remain standing for the reading of God's word. Our first reading was to come from Revelation 21, but I realized that I read that at length this morning during the communion service, and so instead, we're going to turn over to Revelation 19, complimentary passage. Revelation 19, beginning in verse one. And I'll say in advance that I am well over the flu, but I have a recurring cough problem, and I will endeavor to preach without that becoming a distraction. So pray for me that I would have a clear voice. Revelation 19. After these things, I heard a loud voice of a great multitude in heaven saying, Alleluia. Salvation and glory and honor and power belong to the Lord our God, for true and righteous are his judgments. because he has judged the great harlot who corrupted the earth with her fornication, and he has avenged on her the blood of his servants shed by her. Again they said, Alleluia. Her smoke rises up forever and ever. And the 24 elders and the four living creatures fell down and worshiped God who sat on the throne saying, Amen. Alleluia. And a voice came from the throne saying, Praise our God, all you his servants, and those who fear him both small and great. And I heard, as it were, the voice of a great multitude, as the sound of many waters, as the sound of mighty thundering, saying, Alleluia, for the Lord God omnipotent reigns. Let us be glad and rejoice and give him glory, for the marriage of the Lamb has come, and his wife has made herself ready. And to her it was granted to be arrayed in fine linen, clean and bright, for the fine linen is the righteous acts of the saints. Then he said to me, write, Blessed are those who are called to the marriage supper of the Lamb. And he said to me, these are the true sayings of God. And I fell at his feet to worship him, but he said to me, see that you do not do that. I am your fellow servant and of your brethren who have the testimony of Jesus. Worship God, for the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy. This is the revelation of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, amen. Turn now to our Old Testament lesson in our sermon text, which is as one old Princeton Westminsterian professor liked to call the gospel according to Isaiah. So that's what we're gonna look at tonight, Isaiah 61, just two verses, 10 and 11. Isaiah 61 verse 10, I will greatly rejoice in the Lord. My soul shall be joyful in my God, for he has clothed me with the garments of salvation. He has covered me with the robe of righteousness, as a bridegroom decks himself with ornaments, and as a bride adorns herself with her jewels. For as the earth brings forth its bud, and as the garden causes the things that are sown in it spring forth. So the Lord God will cause righteousness and praise to spring forth before all the nations. Grass withers, flower fades. Word of God stands forever. Amen. You may be seated. Our Declaration of Independence famously listed certain unalienable rights, including life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. It's interesting, if you read John Locke, he says life, liberty, and property. You can ask Kim Beb more about that later. But in our declaration as we have it, it's life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. That last line is interesting. The right to pursue happiness. Man's search for joy, for blessing. Where can you find happiness? Where can you find joy? Where can you find satisfaction? Solomon, in the book of Ecclesiastes, said, as he assembled the people, that he'd been everywhere, done everything. He didn't say he got the t-shirt, but you get the idea. He'd done it all, and he came up empty. Vapor of vapors, all is vapor. Mist of mists, all is mist. It's shepherding the wind. So, based on Solomon's experience, man's search for joy. The pursuit of happiness might be a right, according to Thomas Jefferson, but in practice, that search sometimes feels like a dead end. Maybe you feel that way tonight. Maybe you're overcome by loneliness, sadness, deep discouragement. Or maybe people you trusted let you down. Maybe they even hurt you. What's the song? We always hurt the ones we love. Sometimes that is the experience that we have in this life. Maybe you've come this morning and what really resonates with you in the book of Isaiah is actually a verse we didn't read. It's verse three, Isaiah 61 verse three, which speaks of ashes, mourning, and the spirit of heaviness, and you say, that's me tonight. Ashes. Mourning, spirit of heaviness. And yet, there's this innate desire to pursue happiness, and to find joy, and to search for satisfaction. So how do we bring these things together in our own experience as we consider the word of God? Now, as we get into this, I wanna make a little bit of a caveat, and that is that all of us know that there are seasons of discouragement. Sometimes that's circumstantial. There's things that happen to you. There's things that happen around you or to people you love, and it can plunge you into a season of discouragement. Sometimes, the Bible says, sons of light walk in darkness. There can also be personal factors. Some of you, regardless of circumstances, are more prone to discouragement, or less prone to discouragement. We're not wired the same way. God made us different, and we have different struggles, different tendencies, different besetting sins, different weaknesses. Your weakness may not be my weakness. Maybe your spouse's struggles aren't your struggles, but you have other ones. And so we need to take that into account. Some people constitutionally struggle more with discouragement. At times there can even be a biological component, biochemical component. And it's hard because we are in soul bodies, we are embodied souls, and we're, The mind and the body, where the one ends and the other begins, it's hard to tell. We're mysteriously interwoven, whole people. And so for all of us. There's this tension between our search for joy, our pursuit of happiness, and then the reality of dissatisfaction, of ashes, mourning, the spirit of heaviness. But I'm here tonight to tell you that there is a way forward. There is a way forward. There is a way. to rejoice even at times through tears. Not in the absence of tears, but a way to rejoice even through suffering. And the key, the key is the location of your joy. It's the location. Where? You look for happiness. Where you look for joy. Where you search out satisfaction. Location is everything. Location, location, location. And verse 10 tells us where to look. Look at verse 10 with me. I will greatly rejoice, where? I will greatly rejoice in my 401k. I will greatly rejoice in my retirement years. I will greatly rejoice in my hybrid car. I will greatly rejoice in my Instagram stories. I will greatly rejoice in, fill in the blank, no. Not to denounce everything I just listed, necessarily, but Isaiah tells us where to look. He says, I will greatly rejoice in the Lord. In Jehovah, the I am, the one who is, and who was, and who is to come. The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the covenant-keeping God, the God who is who he is, the God who is self-existent, the God who is transcendent, and the Lord who is also very near to his covenant people, who inhabits eternity and also is present with him who is of a lowly and contrite spirit. This is the answer. Again, not to minimize the seasons of the soul, not to wave a hand and turn away the individual struggles you face and the personal, even biological factors, but spiritually speaking, there is a way to rejoice, even through tears, and it's to rejoice in the Lord, to rejoice in God. And again, I say, Rejoice. As John Piper likes to say, God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in him. Location. So tonight, I want to talk about joy. I want to talk about happiness in the biblical sense of the term, not the airy-fairy sentimentality of our age. but a solid joy and a lasting happiness. Two headings, the expression of joy and reasons for joy. First, expression of joy. Verse 10 again, I will greatly rejoice in the Lord My soul shall be joyful in my God. Literally, rejoicing, I will rejoice, greatly rejoice. It might remind you of Mary's Magnificat. My soul doth magnify the Lord. My spirit doth rejoice in God my Savior as that teenage Jewish peasant girl poured out her soul before the Lord under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. We see that this joy, this expression of delight and ecstasy is spiritual in nature. My soul shall be joyful. And as I said before, location, location, location, it is located in God himself. in the Lord, in my God. And so, in some ways I can say, if you are searching for joy, And if you are seeking delight, and you are cultivating desire, and you are pursuing happiness, and you make your target, the object, the location, God himself, you can't go too far. You can't go too much. Because this is God we're talking about. Anything else would be an idol. Anything else would be idolatry, but here we're talking about the Lord, and you can't delight too much in the Lord. You can't love the Lord too much. You can't give too much of yourself to the Lord. In fact, saving faith is the surrender of yourself to God. It is the receiving, it is the resting in Christ, yes, but it's also the giving up of yourself to Christ, saying take it all. Take all of me. This is worship. Worship is to offer a living sacrifice upon the altar. Yes, we do. We offer the tribute offering of our tithe. It's a good principle to take 10% of what God has given to you and to give it back for kingdom advance. That's good. But realize that's just a token. It's a reminder that God wants it all. God is jealous in the husbandly, fatherly sense of our affections and our loyalties. He wants it all, He deserves it all, and here's the reality. It's when you give it all to Him that you find joy in God. It's as T.S. Eliot said, I find freedom in submission. I have lost myself, no, I have found myself in God. And that's the key. Where are you looking? Where are you searching? In whom are you pouring yourself out? Is it an idol? Is it a creature? Is it another person? Is it an object? Or is it the living and true God? That makes all the difference. Location, location, location. Rejoice in the Lord. And again, I say, rejoice. That's the expression of joy. And it's exultant, and it's glorious. It channels Mary's Magnificat, and the psalmist, and the beaming face of Christ for the joy that was set before him, endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the majesty on high. This is a deep joy. found in God himself. That's the expression. But why? Is this an unreasonable joy? Is this an illogical exaltation? Or is it imminently reasonable and logical and warranted and grounded Why are we so joyful? And again, even through tears, why do we have as Christians a deep abiding satisfaction? And in the context of this passage, why is Isaiah rejoicing? Why is he bursting into song? Well, the general reason is this whole passage is about something. It's about the coming of Jesus Christ into the world. Isaiah lived 700 years before Jesus came. We live 2,000 years after he came. But from Isaiah's standpoint, he realizes he's been given a prophecy that the Messiah is going to come. And that's the whole context of this chapter. It's a servant song. The spirit of the Lord God is upon me. The same spirit that God sent out to cause the water to subside in the days of Noah, the same spirit like a glory cloud hovered over the face of the deep, that spirit has anointed Jesus Christ. The spirit of the Lord God is upon me because the Lord has anointed me to preach good tidings to the poor. And he goes on to heal the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, the acceptable year of the Lord, the jubilee of jubilees, the opening of the prison to those who are bound, to comfort all who mourn. to console those who mourn in Zion, to give them beauty for ashes, oil of joy for mourning, the garments of praise for the spirit of heaviness, that they may be called trees of righteousness, the planting of the Lord, that he may be glorified. You say, how do you know that's about the coming of Jesus? Well, I'll tell you why I know. Luke, Luke's gospel. Luke chapter four. Bible says this. Luke chapter four, 16. So he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up. Jesus goes to his hometown, and as his custom was, he went into the synagogue on the Sabbath day. He went to church on the Lord's day of the time. And he stood up to read, and he was handed the book of the prophet Isaiah. And when he says book, he's not talking about a codex, he's talking about a scroll. He found the place where it was written. The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor, and he has sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and recovery of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed, to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord. And then he closed the book. He gave it back to the attendant, and he sat down. and the eyes of all who were in the synagogue were fixed on him. You see, in the synagogue, they'd stand to read, and then, if you're gonna preach, you would, the preaching posture is standing, but if you're gonna teach, you sit down in the Jewish world. So he sat down to teach them. Everyone's looking at him, eyeball to eyeball. And he began to say to them, today, this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing. This is an electrifying moment in the ministry of Jesus because we're talking about a prophecy that they've been reading for 700 years. Someday, someday, someone's going to come and he's going to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord. Someday, the blind will see. Someday, the poor will be rescued. Someday, we will be redeemed by the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. For 700 years they've been saying that to children, to grandchildren, to great-grandchildren, generation after generation, and finally somebody comes to Nazareth, to the synagogue on the Sabbath, and he takes the scroll, and he reads it, and then he sits down, and he's enthroned, and he says, he's talking about me. Today, this is fulfilled in your hearing. And so, 700 years before, Isaiah gets a spirit-inspired vision of Jesus Christ fulfilling this prophecy. And his response is to celebrate. His response is to rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory. His response is to exalt in God, rejoicing I will rejoice. And that is the basic reason. It's Jesus. Jesus is the reason for joy. However, he doesn't leave it there. It's not just the broader context. Isaiah leaves us with no doubts. Going back to Isaiah 61, he gives us very specific reasons to rejoice. And so if you're here tonight and you're like, I know that though sometimes it's children of light walk in darkness, yet the testimony of the child of God is that I have the joy of the Holy Ghost and I want to be joyful in Christ. I want to have happiness in God. But I'm struggling right now to have motivation and to experience this. And I think in those situations, it's always good to go to objective reasons for joy. And so I wanna look at two of them from Isaiah 61. Two reasons for joy. New clothes and new creation. Those are the reasons. Again, in the context of the coming of Christ, new clothes, new creation first. Rejoice in the Lord because you have new clothes in Christ. New clothes. Look at verse 10. My soul shall be joyful in my God. Why? For he has clothed me with the garments of salvation. He has covered me with the robe of righteousness, as a bridegroom decks himself with ornaments, as a bride adorns herself with her jewels. That's why. Because in Christ, I have new clothes. Two parallel gifts, clothed with the garments of salvation and covered with the robe of righteousness. As a side note, the garments of salvation, Isaiah has just spoken in verse three of the garment of praise. Why are you praising God? Well because of the garments of salvation. Now what kind of clothes are these? You could say they're designer clothes. They're designed by God himself. They're very special clothes. Better than anything you can possibly imagine, any catalog. That's obsolete. Now, you go online and you look for clothes. But these are very special clothes. Now, in the ancient world and in the modern world, I'll tell you one thing clothes do. Clothes indicate status. And I'm not in tune with what status symbol clothes look like, but some of you know what they're like. And you see someone walk down the street, and you're like, that's sending a message. That's a status symbol. They're in a certain socioeconomic status class that means something. The car you drive. Well, in the ancient world, clothes also indicated status. So let's look at this. What kind of clothes are these? First of all, these are priestly clothes. They're priestly. Now I say that when it comes to the garment of salvation because Psalm 132.16 says, I will also clothe her priests with salvation, and her saints shall shout aloud for joy. So in the Bible, God has said, I'm going to clothe my priests with salvation. It's the garments of salvation. These are priestly garments. I say that also because of the robe of righteousness. Where have we heard that language before? Well, Zechariah 3 says this. Then he showed me. Joshua the high priest, priestly language, standing before the angel of the Lord, and Satan, the enemy, standing at his right hand to oppose him. And the Lord said to Satan, the Lord rebuke you, Satan. The Lord who has chosen Jerusalem rebuke you. Is this not a brand plucked from the fire? Now, Joshua was clothed with filthy garments and was standing before the angel. The high priest has defiled filthy garments. These filthy garments represent defilement, sin, shame, guilt, iniquity. If you keep reading the passage, it says, then he answered and spoke to those who stood before him, presumably the angels, saying, take away the filthy garments from him. And he said to him, see, I have removed your iniquity from you. And I think for some Christians, that's as far as they get. And they think, this is amazing. I owe a debt I cannot pay. Because if you've sinned, and all of you have sinned, all have fallen short of the glory of God, if you have sinned, then you have committed an act of cosmic treason against the emperor of the universe, the creator of the cosmos. You have committed an act of treason against an infinitely holy God, and you are deserving and liable to eternal conscious torment in hell forever, and the smoke of her goes up forever and ever. That's justice. And part of the good news is, if you trust in Jesus, Jesus has paid the debt. Jesus' blood has covered your iniquity. And I hate to even say this, but for someone to shout after years of laboring on their debts, I'm debt free. And someone's paid it for me. I didn't even do it. I couldn't pay the debt. I was so far into debt, I couldn't get out. But someone came along and paid a debt I could not pay. I'm debt free. That's amazing. And some Christians, that's as far as they get with the gospel. And it is glorious, is it not? To be forgiven of sins. I mean, it's glorious. I've had this experience where you do something wrong and you confess it, and a brother and sister in Christ says, I forgive you. And it's like oil upon the head to know that they really mean it. And sometimes the roles are reversed. It's glorious to have your sins forgiven, to have them cast into the sea, as far as the east is from the west, like in the time of Israel, to have your sins confessed over the goats for Azazel, and then that goat who bears your sins goes into the wilderness and you can't see it anymore. to have your sins, all the records of everything you've done wrong, plunged into the sea, and you see them no more. God throws it behind his back. That's glorious. God's not gonna remember the sins of your youth. Praise God, hallelujah, Jesus has done it. But I don't wanna shortchange that. But it gets better. It gets better. Because the gospel isn't just about removing the dirty clothes. That's just half the equation. Text goes on. See, I have removed your iniquity from you and I will clothe you with rich robes. Not just the negative, but the positive. Not just the removal, but the re-clothing. So they put a clean turban on his head, and they put the clothes on him, and the angel of the Lord stood by. So when you hear the language that you're going to get garments of salvation, you're going to have a robe of righteousness, this is screaming priestly language. A priest who's had his dirty clothes removed, the priest with dirty clothes, and he has now adorned rich robes of righteousness. Notice, not his own righteousness. A righteousness that is not my own. A righteousness that belongs to another, but is given to me. That in union with Christ, it's like when you get married. When you get married, just a dim picture of this, What belongs to you belongs to your spouse. What belongs to your spouse belongs to you. Paul even says that in marriage, a husband has authority over his wife's body and the wife has authority over his body. Because it's such a rich, one flesh union. Well, when by faith you trust Christ, you are brought into union with Christ so that what is true of him becomes true of you. You've been crucified with Christ. You've been raised with Christ into the heavenly places. And it also means you are clothed with his righteousness that you don't deserve, that you could never earn. He paid the debt, and then he gave you a pearl of great price. He removed your filthy garments. And he clothed you with rich robes, garments of salvation, robes of righteousness. This is the full gospel. Not just the removal, but the clothing itself. I say this is priestly even into the rest of the verse where it says, as the bridegroom decks himself with ornaments. That's interesting, it literally reads, who priests it with respect to a turban. This is referring to the turban worn by the priests. Even that language of the bridegroom, though it is marital, it's also priestly. And that does lead into the other aspect of the status marker of this clothing. It's not just a renewed and restored priesthood, it's also marital. It's marital. As a bridegroom decks himself with ornaments and as a bride adorns herself with jewels. And really the best way to understand this is to go back and sing Psalm 45b again. My heart is indicting. My heart is overflowing with a good theme. I recite my composition concerning the king. He's fairer than the sons of men. Grace is poured upon his lips. He rides forth with his sword girt upon his thigh with righteousness, truth, and humility. His garments breathe with myrrh, spices, And there stands the queen in gold from Ophir. If you want to get a sense of the glory and beauty of this imagery, go to the royal psalm, the royal wedding psalm, Psalm 45. What this language is telling us is that these clothes, this new change of clothes indicates priestly, marital glory and beauty. Joe Rigney said this, those of us who attend modern weddings know that when the wedding march begins, all eyes turn to the back of the room to see the bride, clothed in white and beautiful in her glory. But a wise attendee will also steal a glance toward the altar where the groom waits with eager anticipation and expectant joy. The beauty of his bride is reflected in the brightness of his face. And it's been a while now, over a decade, but I can remember. Gustav Holst's Jupiter, the text of O God Beyond All Praising on the cello. and the harp, and the doors open, and you see her for the first time. And she's clothed in white linen. And I couldn't see my own face, but others witnessed my face, beaming with joy at the beauty of the bride, my bride. And that just gets us a little earthly parable of a spiritual reality, of the bridegroom and the bride with mutual appreciation and mutual delight and joy, gazing upon the beauty of the other. As Christ's face beams with joy in us, and we as a corporate bride beam with joy in Him. We are, congregation, a kingdom of priests We are a corporate bride for Christ and we are clothed in garments of salvation and robes of righteousness, not our own. And so one reason, just one, you should rejoice in the Lord is that you have new clothes in Christ. And if you don't have those clothes tonight, I would plead with you. To go to Him, there's no better bridegroom. There's no greater Savior. There's no more benevolent King. Behold the King in His beauty. Run to Jesus Christ, who will not let you down, who will not betray you, who will not break His promises, who will not break His oath, who will keep His vows to the end and beyond. Come to Jesus, and if you feel guilty tonight, and you feel ashamed, and you feel dirty in the light of God's holiness, well step into the light and let him remove those filthy garments, those attempts to hide, those attempts to mask, those attempts to cover up yourself and realize they can't do it. No human system can cover up this kind of spiritual shame. You need those bandages, those masks, those crutches knocked out from underneath of you, and you need something else entirely. You need the blood and righteousness of Jesus. So come to Jesus, and he will clothe you. He will wash all your sin away. He'll take away your shame, he'll take away your guilt, and he will cover you afresh in rich robes. This is what it's all about, to be clothed or covered in the righteousness of Jesus, His active obedience, His perfect life, culminating in His passive obedience, His atoning death, His righteous life. His crucifixion, Jesus, thy blood and righteousness, my beauty are, my glorious dress. The bride eyes, not her garments, but her dear bridegroom's face. The lamb is all the glory in Emmanuel's land. Jehovah, Sidkenu, the Lord, our righteousness. I tell you, guilt steals joy, and shame steals joy, and regret steals joy, but in Jesus, he can restore the years the locusts have eaten, and he can take your shame away and replace it with abundant joy. Not only pardoned and forgiven, but clothed and covered. That's one reason, but there's a final reason. There's a final specific reason, and that is rejoice in the Lord because not just new clothes, but you are a new creation in Christ. You are new creation in Christ. Verse 11, for as the earth brings forth its bud, as the garden causes the things that are sown in it to spring forth, so the Lord God will cause righteousness and praise to spring forth. before all the nations. Again, two parallel realities. We have the garments of salvation and the robes of righteousness. Well, here we have the earth bringing forth its bud and the garden causing seeds to blossom. Put these together, it's a picture of new creation. We've been talking about that a lot recently with the Noah story, but it's here too. The garden, what's the garden remind you of? Where does that take you back? You know, it's interesting, Lot talks about Sodom reminding him of Eden, or rather reminding him of Egypt, reminding him of the garden of the Lord. And all of humanity has this dim recollection that we used to be in a garden, and we used to not be ashamed, and things used to be good, but we've fallen, and things are not good. Things are not right. And if we think they are, we're whistling in the dark. It's not true. But here, he speaks of a garden. And that takes us back to the Garden of Eden. Takes us back to that time before death entered into the world and sin entered into the world. Takes us back to day three of creation, the sprouting of grains and fruit trees. Earth bringing forth bud, the garden causing things that are sown in it to spring forth. Takes us back to day three where the grains, which are the raw material that produces bread, and the fruit trees, and the vines, which are the raw material that produce wine, were first planted in the earth. And notice there's a comparison, an as-so kind of relationship. As the earth brings forth its bud, as the garden causes the things that are sown in it to spring forth, so, comparison, so the Lord God will cause righteousness and praise to spring forth before all the nations. And this is really taking salvation, the whole package. The whole package. because being clothed, being covered, that's justification, that's being right with God. But here, this bringing forth the fruit of righteousness and praise, this is a picture of sanctification. See, God saves you where you are. but he doesn't leave you where you are. He, so to speak, like the lifeguard, dives into the pool in the deep end, and you're dead on the floor. He goes down, he resuscitates you, he resurrects you, spiritually speaking, but he doesn't leave you at the bottom of the pool. He brings you up, he brings you up. He wants to take you all the way to heaven. He wants to give you the holiness without which no one will see the Lord. As we said a few weeks ago, you're not saved by good works, but you are saved for good works. And the same gospel by which you are pardoned and covered and justified also proclaims a message of transforming grace. of new principle of spiritual life, of regeneration, of restoration, of new creation, of new affection, of new desires, that when the Bible says in the Psalms, I will give you the desire of your heart, part of that is God is going to create in you a desire for the right things, and then he'll give you those things. Here, he's talking about right conduct and faithful worship, righteousness and praise. That in Christ, you're the same person, but you're that person redeemed. Same identity in one sense, same name, but another sense, new identity. His name upon you. New destiny, new trajectory, new affections, new desires, new creation. That is what salvation is about. Nothing short of new creation in your soul now and even in your body at the resurrection of the dead. Rejoice in the Lord because you are a new creation in Christ. This is important. There's gonna be people who will tell you lies. They'll say that because of certain things in your life that you're worthless, that you're no good. Satan will try to whisper that to you. Maybe things you did before you were converted. Maybe things you did after you were converted. To them, that's harder. But here, he's bringing us to the north star of your identity. And he doesn't go, first of all, to natural realities. There are natural realities when it comes to identity. We could talk about race. We could talk about biological sex. We could talk about national ethnic heritage. Those are real things. But that's not where he goes. No, he says there's a deeper identity. And it is that I am united to Jesus Christ. I'm an image bearer by creation, and I'm a son or daughter of the king by virtue of redemption, and that is a deeper identity and loyalty than any other thing in this world. The water of my baptism is thicker than the blood of my other relationships, that Jesus has given me new life. This is the path of joy. If you're struggling with discouragement tonight, there could be all sorts of reasons, but it's worth asking, are there any sins I need to confess and forsake? Because sin steals joy, and guilt and shame steal happiness. Repentance is a hard path. Turning from sin is hard, it's kind of death, but it's a path that leads to joy. When you kill that lust that's whispering in your ear on your shoulder, It's when you put it to death, which is hard. That's the pathway to joy. The joy of a transformed life. And you're not gonna be perfect this side of heaven. You're not gonna be perfect. But you can sincerely follow Christ and genuinely grow until that day when you are raised up in glory and, or even before then, if you die, the catechism says, that believers who die are made perfect in holiness when they behold the Lord. And then at the resurrection, you're raised up in glory and you're made perfectly blessed in the full enjoying of God to all eternity. And so you're gonna have sorrows and disappointments in this life, but realize that there is coming a day when there will be unmitigated, undiluted, pure, joy in God forever and ever where every chapter is better than the one before. All of this is available to you now by faith and yet full and lasting joy awaits the second coming of Christ. The marriage supper of the lamb when we with white robes sit down at table with King Jesus forever and ever. May we have a foretaste of that joy now, but look to that day when all our tears are wiped away and we have nothing but the radiant joy of God for all eternity. Let us pray.