Pastor Jeff & LaDonna Yandell

Good Afternoon.

My hope for all of you this afternoon is that you are finding joy in your life. Some of you may say, “joy!” what is he thinking? My life has never been more miserable than it is right now… or, “doesn’t he know what I’m going through. How could anyone expect me to be joyful?”

Well, let me start off by saying this… I know how you feel. Even as a Pastor there are times when I don’t feel much joy in my life. Over the past 3 months there have been more days of misery than there have been of joy. (Just being honest) And to make it worse, we as Christians know what the Bible says about joy…In James 1:2, James says to consider it pure joy when we encounter trials of various kinds… knowing that the testing of our faith will produce endurance. And then Paul comes along and told the Philippians and the Thessalonians to “Rejoice always.”

Let’s be honest, sometimes life just gets us down. So what do we do? How do we get out of the funk we get in? How do we defeat depression and feeling low? It’s not easy! Satan likes to get us in that kind of a state of mind. When he gets us thinking those kinds of thoughts he has us right where he wants us, ineffective for God. Yep, that’s right, ineffective. When he has us in this kind of state of mind he knows that we can’t, and won’t, do anything for God…. Why? Because we have our eyes on our own circumstance and we have taken our eyes off of God.

In Hebrews 12:1-4 the Bible tells us; 1 Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, 2 fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith. For the joy set before him he endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. 3 Consider him who endured such opposition from sinners, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart. 4 In your struggle against sin, you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood.

The Bible is pretty clear… Verse 2 says “fix our eyes on Jesus.” When we are in our funk… our depression… we’ve lost site of why we are here. Jesus paid a price for you and me… the Bible says we need to remember what Jesus did for us so we will not grow weary and lose heart. It even goes on to say that we have not even begun to experience what Jesus did. WOW!!! That paints a different picture doesn’t it?

When it really comes down to it… we are a very blessed people. There is always someone who is worse off than us… someone who needs an encouraging word from you. This scripture says that we have people around us who are waiting to see how we react when circumstances come our way… and to run with perseverance.

So my question to you is this… Are you still in the race? Are you looking at yourself, or Jesus? Are you going to finish what you started? Get off the couch or out of bed… open your Bible to the book of John… and let God begin to speak to you and heal you. After all, the Bible says for us to submit to God and resist the Devil and he will flee from us.

My prayer for you today is that you will begin living instead of just existing; That Joy will return to your heart; That a smile will be upon your face as you go through each day.

In Christ,
Pastor Jeff