My Joy Is Coming Back

My Joy is Coming Back

“And the ransomed of the Lord shall return, and they come to Zion with songs and everlasting joy upon their heads: they shall obtain joy and gladness, and sorrow and sighing shall flee away.” Isaiah 35:10

Intro: We often try to find out joy in the things around us.

The problem is there are many reasons at any given time why a person might not feel joy.

Circumstances can affect your mood, they can affect your energy, they can affect your happiness.

You don’t need to stay joyless!

God has made a way to bring back your joy.

The title of today’s sermon is “My Joy is Coming Back.”

There was a family going on long road trip.

You know how it can be when you are in a car for several hours at a time.

The two kids in the back seat had been at it for at least the past hundred miles.

Finally the mother was tired of brother and sister arguing and fighting and kicking the back of the seat.

Saying things like: Mom, “He is staring at me!”

Dad, “She is sticking her tongue out at me!”

The parents having reached their limits: Pulled the car over at rest stop

and had the kids sit under a tree in time out.

After an appropriate amount of time the mom

put told the kids not to say a word for 30 minutes

as she led them back to the car.

They got back on the road again.

After half an hour of silence, the boy asked if it was all right to talk now.

“Yes. What do you want to say?”

“Well, back at the rest stop when you put us back in the car,

my shoe fell off, and we left it in the middle of the parking lot.”

Don’t you hate it when you lose things.

We are always losing things: keys, cell phones, homework, glasses,

The remote control to the TV!

Then there are other non tangible things that people lose:

their patience; their temper; their memory; their joy.

The prophet Isaiah tells God’s people Israel that after years of captivity and slavery and servitude

to their enemies the Babylonians

God is going to open a door of escape and freedom and restoration of their gladness and joy.

They will once again join in the singing at the Temple and worship in church.

They will shout with praise for their deliverance.

Where they once wept and cried with sorrow and brokenness their sorrow will flee away.

There are still these Isaiah moments for us today.

Where God reintroduces himself and reintroduces his promises to us.

This awakens in us hope

This awakens in us the desire to search for God and pursue the Joy of God

in ways that you may never have experienced before

or in ways that you have not experienced in a long, long time.

God not only reintroduces himself to us but God goes a step further and reintroduces us to ourselves.

Let me say that again because that is so important.

God not only reintroduces himself to us but God goes a step further and reintroduces us to ourselves.

See there is a “you” that you are might not realize you have.

God wants you to meet yourself.

There is a wiser you, a stronger you, a better you, a more peaceful you.

A more patient you, a more faithful you, a more joyful you.

A you that worries less and praises more.

A you that has untapped potential that you haven’t started using yet.

God wants to pull you out of the old you and bring you face to face with the new you.

When you start seeing yourself differently then you will start seeing God differently.

Let me put it this way.

If you are full of praise and full of the Holy Spirit and full of joy

then you can’t be full of bitterness and full of resentment and full of negativity, and lack enthusiasm

There not enough room in your heart for unforgiveness and apathy and boredom all at the same time.

You either flourish and grow or you dry up and wither.

You either blossom or you wilt.

John chapter 16 teaches us the Work of the Holy Spirit

Is to tell you the truth about yourself

The Holy Spirit will reveal to us our condition.

I am talking about what is on the inside.

I am talking about the condition of your heart.

I am talking about the condition of your spirit and your soul.

Where you are at might tell you something about where you came from

But it doesn’t have to define where you are going.

What you used to be doesn’t have to determine what you will be.