Living Hope Fellowship Church...Sermons From the Pastor

THE JOY
by Pastor Kevin Badgley

Good day, beloved. Let’s get right into our Bibles again today. In Psalm 51 I want to read something to you concerning joy and let you know that there is an anointing in the presence of God. There is joy in a Christian who is walking in God’s presence. Verse 2 says, "Wash me thoroughly from mine iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin." Now look in Verses 10-13. "Create in me a clean heart, O God; and renew a right spirit within me. Cast me not away from thy presence; and take not thy holy spirit from me. Restore unto me the joy of thy salvation; and uphold me with thy free spirit. Then will I teach transgressors thy ways; and sinners shall be converted unto thee."

We look around today and we see people sad and depressed. They are so down and out! I’m talking about people that are supposed to be saved, born again, and ready for the kingdom of God. However, when they walk around like that, who would want to have that? Our job is to be witnesses of the glory, the blessing, and the power of the Lord Jesus Christ. Yet, we see so many people around that are driven with sadness and the bondage of depression. There is no joy around them; have you ever been around any?

You get around these people and you feel depressed by the time you get done talking to them! They can only tell you about their aches and pains, and then, maybe, they will tell you about the church service. After telling you about their aches and pains, you may hear about their aunt so-and-so, who is having a problem here or there. It’s really a depressing thing because they have no joy.

Joy and faith work hand in hand! When you’ve got joy, your faith is strengthened and you will believe God for greater things. However, when you’re depressed and down, you don’t have the victory in your life, in your soul, or in your mind. You don’t have the faith you need to accomplish the things in God=s kingdom. What’s worse, it makes you a bad witness.

If you are born again, you are a child of God and are supposed to be exemplifying Jesus Christ. If you look like you’ve been eating green persimmons and drinking pickle juice, they are going to say, "I don’t need this Jesus you say you have." Well, beloved, you may get amused at that remark, but it’s the truth. Some are wrestling and troubled right now as they hear this message. God wants to set you free.

Listen again to Psalm 51:2: "Wash me thoroughly from mine iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin." What is the sin? It’s a lack of faith, it’s a fear, it’s a depression, a thing that’s come against you and is easily besetting you. Look at this in Psalm 51:10, "Create in me a clean heart, O God; and renew a right spirit within me." We need to pray, "Get things right, O God, in me." This is where the Christian needs to pray and seek the face of God.

Verse 11 says, "Cast me not away from thy presence; and take not thy holy spirit from me." David is praying. A lot of people say this is when he backslid with Bathsheba, but it’s more than this beloved. Any sin will take away your joy. When there is fear (other than the fear of God) it is sin to you. Anything that is not of faith is sin; anything that takes away your joy is sin; anything that will keep you from your faith is still yet more sin.

Look at Verse 12, "Restore unto me the joy of thy salvation; and uphold me with thy free spirit." David asked the Lord to restore unto him the joy. What? He wanted the joy of salvation restored to him. When you have salvation in Christ and you are walking close to him day by day, you’ve got a joy. You may not be chuckling or laughing as you walk down the street, but inside your heart and on your countenance there is joy.

When bitterness, or wretchedness, or persecution comes your way you don’t falter. You don’t go into a cursing fit. You don’t lose your walk with God. You just buckle up and under, and begin to say, "Yes, Lord, I believe you, because I’ve got the joy and the faith of God in my life." You renounce the devil in whatever fashion he comes against you, and you are victorious. Why? It is because you kept your joy. You’ve got your joy and your faith.

Nehemiah 8:10 says, ". . . for the joy of the LORD is your strength." Now it is not joy that you pump up like the church world is saying today in many places. They want you to pump it up, put on a face, and pretty soon it will come to pass. No! You need the joy of the Lord. How can you get the joy of the Lord? Did you know that you might receive it from God, beloved? The joy of the Lord is a gift from God.

When you get saved and born again you received the grace of the Lord Jesus. He gives deliverance and his healing power along with your salvation. You had joy that you received all these things, because you got awesome gifts. You’ve gone from death unto life, and you are going to be joyful; you’re going to be happy. This is why I’m very suspicious of somebody that says they just got saved when they don’t look saved, and they don’t behave saved. They should have the joy of the Lord in their life, because they know that every sin is under the blood.

A person may say they are not emotional; they don’t show emotions. Some are bound of the devil that has got them depressed and is keeping them from the joy of the Lord! That devil is keeping them from their strength in Christ Jesus. Let’s go a little farther. Look at what verse 13 says. "Then will I teach transgressors thy ways; and sinners shall be converted unto thee."

David asked God to restore the joy of salvation and then he was going to teach transgressors God’s ways. Did you know that you’re not going to teach a backslider the ways of God until you have the joy of the Lord in you? You aren’t going to get a transgressor or sinner coming back to God and converted until you first have the joy of the Lord and His free spirit moving in your life.

Without the joy of the Lord, your strength and faith are not knit up in God. You are just able to grind out another hour in the day. "God help me through this day." "Thank God I made it through this day." "I’ll drudgery through another day tomorrow." You may say all these things if you don’t have the joy. "Lord come quickly! I’m about ready to die." This is not the faith in Jesus; this is not the joy of the Lord that’s supposed to be in the church today! Who’d want to join that mess? Who’d want to be converted? That’s not salvation; that is death and bondage!

You need the joy of the Lord working in your life. I’m talking about the happiness in your soul. Your faith, and your soul, and your life are in the hands of God when you are walking according to the Lord’s will. This is when you don’t have sin. Beloved, many times people have the joy of the Lord because they are walking in the presence of God. Why? It is because they’ve got every sin under the blood.

That’s why a person who just gets saved is so happy. However, it doesn’t take them long to calm down does it? The church world sees that they do. "Now don’t get radical." "Don’t go too far." "Don’t be embarrassing to the church." "Just calm down and get this thing on even keel and then you’ll be alright." No! Jesus gave warning to one of the churches in Revelation. He said they had left their first love. That’s the first joy, the first happiness, the first peace of God that that person felt when he got born again. Jesus wants every one of us to keep our joy.

He wants every one of us to walk in His Spirit. He wants us to move out in His Spirit, but you’re not going to do that when you’re depressed. In fact, you’re going to shut yourself away, aren’t you? You don’t even want to look at anybody. You don’t want to talk to anybody, especially about Jesus. You know you’re going to flub up, because you don’t look happy. You may say, "Well, God saved me." "Yeah? You look saved; you act saved!" may be the sarcastic reply. "If that’s salvation, brother, I don’t want it." That is what a lot of people are going to say. You know it’s the truth.

God wants his people today to come on and believe God for a joy. I pray that there’s an anointing for joy. I believe that the church world today has failed miserably in the flock. The people come in; they don’t raise their hands; they don’t say amen; they don’t believe God. If some do, they are looked upon like fanatics or fools. Somebody may think they must have just got saved, and they’ll calm down in a week or two! If you keep going to that church you will calm down in a week or two. Pretty soon all your joy and your faith will be gone. Anything that is not of faith is sin, so then you will have sin! Other sins then can come in and you are backslid. Now this is a terrible thing.

A person should have the joy of the Lord! Do you mean that we are going to hell if we don’t laugh and cut up all the time? No. I’m not saying that at all! What I am saying is this: the joy of the Lord is your strength, and if you have lost your joy, you’ve lost your strength. If you don’t have strength in God you cannot resist the devil. He will not flee from you, because there is no power to resist him. There’s no faith to resist him. We get saved by faith, don’t we?

The joy of the Lord is your strength, and you walk uprightly in God when you feel that power and the presence of God. Remember when you first got saved you felt that and you said, "Oh yes, Lord, I thank you for saving me, delivering me, and washing me clean."

When God saved me, He saved a sinner, and I was happy about it." That keeps you going in the straight and narrow toward Christ. You don’t want to sin. You don’t want to do the things of the world; you want to draw closer to God and become daily more and more like Jesus. Paul said, "I die daily." (See 1 Corinthians 15:31)

He was talking about dying to his own nature. Any time it tried to spring up or the devil tried to bring temptation, he cast the carnal nature down. How? He knew by faith he could do it, because he was happy in the Lord. He still had that remembrance of his first walk with Jesus, his first touch of the Master’s hand. The joy that stays in your soul will keep you from depression. It will keep you from bondage of the devil, and it will keep you from sinning if you are walking upright before God.

Many times people want a kick, a joy, or a fix from things and pleasures of this world. Do you know why? It is because they’ve lost their joy. They’ve lost their peace of God. When you lose that you’re going to find something to replace it. When man is down and tries to do something about it, the devil is standing right there to give him a substitute, a counterfeit. The devil will try to give a replacement for what God has originally begun to do.

First David asked for restoration of the joy, and then he told God he would teach other transgressors. There is no telling how much you could do for God if you would get the joy of the Lord back in your life! God wants to send the joy, and He wants to send the peace. He wants to send the power. He wants you to know that you know that you are saved, and that he has a mighty work to do in your life.

I want you to look in Matthew’s gospel right quick. It talks about Jesus riding into Jerusalem. Remember that he cleaned out the temple. When did he heal the blind and the lame? Right after he got it cleaned up and got things straightened out! Matthew 21:14-16 says, "And the blind and the lame came to him in the temple; and he healed them. And when the chief priests and scribes saw the wonderful things that he did, and the children crying in the temple, and saying, Hosanna to the son of David; they were sore displeased, And said unto him, Hearest thou what these say? And Jesus saith unto them, Yea; have ye never read, Out of the mouth of babes and sucklings thou hast perfected praise?"

Verse 17 says he left them! The religious leaders of today say that it is not right to shout and to say, "Praise the Lord!" They say it is not right unless it is at certain times or they give you instructions to do so. However, right here Jesus said that praise was perfected in babes and sucklings. These kept their joy in the Lord and praised God with a whole heart, just like children. Of course it says there that the children did it, but in many cases the people did it. The religious leaders put their thumb on them. It was not according to "their" order. It was not according to "their" schedule, and it was not in the text for that day’s service.

God wants us to come out of religion and get on to things of Jesus. When they resisted the joy and the anointing that would bring joy in the services so that the people could have greater faith in God, and keep their salvation, they denied the Spirit of God. They denied the power thereof to do these things. It says He left them! Jesus left the temple! He left the service! He left their lives!

Beloved, I believe that the one way to stay happy in the Lord, and keep your salvation fresh and new in God, going on to greater glories in God is to keep the joy in your life afire.

Father, I ask you to touch every soul that has heard this message. Break the yoke that Satan has put upon them. I command depression to go from this people. I command the devil to loose them in the name of Jesus. God, set free every captive that hears this message by whatever means or time. Let an anointing for joy come upon them. Let them be delivered, healed, set free, and sanctified. Give them faith to believe you for more in their lives. God, we praise you for this victory in Jesus’ mighty name. Amen.

Email the pastor at livinghope@hughes.net

© Living Hope Fellowship, Inc.