Pastor Gail – Welcome and Prayer Teams
1. Amen, amen, amen. Please be seated for a little while. I’m so happy to have Victor back. So many of you know, Pastor Brian and I have been on the road a lot and so I’m just so thankful to see all of you.
2. I’d like to call our prayer teams. Let’s remember Mary. This morning, and you want to stand in for somebody? I think you can stand in.
3. Thank you. Thank you for the Lord. Whatever extra change you have, 100-euro notes, 500-euro notes. I don’t know if you’ve ever seen them. Do 500s exist? Maybe I’ve never seen them. Oh, they were? Okay. I knew I’d never seen them. They’re praise God. Anyway, so whatever you want, we’re going to go, as a church family, on the 12th of July, we’re all going on one bus together to ancient Corinth. It’s going to be fun. Yeah. Please don’t forget, on Wednesday night, we meet here for just a time to look at the word and prayer at 7 pm.
4. And I want to dismiss the children, children’s church.
5. I hope you feel his presence. It’s really lovely. But I think there are times we have to push ourselves. Beyond being ordinary or being a ritual. And push our mind. What is everything we have to do?
6. We say at this moment. I sit at the table of the Lord. He’s here. And I’m so honored. I’m so honored. And I will thank you Lord today. That I get to remember with my family. How about you love me? I had a huge debt. But you took it all. You took it all. And I’m free.
7. Could you bow your heads for just a moment? And if you don’t know him, invite him in because that’s how we take communion. I love how this ends. We celebrate his death until he comes again. Because when we see him again, we will truly know, as we already do, that he conquered death. He conquered. He’s won. And we will see him in life, in life. We will sit at the table with him in life.
8. Father, we celebrate communion today. We celebrate that you gave your life for us. Amen. Can we all say amen? We celebrate the bread that is broken, Lord. Because, Lord, your life was broken. Your physical body was broken. That we can be healed. Amen. Amen. We may not see it completely yet, but we can and will be healed. Amen. Amen.
9. So, we’re going to pass the communion now and let’s wait and take it. Well, no. Just take it as you receive it right now. Let’s just joyfully just take it.

Korina – Main Message
10. I have a big mouth since day one. I probably don’t even need the mic. Let’s open with a word of prayer. Dear Heavenly Father God, we just praise you and thank you that we are able to come together in your house today. And we are thankful that your presence is here within us and around us. For you said that you envelope the praises of your people. We are so thankful to be able to participate in that and to host the place where you reside. Father, I just ask that my words be your words today. Lord, give us ears to hear and hearts to understand. In Jesus name I pray. Amen
11. Stavros is going to be very patient with me because I was changing this even early this morning. In Galatians 5:22-23, it says, “but the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, and self-control.”
12. I think, many times we overlook ‘Joy.’ So, I struggled to do a sermon on joy, which is funny. I had redemption ready and we switched gears. And even in the children’s ministry the last couple of weeks we’ve been talking about the spirit of joy.
13. But sometimes it feels like, at least for me, that we’re on kind of an emotional rollercoaster. But God wants us to have joy every day. And many times, we go on and we’re living life and we’re doing all of the things that we have to do. And life is hard and times are tough. And then every once in a while, we are glad and happy and rejoice. And then we go back to our serious boring lives.
14. That is the reverse of what God has intended it to be. And that sounds funny because you see kids laughing all the time. And someplace along the way we quit laughing. We are not full of that joy. And there are times we are definitely challenged and there might be crying and weeping. But joy comes in the morning.
15. Not six months from now. Not when we have all the things that we want. Not when we’re out of every bad situation. It’s supposed to be like a default setting. Kind of like when your phone or your computer starts going a little squirrely. It throws up weird errors. It throws up errors and things that have gone wrong. Even though we’re trying to do the right thing. We’re clicking the right buttons.
16. Sometimes you just have to stop. Turn the whole system off. And restart. So that joy is the default setting. The Bible says in Psalms 30:5 that “joy comes in the morning.” And sometimes that’s hard for us to remember, at least for me. Especially before I’ve had that first cup of coffee.
17. But I’m often reminded of a trip that I took to the Philippines many years ago. We were traveling to a small little island. And it was a long day of delays and travel. We had vehicles that broke down. And there was a lot of heat and humidity. We missed our boat. We tried to get the last boat of the day to get where we were going. It was low tide and we couldn’t even get out to the boat. Things that I don’t think about because I am inland and we don’t have tides.
18. So here we are traveling in a boat with sails at night on the dark river and it’s rough. And the whole team was kind of whining and complaining. And the wind is blowing. I think we felt like the disciples going are we going to make it Lord?
19. So, we get in really late at night and we think thank God we survived. And we wake up in the morning. And we’re on this beautiful island. It’s one where the governor or somebody has a resort or a private beach. Crystal clear blue water. Amazing snorkeling. You can see starfish and coral. They had breakfast waiting for us and coffee.
20. So last night they were all ready to kill me because I helped organize this trip. A little sleep, a little food. And in the morning, we were back to joy. And I think that’s an important lesson for us to remember. That there are times we are absolutely weeping and crying and in trials. But our default setting needs to be joy.
21. And many times, we mistake joy for happiness. Joy is just not an emotional feeling. It’s a state of being. It is not a fleeting emotion. But it’s a gift of God that can be experienced even after the darkest of times. It requires us to trust in God and remain patient even during these difficult times.
22. It’s easy to be happy when everything is going right. But joy is still there even when things are going wrong. It’s not subject to the external circumstances. It is subject to a holy God, who gives us joy and faith, who gives us comfort.
23. William Barkley said, he was a theologian, he said, ‘a gloomy Christian is a contradiction in terms. And nothing in all religious history has done more for Christianity than connecting it with black clothes and long faces.’ It’s a contradiction in their opposites.
24. And this is a lesson that is more harmful than connection with black clothes and long faces. There is no way to fake joy. You can fake happy. But one is from the Spirit of God. It’s a fruit. And just like all fruit, we must develop it.
25. Sometimes that means pruning things out of our lives, that don’t bring joy. Many times, there are kind of three basic ways that we have unfulfilled joy. Sometimes we want this and we didn’t get it. Unsatisfied expectations. In Philippians 4:12, Paul writes, “I know what it is to be in need and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether I am well fed or hungry or whether I live in plenty or in want.”
26. I think many times we forget to give God the glory. And joy for what he has done. We look at what hasn’t been done. We look at the man at the pool of Bethesda. And here Jesus comes in with his disciples. And there are thousands of people waiting to be put into the pool, who are waiting to be put in the pool to be healed.
27. And Jesus heals one. He doesn’t heal the thousands. He heals one. And they rejoice that the one got healed. Many times, we look at things and we go, look at what has not been done. Why hasn’t my healing manifested? Why has my money not come in? Why has my child not come to know the Lord? But we need to remember to take joy when we don’t get our expectations met.
28. Another reason that we have unfulfilled joy is unresolved conflict. We need to remember to take joy when we don’t get our expectations met. Hebrews 12:14,15 challenges us not to become bitter. It says, “Make every effort to live in peace with all men and be holy. Without holiness, no one will see the Lord. See it that no one misses the grace of God and that no root of bitterness grows up and causes trouble to defile many.”
29. I think probably most of us know somebody who is very bitter. We had a family member we called her Oma Rush. And she was always kind of this mean old lady who just sat in a dark room and growled at you every time you came in. She was kind of always mad at you for something.
30. And we didn’t even know what it was half the time. I think we don’t want to be those people. You know people who are always mad and angry. Somebody has treated me wrongly. Somebody has not done the right thing. But we need to work, talk those things out so we can live in peace and in unity.
31. The third way that we kind of have unfulfilled joy is unconfessed sin. Psalms 23:1-5, “Blessed are those who transgressions are forgiven and those sins who are covered.” We’re not going to read all of that but you get the point that, when we are in sin, we don’t feel like we should have joy because there’s something blocking that between us and God.
32. And we need to work on those things. We need to confess it. We need to quit living in sin. And then you will see that just as the Lord wants to forgive us. You know the Bible talks about how our joy should be full. And I think many times we recognize God as serious and sober. But he tells us to come on to him as children.
33. And they come up with their weeds and they’re happy to give their flowers and give them to you. The half-eaten sandwich, they’re just happy to see you. We look at David and he danced before the Lord. He cried before the Lord as well. And I think many of us think we should get stuck there. “The Lord your God is with you. He is mighty to save. He will take great delight in you. He will quiet you with his love and he will rejoice over you with singing.”
34. So, we have a joyful, happy God. And another way to restore that joy is to list God’s characteristics in worship and in prayer. “The Lord is my strength in my shield and I will trust him and I am helped. My heart leaps for joy and I will give thanks to him in song.” So even if we don’t feel happy, we can still take joy in the Lord that he is our helper. It’s all part of preparing the fruit of joy.
35. The fourth way is to tell people about Jesus, which sounds really funny. It sounds kind of funny or crazy. I taught an evangelism class in Bible school. For people who’ve been saved 30, 40 years plus, there were two people in the entire class who had shared the Gospel with somebody within the last year. And one had only been saved two years. And I was a little shocked.
36. The Bible tells us that God rejoices over the one who has come in. He seeks out the 1 and leaves the 99. And telling somebody about your love for Jesus doesn’t mean hitting him upside with the head of the Bible. Sometimes I’d like to. But it’s coming alongside him. To let them know that there’s a God that loves him, that they are not alone, that God has a plan and a purpose for their life. So, I encourage you, tell others about Jesus, show his love to them. We need a church that looks like Christ. I think many times we forget that. That we are to love those that are around us.
37. The fifth way is when we do have problems that we give them unto the Lord. Acts 16:25, that Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God. They didn’t ask God to get them out of jail because that’s where I would have been. They did not ask for them to be pardoned. They did not complain we were wrongfully accused. They said, in this situation that we are in, we are going to pray and sing hymns to the Lord.
38. I’m telling you, that would not have been me. I would not have been singing and praising, I would have been fuming mad, to be honest. But it’s one of those things that you can see that they’ve practiced. They help grow that fruit of joy. We see what happens when they grew that fruit of joy. That they were ultimately released from prison.
39. I think nowadays we think, oh, I’m the victim. Somebody did me wrong. This is the problem instead of standing in the midst of the problem or in the midst of the storm. And David did that a lot in the Psalms. He complained to God a lot. He said, a thousand are falling here and 10,000 are there. He says, why have you forsaken me?
40. But at the end he always comes around. He says, great are you, Lord. You never leave me or forsake me. And I think many of us need to do a little bit more with God and release those problems back into him.
41. And the sixth way to release some of that joy in your life is to come closer to Jesus. If you remain in him, he remains in you. Romans 14:17 says, “For the kingdom of God is not a matter of eating or drinking but a righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Ghost.”
42. So, we need to print off those things that are causing issue in our life and we need to work at fertilizing those things that are bringing fullness of joy in our life. A couple weeks ago I was teaching the kids the song. It says, ‘The joy of the Lord is my strength.’ I’m going to sing it to you, so please be gracious. Anyhow, the song goes, the joy of the Lord is my strength and I had to teach them the laughing part. I don’t know if your church did that or not. The kids thought I was just being silly.
43. But it wasn’t too long after we practiced laughing. We started really laughing. And sometimes that’s the breakthrough that we need. When we are stuck and crying and weeping, we need that reset. And we need to practice that joy.
44. We need to remember that ‘The joy of the Lord is our strength.’ Our faith is only as strong as our joy. That we need to remember that’s where our strength comes from. That is where we get the breaking through. That reset we need every morning. We need that oil of gladness.
45. Many times, in the Bible there’s over 365 examples of the word joy, rejoice and glad. So, there’s at least one for every day of the week or every day of the year. And I think many times it’s all the things that are going on in the world. We need to press it into that joy. And then we will see the breakthrough come a lot quicker.
46. One thing that my mom told me when we were really little, in our old church building we had different words on the wall. I don’t remember any of the other ones except for the one word which was joy. And my mom said that’s always your priority list. First is Jesus, the O is others, and the last is you. And if you remember that, that will bring joy to you.
47. Drawing close to him, being unity with others, telling them about Jesus, and the last priority is you then. And then you drawing close. And that will bring the joy that you need in your life. So, you have the strength to get through the trials and tests. And you will have the strength to do all that God has called you to do.