeral home to try to help somebody and encourage somebody in the time of loss? And you walked away and they had encouraged you. When Hannah's Aunt Debbie died, Sister Debbie Fulmer, six or 700 people gathered at the funeral. One of them was Elder Jerry Hunt Sr. Some of you know him very well. I was walking with Brother Jerry Sr. down to the grave and he looked at me and he said, well, I came over here, he said, to try to give some encouragement to the family. Lo and behold, Brother Jimmy, that's her husband, preached a sermon that encouraged me. That's exactly the dynamic God has in mind, isn't it? What is going on here? There is a fullness of joy coming in to the mix that you would not have expected. Whoa, didn't see that coming. Shock. How does joy work? It's not just a byproduct. For a long time, I think I labored that way thinking, well, you know, occasionally the joy shows up and that's a nice extra. It's not just a byproduct. John is telling us here. He is writing specifically for this purpose that we may have fellowship with him, the father and the son, and thereby joy. And so today, if your heart is lonely, distraught, filled with sorrow, pain, fears, disappointment. If your heart in short is broken. God invites you to into a fellowship of pure joy. A place where the shockiness things can happen. In the littlest places. For there are no little places or little people with God, you see. These little places. where God chooses to meet us and fill our hearts with joy such that we walk away feeling better than a million bucks because he has had fellowship with us. The power of joy is enormous, and I would invite you to the pursuit of it in God, not the things, the idols, in God. More to come, perhaps, Let's pray and ask the Lord to work this into our souls. Father, we are, again, so bad at this, and I pray that you would help us to get better. I pray that John's massage of our souls here would be really good for all of us. We know, Lord, that we desperately need to be encouraged, our hearts lifted up, our faces plastered with good smiles, our souls laughing and happy. We know that we need to be joyful in the Lord for this is our strength and we definitely need strength in this day. So please teach us Lord of your ways. We pray. Help us to have the fellowship with the father that you intend that our hearts may be filled with that joy that John proposes in Jesus name. We pray. Amen.