In 'The Continual Feast of the Joyful Heart,' Peter Allison explores the theme of joy as presented in Proverbs 15:13-23, emphasizing its spiritual nature and growth akin to sanctification. Joy is rooted in the apprehension of God's goodness through the Holy Spirit and is not contingent on external circumstances. The sermon outlines various facets of joy, including peacemaking, diligent labor, wise children, discernment, established plans, and timely answers, each contributing to a believer's 'fullness of joy.' Controlled anger is highlighted as a means to promote peace and prevent bitterness, while diligence in spiritual disciplines is likened to maintaining a clear path in life. The joy of Christ is presented as the ultimate example, with His motivation to endure the crucifixion being the joy of reconciling humanity to God. Believers are encouraged to seek this fullness of joy by following Christ's example and growing in their understanding and appreciation of God's love and goodness.

Please turn now in your Bibles to the book of Proverbs as we continue our study in chapter 15. We will be reading this morning particularly at verses 18-23. But I would like to read beginning this morning at verse 13. Hear God's Word. Hear God's word.

A merry heart makes a cheerful countenance, but by sorrow of the heart the spirit is broken. The heart of him who has understanding seeks knowledge, but the mouth of fools feeds on foolishness. All the days of the afflicted are evil, but he who is of a merry heart has a continual feast. Better is a little with the fear of the Lord than great treasure with trouble. Better is a dinner of herbs where love is than a fatted calf with hatred.

A wrathful man stirs up strife, But he who is slow to anger allays contention. The way of the lazy man is like a hedge of thorns, But the way of the upright is a highway. A wise son makes a glad father, but a foolish man despises his mother. Folly is joy to him who is destitute of discernment, but a man of understanding walks uprightly. Without counsel plans go awry, but in the multitude of counselors they are established.

A man has joy by the answer of his mouth, and a word spoken in due season how good it is thus far the reading of God's word the grass withers and the flower fades but the word of our God endures forever Almighty Heavenly Father we ask now that you would sanctify these sinful lips, that from a vessel of clay the riches of your mercy and your grace might be proclaimed this morning. Give to us an understanding heart that we may hear your voice this morning. And give to us a willing heart to follow in your ways and in your precepts. This we ask in Jesus' name, Amen. If you were here last week, you know that we looked at the joy that is taught in the text of verses 13 that we read and following joy.

We looked at the source of joy. We looked at the effect of joy. We looked at what counterfeit joy was and the fact that the joy of the Lord was not dependent upon external circumstances and conditions. Because the joy of the Lord is the sweet and delightful effect of the Holy Spirit acting upon us to enable us to apprehend the goodness of God. It's the work of the Holy Spirit enabling us to apprehend, to realize, to lay hold of the goodness of God to us such that our soul is supported and encouraged and comforted under our present trials and afflictions and guarded against future fears.

That's the joy of the Lord. And it is something that the Lord gives to us. It's the work of the new birth. But like sanctification, it's something that grows. And so we can say that We have been sanctified.

The Bible says that we have been washed, that we have been cleansed, that we are no longer what we used to be. Paul said some of you were murderers, some of you were adulterers and fornicators, but you are no more, you've been washed. And so we can say that we have been past tense sanctified, but we also know that we are not fully sanctified, and that our sanctification is an ongoing work, As the sin that dwells in us is put to death, and our minds are renewed and we are more and more conformed to the image of God's Son, well joy is similar. We have joy, yes, in the new birth. But the Bible speaks about having a fullness of joy.

It speaks about no greater joy. And so there is also then, like sanctification, a sense that our joy is to be that which is expanding, which is growing. Our apprehension of the goodness of God should be growing, should be getting greater, should be getting deeper. And so that's what we want to look at this morning. We want to move from joy, joy, joy in the new birth to the fullness of joy as our sanctification grows.

And so what we see here this morning is this description of the fullness of joy. We saw last week, we're not going to look at verses 16 to 17, I put them in the outline in your bulletin so you have the context there. You can see how this whole passage is tied together with this theme of joy. We have in verse 16 the sufficiency with the fear of the Lord, the dinner of herbs with love. In verse 18 the joy of peacemaking.

In 19 the joy of diligent labor. In verse 20 the joy of wise children. In verse 21, the joy of discernment. In verse 22, the joy of established plans. And in verse 23, the joy of an apt and timely answer.

This is the fullness of joy. These verses are tied together in most English translations. It may not be as obvious, but in verse 13, the merry heart, that's the word for joy. In verse 15, the merry heart, the word for joy. In verse 20, it's a glad father, that's the word for joy, Same word as in the earlier verses.

In verse 22, folly is a joy. The same word. In verse 23, a man has joy. This theme of joy is running throughout these verses. So we want to look this morning then at verse 18.

The joy of peacemaking. As we look at this fullness of joy that we who are in Christ are able to, to a greater extent, apprehend, lay hold of the goodness of God to us. And So verse 18 says, a wrathful man stirs up strife, but he who is slow to anger allays contention, calms the situation, brings peace, puts the fire out instead of adding gas to the fire. A man who apprehends the goodness of God toward himself, a man who apprehends the grace of God in his own life, or woman, or boy or girl, is going to ask, why am I getting angry? Why has my countenance fallen?

Am I right to be angry? Indiligence in thoughtfully and prayerfully answering this question. Carefulness to search our heart, to seek to discern where the anger is. Is it because our pride or convenience has been stepped on? Is it because our toes have been stepped on?

Or is it because God's law is being trampled? Because the glory of His name is being dishonored? See if we take the time to ask that question, to search our own heart in the light of our apprehension of the goodness of God to us, then we will not be of necessity quick to anger, because it's going to take time to do that. It's going to take some reflection. And so a slow anger is not an out of control emotional response because we didn't get our way.

A slow anger is a thoughtful, deliberate Response to the law of God, to the honor of God, to the glory of His name, being tarnished, being drug through the mud. See, and a controlled anger produces energy that is funneled into correcting the problem. A pound of tea and tea has a lot of energy. But it's not very good for doing useful work. It's only good for breaking things.

Because that energy is released quickly, instantaneously. Whereas a pound of wood actually has even more energy. It has several times more energy than a pound of high explosive. Did you realize that? There's more energy in the log sitting in your fireplace than in the same weight of TNT sitting in your fireplace.

And yet that wood can do a lot of useful work because the energy is released slowly and in a controlled way. The energy of the TNT is less even, but it's released in an uncontrolled way. That's like uncontrolled anger. Just breaks things, starts fires, creates problems. To attacking the problem and not people.

A man who is slow to anger checks his anger and just doesn't give place to this uncontrolled venting. But He also, because He's controlling His anger, He's using the energy of that anger to channel His efforts into useful avenues to bring solution to the problem. He won't let the sun go down on his wrath. If you're in control of your anger, then you bring it to a close. You take immediate action.

You address the problem. And if it's a problem that takes more than one day to solve, you're able to bring that anger to a close and to not let the sun go down on that anger. And thus, a man who is slow to anger is far less likely to fall into the pit of bitterness, the trap of resentment. That's What happens when we allow the sun to go down on our wrath? We go to bed angry and it cooks in us all night.

We wake up angry. And when that goes on day after day, even a day or two, it brings resentment. It brings a root of bitterness. Also a man who is slow to anger will have time to study his answer. Remember verse 1 in this chapter says that a soft answer turns away wrath.

It doesn't say Clamming up turns away wrath. Clamming up is actually a response of anger. It's just as unbiblical, just as wrong as the uncontrolled venting. Uncontrolled venting and clamming up are opposite sides of the same root problem. But rather it is a soft answer.

Not uncontrolled bending and not internalization, but a soft answer that can turn away or or Yeah, turn away wrath And so it takes a moment of reflection to give an answer that is truly soft. An answer that doesn't, it isn't what we call passive aggressive. That's the kind of answer that seems to be soft on the outside, but when you push on it, there's a tack underneath it. It looks like a cushion, but when you sit on it, you realize in there there was a nail. A soft dancer does not have a tack hidden inside of it.

A Soft Dancer turns away wrath, it calms, it restores, it heals. He who is slow to anger well appease strife, turn away wrath. For people that are given to anger, a wrathful man stirs up anger. They induce more people to be angry. They stir the pot and create problems where nothing existed before.

We might say that a wrathful man, wrathful people are good cooks. They feed the fire, they fan the flames, and they never let problems die. They keep the fires burning. But the Bible says that the stronger and more superior person is not somebody who with force of personality can dominate, can intimidate, and control other people who want to avoid his anger. That's not strength.

Sometimes that sort of strength is admired. Somebody that's strong like that. But the Bible says that's not a strong person. The stronger and more superior person is not the one who can intimidate and control other people with the force of his anger. The stronger person is the one who can control himself and can control his own anger.

The next chapter says, The next chapter says, whoever is slow to anger is better than the mighty. And he who rules his spirit, then he who takes a city. Ruling your city is a sign of greater strength than Hercules or Samson carrying off the walls of a city on his shoulders. The joy of peacemaking is the first step, the first part in our text about the fullness of joy that we as those who are in Christ can know. The joy of peacemaking, the joy of knowing that wrath has been appeased, strife has been averted, reconciliation has been accomplished.

That's a joy. That's a joy that we ought to aspire to know personally. The next joy in the fullness of joy is the joy of diligent labor. The way of the lazy man is like a hedge of thorns, but the way of the upright is a highway. The lazy person doesn't work diligently, doesn't keep the road clear, and it soon becomes choked with weeds instead of being a highway.

It becomes not just choked with weeds, it becomes completely impassable with thorns, things that tear at our flesh. Have you ever tried walking through thorns? You can walk through weeds that aren't thorny very easily. You just walk through and you can kind of push them away. But thorns are totally different.

They grab at your clothes, they grab at your skin, they scratch, they tear. Thorns are much more quickly impassable than mere weeds. And this happens quickly. We have a plot of ground that we've, over the years, have gardened in and been working to build the soil up in. And the last couple of years, we haven't had the ability to garden.

But we've tried to keep this plot clear for the day, some day down the road that we can garden once again, have time to do that. But just a week or two ago, I saw this weed that was really high and I thought, wow, that's a really high weed right in the middle of this land that we have been keeping cleared. And I went up to look at it, pull it out and I realized It was a tree. It was a tree this big around. How did that get there?

Right under my eyes. I had to take a tractor. A big tractor and barely pulled it out. I just grew up in a matter of, I don't think it's been that many, that long since we've garden there. It happens fast.

Weeds grow up and choke the path. The life, it says, a lazy person's life is like that. Their way is soon not a way at all. A sluggard may try real hard for a little while, but soon gives up. And so Instead of joy, the future of this lothful holds regrets.

Regrets for their lack of earlier diligence. How many regret Not practicing music more when you were little. How many regret not doing, not learning something with more diligence? Maybe a language, maybe a skill when you were little. Or learning from your father or mother something that they know how to do when you were young.

And you regret that now because you don't have the ability to do what they had to do, the ability they had. Many people regret not saving in their productive years more diligently? And we find them and we get to the end of our life. We look back with regret because we simply cannot go and do the things that we would like to do. Now in contrast to the sluggard is the righteous.

Now we might have expected that the contrast with the sluggard would be the diligent Be between the diligent and the slothful, but it's not It's between the right the righteous and the slothful or the slothful And the righteous essentially here equating slothfulness with wickedness. Because remember these proverbs, we need to feed forward from the first half into the second half. And we need to bring back into the first half the things, the concepts, the principles that are being explained in the second half. We've looked at that, why we do that earlier. But this idea that The slothful is equated with the wicked, is consistent with Jesus' teaching in Matthew 25, where Jesus called the servant who buried his one talent wicked Because he was slothful.

The other servants, he gave two and one talents to three different people. The one who had five, you remember, worked hard, diligently. And he made five more. So when the master came back, he could give him the original five and five more. The one who was given two worked diligently, and he also had a hundred percent increase.

And he received the same reward. Enter into the joy of his reward. But the last one, who was only given one, had buried it. And then gone off to the beach To watch the waves or sat in front of a TV surf the internet with his talent buried in the ground Slothful and Jesus said you you wicked servant You were slothful. Why didn't you work?

In contrast to the way of the wicked of wicked yes the slothful wicked Which is this hedge of thorns? It's impenetrable Can't make any progress in that way the way of the righteous is said to be the opposite It's said to be an elevated built-up highway The way of the upright is a built up that word is is specifically of a highway, a highway that is built up and free of obstruction. We have that in when they put those flyovers on I-45 on the Highway 242, right? If you're coming north and you want to go west on 242, you know, you get a built-up road that's way above all the traffic and the mess below right and you can just fly right over everything and land on 242 That's that's the sense. That's exactly what this is saying here that the way of the righteous is an elevated built-up highway that's free of obstruction It's like a train tracks when they're built over lowlands.

They're built up so when they flood and so on, they don't cover the tracks. That's What the Bible says the way of the righteous is like. Their diligent labor over the long haul day by day produces a way, produces a road that is built up like that elevated Expressway Now the way of the righteous in its is not in itself easier It's not it's it's It is made plain and unobstructed through diligence. The way of the righteous is made plain through diligence at making our calling and election sure. Through diligent use of the means of grace.

Praying without ceasing. Instant in prayer. Looking and waiting with hope for the answers to our prayers. You know, it's important to pray. It's important to pray without ceasing.

But then do we also expect the answers? Are we looking for answers to our prayer? Sometimes I've prayed for things and forgotten to look for an answer. You think, why would the Lord want to answer that prayer? When I don't care enough to pay attention and to look for the answer.

But you know when you start looking for the answer, when you start expecting it, God starts showing to you His answers. You start seeing His work in places that you haven't seen it before or didn't realize it was there, it was there, you're just blind to it. Diligent use day by day of the means of grace, praying without ceasing, looking and waiting with hope for answers, meditating on the Word, letting it permeate our heart, thinking about it, pondering it, following its commands, heeding its warnings, believing its promises. This is the diligent use of the means of grace and Solomon says that Dillard this diligence Produces before us a way that is plain Produces a highway Stumbling blocks are removed as God works every obstacle that He has placed in our path. He works these obstacles together for our own good in our life.

As He sanctifies us through them. There is no temptation that has overtaken us except what is common to man. Sluggishness in the struggle with indwelling sin is sluggishness in exercising spiritual discipline. Sluggishness in prayer, sluggishness in reading the word. And this kind of laziness leads to apostasy from which it is impossible to renew repentance.

It is an impenetrable hedge of thorns. Hebrews 6, Paul writes, For as the earth which drinks in the rain, that often comes upon it and bears herbs useful for those by whom it is cultivated receives blessings from God. But if it bears thorns and briars, it is rejected and near to being cursed, whose end is to be burned. But beloved, we are confident of better things, yes, things of you, yes, things that accompany salvation, though we speak in this manner. For God is not unjust to forget your work and labor of love which you have shown toward His name.

And we desire that each one of you show the same diligence to the full assurance of hope unto the end that you do not become sluggish and slothful but imitate those who through faith and patience inherit the promises. Those who are sluggish and slothful find, Paul told the Hebrews, their way obstructed with thorns. Obstructed with thorns. And it is these who fall into apostasy. It doesn't say that God can't forgive them.

It says that these people won't repent. God forgives all who repents. But it says these people who are sluggish and slothful will not repent. The upright believe the Word of God. They believe His promises and they know that they can do all things through Christ who strengthens them.

Hope, love, and joy are conquering principles that level mountains and that make the way of the upright plane. Plane. Hope, love and joy. Behold, Isaiah says, I will help you says the Lord and your Redeemer the Holy One of Israel. Behold I will make you into a new threshing sledge with sharp teeth.

You shall thresh the mountains and beat them small and make the hills like chaff. You shall winnow them and the wind shall carry them away, and whirlwinds shall scatter them, and you shall rejoice. You shall have joy in the Lord." That is the joy of diligent labor. Next is the joy of wise children, verse 20. A wise son makes a father glad, brings joy to a father.

Remember, these are all the same words, gladness, joy in our text. The Apostle John said that he had no greater joy than to see his sons walking in the truth. But how does a son become wise? We saw last week they are not born that way. Our children aren't born wise and no, they are born foolish.

Foolishness is bound up in them, the Bible says. They are born in sin, conceived in iniquity. So how does the son become wise if they're not born that way? Well this joy is the fruit of diligently teaching one's sons and daughters as we lie down as we rise up as we walk by the way. This is the joy that comes from diligent line upon line, precept upon precept training in righteousness.

Training that is both by word and by example. You see our example as parents screams so loudly that most children can't hear what we're saying. If the two, if our example and our words aren't giving the same message. It's our example that will be heard. That screams louder than our words.

Education fails to produce wisdom in children. Fails to produce wise children when it is not Christian education. Which is to say that education fails when it does not begin with the Word of God as the foundation of truth. When it doesn't put God's Word above man's Word, when it doesn't interpret every fact that we see around us consistent with God's Word, the education fails. And failed education produces people.

Notice it says a man here. The one difference between this verse, which is at the start of this section remember this section of Proverbs is Solomon's Proverbs It goes from chapter 10 through chapter 22 and this section opened up with this almost exact verse. A wise son makes a glad father but a foolish son despises his mother. This one change in this verse here, It is a foolish man. This foolish man despises his mother.

Education that is not Christian, that does not begin with the Word of God is the foundation of truth, is the standard by which all other things are measured is education that can produce people who despise their parents. Education fails also when it is not applied, when it is not used, When it becomes a matter of hearing only that is not accompanied by doing. See that's why successful education requires labor. We have to labor. Education without labor produces people who hear without doing it produces soft undisciplined intellects and the jails are full of undisciplined intellects How often do people have great ideas about how to do things they've never actually done before?

That's the result of learning that is devoid of labor. Learning that doesn't get our fingernails greasy or dirty. See the goal of instruction, the goal of learning, of teaching, Paul told Timothy, is love from a pure heart, a good conscience, and sincere faith. That's the goal of our instruction. Love from a pure heart.

Love, remember, is action. It's following, doing the law of God. That's what love is Those of you that were at the study on Wednesday night. We looked at that And so one of the the joy That the wise have is the joy of having wise children And Then another joy is the joy of discernment. What do we think of folly when we see it?

Do we admire it? Do we think it's funny? Or do we see it as folly? The destitute of wisdom, find joy in folly. This is not the joy of the Lord.

This is a carnal joy. A carnal joy is simply a feeling of pleasure and happiness brought by the goodness of some earthly wealth or temporal possession. The joy of the Lord is the apprehension of the Holy Spirit, the apprehension the Holy Spirit gives to us of God's goodness to us. A goodness that is not based just on temporal things. A carnal joy is just a feeling of pleasure, of happiness, brought about by earthly possessions, earthly wealth.

The joy of a juicy steak, the joy of a fine wine, the joy of a beautiful mountain range, the joy of an exquisite sunset or the joy of a relaxing massage. The wise can certainly enjoy these things, but the wise understand these things as the blessings that come from God. They understand these as God's goodness, as God's gift, and that if these gifts are withdrawn, that God's goodness has not been withdrawn. Whereas the fool only finds carnal joy in these things. But there are also sinful pleasures that to those who are destitute of wisdom also appear to bring joy.

But they don't. They don't. They bring death and destruction. And the joy of those who have been born from above is that there is discernment To know the difference between folly and Wisdom and to know what is the joy of the Lord and What is carnal joys Temporal things that will pass away That will turn to ashes in our hands. Dust, chaff and blow away.

Leaving emptiness. Leaving nothing. You see the new birth brings a new heart. It makes us new creatures in Christ, and it changes our very perceptions and our tastes so that sinful follies and pleasures that formerly brought carnal joy no longer bring pleasure or happiness. It brings an understanding or discerning heart.

And see, understanding, This understanding heart results in straight walking. It results in staying on the course before us. It results in having this discernment to tell folly from wisdom. A man of understanding walks uprightly, but to him who lacks understanding, the wisdom of God is foolishness. Of God is foolishness.

There is also in verse 22 the joy of established plans. It is necessary to have a multitude of counselors. Verse 22 says, without counsel plans go awry. They fail. They don't come to pass.

They aren't fruitful. But in a multitude of counselors, they are established. It's necessary to have a multitude of counselors because of our ignorance and weakness. A multitude of counselors are able to graciously correct each other as iron sharpening iron. A plurality of wise counselors produces something that is better than what any one of them alone could produce.

No matter how wise they are as individuals. We all have blindnesses and weaknesses, blind spots, ignorance. And it's in a plurality of men or women. It's in a plurality of counselors who are graciously, who in humility can confront and correct and discuss and are able to point out these weaknesses and there's a humility to receive a correction to our thinking. It's a beautiful thing to see that happen.

It's one of the great beauties of Presbytery, to see men get together and discuss and work through a matter and to put forth ideas and to have that idea sharpened and and honed to see people bring their gift differing gifts to see humility to receive a better idea, to modify thinking a little bit, as well as To be able to speak, to present an idea. That's a great joy, to see the Lord work through ignorant and weak counselors. To bring forth wisdom, to establish plans. See, our greatest weakness is our inability to know what we don't know. We don't know what we don't know.

That's our problem. And it takes a measure of humility to be able to listen, to counsel, to be willing to question ourselves, to be ready to acknowledge when somebody else has a better idea, a better plan. And it also takes a measure of humility to present a plan, to offer a plan, and to accept correction to it, or to offer a better plan. Now books are also counselors too. And even Paul needed books.

He asked Timothy in one of his travels, he left his books and parchments, and he asked Timothy to bring His books and his cloak he forgot his coat too Sounds very human He was a Human he needed the counselors of books Books are great counselors. They are counselors from past ages. Books should be a source, should be a part of every Christian's life. Good books by wise counselors. They lift us out of the setting of our day.

We swim in this culture every day. We like to fish in water. We sometimes don't even know what we're swimming in. And it really helps to have somebody from another century, even another millennia, speaking into our life through books. As we realize, wow, How did they do that?

You mean they did that? You mean they had four-hour sermons? Books are wise counselors. We should have them. Lastly is the joy of an apt answer.

An apt answer is knowing not only what to say, Not only knowing the answer to the problem at hand, but an apt answer is also knowing when and how to say it. Knowing when and how to speak the truth, when and how to give a right answer brings joy both to the hearer and to the speaker. The timing is everything. It is a word that is fitly spoken that is like apples of gold in pictures of silver. An apt answer is also not a hasty word, Proverbs says.

There's that not being hasty, not being hasty to anger, and not giving a hasty answer, but taking time to reflect and to measure and to ponder. A man has joy by the answer of his mouth, and a word spoken in due season, how good it is. Even a reproof can be an apt answer. Spoken properly, spoken in private, Faithful are the wounds of a brother, the Bible says. Now what is the motivation of our joy?

Why should we desire this fullness of joy? Why should we desire these joys? The joy of diligent labor, the joy of peacemaking, the joy of wise children, the joy of discernment, the joy of established plans, the joy of an apt answer. What is our motivation to these joys? Christ is our motivation to joy.

And as we prepare to come to the Lord's table this morning, I'd like us to consider Christ's motivation to joy. What was it that moved Him to despise the shame of the cross and endure the agony of the crucifixion Paul tells us in Hebrews 12 That it was because of the joy that was set before him He endured the shame of the cross, despised the shame of the cross, and endured the agony of the crucifixion. The joy of satisfying or propitiating the wrath of God so that the people that He loved were no longer under wrath and condemnation. The joy of making peace between God and man and reconciling man to God. The joy of sealing the covenant of grace and being the mediator of it.

The joy of opening the way of salvation to sinners who were the object of His love, and the joy of redeeming us from bondage to sin, redeeming all those whom the Father had given Him, the joy of bringing many sons to glory and being the firstborn among many brethren. This was the joy that was set before Christ and it was for that joy that He offered Himself as a sacrifice for our sin. Now did you listen to those joys? Think about those joys. Each of the joys that Christ had, the joy that was set before him was the joy of peacemaking.

Zechariah 9, 10. I will cut off the chariot from Ephraim and the horse from Jerusalem. The battle bow shall be cut off. He shall speak peace to the nations. His dominion shall be from sea to sea and from the river to the ends of the earth.

Christ, the joy that was set before Christ, was the joy of peacemaking. The joy that was set before Christ was that he would know the joy of diligent labor as He bore the sins of many of us. He would know also Christ also knew the joy of wise children as He brought many sons the glory. Christ knows the joy of discernment because all wisdom is hid in Christ. And Christ knew also the joy of established plans.

As he accomplished, as he brought to completion, brought to fulfillment, the plan that God had ordained from before the foundation of the world to save his people, To send forth his son, born of a woman made under the law of the seed of David, the tribe of Judah, Christ saw and realized the joy of completing that plan of God. Christ also realizes the joy of an apt answer. Isaiah 50. The Lord has given me, verse 4. Who's that me?

Christ. The Messiah, the suffering servant. The Lord has given me, Christ said, the tongue of the learned, that I should know how to speak a word in season to him who is weary. The joy that was set before Christ was the joy of an apt answer. As the Lord God, Jehovah, gave to Him a tongue of the Lord, that He should be able to give a word in season, a word in time, at the right time.

Jesus came, he was brought forth in due time The Gospels tell us at the right time He came and brought this word in season to him who is weary come unto me All you who are weary and heavy laden take my yoke upon you and learn of me For I am meek and lowly and you shall have rest under your souls Are you pursuing following Christ for the joy that is set before you? Almighty Heavenly Father, we thank you for the example that we have in Christ, our elder brother, who for the joy that was set before him despised the shame and endured the agony of crucifixion that we might have life, that we might know peace with you, that your wrath might be appeased and turned away, that our guilt might be expiated. And we reconciled to you, no longer under condemnation, translated from the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of light and given an inheritance as your children, given your name as your sons. Father, may you give to us the fullness of joy. Day by day as we walk in your ways, we walk in the light, as we walk in the truth, may we be able and enabled by the work of your Holy Spirit to apprehend in bigger and deeper and greater ways your goodness and your love to us in Jesus Christ.

In His name we pray, Amen. Thanks for watching!