Bible- Ecclesiastes 4:8.

Title- Receiving the real joy.

Key verse - Ecclesiastes 4:8.

   Praise the Lord everyone. You all are welcome in today’s day. I believe that through today’s worship, you all must have felt God. I pray that God will be able to talk to all of us through today’s message. Today we are going to talk about true joy. I hope that through today’s message we all will be able to understand what the true joy of man is. Let’s go to today’s message.

Ecclesiastes 4:8 – there was a man all alone; he had neither son nor brother. There was no end to his toil, yet his eyes were not content with his wealth. “for whom am I toiling,” he asked, “and why am I depriving myself of enjoyment?” this too is meaningless- a miserable business!

  According to the verse, King Solomon tells that there is a person here who has no one, neither son, nor bother; but that person works very hard, accumulates money. Spends his life doing work.

All his life he does just hard work. It is sad. Because he want to find joy. Many believe that a lot of money brings joy. 

Or being rich will solve every problem and we will live our life with much joy. But I want to tell you that your money cannot give you true joy.

Luke 12:13-21

13 Someone in the crowd said to him, “Teacher, tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me.”

14 Jesus replied, “Man, who appointed me a judge or an arbiter between you?” 15 Then he said to them, “Watch out! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; life does not consist in an abundance of possessions.”

16 And he told them this parable: “The ground of a certain rich man yielded an abundant harvest. 17 He thought to himself, ‘What shall I do? I have no place to store my crops.’

18 “Then he said, ‘This is what I’ll do. I will tear down my barns and build bigger ones, and there I will store my surplus grain. 19 And I’ll say to myself, “You have plenty of grain laid up for many years. Take life easy; eat, drink and be merry.”’

20 “But God said to him, ‘You fool! This very night your life will be demanded from you. Then who will get what you have prepared for yourself?’

21 “This is how it will be with whoever stores up things for themselves but is not rich toward God.”

In this story the man realized that his wealth was equal to peace and happiness, he felt that the time had come when he would live his whole life happily. But the problem was that his focus was on money and possessions. And his spiritual life had gone blind.

His heart was in the things he had collected, in his earthly treasures. And he said to his heart, “o soul, you have many possessions for many years; rest, eat and drink and be happy.

He had no heavenly treasure because he had no room for God and his spiritual life. Many assets had closed his thinking. Jesus made it clear that your wealth cannot save you. The joy you are looking for in the property is only for a few moments.

You can’t put a price on a soul. Money and wealth cannot add even one second to our life. Once we die our worldly possessions are of no value to us. It is useless, we come into the world without any wealth and we leave it as it is. The thing through which we can save our soul.  Only in it we should get  happiness and contentment. Therefore we should get true happiness and contentment apart from worldly possessions. Many of us are concerned about the opinion and thinking of others, what people think of us, but first thing we should worry about is whether are we a fool in God’s opinion.

“Jesus said it is such a man who gathers wealth for himself, is not rich in the sight of God.”

But for many people there are things besides money which gives them joy.

What do you think that how do you find joy or where do you find joy?

Does money make you happy too? Or good job, good health, or when people praise you? I see the whats app/ status of many people, then many people sit in the café and put their status while eating coffee, shake, burger, or anything else. I am not criticizing anyone. Nor am I saying that you should not do this. This is not wrong in any way. We all do this. Because we feel joyful in such times. And this is how we express our happiness. Have you ever posted yourself on social media with a cold drink or shake that looked ugly and didn’t taste good? No:- we don’t do that. When we are in our better times or when we feel very happy, then we send our joy to the people through social media. But when we come to our house from the café, everything is the same as before. The time spent in the café just gives us some time to enjoy. It does not bring any change in our life. And if by mistake one or two dishes of your food are not tasty, then your joy is lost. And you get frustrated for a while. Such a joy which is only for some time, we cannot call this joy as true joy because it is not for forever.

Many of us like to go in the mountain. A trip of three to four days gives us a lot of pleasure. We think we will have a lot of fun on this trip. Which will be memorable for a lifetime. We do a lot of photoshoots to keeps those memories alive. But with time it all fades away. Because whatever we do when we come back to our daily life. So whatever is our life would be. We need to bring joy into that. Because any kind of joy is not true joy.

Many people do a lot of work to bring joy in their life. They work all their life. Those people do not get enough sleep. There was no peace and rest in their life. They get overwhelmed by the burden.

Psalm 127: 2

In vain you rise early and stay up late, toiling for food to eat – for he grant sleep to those he loves.

Sometimes people separate themselves from God or distance themselves from the church. They think that by doing this they will be able to attain joy. But that doesn’t happen, by being away from God and the church; they put their life in trouble. 

Wrong friends come in their life, due to which they get into bad habits like smoking, drinking, drug, gambling, lust, greed, bad temper. They find joy in all these activities during their youth.

Ecclesiastes 11:9

You who are young, be happy while you are young,

    and let your heart give you joy in the days of your youth.

Follow the ways of your heart

    and whatever your eyes see,

but know that for all these things

    God will bring you into judgment.

They do not know that the things in which they seek joy are going to bring death to them.

Or because of being alone at times, they get entangled in sin. They think that they will find joy by getting away from God but after some time they become a victim of depression. And not only this, they gradually goes into the hands of the devil. And they lose true joy for forever.

But still man wants to find joy in his life. And now after falling into the hands of satan, they again fall into idolatry. In order to get pleasure, one starts believing in good luck and bad luck. Begins to believe in fortune tellers. Changes their names as well. He thinks that changing the name might do something good. His future may change and in all this work he spends a lot of money and spends all his time. And nothing comes out of result. Why not??  Because all this work is not from the true God. And man gets into more problems and misery than ever before.

What I mean is that all the people who look for joy in this world, they only get disappointed and sad. Because this world is drowned in sin. And whoever seeks joy in this world falls into sin.

True joy is not in this world. True joy should be within you. If you are happy inside or you are satisfied with your life. It means you have found true joy. But how can you find joy within yourself or find satisfaction? You should know that.

You must come to Jesus. You must give your life to Jesus. You must restore your life again in Jesus. Because it is Jesus who can set you free from your sins and your burdens. Your true joy is in Jesus. 

Only Jesus can deliver you from the desires of this world. He will fill you with a joy that will last forever. No one can take away this joy from you. Restore yourself in Jesus. Believe in Jesus.

Romans 15:13

13 May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.

Your true joy is in Jesus. When you establish yourself in Jesus, you have achieved a victorious life. But you have to accept Jesus completely; there should not be any kind of incompleteness in him. Because now you are going to join new family. By establishing yourself in Jesus, he gives you the opportunity to be his son or daughter. You are part of the family of Jesus. Pray to him.

John 16:24 - 24 Until now you have not asked for anything in my name. Ask and you will receive, and your joy will be complete.

He will fill your life with peace and joy. And you will be the one to feel true joy in your life.

Amen.