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And Paul says, verse 16, Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, in everything give thanks. Why? For this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus. That word will right there means desire. That this is God's desire for your life, God's wish list for your life. And here's the beautiful thing that's so complex about who God is in our relationship with him, that God is sovereign. God is in control of all things. God knows how much rain is going to fall Monday night and Tuesday morning. He knows how cold it's going to be on Thanksgiving day. He knows all that stuff before we know it. Yet he still gives us the freedom within the bounds of his sovereignty to choose to be grateful. He doesn't make us do anything. We're not his little robots. He says, here guys, this is my will. This is my desire for you that you be the kind of person that you choose to be the kind of person that not just on Thanksgiving morning, but on a normal Tuesday, you choose to have an attitude of gratitude. And what he does is in verse 16, 17, and 18, he lays out for us what that looks like. So let's go back. If you got your bulletin, I want you to get out your notes and follow along, because I'm going to give you a lot of info this morning. Not a lot of text, but boy, it says a lot. Because the very first thing that it says in verse 16, it says, a person with an attitude of gratitude is always rejoicing. Always rejoicing. Not sometimes, not when you feel like it, not when you're having a good day, not when you're eating your best meal, not when everything's going well for you. It says always rejoicing. I'm going to test you, church. What do you think always means in the Greek? Always. Again, we love to complicate things, don't we? We love to complicate things in our churches. We love to complicate things in our lives. We love to complicate what things sound like. Part of that is so we can control it. But the fact of the matter is that word always means always. It means in good times. It means in bad times. It means when you're happy and you're sad, you're rich, you're poor. It means when your favorite college football team goes off to Arkansas and wins by three touchdowns, then comes home and loses by three touchdowns to a Conference USA team for some reason. That we don't let a bunch of 18, 19, and 20-year-olds throwing a ball around dictate our rejoicing. Now, we can not be happy about it. We can be a little bit upset about it, but it don't rob us of joy. It don't rob us of those things because that word always means always. Now, the word rejoice is very specific because a lot of times we pronounce it worship. And FYI, do you know that worship is not a noun? That worship is a verb? It is a verb. It is something that every single one of us, and it's okay if you don't raise your hands. It's okay if you're not very charismatic. You are still called to worship. Worship, rejoicing is what we are called to do, not go to. Now, you notice I don't, whenever I'm doing something online, I don't call this time church because we are the church, and the church exists out there. This is worship. We come to worship, verb. And this word rejoice right here, it literally means a state of happiness and well-being. Listen to this, as a gift from God. A state of happiness and well-being that is a gift from God, not human resources, not external things, not humanistic things. But this is a gift that we have that only comes from God, that is only available. And hear me when I say this, if you're here today, and you're still searching, and you're still wondering what this Jesus thing is about, that understanding that this joy only comes from God to those who have been born again, that until you submit everything you have over to Jesus, there's always going to be a barrier between you and true joy. There's always going to be a barrier between you and true worship and rejoicing. Now, again, that doesn't mean that you can't get happiness from earthly things. I'm going to be very happy to go down there and eat some turkey and dressing. And FYI, we're in the South, it ain't stuff and it's dressing. I'm going to be very happy to find some of the sugar-free desserts that I know some of you guys made and be able to eat dessert. It's okay. It's okay to find happiness in earthly things. That's fine. But understand that's few and far between. It's often fleeting. It often leaves as fast as it arrives. The one thing that will last forever is the joy that we find in the Lord. That is the one thing that can sustain us in the hard times, in the bad times, when life isn't going the way we think life should go. And hear me when I say this, because you can ask the question, well, does that mean a believer should never be sad? Does that mean as a believer we shouldn't be sad? Well, yeah, you can be sad. There are often things that we can't be sad about. There are things in Scripture that grieve God. Twelve years ago today, my father passed away. It was twelve years ago today. And I really wish that he could have met Joshua. And I wish Joshua could have met him. And he could have been Joshua's pawpaw. It's okay to be sad. That happens. It's part of life. But here's the thing that separates joy from sadness. Joy from happiness. Is that even in the midst of our sadness, we are still people of joy. Even in the midst of hard times, we are still people of joy. Because that comes with that intimate relationship with God. And I'm going to give you a few pointers here of how you can be a person of joy in the midst of sadness. It begins with understanding what Jesus did on the cross. True joy, listen, everything in the Christian life, everything in this life, it always, and it begins and it ends with the cross of Jesus. Because without the cross of Jesus, there would be nothing else. It's from the cross of Jesus that we have grace. It's from the cross of Jesus that we have mercy. It's from the cross of Jesus that we have forgiveness. It's from the cross that we have now the ability to be a good husband, to be a good dad, to be a good wife, to be a good mother. Whatever title it is you go by, the only source for you to do the best that you can be at that thing is from the cross. It's not from your church. It definitely ain't from your preacher. It's from Jesus. So how can I have joy in the midst of hard times? Always look to the cross. Because when we see the magnitude of what Jesus did for us, and we see, as we just sang about, that gap that Jesus was willing to cross to rescue us from our sins, boy, that's what we find joy in. We also find it in His Word. As a believer, you need to be a student of His Word. You need to study His Word. If you've been here any amount of time, you've heard me say it numerous times. I want our church to be a teaching church. There are churches that do a lot of other things better than us. If you're looking for a show and you're looking for entertainment, there are other churches that do better than us. If you're looking for a pastor that's going to give you a motivational speech and throw a Bible verse in the end or ABCs to your best this and 1, 2, 3s to your most successful that, I ain't your guy. I'm not him. But if you want to learn God's Word, I want us, my desire is for us to be a teaching church. Because let me tell you something, motivational speeches aren't living and active. Entertainment's not living and active. Light shows and smoke machines aren't living and active. It is the Word of God that is living and active and sharper than any two-edged sword. Now, God can use all those other things because He's way more powerful than I am. But I'm not good at that stuff. So what we're going to do is we're going to teach God's Word. Because it's in God's Word you find joy. It's in God's Word that you find peace. It's in His Word that you find purpose and meaning in your life. And that leads to the third thing that's going to help you find joy is spiritual growth. It's growing in your relationship with Jesus. Encountering Jesus on a daily basis. Consistently growing in your walk with Jesus. I talk about this every time I do marriage counseling. You ever seen the little triangle deal that you got God at the top and you here and your spouse here and I can't stand that thing. Because you know who all three of those are equal to? Each other. Folks, there ain't a one of us in this room that's equal to God. I lay out a straight line. And right in the middle of that straight line is the cross of Jesus. And the closer you get to the cross of Jesus, the closer you'll get to that other person. Your focus is not your spouse. Your focus is growing in your relationship with Christ. And as you grow in your relationship with Christ, you know what He does? He helps you get closer to your spouse. See, it's all about our intimacy with Jesus. And the closer we get to Jesus, the more joy we can have in this life. And the last thing I want to remind you of is your future glory. If you're born again, as Jesus said in John chapter 3, you have a future glory that our human minds can't even fathom. That I want to explain something to you. No matter how much stuff you got, if you are a follower of Jesus, you will never live your best life now. Your best life is to come. Never settle for stuff here. Stuff here is never the goal. Building up treasures up there is the goal. What we do for the glory of Jesus is the goal. Because we're going to be up there a whole lot longer than we're going to be down here. I feel pity for people who are living their best life now. Again, I love our community. I love my family. I love my house. It's about to be shining brighter than the cement plant over the next month. You can drive by and see it. I love those things. Let me tell you something. It is not my best life because my best life is yet to come. Now, I'm thankful for it. I wouldn't trade with not a person on this planet. But I find joy in the fact that as good as it is now, it's going to be unmeasurably better in eternity. Your best life is yet to come, and that should bring you joy. So the first thing that Scripture tells us, if you want to have an attitude of gratitude and one, then always be rejoicing. See the big picture, the big perspective, that we are here just like that. Let's spend it rejoicing and praising.