What can steel our Joy?
Was it for fear of the future?
Can the guilt of our past?
As we open our bibles this morning I have a simple message but then the good news is never complicated,
Romans 14: 17.
For the Kingdom of God is not meat and drink, but
righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost._
The Kingdom of God is peace; not only the peace for freedom from the past, but the peace of perfect assurance as to the future.
Not only the work of atonement is finished, the price for our sin has been paid but also the work of sanctification is finished in Christ, too,
The way is open and we have free access to the presence of God not by our works but by his works. Now you and I may receive and enjoy what is prepared for us.
What a wonderful life we have and no one who has tasted this life can ever turn back and be satisfied.
Let us not live in the past but live in the now; today the new life that God has given us and living with a hope in a future that is bright,
So what about the past and errors that we have made mistakes if you like.
Have we ever made a mistake in the past that we have regretted?
We should not confuse what we call sin for what we call a mistake. Sin has to be repented of, and those who repent and believe shall be saved
What shall we do they asked peter on the day of Pentecost
Repent everyone of you have be converted and your sins shall be blotted out
What does it mean to have our sins blotted out, no longer remembered.
What about taking the wrong turn in life, every been down a road and thought better of it later.
Examples of a "mistake":
(1) You add two and two and get the sum of five.
(2) You take a right turn when you should have taken a left.
(3) You think someone meant something they did not.
(4) You think someone can do something when they are not able to.
(5) You see someone in the supermarket and think he is someone you know when he isn't.
(6) You accidentally delete a computer file you really need.
(7) You use a word like "mistake" to define something that is a "sin".
Examples of a "sin":
(1) You lie, commit adultery, steal, kill or think about doing them.
(2) You treat others not in the fruit of the Spirit.
(3) You have a character trait which causes you to subvert moral laws.
(4) You teach false doctrine.
(5) You make false prophecies.
(6) You promote or do actions that go against the precepts of the Word of God.
(7) You claim new revelation "beyond what is written".
What about the choices in life that we have taken
Decisions that we have to live with.
The most common regret is however that people regret what they did not do rather than what they did do.
We can live in a realm where we wish that and if only I had, regret destroys the soul.
God has such great plans for you if only we step out and believe, God is for us who can be against us, he did not spare his only son will he not with him give us all things,
We have this new life and we have His son and the new man has been created, and we may in Him live out our lives;
So how can we ensure that we live in this new life.
We opened with the scripture concerning the kingdom and this kingdom is first established in righteousness,
If the rule of this kingdom is perfect, there can be perfect rest. If there be peace, no war from without, and no dissension within, a kingdom can be happy and prosperous.
After righteousness and peace, the joy, the blessed happiness in which a man can live;
"The Kingdom of God is righteousness and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost."
We have to regard this joy of the Holy Ghost, as a blessing that we are going to claim for our own lives each and every day.
It can be like a young boy, poor as a church mouse looking through the window pane into the bakers shop seeing such wonderful cakes and treats without the means to which he could buy them,
If he was un aware of the invisible pane of plate glass, that hinders him taking the beautiful things he would simply reach out and take what he wanted.
Could it be true in our lives that there are things in which we long for to be in our lives things that we could touch and taste that would bring such Joy.
Perhaps we can see these divine things but cannot reach them, the invisible plate glass could be withholding such things from us.
Have we really understood what we have in Christ already, that we have fully given our lives to Christ and everything that belongs to him belongs to us.
Whatever is told us of the life of peace and joy, we say,"Praise God; God's Word is true; I believe the Word;" and yet, day by day, we stand back. When some one says, "Take it," we say, "I can't take it; there is something between."
What is this joy? First of all, it is the joy of the presence of Jesus. It is the Holy Ghost came from Heaven to be the abiding presence of Christ in His disciples, in the Church, and in the heart of every believer.
We read of when the Lord Jesus was going away, and His disciples were very sad; their hearts was sorrowful; but He said to them, "I will come back again, and I will come to you. Your hearts shall rejoice, and your joy no man shall take from you." What took place with them, may take place with us too.
The Holy Spirit is given to make the presence of Jesus an abiding reality, a continual experience.
It is this presence only that will help us to feel, "I can conquer, I can live in the rest of God." Why? "Because I have the almighty Jesus with me every day"
With God's people, there seems to be one hindrance, they do not know their Saviour.
They do not realise that this blessed Christ is an ever present,
all-pervading, in-dwelling Christ, who wants to take charge of their entire lives.
They do not know, they do not believe that He is an Almighty Christ, and ready in the midst of any difficulties and any circumstances to be their keeper and their God. This is absolutely true.
Many Christians are asked as to how one may have the joy unspeakable, the joy that nothing can take away, the joy of the friendship and nearness and love of Jesus filling
his heart.
Our faith is resting in our ever present Christ! In him you and I can not trust Him fully, perfectly to do His work?
When we all know what the power of joy is; we know there is nothing so attractive as joy, there is nothing can help a man to bear and endure so much as joy;
We know that the Lord Jesus Himself for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross. You can tell is someone is not living aright if he is living a sighing, trembling, doubting life.
Come to-day and believe the joy of the Holy Ghost is meant for you. Does not the Scripture say, "Whom not having seen we love; in whom, though now ye see Him not, yet believing ye rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory." Do you not believe that this blessed, adorable, inconceivably beautiful Son of God, the delight of the Father,--do you not believe that this Son of God could fill your heart with delight day and night, if He were always present?
And do you not believe that He loves you more than a bridegroom loves his bride? Do you not believe that, having bought you with His blood, Jesus is longing for you?
He needs you to satisfy His heart of love. Begin to believe with your whole heart, "The joy of the Holy Ghost is my portion," for the Holy Ghost secures to me without interruption the presence and the love of Jesus.
Another thing, there is the joy of deliverance from sin.
Christ is our sanctification, and the Holy Ghost comes to communicate Him to us, to work out all that is in Christ and to reproduce it in us.
Let us remember that in the sight of God there is something more than work. There is Christlikeness--the likeness and the
life of Christ in us. That is what God wants; that will fit us for work.
He wants Christ so formed in us that we are one with Christ, and that in our thinking, feeling and living, the image of His blessed Son is manifest before Him.
If you want to live in the joy of the Holy Ghost, the question comes: "Are you willing to surrender everything
Our body, we read in 1st Corinthians, is the temple of the Holy Ghost. It is to be holy and only in Christ can this holiness be obtained.
Over the years people have had some screwed up thinking about the path to salvation and have mixed up faith with works to the point that some believe that salvation by faith alone is not possible.
We cannot make ourselves more righteous, we have heard is said that we must act like Christians we must act in the proper manor, certainly to fit into this society there are rules and regulations, perhaps we find our selves prejudice against others who don’t fit into the normal that we expect.
Let us believe that the Holy Spirit will fill your heart with the unutterable joy of Christ's presence; and with the joy of deliverance from sin, of victory over sin; the unutterable joy of knowing that you are doing God's will and are pleasing in His sight; the unutterable joy of knowing that He is sanctifying and keeping the temple for Christ to dwell in.
Believers, the joy of the Holy Ghost, the joy of that holiness of God, is His blessedness, His purity, His perfection, that
nothing can mar or stain or disturb.
The Holy Ghost waits to bring and to manifest it in our lives. He wants to come so into our hearts that we shall live, as Holy Ghost men, the sanctified life, with the sanctifying power of Jesus running through our whole beings.
When a soul comes into perfect humility before God it becomes nothing, it give up it’s own way and God becomes all in all.
Are you living in the joy of the Holy Ghost?
let us remember the joy of the Holy Ghost is the joy of working for God in Christ. I believe that God has new ways and new leadings and new power for His people, if they will only wait on Him.
we thank God for all He has given, we look at all the ways of His working that we have, let us think of the ways in which we are saved from self-care and self-seeking and self-trusting and self-loving, the rest in which we do not think of ourselves, but where He who is almighty and omnipresent is always going to be with us and is always going to work within us.
And let us when we have done that, claim the promise, that as we have sought first the kingdom and God's righteousness,
all things shall be added unto us, the kingdom of God is within you, and it is righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Ghost. Come, letus claim it even now in simple, childlike, humble faith.
We may have miss opportunities in life, missed out on Job promotions, missed out good things in life, perhaps we turned left when we should have turned right.
However
Let us have the thought that God is for us and our future is secure is the hands of the almighty.
Jesus came, preaching the gospel of the kingdom[a] of God, 15 and saying, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand. Repent, and believe in the gospel.”
Close
The bible says that all have fallen short of His glorious standard what the bible calls sin.
If you want to be forgiven by God and come into a relationship with him, you can do so right now by asking him to forgive you and come into your life.
Jesus said, "Behold, I stand at the door [of your heart] and knock. He who hears my voice and opens the door, I will come into him.
Life has many choices; eternity has only two what is your choice today?
At the end of at each service we have always have an opportunity to find life through Jesus Christ.
If you have not already now is a great time let us pray this together
Lord Jesus, I repent of my sin, I ask you to come into
My heart, I choose to make you my lord and saviour
If you prayed that for the first time come and tell us about it.
Now may the God of peace Himself sanctify you completely; and may your whole spirit, soul, and body be preserved blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.
