Joyful: Chosen, Adopted, Forgiven, Secure in Christ

We often wonder, can I really be forgiven? And yet Jesus is actually holding up that bloodstained receipt right in front of the enemy and saying, it's finished. It's done. The slate is clean. It's been paid for. And they don't have to pay it anymore because I've paid it on their behalf. This is the reality. You are forgiven and freed in Christ. And Jesus says that's a joy that can never be taken away from you. [00:58:51] (24 seconds)  #ForgivenAndFree

Overnight, the men went from cave dwellers literally to billionaires. And in Christ, you have more riches than those men could ever fathom. In Christ, you have a reality where you've gone from spiritual poverty to receiving everything in Christ because of his work on the cross and his resurrection. And this blessing is the foundation and the source of every joy in the believer's life. If you begin to try to separate your joy from these realities, you've lost it because the gospel is the central and primary foundation of any joy you'll ever receive. Everything sprouts out of that. Everything is built off of it. [01:03:32] (47 seconds)  #RichesInChrist

He knew every minute of how your life would play out. He knew all of your successes and wins. He knew your greatest sins and failures. He he knew the things that nobody else knows that you keep hidden out of shame. And God looked at you before you were ever born. And knowing every good and bad thing that you would ever do, he loved you and he chose you in him. Not based on what you could bring him, but based on the finished work of Jesus Christ on the cross. And that that's a joy that can never be taken away. [00:52:55] (27 seconds)  #ChosenBeforeBirth

They would receive all of the things that a natural son in the family would receive. They they it was like they were born into the family from the very beginning. And so, when he welcomes you in, he doesn't bring you in into his family as a secondhand citizen or as, like, a distant cousin's cousin's girlfriend boyfriend's ex. Like, it's not like you're some odd outlier that's sort of been brought into the periphery of the family. You are welcomed into the into God's family as a full genetic child, out of the slums and into the palace. And Jesus would say that's a joy that can't be taken from you. [00:54:44] (38 seconds)  #AdoptedIntoFamily

Have you ever been in the room with someone who's wearing a perfume or a cologne and it's it's wafting in the air? The minute they come into the room, you know that they're in the room. This is the image of Jesus. When he walks into a room, his joy was unmistakable. It was unmissable. It was there, and it was so present and so vibrant and so real that the people around him knew immediately that Jesus was there, and he was filled with joy. [00:38:32] (22 seconds)  #UnmistakableJoy

We regret the failures of our past. We regret the failures of and sins of our present. For you, it could be like the the business trip where you did what you didn't wanna do, and it sorta hangs over you. For others, it's like it's the nights in college or it's or it's what happened between you and your spouse. And you dwell on those regrets, and and you think this. You think, there's there's no way God could possibly forgive me. I'm unforgivable. And yet in verse seven, it says this. It says, God is so rich in kindness and grace that he purchased our freedom with the blood of his son, and he forgave our sins. [00:55:35] (36 seconds)  #GraceCoversRegret

See, our picture of God is what has to change first. There's no way if we believe God is like a a harmful father, there's no way we could possibly believe that he's a God that wants to bring us joy, enduring joy, lasting joy. As you continue to process with the Lord, I'm gonna ask a second question here. Have I have I tied my joy to something that can be taken away? Are you seeing some roots of your joy that are in soil that, is changing and easy to be stripped from you. That's actually an idol in your life. And so if that's there, you just simply need to confess to the Lord and receive his forgiveness and then move forward with the power of the Holy Spirit. [01:06:13] (77 seconds)  #SeeGodDifferently

We were unforgiven and shackled in sin, and yet God sent his son into the narrows of Satan's camp. And at the right moment, Jesus stepped in and he took our place. And when he took our place on the cross, Christ's blood was the payment to free us and forgive us from the weight of sin. In the Greek, the word for redemption, which is used here in other texts, the word in the Greek is apolutrosis. And this word is actually a picture word of a receipt of a ransom that someone has already paid him, and you use that ransomed receipt to to show it as proof that the person has been forgiven and freed. [00:58:11] (40 seconds)  #PaidInFull