Choose Joy

Shall we pray? Father God, we just thank you for today. We thank you that you are a God who knows everything and sees everything and does everything. We gain faith by just believing who you are and what you said.

And our faith is in you today for these needs that are before us. We think of Spencer's baby, baby John, Lord, his medical need. I pray for healing for him.

I pray that, Lord, a blessing upon him and his parents, Lord, that he would grow up to be a godly young man, that he would order his life after you, and that he would be a preacher of righteousness wherever he finds himself, Lord. To bless Mike and Joanna as they are down there visiting, I pray a special blessing upon them. I pray a healing upon Joanna and Mike, Lord.

Whatever their needs are, their deepest needs at this very moment, Lord, that you would just touch them, you would comfort them, you would be everything that they need this very moment. We think of Leona, Lord, and his health problem, Lord, and all the technical things that can go on and happen and do. But God, you're so much bigger than that.

And so we just believe, Lord, that you will meet the need in her health and her body, Lord. We think of Corey's baby, Lord. I also pray for healing.

Lord, we know that your healing touch is inexhaustible, Lord. We cannot exhaust the power that you have. Lord, as I look into the night sky and see billions and millions of stars, and you know them all by name, so God, we know that you could just send your healing touch into these people's lives.

Lord, I pray for people here, Lord, that maybe they need comforting. Maybe they need healing. Maybe they need spiritual healing.

Whatever the need is, Lord, that you would meet that need right where they're at. And Lord, we believe that you can do this. And so, Lord, we just commit this to you.

I pray for my brother as he preaches, Lord. I pray, Lord, that you would loose his tongue, fill his heart, fill his mind, and do whatever it takes to put this message out there that it touches the very need of our heart. So, Lord, we just commit ourselves to you.

We love you, Lord. And I pray against the powers of darkness that want to close our ears and against the raven of hell who wants to take away. I pray, Lord, that Jesus would meet us here.

In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Good morning.

Take your Bibles this morning and turn to Romans chapter 14. By the way, Benjamin, congratulations. And thanks for doing it right.

Glenn and I have had many conversations on the subject, how thankful we are that you kept it very quiet. I mean, for years, people tried to pry it out of you. And nope, you wouldn't let it known.

So we respect you for that. It was a surprise to all of us, I think. Maybe, maybe not.

Maybe it was just to me. Romans 14. For the past couple of weeks, I've been meditating and thinking and praying to God and asking him this question, two questions.

I've been asking him a question that I've been curious about for years. And also, since Brother Glenn asked me, what would you like me to speak on? I didn't know the two would coincide. But the question I have been asking the Lord is, by nature, I'm a very negative thinker.

I tend to be a pessimist. I tend to be perfectionist. If left to myself, you know, I could just go down a nice whirlwind of pity and depression.

But I keep asking the Lord about this concept of joy. And how do you have joy, Lord? You know, it's one of these things that in the Bible, it says we're to do or to have. But how do you have joy? It's more than happiness.

And it was interesting. I want to encourage some of you just to keep sharing your testimonies. As I was through the week praying, well, what would you have me to share? What would you have me to share? Different people would come over to my house or into my van, Greta.

And last night, you were in the van talking to Stephanie. And you were giving a testimony. And in your testimony, as I sat down, you said, and the Lord just said, choose joy.

And I was like, OK, that's definitely the message. A little later, earlier in the day, I was talking to Rebecca about what I was going to preach. I wasn't sure yet.

And she's like, oh, you have to preach on this verse. And it went right along with what I was thinking about. And earlier in the week, Brother Mose had a verse.

He was like, I've been thinking about this verse. And I was like, yep, that's right where I am. It's amazing how the Lord can show you things through others, just what they've been thinking about.

Brother Randy was at my house. And he brought up a verse. And yeah, all of those things were an encouragement to me to know what the Lord would have and what his burden was for his people.

In Romans chapter 14, this is one of my favorite verses, I think. Not favorite, but many of the favorites. It's like such a key cornerstone verse about what the kingdom of God is.

We're supposed to seek the kingdom of God first. Jesus came about to build the kingdom of God. And we may ask ourselves, what is the kingdom of God? And I know I've brought this up before.

But in verse 17, it says the kingdom of God is not meat and drink, but righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Ghost. We talked about the Holy Ghost this morning. Righteousness in the Holy Ghost, peace in the Holy Ghost, joy in the Holy Ghost.

That's what the kingdom of God is. Now, we go to something like yesterday. We see all the great things we can do.

And I appreciated the devotion where he said, you know, we're just like God's children with a chore list. But sometimes we can get our eyes on the chore list and start thinking about all the things we need to do. And we get our eyes off of what really matters.

What really matters is the way you can serve in the kingdom of God and the way you can display the kingdom of God is through righteousness in the Holy Ghost, peace in the Holy Ghost and joy in the Holy Ghost. You know, as Brother Bob said the other night, as he goes through his audit, he said, may I go through it this time with joy? You know, what a testimony to his boss to walk through that audit with this deep flowing joy in his heart. What a testimony to go through life to the world around us that we can have a true righteousness, a true peace and a true joy.

So I know Brother Roger has been working on us with memorization. So I thought I'll take his lead in an example. We'll do a little memorization here this morning.

And we're going to do it in a different way. We're going to do it in a song. I have a little song I've taught my children to sing.

So we're all going to sing this song. Get your Bibles open if you don't have it to Romans 14, 17. And I'll sing it.

My family can sing with me and you can sing along. We'll do it a couple of times. And if I can remember, we'll try to do it a couple of times throughout the sermon.

It goes like this. For the kingdom of God is not meat and drink, but righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Ghost. Romans 14, 17.

Okay, I know it's a little awkward. I'm a little bit nervous too doing this. But let's just sing it again.

For the kingdom of God is not meat and drink, but righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Ghost. Romans 14, 17. For the kingdom of God is not meat and drink, but righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Ghost.

Romans 14, 17. One more time. For the kingdom of God is not meat and drink, but righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Ghost.

Romans 14, 17. It's a catchy little tune. You know, I'll be going through the work week and this will come to my mind and I'll remember that.

I even have Caleb can testify this. Our main key pass password database is set up with that password. And so I have to type this verse in every time.

And it's a long one. Now I've just given away the security. What have I learned? Don't tell my customers.

Are there any customers here? But anyway, do things like that to remind you of what it is you're to be about. The kingdom of God is not meat and drink. It's not about food and clothes and all the different things that we sometimes make it about.

But it's about righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Ghost. So that's what I want to talk about. Now turn to John chapter 15.

I was meditating on this passage here. And Jesus is talking about an amazing concept, being a vine, being a branch, being a main root. And we are these branches that come off of it.

And he is a husband. I mean, he is a vineyard worker. He's a farmer.

He comes in and he says he's constantly purging and he's constantly pruning and he's constantly coming up with ways to make this vine bring forth more fruit. And then he reminds us in verse four that our job is to stay connected to the vine, to stay in him. So the sap, the grace, the joy and the peace can be flowing through us, the righteousness.

It says that righteousness. How does it go in Romans? It says righteousness reigns through faith unto eternal life. And so through grace, sorry, unto eternal life.

And so this divine sap is running through us. It's raining. It's creating righteousness in us and eternal life.

And we're abiding there. And we cannot, we have to always remember, we cannot bear this fruit of ourself. And then he keeps going on.

He says, my hope for you is that you will bring forth much fruit, lots of fruit, lots of righteousness, lots of peace, lots of joy. And then he says this, if a man bide not in me, his cast forth is a brand and is withered. So now if we decide in our own, we don't want to be in the Lord anymore.

He just cast it over there and it starts to wither. The joy and the peace and the righteousness starts to go away. And finally it gets burned.

And then he says in verse four, this whole concept, he says, um, let's see. I have it as John chapter 15, verse 11. Sorry.

These things have I spoken to you that your, my joy might remain in you. And then he says this, and that your joy may be full. Jesus wants his joy to be in us.

He wants it to be flowing through the sap into us, remaining in us and then coming out of us like living water. Now you might need to stop and ask yourself, is that how you feel? Is that how your week spend this last week? Do you feel like your joy is, is running? Is it the deep river in your soul? Is it just a little trickle? Is it overflowing? If these are something we have to answer on our own and be honest with, but if it's not, then this is a direct indication of a problem. There's a problem in our life if we don't have joy.

That's, that's just the mere fact of it. Turn to, um, well, I know brother Carl brought it up in, in our Bible study, but he said that the Holy Spirit's fruit is love. The second one, joy.

Part of being connected to Jesus is to have joy in our life. Turn to Colossians chapter one, Colossians chapter one. This is a wonderful, wonderful blessing.

It's a prayer in Colossians. He says, we do not cease to stop praying for you. Verse nine.

And then he goes on with all of this amazing things that you would, that you would be filled with the knowledge of his will and all wisdom and spiritual understanding that you may walk worthy of the Lord being fruitful in every work. And then verse 11 strengthened. This is the word dynamis strengthened, like dynamite strengthened with power, with all might, according to his glorious power unto all, what patience and long suffering with joyfulness.

Brother Bob, there's your audit. Long suffering with joyfulness, patience with joyfulness. There's brother Roger's tax season.

There's brother Glenn when he's stuck, got that bolt stuck in the shop and he just wants to beat it, you know, or there's, what's the guy's name? James Lonaker, missing his exit. And the Lord was rebuking him for beating the steering wheel. And sometimes we find ourselves there, but the Christian's walk is to be above all that, right? It's to have this, this dependence on God.

My wife has this little plaque in her house and I walk by it every once in a while. And it says, choose joy. And you have to ask yourself, how do you do that? How do you choose joy? Like, do I just choose to be happy and somehow just sit and think of happy thoughts? And pretty soon I have joy? Well, that's what I've been asking the Lord too this week, or in the last two weeks.

How do I choose joy? Let's sing our song for the kingdom of God. For the kingdom of God is not meat and drink, but righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Ghost. Romans 14, 17.

One more time. For the kingdom of God is not meat and drink, but righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Ghost. Romans 14, 17.

I'll just read this verse, but listen to this blessing now. The God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing that you may abound in hope through the power, what do you think? Of yourself? Of the Holy Ghost. This is why it's so important.

You're not going to have joy that takes you through the nose of life. You're not going to have joy that takes you through the anxieties of life. You're not going to have joy that takes you through the cancer of life, the deaths of life.

All of these things we go through unless we somehow learn that right there. But yet that right there is the lighthouse. That is how we are a light to the world around us.

If we don't have that, we're actually blaspheming the name of God. Because they say, you're no different than us. You Christians, you claim all this great stuff, but when you get through your hard times, you just look as drear as us.

And when you go through that, no, or that cancer, whatever you, this is what makes the difference. In fact, James tells us, James, the apostle that walked with Jesus, James tells us, count it all joy, consider it exceeding joyful when you go through trials. Does that how you like to approach life? Is, wow, here's a new trial in my life.

I'm going to count this exceeding joyful. But James tells us to do that, to consider it all exceeding much joy, not just joy, but much joy. He tells us to count it all joy.

Turn back to Nehemiah, if you would. Chapter eight. I really love this story.

Of Nehemiah and, but there's a little thing. We love to put it on. I have it on my wall.

We see it in the walls and houses. We go to, you know, you go in the bathroom and somebody has it there. And you're like, yeah, that's good.

And you go in somebody's living room and it's there. And it's this little verse. It's a Jeremiah eight, the end of verse 10.

Have you ever heard this? For the Lord, for the joy of the Lord is your strength. You ever seen that on plaques? And like cards and, you know, all kinds of things. And you think, wow, yeah, that'd be great.

How do I get it? How do I get that? So it can be my strength, the joy. Now notice it doesn't say your joy. It says the joy of the Lord.

Jesus says, I give you my joy that your joy might be full. These things have I spoken to you that you may have my joy, he said. So how do we get the joy of the Lord? Well, first, let's just look really quick at the attitude of these people who Nehemiah was saying this to.

These people would have been in captivity and they had come back through the previous chapters. They had built the walls and they were finally done with that. And they had gathered themselves together and they called Ezra and listen to this.

It says in verse three, chapter eight. He was reading. It says he got the book, the law of Moses.

If you remember at the end of one of those books back there, it said he took all of the law and he wrote it into a book. And so now they found this book and they pulled it out and he brought that book out to all the people, both men and women. And it says, I'm in verse two, the law before the congregation, both men and women, all that could hear with understanding.

And he read verse three before the street that was before the water gate from the morning. On my side note here, it says from the time that the light came up. So, you know, we got here a lot past light.

It would be like coming together at about what, six, five 30. Okay, in the morning, this is how excited they were. And he pulls out the book and they start reading and they just start reading.

It says until what time? Midday. That's like noon. That's like six, seven hours.

They're just reading the word of God. And it says here and those that could understand and the people were, what does it say? Somebody say the word attentive. Where's your heart this morning? Is it attentive? Is it, is it Lord? I want to know you, Lord.

What's the words of your law? Well, Lord, what, what do you have to say to me? Or is it another Sunday, another day to sit before and act like Christians? That's, that's how the Israelites got at times, sadly. But listen, they were attentive and Ezra stood up on a pulpit of wood. Does that mean he got up on top of it? Or I'm not sure.

Maybe that just meant a stage, but he got up and he started preaching and he started, look at these. I mean, it wasn't just one guy. It says beside him stood Mattatiah and Shema.

And I mean, we had quite a list of sermon preachers here. All these guys start preaching. And Ezra opened the book in the sight of all the people for who he is.

And when he opened, all the people stood up and Ezra blessed the Lord, the great God. And all the people answered, Amen and Amen with lifting up his hands. And they bowed their heads and they worshiped the Lord with face to the ground.

And then it says also, all these guys caused the people to understand the law. I mean, these people were attentive. They were listening.

All these people were preaching and talking and bringing a sense to the law. And it says the people stood in their place. So they read the book and the law of God distinctly and gave the sense and caused them to understand the reading.

And then they said to him, this day is holy to the Lord. Do not mourn. Do not weep for all people.

All the people were weeping. I mean, it'd be like I'm reading right now and you were weeping. All of you were weeping.

And I was saying, don't weep. Don't weep. Then they said, go your way.

Eat the fat, drink the sweet and send portions unto them that have nothing. For this day is holy to the Lord. Neither be sorry for the joy of the Lord is your strength.

Do you see the context of what the joy of the Lord being their strength was? They were excited to know God. They were excited to hear his words. They wanted to follow him.

And therefore, he said, the joy of the Lord is your strength. Their joy was we want to know God. And if you keep reading, they were serious.

I mean, they got to the point here where they were, they read, oh, we need to go have these booths. We need to like go out and make little tents and go out into the wilderness. And they didn't say, oh, that's for the old people.

They went and did it. They went out and made booths and practice all the things they read. And then they read, oh, no, we weren't supposed to marry these people.

These foreigners. Now what? And they pulled them together and put them out. I mean, they were intense.

At one point, it says, I mean, at the end of this book, I think, I don't know if it was Ezra or who it was. It said he smote certain and plucked off their hair and made them swear by God, saying, you shall not give your daughters or your sons. These were the people.

This is how serious they were about the God's law. He was, he was, they were moving forward with following the law and the joy of the Lord was their strength. So how do we get the joy of the Lord to be our strength? I want you to turn to where was it? I think it was Psalm 52, somewhere back there.

Just start turning towards Psalms and I'll find it here soon. Yeah, Psalm 42. Think about David.

It says he was a man after God's heart. He was a man who rejoiced in the Lord. He was a man that found that the joy of the Lord was his strength.

I want you to ask yourself this question as we read this. When you read this, is this how your heart feels? I can tell you from experience. My heart did not used to feel like this.

I used to feel when I would read something like this was a little bit mamby pamby, a little bit feminine, a little bit weak. I don't know how old David was when he wrote this, but it's an interesting thought to think of David as a young man, as a farmer, as a rancher. And yet these are the words he wrote.

As the heart or the deer pants after the water brooks, so my soul after thee, O God. My soul after thee, O God. He's writing to God and saying, just like I watch a deer being so thirsty and looking for water and finding it.

That's how I feel, God. That's how I feel about you. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God.

He says to his soul, why are you cast down? Why are you disquieted me? Hope thou in God, for I shall yet praise him for the help of his countenance, for the help of his presence. Turn to Psalm 63. One of you young men, please read it for me.

Please read up to verse eight, all the way through verse eight. Loud, please. O God, thou art my God.

Early will I seek thee. My soul thirsteth for thee. My flesh longeth for thee in a dry and thirsty land where no water is.

To see thy power and thy glory, so as I have seen thee in the sanctuary. Because thy loving kindness is better than life, my lips shall praise thee. Thus will I bless thee while I live.

I will lift up my hands in thy name. My soul shall be satisfied as with morrow and fatness, and my mouth shall praise thee with joyful lips. When I remember thee upon my bed and meditate on thee in the night watches, because thou hast been my help, therefore in the shadow of thy wings will I rejoice.

My soul calleth hard after thee, my right hand up for thee, thy right hand up for thee. He says he longs to see his power. His flesh longs for thee in a dry and thirsty land.

He says thy loving kindness is better than life. Can we say that? Is God's loving kindness better? Can we say, can we say this? God, whom have I in heaven but thee? You know, I don't want the streets of gold, Lord. I don't want the mansions.

I just want you. Could we say this? Whom have I but on earth but thee? Sorry, dating couples. It applies just as much for you.

I know it's hard, but whom have I on earth but thee? Jesus said, unless we hate our father and mother and even our own life, do we want God that much? That's why the joy of the Lord was David's strength. Because he longed for God, because he thirsted for God, because he wanted to be in God's presence. And God saw that.

I sat down yesterday and I read chapter after chapter after chapter after chapter in the book of Isaiah. And it's so sad to see. You think of Isaiah as this amazing prophetic book, but what I got out of it was this.

Oh, Israel, would you just turn to me? I want to be your God. I want to save you. I want to be your glory from behind.

I want to fight your battles. Would you just trust in me? Would you just put your view towards me? But no, you put your trust in your idols. You put your trust in a piece of wood that in the same piece of wood you would burn in a piece of fire.

You turn around and you burn. You make an idol out of it and you bow down to it and you worship it. Stop trusting in your idols.

Love me. I would do all these amazing things for you. And somehow we think we don't have idols today.

Why does 1 John end with keep yourself from idols? I would have to say that we better be very careful. We live in the last days. And I think the devil has gotten very wise.

We're all too smart to look at a little piece of wood and say, oh, that's an, I'm going to bow to that. Yeah, right. What are idols in our lives? The same thing that God was begging to his people of Israel.

Just turn to me. All these amazing promises that we put on plaques. They that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength.

It's all in the midst of this. All in the midst of Israel, would you turn to me and trust me? Let me fight your battle. Battles.

So how do we get the joy of the Lord? Well, let's before we go and let's sing our song, the kingdom of God for the kingdom of God is not made and drink, but righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Ghost. Romans 14, 17 for the kingdom of God is not made and drink, but righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Ghost. Romans 14, 17.

So as I was asking the Lord, how do I get your joy? Lord, I want to be, I want to be, I want to be a man that's joyful. You ever meet somebody that loves the Lord? I knew this guy. In fact, he preached here once.

Steve Hickman, if you remember, he would wake up every morning and spend from the time he woke up till about nine or 10 in the morning, just reading and praying and seeking God. And every time I met that man, he was just dripping with the joy of the Lord. He was, he was always talking about God.

You know, you just couldn't get away from talking about God. You know, he was like this, David. So as I asked the Lord, this verse came to my mind.

Let's turn to Psalm chapter 16. These are, this is great reasons why you should memorize. I remember as a little child, this, there was a Jewish singer and he would sing this song and he would say this very verse.

And so when you're asking the Lord questions, you know what he can do? He can bring these verses you memorize as children. He can bring these songs you sang as children to your mind to answer your question. And so Psalm chapter 16, verse 11.

It says this, thou will show me the path of life in thy presence is what? Okay, so how do we get, somebody do the math for me. How do we get God's joy? Okay. So am I, am I, am I grasping it too much to say to get and be a person that has joy.

I need to be in God's presence. Am I saying that too much? Is that too much to say? Seems that that's what he's saying. And my presence is fullness of joy.

So I need to get into God's presence. That seems like the key. I need to be in his presence.

Have you ever read the book Practicing the Presence of God? You ever heard of that title? Practicing the presence of God. So one way we can choose joy is to practice the presence of God. How do we practice the presence of God? How do we, how do we in all our ways, acknowledge him as if he's right there? How do we turn our count towards his countenance? How do we turn our heart to him? How do we look to Jesus? Well, one of the ways, I think John D. Martin, I heard a sermon a couple of weeks back and I was impressed with what he had to say.

Psalm 100. You ever notice when John D. gets up to preach a sermon, he always starts it with a song. Like every time.

And he doesn't ask for hymn books. He just starts belting it out. Well, you know why? I heard him make the statement.

He said that he, I don't exactly remember how he said it, but he said, you know, we constantly want to come into God's presence, but we don't do it with singing. But the Bible tells us to do it with singing. Look right here in this verse.

It says, make a joyful noise to the Lord all ye lands. Serve the Lord with gladness. Come before his presence with singing.

Come before his presence with singing. So one of the ways we can choose joy is to get into the presence of God. But one of the requirements we have to do to get into the presence of God is what? Be thankful, singing, praising people.

Another place in Psalm 95, it says, let us come before his presence with thanksgiving. So our heart and our attitude to have joy is going to be, we have to be a thankful people. And we need to have a thankful, praising kind of people as we enter into his presence.

We have to realize we are walking with God daily. Turn to Psalm 27. Do you ever feel like not singing? I do a lot.

If you're a negative, pessimist kind of person, it's easy to be like, well, I don't feel like singing, so I'm going to be honest with myself. I'm not singing. But listen to this verse in Psalm 27, verse six.

Maybe I gave you the wrong passage here. Am I in the wrong place? Yeah, that's it. And I guess I said the wrong, I'm looking at the wrong verse or something.

Yes, Psalm 27, six. It says here, and now shall my head be lifted up above my enemies round about me. Therefore, will I offer in his tabernacle sacrifices of joy.

You know, I thought that's an interesting way of saying it. In Hebrews, it says this. Let us offer the sacrifice of praise continually.

And then it says what that is. It gives a little qualification. It says that is the fruit of our lips giving thanks to his name.

Sometimes to praise God and to thank him and come into his presence. We may not feel like it, but it's a sacrifice. You think when the children of Israel gave their sacrifices, they enjoyed it? Like, do you think that was their cow? They could have eaten, right? Or their whatever they were sacrificing.

That was something they could have provided for their family. That could have been more money. That could have been more income.

They had to watch it go away. They didn't want it to go away. But a sacrifice to the Lord is to say, I will praise you.

I will be joyful. I will call on your name. I will lead my soul and my heart.

I want to talk a little bit about, as we come to a close here soon, about the dangers we live in. We've seen that we need joy. We're supposed to be filled with joy by the Holy Spirit.

We see that the way to get that is to be a people that are coming into the presence of God. We see that we need to be people like David, who loved God and who desired him with all of his heart. But here's some dangers.

And I've been thinking about this a lot. The last Dennis and I, and I think Caleb were talking about this, and Moe's. Turn to Daniel.

This is after Daniel's been, he's been given this prophecy, all these different things. He's seen amazing things. And we'll look in the last chapter, chapter 12, verse 4. And he says this, but thou Daniel, shut up the words and seal the book, even to the time of the end.

Many shall run to and fro, and knowledge shall be increased. This is my burden for today, that we could so easily be just like Israel. No different than the book of Isaiah.

We could have idols. We could come here and sound like a lovely song. It says in Isaiah, they call upon my name.

They look like my people. They do all these amazing things. But my question is, where's that joy? Where's the righteousness? Where's the peace in our lives? Where's the kingdom of God that's being displayed? Here at the book in Daniel, it says, many at the end of the time, many shall run to and fro.

Do you ever feel like that? I think it was some modern translation said they shall be running friendly here and there. I mean, in a day and age that we can jump on a plane and get to the other side of the planet whenever we feel like it. You know, if you want something at the hardware store or the grocery store, you just jump in your car and go.

And then while you're going, you can pop those ear pods in and, you know, you can do whatever you want. It says in knowledge shall be increased. They call this time.

I heard the other day in a sermon, they call the time we live as the age of knowledge. Would I be mistaken to think that we have gained a lot of knowledge in the past while? I mean, just the fact that we're flying at 40,000 feet and 600 miles an hour. I told people before when I was a young boy, I remember, you know, the phone would ring and there was a cord on it and I had to stand there by the phone and we got all our communication done and I hung up and the conversation was done.

Now we live in a time where our conversation gets spanned out over the next three hours amidst everything else that's happening because we go back and forth. We think they're so convenient. Texts and Whatsapps and all of these things.

I was just thinking of Rebecca, wherever she is. She told me, oh, did you love this subject? But it is a dear subject to my heart that there was time that people just stayed in their area. You know, they just sat in their houses and they had time.

You know, look at this passage in Genesis 24, 63. I think I'm somewhere right between two generations. You know, I've got all the older generation, like Wyatt Pegg and those guys.

He just like, I don't want smartphones. Keep them away from me. But I'm the guy that they came out when I was like 20.

So I kind of like them. But at the same time, I'm the guy that also remembers the time before smartphones. And so I feel like this half the time I'm happy about technology and the other time I want to destroy it.

Genesis 24, 63. And Isaac went out to meditate in the field at the eventide. And he lifted up his eyes and saw and behold, the camels were coming.

Do you see that? He went out in the field to meditate. He went out in the field to meditate. I think he was meditating on God, Moes.

Genesis 19, 27. And Abraham got up early in the morning to put to the place where he stood before the Lord. Look at that.

He had a regular place. He went every day and he got up early to go there and stand before God. Many shall run to and fro and knowledge shall be increased.

Please turn with me to Mark chapter four. We know this parable very well. It's the parable of the sower and the seed and all the things that chokes the word of God.

But the one I want to talk about is verse 19. The cares of this world. It says the cares of this world and the deceitfulness of riches and the lusts of other things.

And Luke adds the pleasures of this life enter in and choke the word and it becomes unfruitful. Do you see that word cares there? And I traditionally would have thought of that as your anxieties and your stresses. But you know what else it is? I was looking at that word and it says this.

Care anxiety. But then it says right here. It says the root word of the word care is the root word divide.

And it says through the idea of distraction. Think about that. The things that come into your life that divide you off and distract you.

What do we have today that does that? What do we have that will take us away and get our minds on everything? If you were to do a spiritual checkup, you know how on your phone you have screen time? I don't know what they call it in Android, but it tells you how much time you've been spending. How many pickups, right? I picked up my phone. That's kind of an alarming thing to look at, but it'll tell you how many times you picked up your phone, how many times you looked at this app, how many messages you got, all that.

I challenge you. Go home and look how many times you looked at your Bible app versus how much you looked at everything else. Or ask this question.

Maybe you can't really track in your phone how many times you prayed, how many times you sang for the kingdom of God is not meat and drink, or how many times you said a verse, or how many times whatever you did with the Lord, talk to the Lord, acknowledge the Lord, commune with the Lord, versus how many times you looked at your phone. If you did a little spiritual screen time right now for the last week, how much time was over here in the I spent time with the Lord, I spent time talking to the Lord, I spent time meditating, I'm waiting to hear, how much time I spent doing all these other distractions? This is my fear. My fear is that we don't have little wooden idols anymore, but we have other more creative things that are pulling our attentions away.

And then we come along and we go, why don't I have joy? Why don't I have peace? Why don't I have righteousness? It's because we are running to and fro. We are increasing with knowledge, but are we increasing with the Holy Spirit? That's my burden. Let's read this message translation.

I know you might think that's strange, but sometimes they get it right. First, John, listen to this. Don't love the world.

Don't love the world's goods. Sorry, I missed the world's way. Don't love the world's ways.

Don't love the world's goods, i.e. cell phones and laptops and social media and everything else they have to offer you. Love of the world. Listen to this.

Squeezes out love for the Father. So if I could draw a heart here, how full is your heart with the love of the Father? That's what David had. David had a lot of time, right? On his hands.

He wrote all these amazing songs. My soul thirsts for you, God. How did he get there? I don't think we're there because we don't have enough time to even think like that.

Love of the world squeezes like if you can imagine it's leaving. It's leaving. The love of God is leaving.

The love of the world squeezes out the love for the Father. Listen to this. Practically everything that goes on in the world, it says.

Practically everything. Wanting your own way. Wanting everything for yourself and wanting to feel important.

Does that not encompass a lot of what we struggle with? I want my way. I want everything for myself and I want everybody to look at me and think I'm an important person. What does it say? Has nothing to do with the Father.

It just isolates you from him. Wow. They got that one good.

It squeezes out the love of God. So my burden for today is that if we're not careful, we can become lovers of pleasure more than lovers of God. Second Timothy.

Please turn there. While you're turning there, let's sing. For the kingdom of God is not meat and drink, but righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Ghost.

Romans 14, 17. For the kingdom of God is not meat and drink, but righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Ghost. Romans 14, 17.

Second Timothy chapter two. No, three, sorry. He says in the last days, perilous or dangerous times will come.

Men will be lovers of themselves and he goes on this massive list. Right at the end there. Lovers of pleasure more than lovers of God, having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof.

You know, I think that did you pick that up? It said having a form of godliness. They look like they're Christians. It's not just this list of people who are not Christians.

It says they have a form of godliness, but they're denying the power. How can we deny the power, the joy, the righteousness and the peace? We can deny it by choking the word. We can deny it by squeezing out the love of the father.

And how does that happen? Well, we love the world. When we love the things of the world, we get too distracted with the cares of this world. It kills us.

And we don't have that close connection where we can say, whom in heaven have I but thee and who on earth have I but thee? So. Do a spiritual screen time test. Seek the Lord.

Seek his strength. Seek his face forevermore, David says. The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit and a contrite heart.

God means everything for our good. I forgot these pictures, but I'm going to ask them real quick. So which one are you more? Here's a farmer.

Is this when you wake up in the morning? More like how you feel in your soul? You feel like a beggar? Blessed are the poor in spirit. You're like, God, I need you. This guy's just sitting in like this bunch of hay and he's just got his hand like, oh, who in heaven have I but you? Or is this more like? I got it all together.

Which one? When you wake up and you want God, is it more like this? This old lady, she has nothing but to think about, but could somebody help me? You know, she doesn't have a phone. All she can do is pray to God. Can you see that? All she can do is pray.

Were you more like this dude? He was like, hey, here's some money. I'm moving on. I'm distracted with my life.

Or even worse, are you like this dude? Which one are you? Are you a beggar? Now everybody thinks you're, he's smoking some money, by the way. Everybody thinks, oh, I'm definitely not him. But what is your life really like? Is it really after God or is it after the things of this world? If it's after the things of this world, your life is more like this.

Or is it like this? I want you, God. That's how you can have joy in your life and that's how you can be a testimony for those around you. So I encourage us all.

Let's seek God. Let's seek his Holy Spirit. Let's humble ourselves and ask for his grace.

Jesus asked the question, will I find faith when I return? And there's a reason why he asked that. Will I find faith when I return? In Matthew 25, it says, take he that no man deceive you for many will come in my name saying, I am Christ and shall deceive many. And these are all the words of Jesus.

And because nickeldy shall abound, the love of many shall wax cold. But he that endureth unto the end, the same shall be saved. You know, there's a day, well, let me read a couple of another verse.

Except those days should be short and there shall no flesh be saved. But for the elect's sake, those days shall be shortened. I used to read them as in my younger days.

And I said, that's ridiculous. Of course, there's going to be faith on the earth. But as I get older and I see what technology is doing and knowledge is increasing, I can easily see and people are falling away like flies, so to speak.

I can see now this is true. This is true. You know, people are tossing in the towel.

They don't believe in God anymore. They're walking away. People's hearts are cold.

You know, even in our conservative Anabaptist circles, there's cold hearts. Let's just get honest. It's the way it is.

And they think if we do all these right things, we're going to make it across the river. It's not going to work that way. We need to have joy.

Now, yesterday, I wasn't at the camp thing the whole day, all day long. So on Saturdays and holidays, there's a break for my wife for packing my lunch. So on holidays and Saturdays, I see to myself.

So I either go over here to 7 Star or Star 7 or wherever they call it now, Halsey Select to buy a sandwich or go to the truck stop they have a little sub sandwich. So yesterday I chose to just go to the truck stop. And so I was standing in line.

You talk about joy. And I was standing in line waiting for my sandwich. And I mean, I'm just telling you, this lady, she sounded like a junkyard guard dog.

I mean, she was like, and I'm like, man, do I just need to leave here? And she was not building this guy's sandwich right. I'm just like, why don't this lady get it? And so I was next one line. I'm like, well, I don't feel like leaving.

I don't feel like driving her over here. I'll just wait it out. And she was just.

And then I noticed there's some other guys that came in behind me. And I noticed that she had this big jar. And it said this on it.

I'll see if I can spell it. The jar was empty. And I'm like, lady, the jar is empty.

You had a whole string of people in front of me. You got some people behind me. But the jar is empty.

There's no tips in there. You think you connect the dots. There's a reason why the jar is empty.

Because you don't have joy. You're not this joyful person. And you know what? I looked at that.

I'm just going to slide my card and leave. I'm not leaving no tips either for you. But you know, it makes all the difference.

When you have joy coming out of your life, people want to be around you. People like you because you have joy. OK.

Someone else. I said enough. Anyone.

Yes. Good. I think those cares may not be necessarily life-threatening things or just trying to get everything done and just trying to do the best you can.

I feel sometimes those cares can fall into that category rather than the trials and troubles that come in. And those are things that we can choose or not choose. Things come in our life, the trials and things that come our way, just because life goes that way sometimes.

I think most times, it's just being too involved with the world and trying to make a name for ourselves or whatever it may be. I think it's sometimes too involved with those cares and trying to choke our time and make our desire away from the spiritual. Amen.

Someone else. I'm going to talk to you a little bit about family. And I think that especially when a story got to share by a friend of both of us.

She said she had a crazy house. And I mentioned it to her. And she said, I didn't hear the speaker very clear.

So I just kept going to watch what she got to share. And I noticed that the house was bad. I looked on the TV.

But afterwards, she asked her husband, what did you do with that baby? What is this story about? And made out the story was much like her own. She had an adult husband. And he loved her.

And he was very close. So it didn't matter to her. Neither did that man.

I want to do something. And I get to do it. But they wouldn't let me.

And so she had learned to choose a story to avoid. And she really enjoyed it. Because her husband was taking care of her.

So that's why they let her do it. But it's not easy. Amen.

Amen. I always read her WhatsApp. I always get encouragement from her WhatsApp that she sends my wife.

Because there's meat and potatoes there. And the things that she shares, it's like, whoa. OK.

Sometimes the deepest pain that comes is joy. This week, I had two different instances where I made a mistake. Mistake.

Both times, mistakes were pretty serious. They were not things that you could do to your effect to come back and do it again. And both times, it was incredible.

But I'm in joy after that. And I don't know. It's just my personality.

But it is incredibly, you roll a thing through your mind. Oh, we're going to have an effect. It's time to make that happen.

And yet, anyways, I was kind of thinking, along the same lines, I was really encouraged by the sermon. We need to choose joy, especially things that we can't change, things that already happened or things that are just out of our control. One thing that I've found helpful over the past couple of years is when I feel that I'm stressed and there's something that's going on, I've got to deal with all this different stuff.

Sometimes I'll just stop and just kind of do an auto-pony type of thing, just say, this thing that I'm stressed about, and every 10 minutes, I'm bringing this up in my mind and trying to figure out how my soul is going to get it to go on. And this next thing, usually it's five things or 10 things. But I'll just say, I'm just not going to dwell on that because those things are not in my control right now.

Then we can have the space to dwell on lots of things. But if we truly do give that space to God, God can control it. Amen.

I like that. You know what's most shocking about that testimony? I cannot believe between three computer techs, geeks, that you couldn't fix it. I just can't.

It's not a mechanical problem. But I'm so glad that you've got a problem that you can't fix because it makes me feel good. That's good.

Amen. Someone else. Yes.

I was trying to think. I was standing in line. I also employed the notes so I could do them.

And there were two lines that were shorter. One, I was just writing the whole thing. I couldn't write the whole part.

But anyways, I was trying to figure it out. I was trying to figure out how to write it. I kept writing.

I just couldn't write it. I just couldn't. I was trying to write it.

It was almost like she was just writing it. So after a few minutes, after a few minutes, after a few minutes of writing, she stopped asking me to write and she looked at me and she kept asking me. And she kept asking me to keep going.

And I looked at my notes and I kept writing and I kept writing. Maybe we should pray for the people. Offer to pray.

Can I just pray for you? That's what my pastor friend of late would do. Can I just pray for you? And he would just launch it. I'm not quite as nervous as he's got.

Okay, thank you. Someone else?