Living Hope Fellowship Church

Training Material

by Pastor Kevin Badgley

THE JOY

Preface

(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 things in God’s kingdom, it makes you a bad witness!  Pray till you get the joy.

THE JOY

 by Pastor Kevin Badgley

          In Psalm, Chapter 51, I want you to read something concerning joy.  There is an anointing in God’s presence, and there is joy in a Christian who is walking in God’s presence.  Psalm 51:2 says, “Wash me throughly from mine iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin.”  Now look in Verse 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 see people sad and depressed.  They are SO down and out!  I’m talking about people who are supposed to be saved, born again, and ready for the kingdom of God.  Who wants to be like that?  They look miserable!  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 have 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 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 you 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 read this message.  God wants to set you free. 

          In Psalm 51:2 David asked God to wash him and cleanse him from his sin.  A lack of faith, fear, and depression can come against you.  It easily besets many people.  However, in Verse 10 David asked God to create in him a clean heart, and to renew a right spirit within him. 

          Christians needs to pray and seek the face of God!  We need to pray, Get things right, O God, in ME! 

          David prayed that God would not cast him away from His presence.  A lot of people say this is after 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.  Romans 14:23 says, “. . . for whatsoever is not of faith is sin.”  Anything that takes away your joy is sin; anything that will keep you from faith in God is yet more sin.

          Look at Verse 12 where David asked the Lord to restore the joy of salvation to him!  “Restore unto me the joy of thy salvation; and uphold me with thy free spirit.”  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 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 and your faith.

          Nehemiah 8:10 says, “. . . for the joy of the LORD is your strength.”  It is not the joy that you “pump up” like the church world does today in many places.  They want you to pump it up, put on a face, and think that pretty soon it will come to pass.  No!  So, how can you get the joy of the Lord?  The joy of the Lord is a gift from God.

          When you get saved and born again you receive the grace of the Lord Jesus.  He brings deliverance along with your salvation.  You have joy that you receive these things, because you get an awesome gift.  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 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 of Jesus!

          Some people say that they are not emotional; they don’t show emotion.  However, some are bound of the devil that has got them depressed, and it 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 what Verse 13 says:  “Then will I teach transgressors thy ways; and sinners shall be converted unto thee.”

          David first asked God to restore the joy of salvation to him, 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 to come back to God and be 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 go through drudgery again 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 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 happiness in your soul.  Your faith, 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.  You can have joy, and walk in the presence of God, because you’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.  The church world sees to it 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 a person feels when he gets born again.  Jesus wants every one of us to keep our joy!

          He wants every one of us to walk in His Spirit and move on 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.  You won’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 may get a sarcastic reply! You don’t act saved!  If that’s salvation, 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 to come on and believe Him for joy.  I pray for an anointing for joy!  Many churches have failed the flock miserably.  The people come in, but they are not taught to raise their hands or to say amen!  If some do, they are looked upon like fanatics or fools.  Don’t lose your faith and joy and backslide!

          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 that 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. 

          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 me going in the straight and narrow way toward Christ.  I don’t want to sin.  I don’t want to do the things of the world.  I want to draw closer to God and become daily more and more like Jesus.  Paul said in 1 Corinthians 15:31, “. . . I die daily.”

          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 as you walk 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 stands 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, the peace, and 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 where 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, unless it is at certain times or they give you instruction to do so.  However, Jesus said that praise was perfected in babes and sucklings.  These kept their joy in the Lord and praised God with a whole heart!   In many cases the grown people did it, and the religious leaders put their thumb on them.  It was not according to their order, or schedule, or text for that day’s service.

          God wants us to come out of dead religion!  Those leaders 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 and 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 to keep your salvation fresh, 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 read 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, let an anointing for joy come upon every soul that reads this message.  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.

CONTACT INFORMATION:

PASTOR KEVIN BADGLEY

LIVING HOPE FELLOWSHIP, P. O. BOX 111, GRAND CHAIN, IL  62941

CHURCH / FAX (618) 634-2541

E-mail  livinghopefellowship@lazernetwireless.net

These condensed Bible studies have been published to help new Christians in their new walk with the Lord.  Kevin Badgley, the author, is the pastor of Living Hope Fellowship Church.

This is a Living Hope Fellowship publication.