In this chapter, in the passages just before verse 11 that we're going to be looking at today, Paul has been praying for the believers in Colossae to have a worthy walk. And the worthy walk is characterized by supernatural strength. The strength of the Lord, all might, according to his glorious power. And then Paul also told us what the purpose of divine strength is. And the purpose of divine strength is threefold. So that we might have patience, endurance through trials and difficulties, and longsuffering. And it takes the power of God to enable the believer to endure and to be longsuffering. But here's where the real power of God is manifested. To be able to have patience and longsuffering with joyfulness. Colossians chapter one and verse eleven strengthened with all might, according to his glorious power unto all patients and long-suffering with joyfulness. Let's pray. Father, we thank you for these moments that we have to reflect in the word of God and to consider the importance of the joy of the Lord in our lives as believers. And Father, we pray that your Holy Spirit would teach and guide and instruct us. And Lord, we pray that this joy would be evident in each one of our lives. For your honor and glory, we pray in Jesus' name. Amen. The term that Paul uses for joyfulness here is very often misunderstood, especially, I think, in Christian circles. It's the fruit of the Spirit. It isn't happiness that he's talking about. It is rather a deep, settled, abiding sense of contentment, a sense of well-being that is based upon faith and the knowledge of God. Joy is very often misunderstood as happiness or bubbliness. And I think very often this has resulted in a lot of unnecessary heartaches trouble in the lives of God's people. And even results, I think, sometimes in hypocrisy. And here's how. We know as believers, we've been taught that joy is the fruit of the Holy Spirit and that when we're controlled by the Holy Spirit, the fruit of the Spirit, including joy, will be evident in our lives. And if the fruit of the Spirit isn't evident in our lives, then that means that we're walking in the flesh and not in the Spirit. It's the norm for a believer's life to be characterized by the filling of the Holy Spirit and the fruit of the Spirit, love and joy and peace. In fact, it's a command. We're commanded in Ephesians 5 to be filled with the Spirit, and if we're not walking in obedience to that command, we're living in disobedience. Now, you can see where this trouble could come in, in the lives of believers. They know some of these facts in the Scriptures. They know that we're to be filled with the Spirit, we're to be filled with joy all the time, 24-7, every day of the week. It's to be an abiding part of our walk with Christ. And then perhaps some well-meaning but ignorant Christian quotes to him James 1-2, when difficulties arise in his life. And he quotes to him, count it all joy when you fall into diverse temptations. And this perhaps ignorant or untaught believer is going to think, well, here I am falling in this awful period in my life and God expects me to be happy. Or maybe some other well-meaning but ignorant believer quotes to him Philippians 4.4 and says, Rejoice in the Lord always. And here is this poor believer who is going through a trial, a tragedy in his life, and is assuming that he has to rejoice in the sense that he has to be happy all the time. And you know, if we have a wrong definition of joy, that can result in some wrong and terribly hurtful conclusions that we're going to draw from this. If we have the idea of the world's concept of joy, that it's based upon circumstances and that it's virtually equal to happiness or bubbliness or even giddiness, then let's face it, that doesn't characterize our lives 24-7. We're not always happy in that sense. And before too long, that new believer is going to be questioning whether he's walking with the Lord, might even start questioning whether he knows the Lord, whether he's even saved or not. Perhaps he begins questioning whether Christ works, whether Christianity works, or maybe that Christ has let him down because here he is trying to walk with the Lord and bad things happen and he gets down and he feels discouraged at times. And maybe he's going to feel like a failure that he let the Lord down because he's not always happy. And I think sometimes believers take it even a step beyond that and pretend to be happy. and put on a phony smile, and say things that he doesn't believe, that he doesn't really mean, just because of peer pressure, and he thinks that that's what he's expected to say, and that's the way he's expected to behave. And what a shame when believers, because of ignorance, because of a misunderstanding of what the joy of the Lord is, begins to fake joy. And he lives a lie. And it's especially sad when tragedy strikes. You know, God doesn't expect us to be happy all the time. When sad things happen, it's okay to be sad. And in fact, while we are expected to be filled with the fruit of the Spirit all the time, one of which is joy, that doesn't mean that that's inconsistent with being sad. When you hear news about an awful car accident or a tragedy that has come upon your family or you hear an awful news from the doctor, God doesn't want you to be happy about that. That's not what joy means. Joy is not happiness. Happiness is dependent upon favorable circumstances. You know, we're happy when the sun is shining. We're happy when we're in a good mood. We're happy when we get a promotion. We're happy when our son graduates tops in his class. We're happy when the Red Sox win the World Series. Now that's a little stretch, but And then when unfavorable circumstances befall us, we're sad. We get laid off from work, or the car breaks down, or the washing machine breaks down. You know, when bad things happen, God doesn't want us to pretend that we're happy. God doesn't want to pretend that those bad things, those trials, didn't happen. And if we put on that phony smile and we say things that we don't really mean when trials strike us and we're going through difficult times and we try to pretend like we're happy, that is not the fruit of the Spirit. That is flesh. That is phony. There is nothing whatsoever phony about Christ or Christianity. You know, one of the definitions of insanity is when our words and thoughts don't relate to what's happening around us. And when bad things happen to us and we pretend that we're happy, well, you can draw your own conclusion. Turn to Habakkuk, chapter 3. Like a Nahum Habakkuk, chapter 3, in verse 17. In the Bible, joy is not related to circumstances. In the Bible, joy is certainly not confined to favorable circumstances, and we see that repeatedly. In Habakkuk 3, verse 17, the prophet says, Although the fig tree shall not blossom, neither shall fruit be in the vines. The labor of the olive shall fail, and the field shall yield no meat. The flock shall be cut off from the fold, and there shall be no herd in the stalls. He says, yet will I rejoice in the Lord, and I will joy in the God of my salvation. Here Habakkuk describes outward circumstances that were very bleak, tragic in fact. And the prophet certainly wasn't happy with these circumstances, but he did have joy. His joy was not dependent upon earthly prosperity. Turn to 2 Corinthians chapter 8. We see this again, 2 Corinthians chapter 8. Here Paul describes the churches in Macedonia and he says of them in verse 2, how that in great trial of affliction, the abundance of their joy and deep poverty abounded unto the riches of their liberality. Here Paul was describing churches in the region of Macedonia, and they were going through great trials, great suffering and affliction and poverty, and yet it says that their joy abounded. In the midst of the affliction, they had joy. Their joy was not dependent upon outward circumstances. It wasn't dependent upon happiness. It wasn't dependent upon happenstances around them. It wasn't dependent upon their wallet. in the midst of the affliction and poverty, they had great joy and their joy abounded. He says, look in the same book in chapter six, second Corinthians, chapter six and verse ten. Here, the apostles said of themselves as sorrowful and yet always rejoicing. The apostles were sad at times When sad things happened to them, they were sad. When difficulties arose in their lives, they didn't pretend they were happy, they were sad. Paul says there were many times when we were sorrowful, yet in the midst of their sorrow and grief, they were rejoicing. There's nothing inconsistent about being, at the same time, sad and sorrowful and grief-stricken, and yet have the joy of the Lord in our hearts. And I think the songwriter had it just right when he said, Oh joy, that seekest me through pain. You know, our Savior never stopped rejoicing in the Lord for one moment. He always had the joy of the Lord in his heart. And yet, how did the prophet, the Old Testament prophet Isaiah describe him? As a man of sorrow and acquainted with grief. Paul says that we're to rejoice in the Lord always. And Paul wrote that from prison. He wasn't happy with the circumstances. He was in prison. He was bound. And yet he had the joy of the Lord. Circumstances don't have to be favorable for us to have joy. In fact, sometimes we can appreciate the joy of the Lord to the greatest degree when our circumstances are the worst. Grief and sorrow, trial and tragedy may bring to an end our happiness momentarily, but they can't touch our joy in the Lord. You see, the joy of the Lord is the fruit of the Spirit, and it's unrelated to circumstances. We can and we should have joy in the Lord all the time. Now, go back to Colossians chapter 1, and Paul hints at why that is so in Colossians chapter 1. Joy is not related to circumstances, but joy is related to knowledge. Colossians chapter one in verse nine. Paul's prayer for these folks was that they might be filled with the knowledge of God's will and that they might have wisdom and discernment, a spiritual understanding. And for the believer who has the knowledge of God's will, he knows God's plan, he knows he's aware of God's plan and program for this age, and perhaps for his own life, and he has wisdom and discernment, that believer is going to be able to demonstrate joy in his life. A lack of wisdom and a lack of spiritual discernment can bring unnecessary grief But on the other hand, a wise application of God's Word, spiritual discernment, and an understanding of God's program can prevent a lot of heartache, and it can keep us from having to fake a phony kind of joy when God never intended that in the first place. I think of that poor but ignorant believer, that well-meaning believer who knows his friend He just got laid off from work, and he knows he's got a little kid in the home, and just bought a new house, and he's got a lot of bills, and now he gets laid off, and so he tries to cheer him up. And he says, count it all joy when you fall into diverse temptations. You know, that's not going to help. When something terrible happens, are we to rejoice in the fact that something terrible happened? Is a woman who's diagnosed with cancer supposed to count her cancer as all joy? Is that what James means? Turn to James chapter 1. In James chapter 1 and verse 2, James does say, count it all joy when you fall into diverse temptations. But do you think the father gets a knock on his door from the military? and they have to break the sad news that his son was killed in Iraq? Do you think that that father is to count that news as all joy? Or how about the good ones? They got a call from the police that their daughter was lost in the desert, and they were going to send out a rescue squad to find her. Do you think that they were to count that awful news as joy and to be happy over that? When James says, Count it all joy when you fall into diverse temptations, I'd like to suggest that it's never a good idea to stop in the middle of a sentence. Very often, when you stop in the middle of the sentence, you can get a twisted meaning of what the author is trying to say. Here, James says that we're to count it all joy when we fall into diverse temptations, and here's why, knowing this, that the trying of your faith works patiently. And let patience have her perfect work, that ye may be perfect and entire, lacking nothing. In verse 2, what does the it refer to? We're to count it all joy. It's not that we're to count the trial all joy, but rather we're to count the outcome of the trial all joy. We're to be able to have a deep, abiding, restful joy in our heart, knowing that in the midst of our awful grief and sorrow and tragedy, that God knows what he's doing, and that God is somehow going to work good in our heart through this, and that we can be strengthened and matured through it. It's always a good idea to finish the sentence when reading Bible verses. We can have joy knowing that God is going to bring good out of this. Turn to 1 Peter chapter 4. 1 Peter chapter 4. Joy, biblical joy, is based on a proper understanding. It's based on knowing. We can count it all joy knowing what God is doing. In 1 Peter chapter 4. In verse 12, Peter says, Beloved, think it not strange concerning the fiery trial, which is to try you, as though some strange thing happened to you, but rejoice. He's saying trial has struck. Fiery trial you're going through. And now he says rejoice, but don't stop there. He's not saying rejoice because something bad happened. Rather, he's saying rejoice in as much as you are sharing in Christ's suffering. And when His glory shall be revealed, ye may be glad with exceeding joy." What is it that we're to rejoice in in a time of trial or tragedy? We can rejoice in as much as we are getting to know Christ and His sufferings a little better through that. And we can rejoice in the fact that there is going to be a great reward one day. And isn't that what the Lord Jesus told His disciples? When they were suffering persecution in Matthew, he said, Rejoice and be exceedingly glad, for great is your reward in heaven. That's the cause of our rejoicing, what God is going to do in our lives and strengthen us and mature us, and also that future reward. Turn to 1 Peter chapter 1. We can rejoice when we know. Joy is based on the knowledge of God and his plan and his program and what he's doing in our lives. In 1 Peter chapter 1 and in verse 5, Peter says, We who are kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation, ready to be revealed in the last time, wherein ye greatly rejoice. Now notice this. We can rejoice, though now for a season, if need be, you're in heaviness. That means sorrow, grief. That the trial of your faith being much more precious than of gold that perisheth, though it be tried with fire, might be found unto praise and honor and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ. Here, again, Peter is talking to believers who are going through trial and tragedy, and he says, look, presently, from Earth's perspective, you're in heaviness. You're suffering sorrow, you're experiencing grief and trial and tragedy, and that's okay to be in heaviness. But in the midst of that heaviness and sorrow, it's also right to have the joy of the Lord, knowing that God has a great plan for our lives, and one day we're going to stand before Him and receive praise and honor for how we handle that trial. And so here, Peter says that heaviness, sorrow, grief can coexist with rejoicing in the Lord. I think of those Hebrew believers. Turn there for a moment to Hebrews chapter 10. Hebrews chapter 10 in verse 34. The Hebrew believers of the first century suffered much. And those who aligned themselves with the Lord Jesus Christ were literally chased out of Jerusalem and chased out of their jobs and their families rejected them and their goods were confiscated. And this is just what the author of Hebrews tells us in verse thirty four. He says, but you had compassion on me and my bonds and notice this and you took joyfully the spoiling of your good. In other words, they lost what they had on earth. Their homes were, they were chased out of their homes, they lost their property, they lost their source of income, and they took it joyfully. Now, not one of them was rejoicing in the fact that they lost their home. They weren't rejoicing in the fact that their family now hated them for their faith in Christ. What they rejoiced in was knowing. knowing that they had in heaven an enduring substance. They had a reward in heaven that no man could take from them. And knowing that brought in their hearts a deep sense of contentment and a sense of well-being. This is joy. This is the joy that no man can take from us. And yet they were sad. They were grieving. They had heaviness for the moment. You know, God doesn't want us to pretend. God doesn't want us to fake that we're filled with the Spirit or fake that we're happy all the time. It's okay to be sad when sad things happen. When we fake it, it's not the fruit of the Spirit. God wants us to rejoice knowing. Knowing what God is doing in this trial, as difficult and grievous as it is for the present, we can rejoice knowing that God is going to make me more like his Son as a result if I'm exercised by it. Now, joy is also related to faith. Joy is related—it's unrelated to circumstances and happenstances, but joy is related to knowing. Knowing that The trial of our faith works patience, knowing that we have in heaven a more enduring substance. But it's also related to faith. You know, it's one thing to believe. It's one thing to know these things. It's another thing entirely to believe it. Paul writes in Romans 8, he said, I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that shall be revealed in us. Now, we might memorize that verse. But we'll experience joy in the midst of our sorrow to the degree to which we believe it. Not just knowing it, not just memorizing the verse, not just having that information in our head, but when we believe it, when we know that it's true in our lives personally, and we know that we're going to experience it one day, that all the sufferings we're going through right now aren't even worthy to be compared to the glory that shall be revealed in us. If we believe that, then we can have joy in the midst of our present grief and suffering. If we don't believe it, if it's just information, if all of this Bible truth is really distant to us and we're not exercising ourselves in it and not resting in it, then we're not going to experience joy. We're going to go through the same trials that another believer goes through, and it's going to cause us to do a tailspin. And we're going to be bitter and resentful. Joy is directly related to our faith. our faith in God and our faith in His Word. As Jeremiah said, Thy word was found, and I did eat them, and Thy word was unto me, the joy and rejoicing of my heart. Do you really rejoice in what God's Word says? You know, sometimes we have to wait, it seems, sadly, for a tragedy to strike so that God forces us to just cling to His promises. And in the clinging to God's promises in the midst of trial, we can have this sense of well-being, knowing that God is in control. That's joy. When we trust in Him and we rely on Him and we have nothing else we can lean on, only the Lord can do it. The statutes of the Lord are right rejoicing the heart. Turn to Romans chapter 15. Romans chapter 15. Here again, Paul relates joy to believing, joy to trusting, joy to resting in the Lord. Romans chapter 15 and verse 13, Paul says, Now the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing. How is it that God is able to fill us with all joy and peace? It's in believing. And it literally reads there, in the believing. In fact, we could take that literally another step, and it's in the habitually believing, constantly trusting. As we continually walk by faith and as we continually rely upon the Lord and trust in Him, then in that sphere of trust and confidence in God, there is joy and peace. Step outside that sphere of faith, and we lose our joy. See, our job is to walk by faith, our job is to trust in the Lord no matter what happens, and as we do, the God of hope will fill us with peace and joy. Joy is related to faith. Turn again to 1 Peter, chapter 1. Peter mentioned this. He mentions it in verse 8. Whom having not seen, ye love. in whom, though now ye see him not, yet believing, ye rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory." Has anyone here ever seen the Lord? I don't think so. We can know him through his word, but we haven't seen him. And that's what Peter is describing here. In this age, we don't get to see the Lord, we don't hear Him speaking audibly, but we can't believe on Him. We can't trust in Him and rely on Him. And Peter says, believing, we rejoice. And as we trust in Him and believe in Him, we can have a joy unspeakable, and a joy that is full of glory. You don't have to see God to rejoice in the Lord. And as you read through 1 Peter 1, as he describes this inheritance that is ours, that is undefiled, that fadeth not away, and as it sinks in, that we're kept by the power of God. If all this is true, and we believe it, that's the basis of joy unspeakable. Now, if it's not true, Paul says, we are of all men most miserable, because we're living a lie. We're sacrificing happiness today for rewards in the future that aren't going to happen if this isn't all true. But if it is true, then we can experience a joy that's indescribable, a peace that passes understanding, even in the midst of trials. If this is all true and we believe it, then that means that our joy is in God and we have an unending source of joy, an unshakable source of joy. You know, the reason that our joy goes up and down sometimes isn't because of circumstances. It's not because of our circumstances that go up and down. The reason our joy goes up and down is because our faith fluctuates. We're not willing to trust and rely on the Lord when something bad happens. We fall to pieces. We're leaning on our own understanding. We can't imagine how this could ever work out for good, and we fall apart. And we don't have the joy of the Lord. We don't have the peace that passes understanding because we're not trusting. Joy is directly related to trusting. Turn to Philippians. This is an epistle that's all about joy. Philippians chapter four and verse four. Rejoice in the Lord always. And again I say rejoice. Here, joy is based upon the Lord. That's the basis of our joy. Our joy is to be in Him. It's not in our circumstances, whether they're good or bad. We're not to count trials joy, but we're to count the Lord joy, knowing what God is doing in the midst of it. And here we're told to rejoice in the Lord. He's the basis of our joy and contentment. We're not to rejoice in our health. That can go up and down. That's not the basis of biblical joy. We're not to joy in our financial condition. We're not to joy in our family or our possessions or our country or whether things are going well at the office or whether we're popular or not. All of these things we could lose. But biblical joy no man can take from us, it is as stable as God himself when we rejoice in the Lord. Let not the wise man, Jeremiah said, glory, and that word glory there is a virtual synonym for rejoice. Let not the wise man glory in his wisdom or the mighty man glory in his might. What was the third one? Let not the rich man glory in his riches. Thank you. But what are we to glory in? We're to rejoice or to glory in this, that we understand and know the Lord. That's the basis of our glorying. That's the basis of our joy. That's the basis of our peace and contentment. And here we're to rejoice in the Lord always. Now, notice in verse six, He says, Be careful or anxious or worried for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known unto God and the peace of God, which passes all understanding, shall keep or guide your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus. We are not to allow worry. We are not to allow anxiety. We are not to allow fear to rob us of our joy. And when we sense that our joy is going away and we're losing our joy and we're falling apart, what are we to do? We're to come to God in prayer. And we're not to be anxious, but rather we're to bring the source of that anxiety, the source of that fear, the source of that trouble in our life, and to lay it at the feet of the Lord and trust Him to take care of it. And when we really believe that God is able, and when we really believe that God is sovereign, then we can experience that peace and joy that's indescribable, but it's real. This is the joy of the Lord. This is a joy that no man can take from us. You know, people can rob us of our possessions. They can rob us of our health. They can hurt our bodies. They can take away our freedom. They can imprison us. They can torture us. Men can make our lives miserable circumstantially, but they can never get at what really is the source of our joy, if our joy is in God. They can wreak havoc on our happiness. They can't touch our joy. For as Habakkuk said, even when there's no fruit on the vine, the prophet could still rejoice. He realized, he learned the lesson that his joy is unrelated to his prosperity. It's completely unaffected by the economy. It's unaffected by circumstances around him. And you see, God isn't affected by the stock market. He isn't affected by disease. He isn't affected by world affairs. Our God, our source of joy is immutable. He says, I'm the Lord. I change not. That's why we can rejoice in the Lord always. If, and this is a big if, if God is really the source of our joy, if he's the one we delight in. Now, this is a hard lesson to learn. The one that's exceptionally profitable. When God brings us to a point where we are reduced to nothing and all we have left is the Lord, then we can learn that he's all we need. We have that which brings joy and contentment and peace to our hearts. And to think that as a Christian, regardless of how bleak things may look around us, nothing can change our glorious position in Christ. Nothing can change the fact that we're seated in heavenly places with him. We've already been blessed with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places. Let the world rip away those earthly blessings. We have Christ and nobody can touch that kind of joy. That's a great lesson to learn and a very practical one, as long as we have a single eye for Christ and him alone. When that's the case, our whole body will be full of light, and I might add, and joy. the joy of the Lord. When our eye is not single, when we're looking at all these other things around us, then we're not going to have the light of the Lord and we're not going to have the joy of the Lord either. But we can rejoice when God is our delight and heavenly things are really the source of our joy and our contentment. And when it really sinks in that we already have that which we delight in, we have the Lord, we have salvation, and nobody can take that away from us. My joy is in the Lord and he will never leave me nor forsake me. Now go back to Colossians 1 again in verse 11. Joy is also related to knowledge, having the right information. It's related to faith, believing in God. It's related to the Lord himself. And here we see in Colossians 1.11 that it's also related to divine power. Notice in verse 11, Paul's prayer for them as they walk a walk worthy of the Lord, that they would be strengthened with all might according to his glorious power. And what's the purpose of a Christian being filled with the power of God so he can walk on water or do miracles or speak in tongues? No, it's not what the Bible says. The purpose of the strengthening power of God, to have all might available to us, to be strengthened according to His glorious power, is so that when trial and tragedy strikes, we don't fall apart, we don't run away, we patiently endure and do it with long-suffering. And here's the part that really requires the power of God, to do it with joy. You know, verse eleven stopped after the word longsuffering, we might conclude that Paul is promoting here a form of stoicism. You know, like the Brits, they're kind of famous for keep a stiff upper lip and if something bad happens, don't let any don't show any emotion and sort of bite the bullet, grind your teeth and bear it. Well, one might conclude that that's what Paul was after here. That's the purpose of the strength of God is so that we can patiently endure and do it with long suffering, suffer for a long time. But the point is not just so that we can endure and suffer for a long time. It's so that we can do it unlike anyone else in the world, so that we can go through those trials and tragedies with joy. And what an illustration we have of that The Apostle Paul and Silas in jail, whipped, beaten unjustly, bleeding, bound, shackled against a wall in a prison, blood flowing down their backs from the beatings that they took, and yet here they are in the prison, and you know, I'm sure that these prison guards saw some pretty tough men in there before, who were equally cruelly beaten. Men who probably toughed it out. Men who probably sat there beaten and grinding their teeth and just gritted through it all. But I bet the Philippian jailer never saw anybody like Paul and Silas, who not only patiently endured, but sang praises to the Lord. Thank you, Lord. Thank you, Lord. And singing with joy in their hearts. You see, that's what really requires the power of God. I suppose if you're macho enough, you can bite the bullet and just grin and bear it, and sheer grit will get you through some trials. But the Stoics knew nothing of doing it with joy. And that's where Christianity elevates this way beyond, as far as heaven is above the earth. And what Paul and Silas experienced in prison was not phony. It wasn't pretending to be happy. This was the genuine joy of the Lord. Yes, they were certainly unhappy about their earthly circumstances. They didn't like getting beaten and whipped. They weren't happy that they were bound and imprisoned. But they knew that God was doing something. and that they knew that the power of God was able to be manifested in them. The life, the indwelling life of Christ was manifested as they sang with joy. And what an impact it had on that jailer. He said, what must I do to be saved? I've never seen anything like this before. These men were unique. They not only suffered, and they not only suffered for a long time, but they had joy. And this man came to know Christ as his Savior. Joy is the fruit of the Spirit. It's not related to circumstances. It is the power of God working in us that gives us that sense of well-being no matter what's going on around us. Nehemiah said, the joy of the Lord is your strength. By God's power, he fills us with joy. It is divine power, it is supernatural power, it's the power of the indwelling Holy Spirit that enables the believer to manifest joy in difficult times, and that joy lifts our spirits so that we're able to endure. The real power of God today isn't seen in the wonder-working, miracle element, in the so-called miracle element of Christianity today. The real power of God is seen in your average Joe Christian, who loses his job, along with 300 other guys at the factory, and he walks out whistling amazing grace, while the other guys are grumbling. Even when there's no fruit on the vine, Habakkuk said, yet will I rejoice in the Lord. I will joy, not in my circumstances, but I will joy in the God of my salvation. When the city walls were finished and Nehemiah looked over all the overwhelming amount of work that lay ahead when they had to rebuild the city and the temple and all the work, and he knew what was coming. The Lord revealed to him that the joy of the Lord is your strength. You're never going to do this on sheer grit. It's going to require joy. The psalmist says, unless thy law had been my delight, I would have perished in mine affliction. In times of affliction, the devil will get to us. We will crumble. You need joy. Joy isn't just a gravy on the situation. Rather, joy is something that we absolutely need. Solomon said in the book of Proverbs, a wounded spirit, who can bear? And I've seen many a Christian walk away and fall away from the Lord in time of trial and trouble and difficulty. Lost their joy, their spirit was wounded and they refused to get help. You know, it says of our Lord Jesus in Hebrews chapter twelve, how he was able to endure the cross. He was a man just like we. He suffered. He knew what was coming on the cross. He knew the agony of the sin of the world that would be placed upon him. That's why he was weeping as it were. It was like sweat of blood coming off him. He was so agonized in Gethsemane as he considered the cross. And yet it said, for the joy that was set before him, he endured the cross. You know, the Lord needed joy. So do I. The Lord needed to keep his eye on that joy of one day being reunited with his father in glory as he had been through all eternity in the past. And that joy enabled him to do what his flesh didn't want to do. He prayed, not my will, but thine be done. Christ set the joy of being with his heavenly Father before him. And you know, we need joy in our lives. We just won't make it if it's all suffering and all sorrow and all affliction. Eventually, that's going to grind us to powder. We need the joy of the Lord, and it's available. But we need to know where to look to get this joy. Don't look for circumstances. Don't look for improved economy. Don't look to the doctors for a good report. Those things are very unstable. but a heavenly focus, when we set our affection on things above, when our joy is really in the Lord, then that's unchangeable, that's immutable, and no man can take that from us. So Paul prays that the believers in Colossae would be strengthened with all might according to his glorious power unto patience and longsuffering with joyfulness. Boy, we need that. Because every one of us here are going to face trying difficult, painful, hurtful situations, and maybe it's right around the corner. We need to know the joy of the Lord. And if you don't know, Christ is your savior. This joy is available to you, too. Jesus died on the cross, he shed his blood, he paid the penalty for your sin in full, and he was raised from the dead, proving to the Father, and the Father accepted that payment. Sins of the whole world, including yours, have been paid for once and for all on the cross, and you can enter into the joy of the Lord by trusting in Jesus Christ. And it's as simple as that. That's how the Philippian jailer was saved. He saw the testimony of Paul and Silas. He knew that something was unique about these men. And he said, what must I do to be saved? And Paul's answer was, believe. Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved. What a great God to make such an awesome salvation so simple that a child can receive it. believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and now shall be saved. Let's pray. Our Father, we thank you for the word of God. We thank you.