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Advent HOPE Sabbath School

Aron Crews

Joy:  The Way We Work

The topic for this evening is entitled Joy, and then the subtitle is The Way We Work.

Anytime I preach on something or talk about something, 9 times out of 10, It's something that is personally applicable to my, like something I've grown to understand through personal devotional times.

I've thought it through and it's meaningful, at least to me.

So most topics has like a backstory of how I discovered the topic of joy and different things, but for this 1 I'll spare you the whole backstory.

But I was interested in the topic of joy and wanting to understand it better because of some someone mentioned to me its importance and significance.

And as I studied it, I discovered that, whoa, this is a serious biblical topic, and it's a lot more important than we realize.

And so it's gonna be a study on a biblical definition and understanding of joy.

We're gonna talk about joy and its relation to God, joy and its relation to each other, then at the end I'll share some testimonies of how joy worked in my life, which opened the door for soul winning.

Okay, so the first slide I have here is a picture of me, my sister and my grandma, and I'm showing you this because my sister's name is Joy, Joy Lin, but she goes by Joy or Lynn for short.

She's like 90, I think she just turned 93, healthy and she does quilting still.

And in winter, she goes down to Florida because it's not snowy in Maryland.

But this is my sister Joy on probably 1 of the most joyful days of her life, her wedding, and that's my dad, that's my mother, Sharon, my name's Aaron, so you just drop the SH off of Sharon, you've got Aaron.

So I like to say I came out of my mom in 2 ways, you know?

Then this is us as little kids and my mom is 1 of the biggest sources of joy in my life.

Okay, so, but let's talk about joy and Jesus.

Joy and Jesus, the biblical understanding of joy.

So first we're going to look at Revelation chapter 3.

It's a very popular verse and it's the very last verse in the message to the Laodicean church.

And Seventh-day Adventists understand the Laodicean message to be the message for our time, especially for our church, and the lukewarm condition, et cetera, et cetera.

Well, the very last verse, it says, to him who overcomes I will grant to sit with me on my throne as I also overcame and sat down with my father on his throne.

So I was thinking about this verse and I said, okay, the text is calling us to overcome as Jesus overcame and sat down with his father on his throne.

So I thought to myself, Okay, where in the Bible does it talk about overcoming, Jesus overcoming and sitting on the throne with his father?

Anyone know a verse catches your attention about where we could be headed next?

Hebrews 12, verse 2, another fairly popular verse.

These things aren't really hidden in the Bible, but they need to be pieced together a lot of the times.

It says, looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, in other words overcoming, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.

So I thought to myself, oh how did Jesus overcome the joy that was set before him?

Joy was the motivator, joy was the thing that helped Jesus to endure the affliction of the cross, to help him to overcome.

And so I thought, oh, if Jesus overcame that 1, we're to overcome how he overcomes, well then joy should be a key ingredient in that equation.

Then I studied more and I came to the book of 1 John.

1 John chapter 4, this is 1 of the purpose statements of the epistle.

He says, these things we write to you that your joy may be full.

And then I think it's about 4 verses later in 1st John, excuse me, 1st John chapter 2 verse 1, just a few verses later, he repeats almost identical statement.

These things I write to you, right, purpose, statement, these things I'm writing so that you may not sin.

We know that Jesus didn't sin and for the joy, and I'm like, oh joy.

In fact, the purpose of Jesus' teachings, of course we could give lots of reasons for that, but 1 of them is found in John 15 verse 11 where he says, these things I have spoken to you that my joy may remain in you and that your joy may be full.

And then once again just a few verses later he says, these things I have spoken to you that you should not be made to stumble.

Jesus says I'm teaching you, I'm speaking these things to you so that my joy may abide in you and that you'll be full of joy and that you don't stumble.

So we're once again seeing a similar thing.

When we turn to Nehemiah chapter 8 verse 10, it tells us that the joy of the Lord is your strength, right?

To resist the devil, to resist the carnal nature, we have to have strength, and that strength comes from joy.

In Luke 1, verse 41, it tells us, and it happened when Elizabeth heard the greeting of Mary that the babe leaped in her womb and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit.

So we have Elizabeth, Who's in Elizabeth's tummy?

John and Jesus are meeting for the first time, yes in the womb, but nevertheless first time meeting, and it says that John leaped in her womb and was filled with the Holy Spirit.

This is the explanation and then we have Elizabeth giving her interpretation.

She says, For indeed, as soon as the voice of your greeting sounded in my ears, the babe leaped in my womb for joy.

When Mary came and the greeting came into her ear, something about that coming into the presence of the person, even as an infant, you can experience joy.

1 of the earliest emotions or experiences that you can have, right?

There is a book that I read during this time when I was like trying to understand more about biblical joy.

And there's a book called Joy Starts Here by Dr.

He's like a psychologist and other things and in his book he's talking about joy and he's approaching it from a biblical as well as from a neurological Approach and in his book he basically summarizes joy like this He says joy is experienced with people who are happy to be with us It's as simple as that Joy is being glad to be together.

And it is actually the greatest motivating factor of all human nature.

There was a poll that was done, you might be familiar with this, when asked to all kinds of people, what is the scariest thing to you?

Public speaking comes and it always gets first place like all the time.

Why are people so afraid of public speaking?

Because in public speaking what you have are a ton of people that are looking at you and you have faces, some faces that are like, tell me more, and some that are like, like sometimes in my, 1 of my classes when I'm teaching, Because we are so afraid as humans of rejection.

We're so afraid of not wanting to be a part of something.

And so Joy is the thing that says, oh, people are glad to be with me, and it motivates you.

When someone's there and they wanna be with you and you get this energy from them, and it's like, wow, I'm glad to be with me, and things are just easier and you're motivated to do more things.

Now, this is an interesting definition, but is it biblical?

Psalm 16, verse 11 says, you will show me the path of life, and your presence is fullness of joy.

At your right hand are pleasures forevermore.

In God's presence, and is God glad to be with you or not glad to be with you?

We may misinterpret Him sometimes, right?

Oh, here comes God walking in the midst of the day, the cool of the day, and what did Adam and Eve do?

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Joy: The Way We Work

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