Cultivating Joy and Peace: Fruit of the Spirit

But some reason, she still kept being drawn back to that church, and God kept working on her. And the Holy Spirit was what was actively pursuing her and drawing her in. And eventually, as the spirit kept working on her heart, she got to the point that she goes, you know, y'all are right. And things began to change for her. And she found what we're gonna talk about right now is that joy [00:42:01] (29 seconds)  #SpiritPursuit

is not like the pinnacle of everything, but joy is found in a relationship that exists inside of us with the holy spirit. It's always present and it doesn't lose its place in our life. The only time it seems to not be there is when we take our eyes off of our lord and savior, that we begin to feel like the joy has disappeared, and then we begin to struggle. [00:42:30] (28 seconds)  #JoyFromWithin

The people that came up to me today and say, hey, you just you you seem a little different this morning. You seem to have some you know, you seem happy. It wasn't happiness. It was joy. I I wasn't feeling joy, but it was just a state of being. [00:42:58] (16 seconds)  #JoyAsState

It was just being present with God and God being present with me and just being full of who he is. It helps us to rise above life's challenges. It's it's a position of strength that we have. It's reliable, and it is an unending source for us. It just fills us. Joy is something that I pray that each and every one of you get to experience. [00:43:24] (32 seconds)  #FilledByGod

It's something that we experience when things seem to kinda go our way. And a lot of times, we think that at the pinnacle of worldly happiness somehow is God's joy, that it's at the very top. And if we can be happy all the time, then eventually we're gonna experience God's joy, and the two really have nothing to do with each other. One's a feeling, and the other is a state of being. [00:35:12] (23 seconds)  #HappinessVsJoy

This is a Hebrew word for peace. And that word for peace is different in the sense that it expresses not a absence of conflict, but it's a wholeness. It's like a harmony. Like you get four voices up here on stage and and they're they're at first trying to find their fit with each other and then all of a sudden all four of them hit and you have that sweet spot and you go, oh, yeah, that's nice. [00:48:19] (26 seconds)  #ShalomHarmony

Jesus was different though. In John fourteen twenty seven, he said this, peace I leave with you, my peace I give you, I don't give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid. The word here is what we typically hear when we're even watching a TV show or, you know, we're we're watching, you know, or reading through the scripture, [00:47:49] (26 seconds)  #JesusGivesPeace

That harmony that's there. It's it leans into another idea too of like this concept of welfare. Like where you're desperate and you need somebody to help provide something, a need in your life, and all of a sudden that need is met, you know, how does that make you feel? You just take a deep sigh and you go, oh, I never imagined in a million years that that would come my direction. [00:48:45] (29 seconds)  #NeedMetRelief