(John) the Joy of the Lord

Alright, John chapter 2. On the third day there was a wedding in Cana of Galilee and the mother of Jesus was there. Now both Jesus and his disciples were invited to the wedding and when they ran out of wine the mother of Jesus said to him, they have no wine. Jesus said to her, woman, what does your concern have to do with me? My hour has not yet come.

His mother said to the servants, whatever he says to you, do it. Stop right there. It was the third day, John tells us as we pick up the story.

So it must have been the third day from when Jesus had made the decision to go back into the area of Galilee. Maybe you remember, Jesus wanted to go to Galilee, we read, and he found Philip and Philip found Nathaniel. And so they were heading back up into the region of the Galilee and so it seems to me that it would have been the third day after they had determined to do that, that they arrived in this little town of Cana.

There's not much that's known about this little town. It was situated between the city of Nazareth. There's not much known about Nazareth except for that Jesus came from there.

But it was situated between Nazareth and the Sea of Galilee. And so Jesus, along with his new disciples, he comes to Cana and there is a wedding that he had been invited to. And his mother, Mary, she was there in, it seems like some sort of an officiating capacity or hostess of some sort.

Perhaps it was a family member, perhaps they were just close friends. But Mary was there at the wedding feast. Now, in our day, we have weddings that last, oh, you know, maybe a day.

You know, it's a kind of a day-long event, at least for the wedding party. But in those days and in that culture, a wedding would last sometimes a week. And I like what John Corson said about the wedding feast in those days.

He said it was sort of a honeymoon, a family reunion, a wedding shower, and a bachelor party all rolled into one. So it was quite festive. And this is what Jesus would have come to with his disciples.

Now, it's possible that it was somewhat of a shock when Jesus showed up with this number of guys. He had probably some months earlier left Nazareth alone, but now he's coming back with some followers. And there would have been at this point at least five of them.

There would have been Philip and Nathaniel, Andrew and his brother, Simon Peter, and then more than likely, as we mentioned, John was one of the other men that were following John the Baptist originally. But here a problem arises. They run out of wine.

Now, in that cultural situation, that was an extremely embarrassing thing. You see, in the Middle Eastern culture, hospitality is huge. And when you invite somebody to an event, then it's assumed that you're going to make provision for them throughout the duration of the event.

So if you were to run out of something, that would be extremely embarrassing and to some extent even disgraceful. And so this put the bridegroom in a bit of a quandary. And so Mary, the mother of Jesus, she comes to Jesus and she said to him, they have no wine.

Now, why would she have done that? Well, think about it. Thirty years have passed since the birth of Jesus, approximately. And she knows what very few people know, if anyone else, even at this time.

She knows that her son is not just any ordinary person. She knows he's the Messiah. But yet he has not revealed that at this point.

But perhaps because he had gone away and now as he's come back and he has these men following him, perhaps she realizes somehow that this must be the time that his true identity is to be shown to the nation. And so she's probably just thinking maybe she could help out a little bit. Maybe she could give him an opportunity to do something about the situation and in doing so to perhaps even reveal who he is, that he is actually the Messiah.

But notice the response of Jesus to her. He says, woman, what is your concern have to do with me? Now, it does seem to us in the way we understand our English language that maybe there's a little bit of disrespect or distance here. You don't usually call your mother woman.

But the term that was used by Jesus in the original language doesn't have that same connotation that it would have for us in the English. It wasn't disrespectful in any way. But I do think that Jesus intentionally referred to her in this way to actually show her something from this point onward.

You see, she was undoubtedly well-meaning, but yet she is actually intruding into an area that she has no authority in. You see, from this point on, she must no longer think of Jesus. Merely as her son.

But she must begin to look at him as her Lord. It's interesting to me. In light of Roman Catholicism's exaggerated perspective on Mary's importance, referring to her as the blessed mother or even as the mother of God, it's interesting to me that Jesus never called her mother.

There's nothing in the scripture, no record of Jesus ever referring to Mary as mother. He refers to her as woman. That he would no longer call her mother, but woman told her that the old days of being subject to her were passed forever and that the old relation was merged in the new one of Messiah and disciple.

You see, at this point, Mary is now simply to become a disciple of Jesus. There was an occasion, you remember, when someone came to Jesus thinking that he would certainly have preference for his mother and his earthly family. They came and they said, Lord, your mother and your brothers are here.

They're calling for you. Give them priority. Surely they deserve preferential treatment was the implication.

Jesus responded with this. Who is my mother and who are my brothers? And then he said, these who hear the word of God and keep it, they are my mother and my brothers. So this elevated position that the Roman church has placed, Marian has absolutely no scriptural basis whatsoever.

And as a matter of fact, it's quite contrary to the scriptures. But Jesus says to her, he says, woman, what does your concern have to do with me? My hour has not yet come. Now, seven times in this gospel, Jesus refers to his hour.

And he's speaking specifically of that hour in which he would be glorified. He's speaking specifically of the cross itself. But of course, once he would embark upon his public ministry, this would lead ultimately to that hour.

It would lead to the cross. So Jesus said to her, my hour has not yet come. And in that, he's basically saying, again, this is out of your jurisdiction.

This is out of your control. This is something that's already been determined by my father. But yet Mary senses evidently that even though Jesus has responded this way, she senses that he is going to do something.

And so she says to those that are there, whatever he says to you, do it. Did you know these are the last recorded words of Mary? Whatever he says to you, do it. Whatever he says to you, do it.

So you see, again, the idea that somehow Mary would play a role in redemption beyond being simply the one through whom Jesus would come into the world or that she would somehow have some future influence or say in the leadership of the church, even, or even beyond that, that she would somehow have some pole in heaven for us. It just doesn't square with the scriptures. Mary herself said, whatever he says to you, do it.

And so in verse six, we read this. Now there were set there six water pots of stone, according to the manner of purification of the Jews, containing 20 or 30 gallons apiece, some 20, some 30. And Jesus said to them, fill the water pots with water.

And they filled them up to the brim. And he said to them, draw some out now and take it to the master of the feast. And they took it.

And when the master of the feast had tasted the water that was made wine and did not know where it came from, but the servants who had drawn the water knew, the master of the feast called the bridegroom and said to him, every man at the beginning sets out the good wine. And when the guests have well drunk, then the inferior. You have kept the good wine until now.

This beginning of signs. Jesus did in Cana of Galilee and manifested his glory and his disciples believed in him. So Jesus does something astounding.

He turns water into wine. John tells us here in no uncertain terms that this is the first miracle that Jesus performed. This beginning of signs Jesus did in Cana of Galilee.

There are many myths and legends about Jesus performing miracles as a child. They are just that. They are myths and legends.

One such myth says that Jesus as a boy traveled to Britannia with Joseph of Arimathea. And there he performed various miracles. A poem by William Blake has these lines.

And did those feet in ancient time walk upon England's mountains green? And was the Holy Lamb of God on England's pleasant pastures seen? The answer is no. As nice as it would have been, it never happened. Jesus didn't go traveling around the world with uncle Joseph.

He was right there as he said later in life. He was not sent to any but to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. His ministry was to Israel.

And he performed no miracle until this miracle at this wedding feast in Cana of Galilee. So here John lays all of that stuff to rest. You know it's amazing.

If you just read the Bible, if you just know the word, the word solves so many things. It answers the questions that people have. Somebody called in on the radio broadcast yesterday.

It was a young guy and he seemed a little bit rattled, a little bit upset. Some of his friends have gone off and joined the Orthodox Church. And he was telling me that they were trying to convince him that he ought to become part of the Orthodox Church.

And then he was making reference to the church fathers that these friends of his were quoting. Some of the early church fathers in support of the views of the Orthodox Church. And how the church fathers believe this, that and the other thing.

I could sense in just his tone that he was a bit rattled by it. And I said to him, you know, don't worry about it. You've got a Bible, you've got the same Bible they had.

And your Bible tells you what's right, what's accurate, what's true. And you don't need to be concerned with what the church father said. I personally don't give a hoot about what the church father said.

I might as well have said it or any other person because it was just their opinion. They were not men of apostolic authority. They were not inspired by God when they wrote.

They wrote out of their own experience. Some of the stuff they wrote was great. Some of it was legit.

Some of it was right on. And some of it wasn't. And the way to determine what's right and what's not is to just go back to the scriptures.

And so God's given us his word. And we can look at his word. And we can read it.

And we can understand it. And, you know, it doesn't matter what somebody else might think. Sometimes we get intimidated because somebody maybe with more education would come along and say something that would be contrary to the plain statements of scripture.

And we start to worry, oh, no, maybe they're right because, after all, they're highly educated. God gave us a book. It's the Bible.

He wrote it for everybody. For the educated, for the uneducated. For the most brilliant mind, for the simplest mind.

And he made it straightforward. He made it simple. And what it says is what it says.

And you don't have to have a Ph.D. to figure that out. And I have found that when a person is very academically oriented or very influenced by intellectualism, sometimes their biggest struggle is just to take the word at face value. And that is a deficit.

That's an unfortunate thing. We ought to rejoice if we're not in that particular predicament. Jesus said, himself, he said, he burst forth in praise.

He said, Father, I thank you that you've hidden these things from the wise and the prudent. Those who are self-important. Those who are wise in their own eyes.

I thank you that you've hidden these things from them and you've revealed them to babes. For even so, Father, it seemed good in your sight. You see, God is not impressed with human intellect.

He created man. And the most brilliant man is a dope in comparison to the God who created him. And so we've got the word of God.

And it tells us straightforwardly the truth. And so we don't have to be led astray by these fables and these myths and these things that float around. Now, Jesus turned water into wine.

Some are troubled by this. There are those who cannot for the life of them believe that Jesus would have turned water into actual wine or that Jesus would have on any occasion ever had a drink of wine himself. And they insist that when the Bible says wine, it's talking about what we know today as grape juice.

I find that hard to embrace. You couldn't really be referred to as a drunkard if you just had a habit of drinking lots of grape juice. You know, they say red grape juice kills viruses.

Lots of times we get gallons of red grape juice and guzzle it. I've yet to get drunk on red grape juice. But people are oftentimes bothered by this.

And so they come up with these theories. It is, I think, certain that the wine that the Bible refers to was a combination of water and fermented juice. And it seems there are varying ratios among literature that comes down to us from the Greek culture as well as literature that comes down from the Hebrew culture.

There are various ratios, but it seems that the most consistent would be three parts water to one part wine. J.C. Ryle, who was a very godly man, a bishop of Liverpool back in the 1800s and a great expositor of Scripture, he had this to say on the subject. I wanted to just read it directly to you.

He said this. You've heard the term a teetotaler. A teetotaler is a person who abstains from alcohol.

By any ingenuity to prove that drinking wine is sinful. Temperance in all things is one of the fruits of the spirit. An intemperate man is an unconverted man.

Total abstinence from alcoholic beverages is in many cases most useful and desirable. But to say, as many do say, that to drink any alcoholic beverage at all is a sin is taking up ground that cannot be maintained in the face of the passage before us without resting the plain meaning of Scripture. I love that.

I think he hit the nail on the head. Jesus turned water into actual wine. Of course, the Bible is very clear when it comes to the subject of drunkenness.

Bible tells us that drunkards will not inherit the kingdom of God. But that doesn't mean that a person is strictly forbidden from ever partaking in an alcoholic beverage. And I like what J.C. Rowe said here.

Temperance in all things is one of the fruits of the spirit. A believer is going to, by virtue of the fact that they are a believer, they are going to be moderate in these things. The spirit of God is going to have that check in our spirits as to that's enough.

Don't go beyond that. And, of course, we're not going to want to go into an area that would be questionable or bring us to the boundary of a transgression. Now, the miracle itself is interesting.

As you note, the method, the method was simply the will of Christ. Notice Jesus did not verbally command the water to change its qualities. He didn't utter any sort of a prayer.

He simply willed the change and it took place. Amazing. He simply willed the change and it took place.

It is a wonderful thought that the same almighty power of will is still exercised by our Lord on behalf of those who believe in him. You know, it's just a matter of God willing it to be so. You know, sometimes we get hung up on little technicalities.

Sometimes we come for prayer and somebody prays for us and then we think, oh, I don't think they said it the right way, though. I don't know if it's going to work. You know, it's not contingent on that.

Some people have actually been distressed. You know, they said, you know, I prayed and I don't know. Should should I pray in Jesus name or am I praying to the father or where's the Holy Spirit at in all this? And I'm confused.

You know what I tell them? Don't worry about it. God's not confused. If you're praying, just leave it at that.

God knows that. We don't have to get distressed over these things. God simply exercises his will.

He just simply determines that it's going to be so. And it is so in this story. We also see something that I think is vitally important for us to consider for a moment.

We see that Jesus Christ is endorsing the institution of marriage. It's no small coincidence that it's at a wedding feast that Jesus performs his first miracle and reveals himself to them clearly as the son of God. I believe that Jesus intentionally chose to do it at the wedding feast itself.

You see, like in our day, marriage was under attack. And there was a very lax attitude that had developed among the people in regard to marriage. And divorce was very common.

And by performing his first miracle and revealing himself to his disciples as the Messiah at a wedding feast, I believe that Jesus was forever placing his endorsement upon the institution of marriage. Marriage is God's institution. It's not man's.

Now, we've had a lot of discussion in our culture recently about marriage. And what is marriage, the question is asked. And there's all kinds of people theorizing about what marriage is and where it came from and how it originated.

And I've read several articles on it. And some have said, oh, well, you know, marriage sort of actually the idea, the romantic idea was invented by the French in the 14th century. Prior to that, it was just more utilitarian kind of a relationship.

It was just more of a necessity. It was born more out of just, you know, the need for a man to reproduce and have children and those ridiculous kinds of things. But of course, as is usually the case, man is completely ignoring God's revelation on the topic and therefore is all confused over the issue.

Where did marriage originate? It originated in the Garden of Eden with the first two people that were created. God is the one who instituted marriage. It's not man's institution.

It's not anything that man is to tamper with. God is the one who established it to be so. The Bible tells us in Hebrews chapter 13 that marriage is honorable.

It's an honorable thing. And in the context of marriage, the bed or the sexual relationship is pure and right and good and wonderful. But then it warns us that outside of marriage, the bed is defiled.

And it goes on to say fornicators and adulterers, God will judge. Oh, man, that just gets people bugged today. Nobody wants to have anybody tell them about what they can or can't do in their bedroom, as they say.

We don't want the government coming into our bedroom. Well, let me tell you, you got more than the government coming into your bedroom. You got God.

He's a lot more powerful than W. And when George W. is long gone, God will still be there and his rules will still be exactly the same. They don't change. God says that marriage is honorable.

And in that context, the bed is undefiled. But fornicators and adulterers, he will judge. That won't change, regardless of what man thinks or how he feels.

God also made it crystal clear that marriage is between a man and a woman. For this reason, a man shall leave his father and mother and cleave to his wife. A man and a woman, not a man and a man, not a woman and a woman, but a man and a woman.

So again, we can manipulate the system and people can, you know, force things through their lobbying techniques. They can get, perhaps, governments to be sympathetic with their cause and their view. And they can get them to change the rules from a certain point of view.

But the fact of the matter is nothing changes from God's point of view. Marriage is his institution and it is to be considered sacred, holy, honorable. And it is to be entered into with a serious commitment.

You know, there are so many people today who are playing fast and loose with marriage. Not just those who are trying to change the definition of marriage, but those who are just sort of casually walking in and out of marriages. You can't do that and get away with it, ultimately.

The courts might let you do it. Your therapist might tell you you can do it. You can probably even find a pastor or two that will agree with you that you should do it.

But God is very clear. There are very few reasons for divorce, as far as God is concerned. There are things that God does allow divorce for.

But there are very few things. And today I have found that even in the church there is a callous attitude. There is a real casual attitude.

And many times there is just a blatant disregard for what God has said. And I have had people sit and tell me, Well, you know, God has spoken to my heart and told me that I can get out of this marriage. God has told them something in their heart that you can't find in the pages of Scripture.

That's deception. That's a delusion. God doesn't tell you things in your heart that contradict what He has written in His Word.

And I have said to several people in those kinds of conversations, Please show me a Scripture that gives you permission to divorce your spouse. Or to separate from them indefinitely or whatever they are seeking to do. And of course you are hard pressed to do that because there are very few Scriptures that allow that.

So Jesus, His very first miraculous manifestation is at a wedding. Undoubtedly to put His endorsement. Now, you know, some people will say, Jesus acknowledged that it was because of the hardness of the heart that God allowed divorce.

Jesus did acknowledge that. But remember, He was talking about the Mosaic dispensation. You see, He was telling the people in His generation that they couldn't get divorced.

And the Pharisees were upset about that because they had been teaching that there were many things that you could divorce your wife over. There were two schools that ruled the day at the time of Jesus. Two rabbinical schools.

The school of Shammai and the school of Hillel. Shammai was a very strict approach. And basically in many ways agreed with Jesus that only under rare circumstances, true sexual immorality was a basis.

But Hillel was much more broad and therefore much more appealing to the general culture. Hillel was teaching that any uncleanness, that Moses had said if you found an uncleanness in your wife, you could give her a certificate of divorcement. Shammai said an uncleanness had to do with sexual impurity.

Hillel said an uncleanness is basically anything that you deem to be unclean about your wife. So if at a certain point you no longer like the way she looks, then she's unclean to you. If you don't like the way she cooks, she's unclean to you.

If you don't like the way she keeps house, she's unclean to you. And upon that basis you could put your wife away. So Jesus comes and He's laying down a strict standard.

And the Pharisees are coming and they're saying, Oh, Moses told us we could divorce our wives. Jesus said, because of the hardness of your heart, Moses permitted you to do that. But I say to you, you see, Jesus raised the bar even beyond Moses.

What he basically said is that day has passed. It's over. God permitted it back then because of the hardness of the heart.

But now under the new covenant, where God changes the heart, where the spirit of God dwells in a person's life, Jesus basically said that is no longer going to be tolerated. There's a new standard. Now, please don't misunderstand me.

I'm not wanting anyone who maybe has a divorce in their past to be condemned. And, of course, if you were divorced before you were a believer, then when you came to Christ, you have a whole new start in life. Old things have passed away.

Everything has become new. And as a believer, if you have gone through a divorce, if you've been a victim and your spouse was unfaithful to you, or circumstances worked in a way that you had really no say-so, and you've been divorced, I certainly don't want you to be condemned over that. But what's happening today is that there are people who basically do not have any biblical justification, who are simply saying, you know, I'm sick of this marriage.

I'm tired of this person. I'm not happy. And therefore, I'm moving on.

And I know God's going to bless me because God really wants me to be happy more than anything else. And surely, He couldn't expect me to stay in this unhappy situation. That is major deception.

So Jesus raises the bar. He sets the standard high once again. The sign of turning the water into wine was not simply a miracle.

It was a miracle, but notice John refers to it not as a miracle, but he refers to it as a sign for a reason. You see, a sign was a miraculous thing, but a sign always was used to teach a higher truth. The sign was intended to take you beyond the mere event or the miracle itself and to show you something from that, something beyond that.

So this is a sign. What was the greater truth that was being communicated through this? Well, two things, I think. Number one, of course, the true nature of Christ was being shown that He is obviously God because He performed something that only God could do.

He performs really a creative act. Water does not become wine under any circumstances. Doesn't matter what you do.

With just water, it doesn't become wine. So Jesus took one substance and turned it into a completely different substance. And so this, of course, would have pointed to His true nature.

And it indeed had that effect because we read here that He manifested His glory and His disciples believed in Him. All of them now at this point understood this man is indeed the Messiah. But there's another lesson in it, I think.

All throughout the Old Testament, especially in the Psalms and in some of the prophets like Isaiah, wine is symbolic of joy. That's what wine is symbolic of in the Scripture. It's symbolic of joy.

And I think the greater lesson here in the sign is that God wants to bless men's lives. You see, God has been misrepresented so often in history. And when Jesus came, there was a massive misrepresentation of God going on.

Remember the Pharisees and the Sadducees, they were the spiritual leaders of the nation. The Sadducees were just a bunch of hypocrites, obviously. They were part of the aristocracy.

They were in collusion with the Romans. They were in the whole thing for the money, basically. The Pharisees were hypocrites too.

They weren't like the Sadducees in that they were, you know, compromised with the Romans and that sort of thing. But they were, as we pointed out before, they were legalists and they were self-righteous. And they gave the common person the impression that God was angry with them and that God was anxious to judge them and that God was hostile toward them because of their weaknesses and their sins and their failures.

They did not get the impression from their leaders that God wanted to bless them. So Jesus comes and He demonstrates God's desire to impart joy to man. That's what Jesus came to give to us.

He came to give us joy. He said, I've come that they might have life and that they might have it more abundantly. This is the big lie.

The big lie is that God wants to make your life miserable, that He wants to quench your fun, that He wants to rob you of good things. This is the lie. That's exactly what the devil told Eve.

And he's been telling people that ever since. You remember in the garden, the devil says to Eve, has God really said that you can't do that? She says, yeah, God said it. He said, well, you know why God said it? Because He knows that in the day that you do that, you're going to be like Him.

In other words, what the devil was saying is God is trying to keep you back from something good for you. He's trying to keep you back from a great experience. He's trying to keep you back from something wonderful and beautiful.

And tragically, Eve believed that. But no, God was wanting to keep man back from destruction. God does not keep us back from any good thing.

Every good and every perfect gift comes down from Him. We're reminded. See, that's the lie.

That God wants to rob you of your fun. That He wants to make your life miserable. No, Jesus came to give us joy.

And that's what we see in this sign that He performed there. This was a feast. This was a festive occasion.

Jesus was there and He was having a good time. And man, it got even better when the water was turned into wine. And whenever Jesus comes into a situation, whenever He comes into a fellowship, whenever He comes into a family, whenever He comes into a person's life, guess what happens? Things get better immediately.

Because He brings joy. He brings blessing. He brings peace.

And that, I think, is really the overriding message behind the sign. Do you have the joy of the Lord tonight? Now, happiness is a different thing. You can be happy for a few hours and then totally bummed out.

Because things just suddenly went the opposite direction of what was making you happy. But you know, Jesus said, your joy no one can take from you. See, joy is a deeper thing.

Happiness is a fleeting thing depending on your circumstances. Joy is something that goes deeper than that. It's based on your relationship with the Lord.

And if you know Christ, if you really know Him and have a relationship with Him, then you can have joy even though your circumstances might tend to make you less than happy. But you've got something better than happiness. You've got joy.

It's a deep residing thing in your heart. That's what Jesus came to do. He came to bring us joy.

Finally, as you look at this story, I think there's one other lesson to pull from it. And this is a lesson that my wife shared with me. But I think it is such a great one.

Think about these water pots of stone. Now, I would imagine that up until the moment that Jesus pointed to them and said, fill them with water, I could imagine that nobody ever looked twice at these water pots of stone. I mean, why would you? Who cares? What do they have to do with anything? They're just water pots.

And so there they are. They're idle. Just there against the wall.

Nobody's even aware that they're there, probably. They're empty. They're ill-esteemed.

They had nothing to do with the decor or with anything else at the festival. But you know, it says that they were used for purification. They were cleansed.

And then they were filled with water. So suddenly, that which was insignificant totally became extremely significant. That which was sitting idle and unused and ill-esteemed suddenly became the vehicle through which the blessing came to the whole feast.

And you know, it speaks to us of our own lives. You might be like that water pot. You think, nobody even knows I exist.

Nobody even knows I'm here. I come to church every week. I'm just like a water pot, just sitting there.

Ill-esteemed. But you know what? The Lord knows you're there. And at the opportune moment, you never know when it's going to be, He's suddenly going to say, fill that pot right there.

Now, think about this. Fill them with water. Water in the scripture is symbolic of the word.

We have many passages that make a connection between water and the word. And you know, here's the picture. As you, just ordinary you, an ordinary me, as we are filled up with the word, as we are full of the word, and the word is brimming over from our lives, God comes along and He touches that.

You know, wine is symbolic of joy, as I said. And joy is directly connected with the ministry of the Holy Spirit. And at the given moment, in God's sovereign plan, He comes along and as we've just filled ourselves up with the water, with the word, He just suddenly touches it, and then the Spirit of God overflows, and joy results.

Not just for us, but it just starts to spread out and touch the lives of many. Here's what I want to leave you with. Fill yourself with the word of God.

Overflow with it. Let it run over the brim and watch and see what happens. Just watch and see.

When that happens, then the Spirit of God comes in a fresh way into our lives and begins to work in a fresh way through our lives and begins to overflow and to touch the lives of others. And who does God do that with? Remember, He does it with just ordinary people. Just like these pots, ordinary stone pots, but they were full of the water.

And Jesus turned that water into wine. Lord, we thank You that You are still at work today. And Lord, that You are touching the water and turning it into wine in these days.

And Lord, we want to be filled up with You. Thank You that You've given us Your word. And Lord, help us to drink it up.

Help us, Lord, to be those in whom the word of Christ dwells richly, that the Spirit of Christ might overflow from us. Lord, for those tonight that have been chasing after happiness or looking for joy in all the wrong places, I pray that they would know tonight that You are the giver of joy. You're the one who brings that into our lives.

And Lord, that You would touch and cause Your joy to overflow from them. Lord, thank You for these lessons from Your word. And Lord, above all, we thank You that You're here with us tonight, that You're the living Savior, and that You're moving among us this evening.

And Lord, as we close with just a couple of songs of praise to You, we ask that Your Spirit would touch our hearts. In Jesus' name, amen.