Brenton
 Welcome back to Further. I am Brenton Grimm. Clay Baker is here. How you doing? Good, Brenton. How are you? I'm doing well.

[00:02:10:04 - 00:02:15:03]
Brenton
 Yeah, you preached this week on John 16. I talked a lot about joy,

[00:02:16:20 - 00:02:18:14]
Brenton
 which I think is--

[00:02:19:18 - 00:02:55:08]
Brenton
 it's a very interesting subject, and I think it's very hard to apply to our lives. And so that's kind of what I want to get into today, is how can we actually take what we know biblically and kind of move that into our real life so that we do experience joy, right? Yeah. So I guess let's start out with-- because I think it's pretty common for us to have an inaccurate view of what joy is. I think a lot of times it can be kind of conflated with happiness.

[00:02:56:17 - 00:02:59:02]
Brenton
 And these are clearly biblically two different things.

[00:03:00:11 - 00:03:05:11]
Brenton
 So to start, can you give us just a definition of what biblical joy is?

[00:03:07:11 - 00:03:08:08]
Clay
 Yeah, I can try.

[00:03:10:09 - 00:03:15:07]
Clay
 I do think it includes happiness. So I don't think we want to be--

[00:03:16:11 - 00:03:19:09]
Clay
 or think of those things as two separate--

[00:03:20:09 - 00:03:24:01]
Clay
 I don't think we want to distinguish them too greatly in our minds. Sure, OK.

[00:03:26:00 - 00:03:48:11]
Clay
 I do think it includes a sense of happiness, gladness, rejoicing. But the tension I think we experience is that in this world, we will have trouble, as it'll say in this coming week's passage. And we certainly experience that in our lives. And Jesus himself experienced the full range of emotions we experience, the full range of emotions.

[00:03:49:12 - 00:04:13:02]
Clay
 And that does not always include happiness. So I don't think there's any expectation that we feel happy at every single moment of our lives. And yet, scripture seems to be pretty clear to me that the Lord wants to give us his sense of happiness, which comes from his presence and the truths of his gospel.

[00:04:14:07 - 00:04:30:01]
Clay
 And so we got into that on Sunday with respect to both this person and his work. I talked about him being the source of our joy. And I talked about the resurrection being the reason for our joy.

[00:04:31:01 - 00:04:43:13]
Clay
 We could also see in Galatians how the fruit of the Spirit includes joy. So there would be another indication of joy being something that's part of God's very nature.

[00:04:44:21 - 00:04:47:14]
Clay
 And we get to experience that through the Spirit.

[00:04:48:20 - 00:04:56:22]
Clay
 I also love this Old Testament story or anecdote, just this little scene out of Nehemiah chapter 8,

[00:04:58:00 - 00:05:13:12]
Clay
 where Ezra and Nehemiah, they gather the people. And Ezra reads the law to them. And they're like cut to the heart, grieving, weeping, I believe, over their sin and their failure to keep the law.

[00:05:14:21 - 00:05:16:00]
Clay
 But then they're told,

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Clay
 do not mourn or weep.

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Clay
 It says, then he said to them, go your way, eat the fat, and drink sweet wine, and send portions to anyone who has nothing ready. For this day is holy to our Lord. And do not be grieved, for the joy of the Lord is your strength.

[00:05:36:05 - 00:06:14:13]
Clay
 And then it says that the Levites calmed all the people, saying, be quiet for this day is holy, do not be grieved. And it says that all the people went their way to eat and drink and to send portions, and to make great rejoicing, because they had understood the words that were declared to them. The reason why I love that is because it has just as much application to us today, I think, as New Testament believers, as it did to them, in the sense that we too are and ought to be grieved over our sin. And yet if we rightly understand God and his gospel,

[00:06:15:17 - 00:06:51:03]
Clay
 we know that he has done everything necessary to take care of our sin problem and to offer us forgiveness and reconciliation, this right relationship with him for eternity. And he's done that through the death and resurrection of his son, Jesus. And he offers that to us by grace through faith in Christ alone. And when we know those truths, then we can and ought to experience his joy. So we're comforted in our sorrow. We're strengthened as the joy of the Lord is your strength.

[00:06:52:05 - 00:06:58:19]
Clay
 And then those people, they did go about rejoicing then because of that. So I just think that's a good word for us today.

[00:07:00:11 - 00:07:02:11]
Clay
 Yes, being sorrowful over our sin,

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Clay
 not denying that we're going to experience sorrow because of the troubles of this world, the troubles we experience in life.

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Clay
 But can we remember the truths of the gospel?

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Clay
 Can we draw near to the presence of the Lord through his spirit and experience his joy? And I think the answer from scripture is yes.

[00:07:24:22 - 00:07:25:03]
intro
 Yeah.

[00:07:26:19 - 00:07:27:08]
Brenton
 That's really good.

[00:07:29:21 - 00:07:41:00]
Brenton
 I appreciate you bringing up that it is a fruit of the spirit. I think that that's important because it's something that is given to us by the Holy Spirit, right?

[00:07:42:23 - 00:07:55:08]
Brenton
 But also, I think we find in Philippians 4-- and I've talked about this here before, but the idea that Paul tells us to rejoice. It's not--

[00:07:58:19 - 00:08:12:06]
Brenton
 this is a command. He is commanding the church to rejoice. And so that's-- Always. Yeah. And that's another thing that I think separates it from happiness is we would never command someone to be happy, right? We would--

[00:08:13:22 - 00:08:40:03]
Brenton
 if somebody wanted to be happy, they're going to do things that make them happy. Oh, sure. Right? Making a self-gratifying kind of way. Right. And so with joy, it's a change of heart. It's a change of our attitude toward a situation. It's not-- we're going to get into this a little later, but it's not taking the sorrow away. It's not getting rid of things that don't bring us joy. It's being joyful in the face of those things.

[00:08:40:03 - 00:09:00:02]
Clay
 And so-- Well, and it's interesting. You mentioned Philippians 4 because Paul says to rejoice in the Lord. Rejoice in the Lord always. So there's a real indicator there of the source and reason of our joy. It's in Christ. It's in His gospel, His person, His work.

[00:09:02:14 - 00:09:43:03]
Clay
 Yeah, and so that's where a command like that can make sense. Because if it's just like-- if Paul had said, always be feeling happy. Right. Yeah. Well, that wouldn't quite be realistic. But in every circumstance, we can remember Christ and we can rejoice. I think of the song, "It is Well with My Soul." Whatever my lot, God has taught me to say, it is well. It is well with my soul. So no matter what troubles come our way, what kind of suffering we experience, we can affirm in Christ, in the Lord, it is well with my soul.

[00:09:44:11 - 00:09:44:16]
Brenton
 Yeah.

[00:09:46:01 - 00:09:46:06]
Brenton
 Yep.

[00:09:48:09 - 00:09:55:01]
Brenton
 OK, so speaking of sorrow, you did spend some time on Sunday comparing the relationship between sorrow and joy.

[00:09:56:09 - 00:10:14:17]
Brenton
 You specifically talked about God's purposes in our suffering. And many times we can see some of these purposes as we look back at suffering in our past, and we can see how God was faithful through those to a measure, see what He was doing.

[00:10:16:11 - 00:10:23:11]
Brenton
 But I think while we're in it so often, our top priority is just to make it end as quickly as possible. Right?

[00:10:23:11 - 00:10:25:16]
Clay
 So-- Oh, I can't relate to that at all.

[00:10:25:16 - 00:10:26:10]
Brenton
 Yeah, right.

[00:10:27:19 - 00:10:38:09]
Brenton
 And not that that's necessarily a bad thing. I don't think we want to look for sorrow just so that we can see God working, right? But what are some ways that we can better

[00:10:39:10 - 00:10:56:22]
Brenton
 keep this truth in perspective as we go through times where we're suffering? So how can we keep that in the front of our mind that God is using that for our good and His glory, instead of just looking for the quickest way out of it?

[00:11:00:01 - 00:11:09:15]
Clay
 Well, I think a significant measure of our ability to do that comes from our past experience, and even just being reflective about that.

[00:11:10:20 - 00:11:27:04]
Clay
 And that's kind of-- you've already indicated that. But as we look back on our lives, and if we take time to reflect on it, I think we can see how God has worked through hard things in the past to mold us and shape us to make us more like Himself.

[00:11:28:05 - 00:11:35:01]
Clay
 And that was one of the aspects of God's purpose and suffering that I shared about on Sunday.

[00:11:36:22 - 00:11:38:14]
Clay
 I talked about how suffering is for us.

[00:11:39:15 - 00:11:51:23]
Clay
 God allows suffering for us and works through suffering for us, but also for others and also for His glory. It's really hard-- it is really hard to remember and understand,

[00:11:53:17 - 00:11:54:17]
Clay
 maybe even believe.

[00:11:56:11 - 00:12:02:08]
Clay
 We also have to keep in mind that God is not the source of evil, and He cannot do evil.

[00:12:03:13 - 00:12:06:17]
Clay
 So we don't want to find ourselves blaming God

[00:12:08:09 - 00:12:12:07]
Clay
 for the wrongs that are done to us or that we experience.

[00:12:13:14 - 00:12:16:15]
Clay
 But just like we can-- just like the Israelites can--

[00:12:17:23 - 00:12:42:18]
Clay
 Nehemiah can be cut to the heart over their sin, and weep and wail and feel that deeply, and yet be comforted by the soothing balm of the gospel. I think so too. We can experience the realities of our suffering, and yet remember as we look back, remember as we look to God's word that God's got a bigger--

[00:12:43:21 - 00:12:44:13]
Clay
 bigger, better--

[00:12:45:23 - 00:12:51:06]
Clay
 God makes good out of it, let's put it that way. He's got a good purpose for it.

[00:12:52:16 - 00:12:57:11]
Clay
 And yeah, so those are a couple of things there. Looking back on our experience,

[00:12:58:16 - 00:13:00:11]
Clay
 taking time in the moment to reflect.

[00:13:02:03 - 00:13:12:09]
Clay
 And also I think-- and this is something I touched on near the end of the sermon-- just being-- I guess it's being more proactive. But if we're in good habits, good rhythms,

[00:13:13:19 - 00:13:39:22]
Clay
 then on the front end maybe we can protect ourselves from overly negative feelings or cynical feelings or mistrust or anger towards God over what's happening to us. And that was something God reminded me of recently, just when I get out of those habits, I'm much more prone to getting stuck in negative thoughts.

[00:13:39:22 - 00:13:40:20]
Brenton
 For sure.

[00:13:42:03 - 00:14:12:11]
Brenton
 Yeah, you had also mentioned while you were talking about suffering on Sunday about how it is actually beneficial to others in some situations too. But I think in reference to that, I think that community really helps in this to have brothers and sisters reminding you of the truth. Someone that isn't necessarily walking through that same thing is able to more rationally look at your situation and give you truth in that time.

[00:14:12:11 - 00:14:24:11]
Clay
 Absolutely. Yeah, Christian fellowship is a huge component in our spiritual lives. Our walks with the Lord definitely can help us keep our eyes on Jesus in trials.

[00:14:25:11 - 00:15:08:13]
Clay
 And on that point about suffering being for others, a little bit more about what I meant by that. And I'm sure there's other implications to be drawn from this or other aspects of this teaching. But what I specifically had in mind is it's just based on my own experience. I can get impatient with the Lord, especially if I'm in kind of a negative thought cycle. But it's like, God, where are you? More specifically, when are you coming back, Lord Jesus? And once you come back soon? And that's not a bad thing to think. And that's exactly how the Bible ends at the end of Revelation, come Lord Jesus. Maranatha, we're to be looking for it and wanting that.

[00:15:09:22 - 00:15:21:15]
Clay
 But sometimes my mind and heart wants it maybe less so that I can experience the full presence of my Lord and maybe more just so I can escape something hard that's happening

[00:15:22:20 - 00:15:24:02]
Clay
 or something I don't wanna face.

[00:15:26:05 - 00:15:48:07]
Clay
 And I don't think that's exactly where God wants us to be. But what I was talking about on Sunday when that particular part of the sermon about God allowing something like my suffering for the sake of others, it really just, it's good for me to remember that sometimes what might feel slow to me, or when I'm being impatient about the Lord's return,

[00:15:49:08 - 00:15:54:03]
Clay
 like God's doing so much more in this world than sanctifying me.

[00:15:56:11 - 00:15:59:08]
Clay
 And he's got people all over the place

[00:16:00:14 - 00:16:02:16]
Clay
 here and in the future to save.

[00:16:04:09 - 00:16:12:23]
Clay
 And so the longer he waits to return, the more people are coming into his kingdom.

[00:16:14:16 - 00:16:34:20]
Clay
 And I am so thankful that I was transferred from that domain of darkness in which I started life into the kingdom of the beloved son. And I need to be thankful for all the others that are and will be transferred into that same kingdom. And that helps me be a little more patient as I endure the trials of life.

[00:16:36:12 - 00:16:43:09]
Brenton
 Yeah, I don't know. As a part of that section too, you had brought up Habakkuk 3.

[00:16:44:15 - 00:17:10:23]
Brenton
 And I thought it was so fitting to what you were talking about. I'll just read it here. It says, "Though the fig tree should not blossom, nor fruit beyond the vines, the produce of the olive fail, and the fields yield no food. The flock be cut off from the fold, and there be no herd in the stalls. Yet I will rejoice in the Lord. I will take joy in the God of my salvation."

[00:17:13:06 - 00:17:25:22]
Brenton
 Again, just found that really, really fitting to what you were talking about, to be in this deep sorrow. And these are things that they would have absolutely depended on.

[00:17:27:22 - 00:17:28:12]
Brenton
 And so-

[00:17:28:12 - 00:17:29:23]
Clay
 Yeah, they didn't have the grocery store.

[00:17:30:23 - 00:18:00:12]
Brenton
 Right, so, and a lot of that kind of need, we don't really experience that here. And so to think of being just completely destitute in that way is kind of what he's talking about, but yet still having joy. But your point out of that was that we need to look to God's character and what he's done through his son rather than our circumstances, right?

[00:18:01:15 - 00:18:02:21]
Brenton
 And to,

[00:18:04:00 - 00:18:20:21]
Brenton
 I think that is correct. I think that that's difficult to do, right? To look to Jesus and his sacrifice in the time that,

[00:18:22:19 - 00:18:43:05]
Brenton
 like Habakkuk says, completely destitute. Yep. Right? And so as you were studying through that, did you kind of come up with any practical steps on how to do that? Is that just a matter of always engrossing ourselves in that truth and reading the Word?

[00:18:44:11 - 00:18:49:09]
Clay
 It is, but I can put a little more color to that for my own experience.

[00:18:50:21 - 00:19:00:22]
Clay
 So Chris has even teased me from the pulpit about being a fan or a former fan of some rock groups.

[00:19:03:01 - 00:19:26:19]
Clay
 Rock music, particularly in its form in the 90s and early 2000s is something of a guilty pleasure of mine. It's kind of when I was growing up. I like other variations of rock as well, but what I sometimes do, Brenton, and what I found myself doing recently is if I need like an energy boost to get me through some work tasks,

[00:19:27:20 - 00:19:34:09]
Clay
 or if I'm just kind of feeling edgy, like on edge. Angsty. Angsty, yeah.

[00:19:35:22 - 00:19:43:00]
Clay
 I will listen to some of that old music that I was fond of in my high school and college years.

[00:19:44:06 - 00:20:01:10]
Clay
 And it kind of helps me get work done sometimes, or it just kind of, I don't know, it's like a stress relief, I guess, release, I guess. But here's what I found as I was kind of going through that negative funk that I was describing on Sunday that I experienced recently.

[00:20:02:20 - 00:20:04:16]
Clay
 I was waking up in the morning

[00:20:05:16 - 00:20:09:07]
Clay
 with lyrics from some of those songs in my head.

[00:20:10:14 - 00:20:13:15]
Clay
 And they were not positive.

[00:20:16:11 - 00:20:34:17]
Clay
 If you're familiar with New Metal or Progressive Rock or whatever, some of those lyrics are not wholesome. And those were the first words running through my mind as I woke up in the morning.

[00:20:35:18 - 00:20:57:09]
Clay
 And I honestly just thought, I think there's something spiritual going on here where the enemy is using some of this stuff to attack me or just kind of get me sidetracked. Now I was fully, I mean, I was a willing participant in that and listening to that kind of music.

[00:20:58:17 - 00:21:01:18]
Clay
 But it's like he was using it and putting the pedal to the metal,

[00:21:02:20 - 00:21:03:16]
Clay
 pardon the pun.

[00:21:06:07 - 00:21:22:21]
Clay
 And I just realized the power then of what I was doing, like I was putting stuff in my mind that was discouraging me and making my thoughts more negative. And it was catchy and it was like there right away in the morning.

[00:21:24:04 - 00:21:26:06]
Clay
 So then I think the opposite is absolutely true.

[00:21:27:07 - 00:21:36:16]
Clay
 When I put good, edifying, wholesome things in my mind, like good music, like gospel centered music

[00:21:37:21 - 00:21:39:02]
Clay
 or scripture or whatever,

[00:21:40:16 - 00:21:53:22]
Clay
 that is the stuff then that I'm thinking of. Those are the tunes and the lyrics in my mind in the morning or throughout the day. And that's much better for me. So, I don't always get to,

[00:21:55:08 - 00:22:03:11]
Clay
 sometimes the illustrations don't make the final cut for Sunday morning. So the podcast is nice, you know, you get the extended edition here.

[00:22:05:07 - 00:22:10:01]
Brenton
 That's right, yep. This is an open forum for you to test out any illustrations you have.

[00:22:11:17 - 00:22:11:17]
 (Laughing)

[00:22:11:17 - 00:22:15:02]
Brenton
 No, that's true. I think, you know,

[00:22:16:10 - 00:22:20:02]
Brenton
 I join you there in a lot of those same interests from the

[00:22:20:02 - 00:22:23:23]
Clay
 90s and 2000s. Grunge, there's another genre.

[00:22:23:23 - 00:22:25:20]
Brenton
 No, I totally understand what you're saying.

[00:22:27:03 - 00:22:37:08]
Brenton
 I guess a little bit with that, like you said that neglecting our relationship with Jesus is often what disrupts our experience of joy.

[00:22:38:09 - 00:22:48:13]
Brenton
 And that's absolutely true. And I think just in the same vein that we're talking, like the habits that we consistently are doing,

[00:22:49:18 - 00:23:20:12]
Brenton
 they're so important to keeping our joyful, right? And so I guess one question, and maybe you have a good answer for it, but like why are we so fast to drop these habits when we know like they're good for us and they are the answer to a lot of the problems and they are the answer to a lot of things that a A-list.

[00:23:22:21 - 00:23:27:10]
Clay
 Well, yeah, we're very flawed individuals, humans.

[00:23:28:15 - 00:23:32:11]
Clay
 We've got the flesh still with us in us, our sin nature.

[00:23:34:06 - 00:23:37:11]
Clay
 I can, yeah, I just can say amen to that. Why are we so quick?

[00:23:38:11 - 00:23:50:12]
Clay
 After the service on Sunday, I was talking to a member at the church and a sister in the Lord, and the image came to mind of how,

[00:23:51:19 - 00:24:07:14]
Clay
 if you're driving on the highway and then have to be on the highway, I guess, oh, that's the scariest time when this happens, but you drop something or there's something in the passenger seat or in the glove box or something that you wanna reach for.

[00:24:08:18 - 00:24:35:02]
Clay
 And if you've ever done this, you know, and it's terrifying, but you think like this is just, I just gotta grab this thing and you lean your body down and to the right, and maybe your head dips down below the level of the dashboard and you go to grab that thing and it's fast, but you pop back up and your car is careening off the road.

[00:24:36:21 - 00:24:45:20]
Clay
 And some people are getting pretty bad accidents doing that and maybe it's because they don't get back up in time or they get up and they panic and they overcorrect,

[00:24:46:22 - 00:24:51:09]
Clay
 but it just struck me in this conversation. That image came to mind and I shared that

[00:24:52:10 - 00:25:12:02]
Clay
 with my sister in Christ and said something like, yeah, it's like God wants us to keep our eyes on Jesus and just like keeping our eyes on the road. And we really can get off in the ditch when we don't. And then she said, yeah, and really fast too.

[00:25:13:04 - 00:25:17:21]
Clay
 Like it doesn't take much, which fits that analogy perfectly.

[00:25:20:06 - 00:25:36:20]
Clay
 So habits, I mean, habits are something that are formed over time. They don't form overnight, good habits or bad habits, but you start doing something the same way, you know, multiple times in a row day after day and then that groove forms, you know, for better or worse.

[00:25:38:13 - 00:25:41:19]
Clay
 So then I think we're slow, well, it's like,

[00:25:42:20 - 00:25:45:20]
Clay
 it's something breaks that habit then.

[00:25:48:07 - 00:26:18:09]
Clay
 And for me recently it was going on vacation, you know, because I have a fairly regular habit of waking up at a certain time ish and definitely having a cup of coffee and sitting down in a chair, a particular chair with my Bible and just in some days I get to spend a little longer in that chair and some days I don't. I got to get out of the house a little quicker, but you know, that's a habit that's formed over time and just becomes somewhat automatic.

[00:26:19:15 - 00:26:32:11]
Clay
 You go on vacation and you're just on a different schedule and you're in a different space and you're maybe extra tired in the morning from all the activities the day before or whatever. You just don't do things the same way.

[00:26:34:01 - 00:26:52:15]
Clay
 And then getting back into it's hard, you know, I'm not much of an exerciser, but I have it on reliable authority. You can talk to our lead pastor at least who actually does exercise, he loves to run, but when you get out of the habit of running, it's really hard to get back into it.

[00:26:52:15 - 00:26:53:12]
Brenton
 Yeah,

[00:26:55:03 - 00:26:56:08]
Brenton
 that's good.

[00:26:58:11 - 00:27:33:09]
Brenton
 I did have a question at the end of this passage. In verse 23 and 24, Jesus says, "In that day you will ask nothing of me. "Truly, truly I say to you, "whatever you ask of the Father in my name, "he will give it to you. "Until now you have asked nothing in my name. "Ask and you will receive that your joy may be full." What is Jesus saying here? Like is he specifically telling them to pray for joy or what is he telling them to ask for?

[00:27:35:02 - 00:27:36:20]
Clay
 Well, it's great you should ask about this.

[00:27:38:01 - 00:27:55:18]
Clay
 I didn't spend much time at all on that part of the passage because this theme of asking in my name, whatever you ask in my name, we've covered that a couple different times prior to this last Sunday. So the last time I preached was in John 14,

[00:27:56:23 - 00:28:05:01]
Clay
 verses 12 through 14, and I covered that more extensively there. But then even in John 15,

[00:28:06:14 - 00:28:10:04]
Clay
 verse 16, it comes up again.

[00:28:11:10 - 00:28:16:15]
Clay
 And then again in our passage from Sunday, chapter 16, verse 24,

[00:28:17:17 - 00:28:31:05]
Clay
 and John's a great writer and he does this in his gospel and in his epistles, first, second John, well, some of them are so short, but definitely first John.

[00:28:32:12 - 00:28:42:01]
Clay
 But he revisits the same topic over and over again. Like he circles back to it and looks at it from a slightly different vantage point.

[00:28:43:05 - 00:28:54:16]
Clay
 So because we covered that more extensively in other places, I didn't spend a lot of time on it. What I emphasized on Sunday was that asking,

[00:28:55:16 - 00:29:08:17]
Clay
 the Father asking God something, and Jesus says, asking my name and he will give it to you. That's a relational exercise. That's interpersonal.

[00:29:10:17 - 00:29:18:04]
Clay
 And so as I was talking about experiencing God's joy and how that happens in the context of our relationship

[00:29:19:08 - 00:29:40:21]
Clay
 with him, I use that verse and then back to chapter 15, all the things he was talking about, because in chapter 15, he says that he said these things so that he said those things to them in verse 11, so that his joy would be in us, my joy would be in you, and that your joy may be full.

[00:29:41:22 - 00:29:43:08]
Clay
 Same phrase he uses at the end of our passage.

[00:29:44:09 - 00:29:53:04]
Clay
 So I looked at those things, okay, and that's like abide in me, abide in my love, my words abide in you. And it's like this cluster of,

[00:29:54:10 - 00:30:01:18]
Clay
 verbs, commands that all center on a relationship with him, with God.

[00:30:03:05 - 00:30:08:19]
Clay
 And I just wanted to draw out then how feeling joy

[00:30:10:11 - 00:30:24:02]
Clay
 comes from and in our participation with Jesus in this relationship where we're abiding and his words are abiding and we're asking, we're talking to him.

[00:30:25:12 - 00:31:16:15]
Clay
 So that's what I was emphasizing on Sunday. And previously in a previous sermon, talked about the significance of praying in Jesus' name and how that is at an objective, and in an objective sense, like our access to God the Father is through Jesus Christ. So it's through his death and resurrection, the work that he accomplished for us, his atoning sacrifice, and it's through our faith in him that we have his spirit, and that we are justified and sanctified and so forth. And so it's through him that we can go, that we can approach, that we are invited to and authorized to approach the Father, approach his throne and present our requests.

[00:31:18:01 - 00:31:24:17]
Clay
 And it also speaks to, you know, because I talked about then, like, what's it mean? Like you just get whatever you ask.

[00:31:26:12 - 00:31:28:19]
Clay
 So in one sense, it's talking about like,

[00:31:29:22 - 00:31:34:05]
Clay
 things in Jesus' name are things consistent with his character and his will.

[00:31:35:09 - 00:31:45:15]
Clay
 And we know that God's will is gonna be done. And so when we align our will with his will, we can have confidence that our prayer is gonna be answered.

[00:31:47:04 - 00:32:11:13]
Clay
 And beyond that, because we don't always know, sometimes we think it's his will and it's really not because we're human limited and he's God. But I referred to in a previous sermon, Romans eight, and how the spirit actually prays for us because we don't know how to pray. So I talked about how Paul kind of addresses this issue directly of sometimes we are a little off in our prayers or don't know what to pray for,

[00:32:12:20 - 00:32:26:11]
Clay
 but the Holy Spirit himself takes that prayer, aligns it with God's will, and then it's answered. And then that raises the question of, well, what does that look like to get a prayer in line with God's will and it's answered.

[00:32:27:16 - 00:32:56:01]
Clay
 And I answered that by saying that it's always God's will to work for the good of those who love him and to be glorified. And so just it was an opportunity to discuss how God takes everything in our lives and in ways that we can't even possibly begin to understand. He works all those things out for our good to make us more like him and he's glorified in that.

[00:32:57:06 - 00:33:17:03]
Clay
 And that then gets back, it circles back to this idea of joy and joy in sorrow and what a good thing to be reminded of and remind ourselves of and remember that even in this really difficult circumstance that might be causing us pain and sorrow,

[00:33:18:09 - 00:33:31:19]
Clay
 God's gonna work even that for our good. And if we just, he just wants us to go to him, he wants us to be praying to him, he wants us to be talking to him and then he's working all those things for our good. It's like he's answering every prayer, yes.

[00:33:33:10 - 00:33:38:17]
Clay
 So there you go, you got a couple sermons in one there and we're just tying it together.

[00:33:40:04 - 00:33:59:09]
Brenton
 No, I think how you ended that like is really relevant to what we're talking about too, that prayer is gonna be a big part of being reminded of what God has done and bringing joy into our life through that, right? So that joy is found in relationship with God.

[00:34:00:23 - 00:34:04:00]
Brenton
 And that's how we have relationship with God. So,

[00:34:05:03 - 00:34:05:08]
Brenton
 okay.

[00:34:05:08 - 00:34:08:05]
Clay
 I mean, we look to so many other things.

[00:34:09:17 - 00:34:12:14]
Clay
 And it just doesn't satisfy, it doesn't bring us joy.

[00:34:15:11 - 00:34:30:21]
Clay
 Yeah, I mean, we go to the TV or we go to social media or we go to food or you name it. The things we run to another person perhaps, but just the things we go to to make ourselves feel better, to make it seem okay.

[00:34:32:20 - 00:34:35:16]
Clay
 There's only one though, there's only one person

[00:34:36:18 - 00:34:50:03]
Clay
 who can really give us what we're looking for and he's not just a man, he's also God. And when I remember that and put that into practice, that's what I'm experiencing his joy in my life.

[00:34:51:08 - 00:34:51:15]
Brenton
 For sure.

[00:34:52:18 - 00:34:54:22]
Brenton
 Okay, one more, we'll wrap up with this.

[00:34:56:15 - 00:35:05:20]
Brenton
 You ended your sermon by reminding us of the three R's that describe our corporate worship, their remember, rehearse and respond.

[00:35:07:05 - 00:35:18:18]
Brenton
 Can you first just kind of remind us what these three words mean in this context and then talk about why you thought they were important to this topic of joy.

[00:35:20:15 - 00:35:23:00]
Clay
 Yeah, they just came, the Lord has brought them to mind. I think they're catchy.

[00:35:24:10 - 00:35:37:14]
Clay
 I've kind of been like, I don't know where our worship team got it if they came up with it themselves or if they saw it from somewhere, all the best ideas are stolen, which is fine. Imitation is the highest form of flattery.

[00:35:39:23 - 00:35:45:05]
Clay
 But it's all about the gospel. So it's remembering the gospel, rehearsing the gospel and responding to the gospel.

[00:35:46:05 - 00:35:58:09]
Clay
 So we remember the gospel through, primarily through God's word. And then on Sunday mornings, we're preaching that and singing it and praying it, et cetera. And we're rehearsing the gospel, like that's like acting it out.

[00:36:00:11 - 00:36:03:14]
Clay
 On Sunday morning, we do that through the ordinances, baptism and communion.

[00:36:04:17 - 00:36:23:10]
Clay
 Not sure exactly how that would apply to our individual lives, like outside of Sunday morning. Maybe you could help me out with that, but then respond, responding to the gospel is how we live. What do we do from there? And that's worship. And so worship is all of life and it's living for God's glory in every aspect of our lives.

[00:36:24:12 - 00:36:33:15]
Clay
 And so what I was talking about on Sunday is taking those elements of our corporate worship experience

[00:36:35:02 - 00:36:42:03]
Clay
 because they're all designed to get our eyes focused on Jesus and the gospel.

[00:36:44:06 - 00:37:06:01]
Clay
 And so then for me, I need to take some of those things and do them in my daily life. Because keeping my eyes fixed on the Lord and what he's done for me and how much he loves me is essential to experiencing God's joy in my life, that my joy would be full. It's his joy in me and it's filled up to the brim and overflowing when I think about him.

[00:37:07:02 - 00:37:23:00]
Clay
 And so if we've got a staff team and an elder team and everything they're leading us through on Sunday mornings is calculated to get me thinking about the gospel and responding to it,

[00:37:24:01 - 00:37:29:12]
Clay
 then maybe there's some things I can learn about my individual worship life

[00:37:30:20 - 00:37:46:20]
Clay
 outside of Sunday mornings that could help me with that too. And it's the basic stuff that is part of about every sermon. It's spending time in God's word and praying and being around other believers. But I hope that, and that's why I started the sermon with a Piper quote about,

[00:37:48:01 - 00:38:02:23]
Clay
 it's not that we need new truths. New truths probably aren't truths, but we need to be reminded of good old truths. And he said, it was great, he said, we need to be told an old truth in a fresh way or sometimes just to say it or just to be told it.

[00:38:04:06 - 00:38:07:11]
Clay
 And so we don't have to be ashamed of the gospel. I don't have to apologize for the gospel.

[00:38:09:05 - 00:38:25:04]
Clay
 We preachers only be ashamed or apologize for encouraging myself and all of us to spend time with God in prayer and spend time in his word. Hopefully though, in the context of this particular passage, this particular sermon, this idea of like this relationship,

[00:38:26:05 - 00:38:30:10]
Clay
 hopefully there was a little bit of freshness to it.

[00:38:32:04 - 00:38:32:10]
Clay
 But yeah,

[00:38:33:10 - 00:38:39:14]
Clay
 I certainly need those reminders all the time. And it was fresh to me in preparing this sermon.

[00:38:40:20 - 00:38:53:02]
Clay
 But God, he beckons me and he desires my presence and my interaction with him. So yeah, taking some of those little things from Sunday morning and putting them in my daily life. And that's kind of the way I do that.

[00:38:53:02 - 00:38:54:11]
Brenton
 Yeah, all right.

[00:38:55:16 - 00:39:23:03]
Brenton
 Okay, let's wrap it there. Thanks, Clay. Appreciate you coming in to talk. It's always a pleasure. Yeah, absolutely. If you guys listening do have any questions, feel free to reach out and ask at furtherpodcast.com. And I will say we're coming up on some holidays, so I haven't exactly worked out the schedule yet, but it's possible we'll take a few weeks off. So keep that in mind, I'll let you know, but we'll talk to you next time.

[00:39:24:19 - 00:39:28:17]
 (Upbeat Music)