John 16:16-33 - Your Sorrow Will Turn To Joy

Main Idea: Unquenchable joy belongs to those that know Jesus as Lord and Savior.

WE CAN HAVE JOY IN OUR SORROWS BECAUSE…

• Our sorrows are temporary.

• Our sorrows are meaningful.

• Jesus is alive.

WE CAN HAVE JOY IN OUR GOD BECAUSE…

• God answers our prayers.

• God (Father, Son, and Holy Spirit) loves us.

WE CAN HAVE JOY IN OUR SUFFERINGS BECAUSE…

• We aren’t alone.

• We’re fighting a defeated enemy.

• Our future is certain.

Sermon Transcript (Auto-Transcribed by Apple Podcasts)

If you have your Bibles today, turn over to John 16, John 16. And today we are going to be in verses 16 through 33 of the passage. We have been looking at a sermon series in John 14 through 16 entitled The Last Words of Jesus.

Looking at as Jesus spends his final hours with the apostles before his death, he had some things that he wanted to tell them. And we've been looking beginning several weeks ago now. I can't remember at this point.

You guys can't possibly expect me to. But we've looked at the hope of heaven. We have looked at the love that Jesus has for us and the love that we're commanded to have towards others.

We've looked at Jesus' peace that he gives us in the middle of a turbulence and a broken world. And today, as we end this particular portion of the Gospel of John, we're going to look at the joy that he calls us to have.

The title for today's message is, Your Sorrow Will Turn to Joy. Your Sorrow Will Turn to Joy.

If you would, if you've turned over there in your portion of your copy of God's Word, we're going to read through the passage for today, then we're going to pray and dive into it. I want to encourage you, follow along.

We've got the words on the screen, or you can use your copy of God's Word that you have, either physically or digitally. But let's read through together in John 16 and verse 16. In a little while, you will no longer see me.

Again, in a little while, you will see me. Then some of his disciples said to one another, What is this he's telling us? In a little while, you will not see me.

Again, in a little while, you will see me. And because I'm going to the Father. They said, What is this he is saying?

In a little while, we don't know what he's talking about. Many pastors have been there before. Jesus knew they wanted to ask him.

And so he said to them, Are you asking one another about what I said? In a little while, you will not see me. Again, in a little while, you will see me.

Truly, I tell you, you will weep and mourn, but the world will rejoice. You will become sorrowful, but your sorrow will turn to joy. When a woman is in labor, she has pain because her time has come.

But when she is given birth to a child, she no longer remembers the suffering because of the joy that a person has been born into the world. So you also have sorrow now, but I will see you again.

Your hearts will rejoice, and no one will take away your joy from you. In that day, you will not ask me anything. Truly, I tell you, anything you ask the Father in my name, He will give you.

Until now, you have asked for nothing in my name. Ask, and you will receive, so that your joy may be complete. I have spoken these things to you in figures of speech.

A time is coming when I will no longer speak to you in figures, but I will tell you plainly about the Father.

On that day, you will ask in my name, and I am not telling you that I will ask the Father on your behalf, for the Father himself loves you, because you have loved me, and have believed that I came from God.

I came from the Father and have come into the world. Again, I am leaving the world and going to the Father. His disciples said, Look, now you're speaking plainly and not using any figurative language.

Now we know that you know everything, and don't need anyone to question you. By this, we believe that you came from God. Jesus responded to them, Do you now believe?

Indeed, an hour is coming and has come, when each of you will be scattered to his own home, and you will leave me alone. Yet I am not alone, because the Father is with me. I have told you these things so that in me you may have peace.

You will have suffering in this world. Be courageous, I have conquered the world. Would you pray with me together as we look at this portion of scripture?

Through Jesus, we thank you. We are so in awe of your goodness to us. Lord, as we think about these scared, grumbling disciples, we think about our own fears.

And Lord, our own times of refusing to listen to you, our times of not understanding what you have for us. And God, we thank you that to them and to us, you have promised unquenchable joy.

Lord, we love you and we pray that you would speak to our hearts even through your word this morning. We love you and we pray all of this in the name of Jesus. Amen.

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Unquenchable Joy

Today, we are going to see this main thought from the passage that unquenchable joy belongs to those that know Jesus as Lord and Savior. Unquenchable joy belongs to those that know Jesus as Lord and Savior.

Many of us have experienced throughout life surprises that turn bad things into good things. How many of you have had just regular Christmas presents that you enjoy? You've received a Christmas present at some point in your life that you've enjoyed.

Many of you. I feel sorry for some of you that could not raise your hand. There's never been a good gift given to you.

One year, when I was a kid, I had a present, it was probably about this big. And I opened it up Christmas morning. It was one of the last presents that I opened for that day.

I was maybe 10 or 11 years old at that point. And I opened this Christmas present and inside was just a pack of underwear. And I don't know if you've ever been a 10 or 11 year old boy.

Many of you have not. But 10 or 11 year old boys, that's not like the thing that you're hoping to find on Christmas morning. But because of my parents' just stellar parenting skills, I was like, oh, thank you.

Because I'm sure that I knew everyone needs clothes at various points in your life. As I look around the room, I see a lot of clothes. And so all of us are like, yeah, okay, this is good.

So but they were like, listen, open it. And underneath all of the underwear that they had put together, there was actually a video game that I'd been wanting that was inside of that.

My sorrow at getting underwear for Christmas turned into joy that I got this video game that I had really wanted. That is a silly, stupid illustration of what we see today. The truth is many of us go through very real sorrows and griefs in our lives.

As I look out today and regularly praying for and counseling with many of you, like I know that in this room we have people that right now are struggling with cancer. We have people that have lost loved ones even within the last two years.

We have people that are caretaking for those under their care that they deeply love and that they can't seem to fix, like they can't make that person's situation better. All of us have sorrows in life.

And what Jesus tells us in this passage is probably not what we would want to hear him say.

We would want him to say, in this world if you have enough faith or if you pray enough or if you give enough to the church, in this world you will have no suffering. That's what we wish this passage would say.

But instead we read, in this world you will have suffering. Even as Jesus is speaking here to the apostles within the next like four or five hours maximum, all of these guys are going to abandon Jesus.

The temple guard is going to come led by Judas Iscariot. They're going to arrest Jesus and all of the guys are going to book it. They're going to think we will be next.

Jesus will be crucified after being tried and beaten. And they will think that all hope is lost.

So, when Jesus says like, hey, you will have joy, you will have unquenchable joy, joy that no one will be able to steal, he is not saying this to people in some ideal circumstance.

Instead, Jesus is saying this to people who are about to go through the greatest hurt and loss that you could ever imagine. These men had traveled with Jesus every single day for about three, three and a half years.

And now, what they had dedicated their life to in the person of Jesus, in believing in him as Messiah, was actually going to be the thing that they most feared someone coming and finding them and doing to them what they had done to the Messiah.

And so when Jesus tells us there is joy available, this is not for those of you that are the best off financially, this is not good news for those of you that already have an ideal, a perfect life, this is good news for the most broken, for the

hurting, for the grieving, for the failures. That's what this passage is for.

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Sorrows Temporary

I want us to see first from these verses that we can have joy in our sorrows, joy in our sorrows. And first, because our sorrows are temporary.

Notice at the beginning of these verses, as Jesus says, in a little while, you will no longer see me again, and in a little while, you will see me. Now, we know, because we've read through the passage before, you guys know the story of Jesus.

Jesus knew, all right, they're going to take me, they're going to kill me, I'm going to spend three days in the grave, but after that, I'm going to rise again, and you will see me. The guys could not handle this at this particular point in time.

That's what we read at the end of last week's sermon, that Jesus says, I have many things I want to tell you now, but you are not able to handle them.

And so here the disciples, they're asking one another about what Jesus has said, instead of actually asking Jesus himself, just as a short side. That's a great thing for all of life.

Instead of like asking your spouse, hey, listen, what did your sister mean when she said this? Go ask the sister what the sister meant when she said this. And I think Jesus here even brings that out.

He goes, are you guys asking each other why I said what I said? He says, they don't have the answers. Go to me, I have the answers.

But our sorrows are temporary. I want you to think about the entire course of your life, whether you live to 100, whether you live to 30 years old or somewhere in between, all of us have a life that we live.

But I want you to consider the truth that eternity awaits us, unending life with Christ, for those that have placed their faith and trust in Jesus alone.

In the span of eternity, in 100 billion, trillion years from now, what happened during our 25 years of life, what happened during our 75 years of life, will be the smallest infinitesimal speck in comparison with everything that God has for our good

and for His glory and a land with no tears, with no crying, with no disease, with no harming one another as image bearers of God. And so as we look at our lives and the hardships, the genuine sorrows that we experience, there is a joy that the

sorrows are temporary. The hurt that you feel today, you will not feel 100 years from now. Praise the Lord. Actually, we have a couple babies in here.

You might, if you make it to 100, you might feel some of those sorrows or pains in 100 years. But for all the rest of us, 100 years, 200 years, none of us will feel that sorrow and that pain forever.

Now, I could say, you know, I have my father-in-law, Chuck Buck is here, and I could say, all right, dad, you know, punch me in the arm super hard.

And he could punch my arm and I could be like, listen, in 10 minutes, I'm not going to feel this punch anymore. That will not take away the pain from that initial punch.

When scripture tells us you will have sorrow in the world, even though there is joy that is coming, even though the sorrows are temporary, we can feel those sorrows.

We looked several weeks back at John 11, 35, the shortest verse in the Bible, Jesus wept. When you have those sorrows and those tears that you cry, don't feel like you're somehow failing the Lord in that.

Jesus himself cried for sorrow that he experienced. But remembering that the sorrows are temporary, it can bring us joy, that there is a happiness that is coming.

And even if I can't feel it right now, what I know to be true is that my good God, the one who redeems the brokenness, He is the one that will ultimately lead me back to joy. But not only are our sorrows temporary, our sorrows are meaningful.

There is a purpose to them. It's not just emptiness. No sorrow in our life is merely meant to harm us or to burden us.

Every sorrow we have has a purpose from our heavenly Father. Even within the passage, as Jesus is talking about His death on the cross, did that make the disciples happy or sad? Jesus' death on the cross.

Everyone answer. Sad. But 10 years from that point, as they thought about the cross of Jesus, about Jesus dying in their place for their sin and for the sins of the whole world, did the cross of Jesus, 10 years later, did it bring them joy?

Yeah. Now, I'm certain that people could have at the cross been like, listen, you know, John the Apostle, he's there sitting at the feet of the cross. He's next to Mary, the mother of Jesus.

Someone could say, listen, you don't understand, John. This is amazing. This is wonderful news.

This is the gospel, the good news of salvation. Feel happy. They're at the foot of the cross.

I doubt anything in that moment could have made John feel happy. Jesus on the cross was not having a party. There was grief that he experienced.

The prophet Isaiah in Isaiah 53 would describe the experience as Jesus is a man of sorrows acquainted with grief. As Jesus cries out to the father several times on the cross, we recognize that our sorrows are real, but our sorrows have real purpose.

Now, I want to make it clear. We will not always know this side of eternity, what that purpose was. Like, I don't know why my grandmother on my dad's side, like I don't know why she passed at 65 years old instead of some other age.

I don't know the reason for that. But I know that her passing has made an impact on my life. It's impacted choices that I've made.

It's impacted, frankly, even songs that I've written. There has been a purpose in my life that God used that grief for. I want to challenge you.

Are you looking for a purpose within the grieving? Now, that will not always be something concrete that you can see. Many of you in this room have experienced abuse in your life.

And I do not want to make you think that because of the sorrows and because God transforms even human evil and wickedness into something that we can rejoice and praise God for, I don't want you to think that this means, okay, well, I gotta have some

sort of good reason, or I need to think of something that would justify this sorrow in my life. The truth is, on that day when we return to our maker, we might understand some things better by and by, as the old hymn states.

But I want to encourage you that your sorrows do have a purpose. And many times, even within this life, I can look back and I can say, man, that heartbreak was so that I could meet this person.

This hard time that I experienced, this loss made it so that I am able to minister to someone who has gone through the exact same thing.

The Apostle Paul tells us in 2 Corinthians 1 that God comforts us in all of our hardships so that we can comfort others with the same comfort that we have received from God.

And so Jesus here says, you're going to experience sorrows, but they are temporary. They are meaningful. The very thing that caused grief for the disciples, the cross, became the source of their greatest joy and their glory.

When I give my kids a bath or make them eat veggies or make them put on shoes before we go outside, they are sorrowful. They don't want it to happen, but it is meaningful. It's intentional and it's purposeful.

Realize in your life that as you experience sorrows, that God is using the sorrows for something good. It doesn't make the sorrow itself, it doesn't make it itself good. No one wants death to occur within their family.

No one wants to have to like cry out to the Lord in anguished prayer because they have reached those last two nickels within their wallet. None of us want the difficulty, but God can use the difficulty in order to bring about good in our life.

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Jesus Lives

We can have joy in our sorrows, not only because our sorrows are temporary and our sorrows are meaningful, but we can have joy in our sorrows because Jesus is alive.

We see this even as Jesus talks through in verses 20 through 22 when he says, truly I tell you, you will weep and mourn, but the world will rejoice. You will become sorrowful, but your sorrow will turn to joy.

Because the worst thing that could ever happen to us, the cessation of our own existence, because we have someone that jumped into the waters of death and came out, find the other side, and says, here is the path to eternal life, we can experience

joy in the midst of our sorrows. Because when we have our loved ones that have passed, it is not the end.

When we think about our own failing health or lack of resources, we're able to see that there is abundant riches in Christ Jesus that he has prepared for us, all of God's goodness that he is preparing to show us throughout the endless ages.

Because Jesus is alive, or if you will, because he lives, I can face tomorrow. And because he lives, all fear is gone because I know he holds the future. Life is worth the living just because he lives.

Resurrection morning that we'll celebrate in just under a month or so now.

Resurrection Sunday, Easter Sunday, proclaims to us that there is nothing so evil and so dark that God cannot turn it on its head and enable us to experience joy and power and the love of the Holy Spirit and a certain future and hope forever.

Because Jesus showed us it can be done and the same God that conquered the grave is not limited by the sorrows and difficulties in your life and in mine. Nothing we face is as hopeless as the tomb, but Jesus conquered the tomb.

And so there is nothing that we cannot find joy and our sorrows through.

If life's greatest sorrow, death, is a lie, then we can walk in certain knowledge of our future, of reuniting with our loved ones in Jesus, and of an eternity spent in joy and wonder.

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God Answers Prayer

Second today, we can have joy in our God, because first God answers our prayers. So Jesus, at first, he talks about the life experience of sorrow at his crucifixion and of his burial.

He talks about the joy that will come, the sorrow that turns into joy. But then he talks about his interactions with us and our interactions with the Father. Verse number 23, In that day, you will not ask me anything.

This is asking for information, which is most of the questions that the disciples have been asking Jesus all this time. They say, listen, Jesus, I don't understand this. Would you explain it for me?

He says, in that day, on that resurrection day, you're not going to be asking me for information now. Now you're going to be asking, if you will, for permission. We'll see that in one second.

He says, truly I tell you, anything you ask the Father in my name, he will give you. Now, we've talked about this several times through these chapters. If I just say, listen, God, I want a Lamborghini in Jesus' name, amen.

Am I going to get a Lamborghini? No. This is asking in Jesus' authority.

So, let me give you just an example from my everyday life. So, I work at the church. If I need like, let's say, I want to buy some—actually, I need some more.

We need some gospel mini books that I'm able to hand out to some guests, that it tells them the gospel story. If I ask Gary, and I'm like, hey, hey, Gary, serves as our deacon of finance, I need to buy these books.

And then he, you know, has the—oh, great, he's got the checkbook right there. And then we have one of our guys that signs the checkbook.

It is in the authority of, you know, Myron or Owen or whoever that's doing the signing that we have told the bank, you can trust these guys to sign it. And if they sign it, we're great.

If I sign the checkbook, nothing is going to happen because we have not told the bank, hey, do it in, you know, the authority of Bryon. Bryon's not one of the signers on the checkbook.

And so it is that as we look at what Jesus has for us, the mission that he wants us to accomplish, which is furthering the kingdom of God here on earth through living out the fruit of the Spirit and through inviting others through evangelism, through

sharing our faith in the gospel into the kingdom of God. As we're doing that work, we ask the Father in the authority in the name of Jesus. And so he says, truly, I tell you, anything you ask the Father in my name, he will give you.

He says, until now, you have asked for nothing in my name. As these apostles would pray, they would be praying to, you know, let's say, our Father who is in heaven, may your name be respected as all.

Like that would be the prayers that they were praying. But now we have upon Jesus' name in his authority. The end of verse 24, ask, and you will receive, so that your joy may be complete.

A part of our joy that we experience in this life is the joy of knowing that we are accomplishing the purpose that God has given us for our life. There are lots of people that do not have joy because they are accomplishing their mission.

They are acting in their own authority, but they are not living their life in Jesus' name and Jesus' authority with him as their Lord. Can I ask you today, are you following Jesus as your Lord and Savior?

That's not something that you have to work yourself up to. You don't get to a certain level of spirituality and then you go, okay, great, now I'm a Jesus' Lord person.

Scripture tells us that if we believe in our heart and confess with our mouth that Jesus is Lord, believing that God has raised Jesus from the dead, that we will be saved.

We're told that as we repent of our sin that we say, listen, I was going this direction and I said, I'm gonna treat my spouse whoever I want to treat my spouse. I will make any sort of like shady business deals that I want to make.

I'm not gonna be kind to other people. I'm gonna live my life totally away from the laws of God. As we repent and we go, oh, I can't be doing this stuff anymore.

I need to go the Jesus way. Jesus tells me, be kind. Jesus says, have respect.

Jesus says, be honest. I want to go this way now. As we repent of sin and we believe in Jesus, that we recognize, if I'm trying to be perfect, I can't make that trip on my own.

I can't be the ideal person that always follows God. As we recognize that, we call on Jesus.

And Jesus is this one that to these knuckleheaded fishermen and tax collectors and zealots and a whole bunch of other things, as Jesus loved these guys and as he saved them, he will save us, that we trust in Jesus' righteousness, his ability, his

relationship with God, his authority, as we call on him, he saves us. And what a joy that that is. If you've never called on Jesus to be your Lord and Savior, then I want to encourage you, that can be something that you call out to Jesus today.

You do not have to wait for any other time, but you can ask today. I also see this here, that as God answers our prayers, everything that we ask the Father, He answers.

God answers every prayer, though not always how we want him to answer that prayer. You are not guaranteed an answer every time by any other person in the cosmos. Like, I ask my wife a lot of questions.

I'm not always guaranteed that she will answer me, or I think about my six-year-old, well, today he's a six-year-old, that he has a lot of questions. And I do not always have an answer. But God, every time that we call out to him, he answers us.

The question becomes, are we okay with hearing the answer that he actually gives? Many times, God has answered your prayer and my prayer, and he said no, or he has said, wait, like not yet. We all love the times when God says yes.

But far more often, because we're not God, we don't think about our lives in the way that we should. And so we ask for things that if God answered every prayer that we pray with a yes, our lives would be a mess.

And so God sometimes tells us no, or wait, or not yet, for our good. Are you willing to hear that from him, knowing that he is listening and he is answering?

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Divine Love

So we can have joy in our God, because God answers our prayers, and God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit loves us. I love these things in verse number 26.

Jesus says, on that day you will ask in my name, and I am not telling you that I will ask the Father on your behalf.

First time you maybe read through just that verse, you're like, oh, okay, well I thought Jesus was going to, you know, put in a good word for me with the Father.

But then what he says in verse 27 is, for the Father himself loves you, because you have loved me and have believed that I came from God. Today there is not like mixed feelings about you from the Trinity. God the Father loves you.

He has planned your salvation. He is the one that, from the foundation of the world, He has written your name in the Lamb's Book of Life.

The Son is the one that pursued us, that came to this earth 2,000 years ago, that lived the perfect sinless life, so that we can have a clean account. He was the one that died the death that we should have died.

But because He did it as our perfect substitute, our perfect sacrifice, we can be freely and fully forgiven forever. So the Father planned our salvation. The Son bought our salvation.

And then in the moment where we called on Jesus to be our Savior and our Lord, the Holy Spirit moved in and He applied the salvation of God to our life, that He indwells us each and every moment.

He guides us into all truth, as we've heard over the past couple of messages. And He is the one that brings about God's own nature, like the fruit of the Spirit living in us. He is the one that brings that out.

The Father is eager to answer your prayers. The Son eagerly gave Himself for your redemption, and the Spirit eagerly brings our request that we should be praying to the Father, as we hear in Romans 8.

Today, you are a part of a community of love with our Triune God. Like, I want you to know that there are people that love you, and that starts with our God, one God and three persons, the blessed Trinity. They each love you.

Realize that today, that no matter what your flaws or your failures have been, hopefully, you have never experienced what these disciples were about to do to Jesus in abandoning Him, betraying Him, cursing that they didn't even know Jesus.

And it's to those guys that Jesus says, the Father Himself loves you. So realize today the love of your heavenly Father.

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Not Alone

And then our last point for today, we can have joy in our sufferings because we aren't alone. So we have the sorrows of life, those things that we experience, loss and grief.

We have our God throughout all of it, and He loves us and He cares for us, and He answers prayers that we didn't know how He was going to answer. But we will still have suffering in this world, as Jesus told us, in this world you will have suffering.

That is, those attacks from other people, ways in which others deride us or they harm us in various ways. Jesus was no stranger to this. Jesus would experience this even over the next 12 hours of His life.

What Jesus says in verse number 32 is, Indeed, an hour is coming and has come when each of you will be scattered to his own home, and you will leave me alone.

Many of you might have been in those shoes before, where you feel totally alone in the world. But what a joyous thing that Jesus says next that is true for us. He says, Yet I am not alone, because the Father is with me.

Jesus, even on the cross, had his Father that was there for him, that was encouraging him, even in the work that he was doing. You can think of Jesus' final words, Father, into your hands I commit my spirit. Jesus had the Father with him.

And we have Jesus all of the time, which is valuable, because as we think about our sufferings, other people harming us, there will be times when even the body of Christ, our church family, will let us down, will fail us.

Times when we trusted someone and they did not follow through. Times when we thought someone was on our side and they backstab us. But I want you to know that in every circumstance of your life, that Jesus is with you.

And so you can have joy even in the suffering from other people, knowing that you are not alone.

33:02

Conquered World

We can also have joy in our sufferings because we are fighting a defeated enemy. We saw that in verse 33. I have told you these things so that in me you may have peace.

You will have suffering in this world. Be courageous. I have conquered the world.

Jesus doesn't say, at some point I'm going to conquer the world, or I'm hoping to conquer. He says, I already have conquered it. Jesus got the high score.

He beat the game. There was nothing that he needed to do more than he had done in his perfection. He had, if you will, won the game of life.

As Jesus has won the victory, as he even on the cross robbed Satan and the demons of the authority that they had had, as we read in Revelation 1, he has the keys of death and hell, and he is alive forevermore that every battle that we are facing,

whether it's versus a co-worker, a family member, a spouse, someone at church, we are fighting a defeated enemy in Satan. That this world system that is opposed to God, it is in its final moments before the King of Kings and Lord of Lords returned.

Just to throw it in for some of you, in Super Bowl 59, the Kansas City Chiefs outscored the Philadelphia Eagles 16 points to 6 in the fourth quarter.

But as many of you fondly remember, that didn't matter that the Chiefs had scored 10 more than the Eagles in the fourth quarter, because in the three quarters before that, the Eagles had outscored them 34 to 6.

While the Chiefs put up a small fight at the end, they were a defanged, defeated enemy that the Eagles did not need to fear. And so it is in my life and in your life today that Satan is kicking up a fuss, and he hates you.

He wants to destroy you because of the image of God that you have within you, and the Holy Spirit that lives inside of you. Satan wants to distract and to destroy and to divide you.

But the truth is he's defeated, and he cannot ever get what he wants in the destruction of your soul. He cannot remove you from the love of Christ.

He cannot take away your eternity with God, and he cannot rob you of your mission of loving God and making God known to others. He is incapable of hurting you in any way that ultimately matters.

And so as Shane and Shane wrote a song a couple of years ago, I'm fighting a battle you've already won. No matter what comes my way, I will overcome. I don't know what you're doing, but I know what you've done.

I'm fighting a battle you've already won. I know how the story ends. We will be with you again.

He's our joy and our defense. There's no more fear in life or death. And last today, we can have joy in our sufferings because we aren't alone.

And though we have enemies in this world, we have our ultimate enemy in Satan, they are defeated and our future is certain. This is what Jesus tells us in verse 22. Your hearts will rejoice and no one will take away your joy from you.

In verse 24, ask and you will receive so that your joy may be complete. Or in verse 33, be courageous, I have conquered the world. Reuniting with Jesus is what is awaiting us.

Whether this afternoon, in 10 years, or in 70 years, no suffering that we endure is permanent. And we will get to laugh in its face one day. So press on.

Through your failures, through your sorrows, through harm from others, Jesus has a promised end for you. In this life, we will have sufferings. But we can find joy in the sorrows, because our sorrows will be turned to joy.

We can find joy in our God, because he answers our prayers and he loves us. Father, Son, and Spirit. And we can have joy in our sufferings, because Jesus has conquered the world.

Today, unquenchable joy belongs to those that know Jesus as their Lord and Savior. Do you know Jesus as your Lord and Savior today? Today would be the day that I would call you to make that choice.

If you do know Jesus, what kind of joy are you living with? Is it affecting the way that you interact with other people? Is it affecting the way that you love or care for or serve others?

Is joy the defining term of your life? Because joy comes, even as Deena read the verse this morning, sorrow may last for the night, but joy comes in the morning.