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.
You can come out of despair and depression and into hope.
You can come out of suffering and into healing
You can come out of dull, dried up, unexcited into bright, overflowing, praise!
John 16:20-22 the Disciples were promised “your grief will be turned to joy.
Like a woman who is in labor of child birth but when the child is born
she forgets her pain when the baby is born.
You either flourish and grow and
This awakens in us a hunger and longing in us to no longer be satisfied with the mediocre and the loss of joy.
Jesus says, “I will see you again rejoice and no one can take away your joy.”
Jesus made the promise: and I believe Jesus, “My Joy is Coming Back”
There are some battles you will not fight when you are not seeing in right.
When you are looking out at someone else you are likely to get up into someone else’s battle.
When you are looking at someone else you see their faults, you see their mistakes, you see their failures,
You see someone else’s struggles, you see the other persons conflict.
You have to look inside to see your temptations,
You have to look inside to see your brokenness,
You have to look inside to see your own bad habits.
There are some opportunities you want pursue if you are not looking in right.
There are some opportunities for growth you want take if you are not looking inside.
I believe God wants to do something on the inside of us right now.
Could it be that I will only go as far as my sight will let me?
Could it be that God has great and amazing things planned for our lives but I am always looking at someone and waiting for someone else to do those great and amazing things?
You see I am convinced God is willing to turn heaven upside down to make a difference in this church in this community in the county.
I believe God is willing to let his only Son be crucified on a cross to save me.
And to save you.
And to save the people the people who are still in bed in the apartment complexes down the street
And the trailer courts at the edge of town.
And in the subdivisions at the edge to town
And in those gated communities at the edge of town.
But could it be that God will allow us to live on whatever level we settle for?
Could it be that God is actually a shepherd who leads and expects us to follow?
The devil is a master at trying to make us lose sight of what God wants us to see.
There are a lot of things that try to steal your joy.
What I have discovered is that the loss of joy is most often such a slow thing that happens.
The loss of Joy is most often such a gradual loss that people do not realize it is happening.
When the devil can take away your strength and joy
He is multiplying the loss of that strength and joy.
Because he is taking away your assignment to share the Joy of Christ with other people.
He will cause you to focus on the one thing that is bad or negative instead of the hundreds of joys.
But be ye glad and rejoice for ever in that which I create:
for, behold, I create Jerusalem a rejoicing, and her people a joy. Isaiah 65:18
It is clear to us today looking back on Isaiah 35 that Jesus Christ is the one who paid the ransom.
Christ paid the price once and for all
I didn’t see anyone with a bull or lamb strapped on their car as they were parking their car this morning.
Jesus paid the ransom once for all
Christ is the one who commutes the sentence and delivers us from hurts and our hang-ups,
Those that who mourn shall be comforted,
Those who suffered shall be blessed,
Those who are weak in spirit shall be strengthen.
Those who die in the faith will enjoy God in the heavenly church triumphant.
Those who live by faith will experience Christ singing a new song.
It shall not only fill their hearts, but it shall be upon their heads, as crown of grace and victory.
In the present time as we today wait for the second coming of Christ
Our sorrows can be swallowed up by the joys of knowing that eternal promise that Jesus made on the cross
and that Jesus gave proof that he will keep his promise by his resurrection.
Strongs’ w?·sim·?a? ???????????
Used here is exceeding joy, fullness of delight, extreme joy.
The kind of joy that only God is able to restore in us.
A Christian without joy is like a dessert sitting under a glass container
but you know you can’t eat it.
Christian without joy is an oxymoron.
A Christian without joy is a contradiction.
Sometimes people lose a relationship because you lose your joy.
Someone will do one thing to offend you and in light of that one thing
You will walk away from the hundreds of things they did to love you
and you will walk away because of that one thing
That’s not to say that Joy can’t be shaken because it can.
People can say and do things that hurt you.
Sometimes people quit church or even give up on God.
at a time when you need church and need God the most.
Joy can be shaken.
That is why you need people in your life to help you through the rough spots.
We all need help from other people in our life.
Do you know this church is built so you can’t go to sleep without someone seeing you.
True. Somebody over here will see you.
You are surrounded.
God is a God of everlasting Joy.
Since God is a God of everlasting Joy he wants us to have Joy.
Israel was captured.
Israel was enslaved.
Israel was defeated.
But “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
If they can sing. So can I.
If they obtain gladness. So will I.
Since God promised that their joy would was coming back. So will my joy come back.
Turn to the person next to you right now and say to them, “My Joy is Coming Back.”
We can feel abandoned and unheard.
We can feel unwanted and unloved.
We can feel bruised, wounded, forsaken.
BUT God will send an Isaiah, God will send a promise, God will send a John the Baptist,
God will send a teacher, a preacher, a little old lady or even a child
and Boom Joy shows up.
Invitation: Some of you here today are going through the crisis of the loss of joy.
Leave some sadness at the altar today.
Leave some spiritual doubt on the altar today.
The lack of joy does not have to be the death of you faith.
You are at the Isaiah 35:8 at the crossroads.
“And a main road will go through that once deserted land. It will be named the Highway of Holiness.
Evil-hearted people will never travel on it.
It will be only for those who walk in God’s ways; fools will never walk there.”
People don’t necessarily have to be sinful to be ineffective for God
They need only to be confused about where God wants them to be.
If you will just press on a little more you will see your joy.
You are in proximity of the joy.
You might be struggling but you are around the right people right now.
Encourage one another.
When Christ came those early people heard the word, then the fountains of joy opened.
Most of the earth is still a sad place.
But grace and spiritual worshippers, and fruits of holiness, can be found in this church.
No matter where you have been or what you have gone through God will bring back your Joy.
I have faith.
I believe in recovery.
I believe in revival.
I believe in return.
My Joy is Coming Back.
