From Sorrow to Joy 2

Pastor Mike will be speaking on From Sorrow to Joy 2. He will be in John 16:16-24.

It may seem like forever but I promise you in a little while Jesus is coming again and we hold on to that hope and we believe in that truth and we rejoice in that truth and it’s that hope that motivates us every day to stay at it for Jesus Christ.

Hello this is Pastor Mike Sanders from the Open Door Church and we are welcoming you to our hope worth having broadcast delighted that we can have you with us and you know we think about the sorrows that we go through in life and if we live long enough all of us are gonna face grief but the question is how do we deal with that grief and how do we deal with that sorrow well we’ve been learning about going from sorrow to joy and we’re in the Gospel of John chapter 16 and we are learning the principles to help us to go from that sorrow and that joy and that ultimate joy that we’re gonna all experience one day as we are in the presence of God the Bible says in thy presence is fullness of joy and at thy right hand there are pleasures forevermore so let’s get our Bible and let’s get to the Gospel of John chapter 16 and let’s start learning how to go from sorrow to joy but Jesus wanted them to know that he was gonna take their grief and their sorrow and turn it into joy and what is it that took this sorrow of the death of their Savior and transform it into joy the resurrection of Christ and think about this the thing that they grieved the thing that they sorrowed the thing that broke their heart the thing that they were devastated about the death of the Lord Jesus Christ that took him away from them is the very thing that brought salvation to all who believe in Jesus Christ you see what I’m trying to say to you is that he took that tragic event of the crucifixion and he was trying to help the disciples to see that even though in this moment even in this small perspective that we have as humans we see this as tragic and devastating Jesus said he was going to turn that grief into joy he was going to turn that sorrow into joy he was going to take that event and make it into something that they would all rejoice that took place now let’s think through that because the Apostle Paul said this in Galatians 6 14 God forbid that I should glory save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ by whom the world is crucified unto me and I unto the world the hope of every Christian is grounded in the crucifixion and the resurrection of Jesus Christ and the reason that our sorrow can be turned into joy today is because of what Christ did on the cross for us even though it was cruel even though it was mean my friends from a man’s perspective and it was hateful and it seemed to be so devastating from God’s perspective God himself on the cross was bearing the sins of mankind and thus all who believe in Jesus would now be set free from the bondage of sin and Jesus said the truth will set you free free from sin and now people would enjoy the forgiveness of Jesus Christ because of what Christ did on the cross for them and because of what Christ did on the cross for them he not only can take care of the past sins and the present sins and the future sins but because of what Christ did on the cross he would now rise from the grave and he would take care of our future as believers and he would remind us that his resurrection is our resurrection if you’re fascinated with the resurrection of Christ you should be because that is going to be your resurrection for the Bible teaches us one day that the dead in Christ shall what they’re going to rise again that’s you my friends that’s me if we die in this world and we’re not raptured before our death on this earth then we will rise again and his resurrection is my resurrection but also for my loved ones some of you have children in heaven some of you have spouses in heaven some of you have parents in heaven some of you have deep close friends that are in heaven today I want you to know for a little while you sorrow and grieve but I want you also to know that in a little while you’re going to be reconnected to them and you’ll never be separated from them again and the dead in Christ shall rise and we which remain shall be caught together with them.

My friends, we will be with them forever and ever, not only with the Lord, but we will be with them. That’s why Jesus can take our sorrow and turn it into joy, not just replace our sorrow, not just give us a substitute for our sorrow, but he takes our sorrow.

What we grieve over, the event, the activity, that whatever the situation might be, the sorrow that comes into our life is eventually turned into joy because of the crucifixion and the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

In Acts chapter 13, verse 52, remember Jesus told his disciples that they grieve now. Again, look at verse 20, I say unto you that you shall weep and lament, but the world shall rejoice, and you shall be sorrowful, but your sorrow shall be turned into joy.

Did that ever happen? In Acts 13, verse 52, after the disciples had already been through a season of suffering and opposition and persecution, the Bible says that the disciples were filled with joy and with the Holy Spirit.

Why were they like this? Because the event that broke their heart seeing their Savior die on the cross led to the salvation of souls and it led to the coming of the Spirit in their heart and it led to the promise of one day being reunited forever and ever with Jesus Christ and their loved ones and so it was with great joy that they preached the gospel message.

That’s why the message is good news. Oh friends, it’s good news to know that Jesus can forgive us our sins. It’s good news to know that Jesus Christ has conquered death and that he has conquered the grave and that even though death may sting and even though death may hurt and even though death may bring sorrow to us, we know that that sorrow is gonna be turned into joy when we are reunited forever and ever.

I know you don’t like death. I mean, I don’t meet a lot of people who are really excited about death. Sometimes I do meet some people like that but think about death in light of your loved one, what it means to them.

The Bible says precious in the sight of the Lord are the death of his saints. Have you ever considered that? Have you ever thought about how could that be precious to you and I? We see death as loss, we see death as suffering, we see death as sorrowful but the Bible says that when God looks on the death of his children, the death of his saints, it is precious in his sight.

Friends, death is precious to God because it is the home going and the homecoming of his child. I mean, you know how excited you get when the kids are coming home, right? You know how excited you get when the grandkids are coming over, right?

And that’s the way our heavenly Father looks at it. He sees it as a precious moment, a precious time that this person is leaving this world and now they’re coming into the pearly gates and enjoying all the pleasures and all the joy and all of the rewards that God has for them.

We see it from our perspective, but have you ever looked at death from God’s perspective? Because when you look at death from God’s perspective, you’ll say, as the apostle Paul said, to live is Christ, but to die is gain.

That’s right, to die is gain. Your body and my body is not fit for heaven. Did you know that? You say, pastor, I run every day and every week. I don’t care how much you run and how many diets you’re on.

Your body’s never gonna be fit for heaven because these bodies are corruptible. These bodies are mortal. and flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, the scripture says. And so the only way that you can inherit the kingdom of God is you gotta lay down this old body.

You gotta lay down this body of suffering and sorrow and sadness and you have to receive what God has for you. I compare it to this. Someone’s saying I would rather stay in my tent than to live in the nice mansion on the hillside.

Who thinks like that? Friends, I want you to know if somebody said, look, we wanna take you out of this tent and put you in a nice big mansion and we want you to enjoy everything that’s in this beautiful mansion house, most people would say, yeah, let me go.

But yet so many people are sad that their loved ones got to leave their tent and they got to inherit their mansion. Oh friends, I want you to know precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his saints and God will take our sorrow and he will turn it into joy.

Yes, our health fails. Our children sometimes disappoint us and tragedy strikes our life. But God takes the tragedy and he takes the deepest pains of our lives and he turns them into triumph because our savior is a living savior who has conquered sin and he has conquered death and he has conquered hell.

And there seems to be nothing that is stable in this world. But the joy of Christ is something that is continual. It is never ending. It is absolutely constant in our lives if we will just tap into the joy of the Lord.

When we follow the principles of scriptures, when we follow what God has for us, we can enjoy the joy of the Lord. And this joy will survive. And this joy can even thrive even as we walk through difficult times in our life.

Our joy. cannot be hinged on our experiences. Our joy cannot be hinged on our circumstances. Our joy cannot be hinged on the people of this world. But our joy must be rooted and solidified in our relationship with Jesus Christ.

I don’t know how many of you have ever been to a funeral service of someone that doesn’t know Christ. And you know, I have truly seen people’s sorrow with no hope. But it’s such a blessing to go to a funeral service where you know the person believed in Christ, is living with Christ, and there’s so much hope and joy as you interact with the family and the friends of that person, right?

That’s the difference, friends. That’s how God turns our sorrow into joy. Jesus not only made a prediction and He not only taught us a principle. But finally, he gave us a promise in verse 23 through 24.

And I want you to note this promise, I want you to highlight this promise in your Bible because there’s many times, if you’re like me, you have to keep coming back to the promises of God because we are flesh people, we are human and we are flawed and so many times we need to come back to God’s word so that the promises can infuse joy into our hearts.

Look at verse 24, hitherto, have you asked nothing in my name, ask and you shall receive. In my name, ask and you shall receive that your joy may be what? Full. Now, Jesus is teaching us a promise and this is the third time that Jesus makes this promise to his disciples in this text.

Let’s just back up a little bit. Chapter 14, look at verse 13. Jesus says, whatsoever you shall ask in my name, that will I do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. Chapter 15, verse 16, Jesus says you’ve not chosen me, but I have chosen you and ordained you that you should go and bring forth fruit and that your fruit should remain and that whatsoever you shall ask of the Father in my name,

he may give it to you. We come to chapter 16, verse 23, and in that day, you shall ask me nothing. Verily, verily, I say unto you, whatsoever you shall ask the Father in my name, he will give it to you.

A promise, a promise. Now, I want us to see this promise because I want you to understand. In verse 23, he says in that day, you shall ask me nothing. What day? In the day that he returns. When Jesus returns, you know, people say to me, when I get to heaven, I’m gonna ask this person.

and I’m gonna ask that person this, and they say, I’m gonna ask Jesus this. Well, I have to be honest with you, we see dimly now, we see partly now. But when you get to heaven, you gain full perspective.

I don’t think we’re gonna be up there asking as many questions as we think we are. Now, if you’re one of those people that’s always asking questions, and you just enjoy asking questions, because you like to drive people crazy with all of your questions, that’s fine.

But Jesus said this, in that day, you shall ask me nothing. What day? The day that Christ returns, and the day that you and I see clearly and fully, the day that we are in the constant, consistent presence of God, we will ask Him nothing, because we understand, we understand why.

So many times we have questions now, don’t we? And we wonder why. And I was just in a discussion with a person the other day about the question why. And I wish I knew all the reasons and the whys of life.

But I have to be honest with you, I don’t know why. Why did this happen? Why did God allow this? All I know is that our God is in control and that He’s in charge. And the Bible says the secret things belong to the Lord.

And I know that my heart is full of questions today. But I know one day I will stand in His presence and I will be with Him forever and with my friends and my family and we’ll never be separated. And I think I’m gonna be having such a great time.

I won’t have time to ask Jesus all those questions. Because life’s gonna be so wonderful. But until then, look at verse 23. In that day you shall ask me nothing. Verily, verily I say unto you, whatsoever you shall ask the Father in my name, He will give it to you.

So in that day I won’t ask questions but now I am asking questions, right? And what is the key when I am asking? The key is to ask the Father in the name of Jesus. What Jesus is promising us is a relationship with the Father that is so close that we can ask God anything.

That we can ask Him what we need. We can bring our troubles and trials to Him. We can bring our questions to Him. He is promising us that we can bring our hearts and be true and authentic before God Almighty and that He will answer our prayers.

What is the key to your sorrow becoming joy? Listen, it’s prayer, it’s prayer. We have not arrived to that day where there are no questions. There are many questions in our lives today but I tell you that God will help you.

work through your questions. He will help you work through your sorrow and your grief today. If you would come to him in prayer, listen to what the prophet Jeremiah said in Jeremiah 33, three, call unto me and I will answer thee and show thee great and mighty things which thou knowest not.

God is inviting us to spend time with him in prayer. It’s not that when I come to God in prayer that I all of a sudden figure everything out or that somehow God tears open the heavens and he speaks audibly to me and says, Mike, here’s the answer.

But what it really is is simply this, that God fills me with his presence and his peace. And though I may not fully understand and I may not fully grasp, God promises that he will be my shepherd, the Lord is my shepherd and I shall not want.

The Lord is my shepherd. And God will not only take care of all my needs, but he’ll take care of all that I need in him. And therefore my wants will be his wants, my desires will be his desires, my passion will be his passion, and I will want to be closer to him and he will continue to minister to me and strengthen me as I walk through this journey of faith.

The scripture says praying always with all prayer and supplication in the spirit, watching thereunto with all perseverance and supplication for all saints. Now I want you to note that as we pray, we’re given instructions here.

We are told that whatever we ask the father in my name, referring to the name of Christ, he will give it to you. We are told in verse 24 that you ask and you shall receive, that your joy may be full, because partly us experience the joy of God is answered prayer.

And when we think of prayer so many times, we misunderstand it, but the parts and components of prayer are unique, and we’re gonna be studying that in John chapter 17, but I would simply say to you that prayer is us asking and God answering.

Prayer is us asking and God answering. Now I know that some of us might think that that means that we just come to him with anything, it’s a blank check and we get whatever we want. No, that’s not what God is saying this morning.

But what he is telling us is that he invites us to bring our questions. He invites us to bring our needs to him. He invites us to come as humble children, trusting the father, believing in the father, and that he will answer.

Now God’s answers are not always your answers, right? And God’s answers are not always what you want. Sometimes our prayer is wrong. We’re praying the wrong things and so God says no. I mean many times my kids would ask me if they could have ice cream before dinner.

Now I just wanna be honest with you, there were times I thought, that’s a good idea. But then I thought, I don’t think my wife’s gonna like that too much. And so all of a sudden I was realigned into right thinking.

Now God always thinks rightly. And if you and I bring the wrong request to Him, He is gonna say no. But sometimes when we pray to God, it’s not that we’re praying wrong, it’s that our timing is wrong.

Our timing is wrong. And so God says slow down, the timing’s not right. I have that for you, but it’s not the right time. I told you before, but I graduated from high school when I was 17, not because I was intelligent, but because they were trying to figure out every way they could to get me out of there as quick as possible.

And so I took off to college at the age of 17. Can you imagine how horrified my mother was when I told her that I was gonna go to Bible college in North Carolina? I lived in Oklahoma, if you didn’t know that.

Grew up in Oklahoma, graduated from high school in Oklahoma, and so my mother just thought I was really losing it. Now back in those days, you know, when you were young, you worked, and we would work.

And I would never go anywhere. The first job I ever got was at McDonald’s when I landed in Raleigh, North Carolina. And so what my point is, though, I eventually got a better job, and I went to work at a warehouse, and I remember sweeping the floor and thanking God, why am I going to Bible college?

Why am I sweeping a floor? I’m called to preach. I just need to go find a church, and I need to go on and start preaching. And I would tell God these things, and he would say, whoa, Mike, slow down. Could you imagine Mike Sanders, 17, 18 years old, released on a church?

The poor congregation would be devastated, destroyed in moments. So sometimes you want something so bad, and you believe your heart is right, but God says the timing is not right. Sometimes when we pray, the truth is we’re not ready, and God says I want you to grow.

God says I want you to grow. I need you to mature more. I need you to get to this level before. I mean, it’s not like we just hand over our vehicles to eight -year -olds, right? We say you gotta wait a little bit.

We at least want you to get 16, and some of you that are driving at 16 probably shouldn’t be driving at 16. You’re not ready. But whenever you’re ready, then that’s what God has for us. He wants us to grow.

When we seek what God desires, and our timing is right, and we’re ready for what God has, then his answer is go, go. And sometimes God’s waiting to bless you with an answer, and he’s just waiting for you to ask, because you have not, because you ask not.

Now, Jesus not only gave us this understanding that God wants us to grow, God will answer according to his perfect will, but he said he will answer that when we pray, that we’re to do it in Jesus’s name.

You saw that in the text, that we pray in Jesus’s name. Now here’s what I want you to get. When we pray in Jesus’s name, we’re not just doing this out of liturgical habit. We’re not just doing this because we think it’s some kind of a, it’s gonna result in a magical formula.

We’re not doing this because somebody told us to do it and we don’t know why we do it, but we just do it because everybody else is doing it. But there is really importance to praying in Jesus’s name.

And that is that when we pray in the name of Jesus, we are praying in accordance to his will. And we are not only praying for his will in our prayer, but we are praying in his power and authority. And that’s what Jesus wants them to know, that you come in the will and the authority and the power of the name of Christ.

So to say in Jesus’s name at the end of a prayer. our desire to humbly confess that we do not even deserve an audience with God that we bring these prayers to you Heavenly Father and we bring them to you in the name of Jesus Christ because any access that we have to the Father is because of the Son and we come humbly confessing our total dependence upon God but we are also confidently professing our faith in Jesus Christ professing that He is able to do great and mighty things when we bring our prayer requests to Him that we trust that in God’s name and in God’s will and God’s power and God’s authority that God would fulfill His perfect will in our life and so the Bible gives us this promise look at verse 24 you asked nothing in my name he’s saying up to this point you’ve not asked in my name but he’s saying now I want you to ask and you’ll receive that your joy may be full how is God gonna take your sorrow and turn it into joy he’s gonna do it through you praying and following the principles of prayer and that God will work in your heart now there are two threats that come against joy in our life and I want you to remember these first is our disobedience when we choose to disobey God it will sap us of the joy of the Lord and the trials of life are a threat to any believer of joy but when you walk through sorrow friends come to Jesus come to Christ and share your heart with him and even if you cannot articulate all the words and say it the way you would like it to be understood the spirit in Romans 8 26 promises us that he’ll take all heart and our thoughts and he will bring them to the Father that he may know our requests.

Kelly James was 48 years old. He was a landscape architect and he loved to climb mountains. On December 9th of 2006 he and his two friends set out to climb Mount Hood in Welch’s Oregon. Tragically they were caught up by a sudden blizzard and after reaching the summit they were forced to take shelter in a snow cave.

Kelly was able to call his family and his wife on his cell phone. He was telling her what was going on but the storm was too severe for the rescuers to come and to save Kelly and so all three hikers eventually perish.

In an interview with Katie Couric and the CBS Evening News, Kelly’s widow Karen. was interviewed, and she demonstrated extreme faith in Jesus Christ that had defined the couple’s life. And during the interview, Katie Couric asked her if she was angry at her husband for choosing to climb that mountain.

She replied, I’m not angry. I’m really sad that our journey is over for a while. And I miss him terribly. But he loved life so much. And he taught me how to love. He taught me how to live. And I don’t know how you can be angry at someone who loved their family, and loved God, and gave back so much more than he took.

When asked how her husband would like to be remembered, Karen James said that she knows that he would like to be remembered by his faith in Jesus Christ. She said that her husband had a little ornament, and he had it since he was little.

It was a manger. It was just a little plastic thing, she said. It’s always the tradition of our family that our son Jack and Kelly put it on the tree together. And so I said this Christmas, we’re going to put that ornament on the tree.

And one of the things that we really understand about Christmas, and here’s what I want you to get, is that that little baby born in a barn is the reason that our family has so much strength and joy now.

And that is really important to Kelly, end of quote. And I want to say to you church, because of Christ, you can have joy, and God can take your sorrow and transform it into joy. The hope of every Christian is grounded in the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

And as we think about that we serve a living Savior, that is what gives us hope even when we face death. And our loved ones have died and gone on before us. We still sorrow, but we do not sorrow without hope because we know that as Christ lives, so our loved ones are living.

And one day we will live with Christ forever and ever in His presence. And that is what gives us the strength to turn from sorrow to joy. I want to encourage you to make sure you check out our website HopeWorthHaving .com and check out all the things that are on it.

We’ve recently upgraded it. I want you to just learn, grow, take advantage of all the resources that are available for you so you can continue to be sanctified in your faith and to be all that Christ wants you to be.

This is Pastor Mike Sanders reminding you that in Christ there is hope worth. having.