Well, hey everyone! Welcome to RE day three, joy! And whether you are in Flower Mound, Gainesville, or Online, we are so glad that you have joined us for RE, our three-day encounter with God.

Three days of praying and fasting and worshiping and seeking God together. RE. Those two little letters that you put them in front of any word and it changes everything. Redeem. Restore. Revive. Reignite. It changes everything. And there's no one better at RE-ing things than God. He can RE anything. And we got a theme verse over RE this year that we really felt like was from the Lord. It's just a prophetic declaration over our family going into the year. Romans 14:17, that "the kingdom of God is not a matter of eating and drinking, but of righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit." That God's kingdom is a kingdom of righteousness, peace, and joy. But you can't have joy without peace. And you can't have peace without righteousness. And so, on day one, we talked about righteousness.

That just means right standing with God. That through Jesus, we get to have right standing. That God made Him, Jesus, who had no sin to be sin for us so that we could become His righteousness. So, that there would be nothing between us and God. We would have right standing. Or a better way to say this is that God is right with us. That because of what Jesus has done and our faith in Jesus that when God looks at us, He sees perfect. He sees pure. He sees that everything is right. We are right with Him in every way. And He is right with us. And because of that righteousness that we have, we can have peace. Peace from striving. Peace from performing. Peace from shaming, condemnation. Peace from wondering like, "Who am I? What am I all about?" All of that gets settled in Jesus. Because the peace of Jesus supersedes everything. It is not the absence of something. It is the presence of Someone.

Jesus. And Jesus tells us that the righteous can cry out to Him and He hears. And He responds. And so, whatever is going on in our life, whatever storm is churning, we cry out. And the voice of Jesus says, "Peace, be still." Whatever happens in our life, we have full access to Jesus. We have His voice and His presence at all times to bring us peace. And so, because of being righteous in Jesus and having peace through Jesus, we can now have joy. And joy is the culture of the kingdom. That's why around here, we don't have a theology about church, that the church is somber. The church is serious. The church woes me. Because that's not the kingdom! The kingdom is a kingdom of joy. And so, we have a culture about church that is laughter. That is fun. That is life. And we clap. And we smile. And we raise our hands. And we dance. And we have fun!

Because that is the kingdom. And I love it. We hear from people all the time that like, "What I love about Valley Creek, it was so different. I came, and it was just so life-giving. People were friendly. And they were actually enjoying church. They were smiling and having fun." I love that we hear that. Because that's the kingdom on display. Think about what Jesus says about the kingdom. He says, "Hey, do you know who the kingdom belongs to? Little children." You know who the greatest in the kingdom is? Little children. Because think about little kids. They're not somber. They're not serious. They're not pretentious. They're not worried about their mistakes in the past. They're not concerned about the future. They live free. They have fun. They're full of joy. And they're full of life. That's what Jesus asks us to be like, be like little kids. Live free. Live with joy. Because in God's kingdom, there is nothing broken. There is nothing wrong. There is no sickness. There is nothing to fear. Everything is right. Everything is good.

So, God's kingdom is a kingdom of joy. And so, tonight, we're going to rejoice. Tonight, we're going to enjoy God. So, feel free to move around. If you want to get out into the aisles, move out in the aisles. Use all the space that we have. The Bible says that in God's presence is fullness of joy. God is here. So, joy is here. And we are here. So, let's rejoice and worship together.

Now, even as we were worshiping just for that moment, God said that the kingdom of heaven belongs to children. I believe God is doing a new work in you and restoring that childlike faith. And I believe if nothing else, God wants to do that in you tonight. He wants to almost, I kept hearing the word "release." There's a release that's going to happen, in this place and in your heart tonight. In Jesus' name, do you believe that, church? Why don't you do this? Why don't you go ahead and find your seat just for a moment? I just want to take a moment to encourage you. Take a moment to speak to you. The kingdom of Heaven is righteousness, peace, and joy. Righteousness, peace, and joy. That means that joy can't be found anywhere else besides the kingdom of Heaven.

You can search high and low in the world and you can find nothing but despair. But joy is found in His kingdom. There is joy. That word joy right there. It's like this emotion that's inside of you that only comes out when you know the truth of God and who He is. It's not a feeling that you get day by day. It's a truth that's inside of you that's planted inside of you. A belief. A faith that's inside of you that says, "I know that is true." It's the reason why the Bible says, "Consider it all joy when you face trials and tribulations." Why? Because I know the truth is that it's building perseverance inside of me. And that I'm going to see God. He's going to lead me towards Him. So, when I know the truth of what He's saying, then I can endure. Then, I can have the joy of the Lord in my life.

It's like when you know you are right with God and you know that truth, then it doesn't matter whenever shame and condemnation come knocking at your door. Why? Because you know that I've never seen the righteous forsaken. I've never seen him forsaken because I know that truth in my life and it can help me move on and consider it all joy. And there's joy in His presence. And I can remember that truth over my life. And when your peace seems to be going away or you feel like, "Man, I feel like chaos is coming and knocking at the door of my heart and in my mind," you can remind yourself that the Prince of Peace is also knocking at that door. And He's saying to you, "I want to come in and I want to be with you. I would be in relationship with you and I want to bring you good news of great joy."

And when you've lost your joy and you've gone through those trials and you've done maybe everything that you could possibly do, you've surrounded yourself around great people. You've read the Word. You've done all that and maybe your joy starts to slip away. Can I just be real with you? That happens. It's a real thing that happens. To say that everybody that's listening has joy in their heart right now would be foolish. To say that even me or our staff, that we walk around with joy all the time, that'd be crazy to think. It's just not reality. And I want to tell you that's not reality for you as well. It does leak out. Because sometimes we lose sight. Sometimes we forget that we are the righteousness of God. Sometimes we forget that Jesus is our peace.

Sometimes we forget that God is with us. Sometimes we forget His grace. And it leaks out. Some of you in this room and even over the course of the three days, you came here because you're on your last leg. Your joy is absolutely nowhere near you. And I want to tell you this. It says in the Bible. It says this about Jesus. It says that He will not put out the smoldering wick or the flame that's just barely there. He's with you. If your flame is burning bright or if you just have a tiny flame. He says He will not put it out. And He says He will be your victory.

So, maybe let that encourage you today. Even King David in the Bible, one of the things that he says is, King David, he was a man after God's own heart. He's one of the most talked about guys in the Bible, right? He was a worship leader. He played instruments before the Lord. He danced before the Lord. And yet at a time in his life, he lost his joy. There was a time when he lost his joy. In Psalms, he says, "Restore to me the joy of your salvation and grant me a willing spirit to sustain me." Even King David lost his joy. Even King David. The man after God's own heart lost his joy, but he prayed this to the Lord. "Restore to me."

Restore, that word restore. It means bring back. It's actually another word for renovation. Renovate my heart. Bring my heart back to You so that I can know Your joy again. The joy of Your salvation. God's salvation. See, David didn't lose his salvation. He just lost the joy of his salvation. You know what that means is that David may have given up on God, but God never gave up on him. And I believe that's true for you today too. God, He's not given up on you and He wants to renew you. And He wants to renew that childlike faith inside of you again. So, that the joy of the Lord can be your strength. So, that joy can overflow out of your mouth. So, that joy can overflow out of your life. He wants you to remind you of the salvation that He has for you.

David admitted and he said, "I don't have joy anymore, but I want it. I want it." And so, tonight, we're going to pray that God would restore the joy of God's salvation in you. The joy of salvation in you. Whether that joy was taken away by circumstances. Or by people in your life. Or by a job or family members. Or tragedy or school or circumstances. It doesn't matter why that joy was taken away or how that joy was taken away. I just know this. God wants to restore you tonight. And whether you've never received the joy of the Lord in your life ever before and you've never felt that, I believe God has something for you tonight.

I believe Jesus is here for you tonight. And if that joy has been taken away by anything that this world throws at you, anything that this world has given you. Anything that you faced; you know when I say that it's already in your mind. This has snuffed out my joy. This has taken away my joy. I believe God wants to meet you exactly where you're at and restore your joy tonight. And if you have joy in your life, guess what? God's going to give you more joy tonight because there is always more. You can't get enough of God's joy. You can't get enough of it. You can't get too much of it. And so, this is what we're going to do. Are you ready? I said, are you ready? All right. This is what we're going to do. We're going to take a moment and we're going to pray for one another. We're going to pray for one another. In just a moment, we're going to group up in groups of two to four or three to four.

We think that's a good number for everybody. Just to pray joy over your lives. Do you believe that you're the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus? The Bible says this, that the prayers of a righteous person are powerful and effective. And so, your prayers, the righteousness of God, the people of God, your prayers are going to impact somebody's life tonight. So, you get to pray for somebody and you get to receive for yourself tonight. Does that make sense? Why don't you stand up with me. Here in just a second, I'm going to count to three. And we're going to go and we're going to pray about three to four people in a group and see if there's somebody around you that needs prayer and you can invite them into your circle as well. But on the count of three, I just want us to go for it, to lift our voice. And here's what we're going to do. We have this Romans verse right here.

And if you don't know what to pray, some of you have never prayed for people, anybody in your life. You can just pray this prayer over them. And we're just going to believe that supernaturally God's going to restore and give them joy. Give you joy tonight in Jesus' name. Are you ready, church? Are you ready? Three, two, one, let's pray.

Thank You, Lord. Thank You, Lord. Is there joy in the room right now? Is there joy? Is the joy of the Lord your strength? I believe this. I believe that in that moment right there. I believe that God is breaking chains off of your life. I believe that there are walls that are crumbling down. I believe there are stones that are being rolled away in your life. And I believe Jesus, Jesus is here to restore your joy. You know, there's this really cool Scripture in Psalms.

It says this, "Shout for joy to the Lord, all the earth. Shout for joy to the Lord, all the earth." You know, sometimes we can relate shouting with bad shouting. Like, I shout at my kids or something like that. Or you get shouted at for doing something wrong or whatever. But there's also a shout of victory. And when you know you're victorious, you know you can shout. When you know that the victory is won, then you can shout. And there's a story in the Bible about the Israelites going around this wall around the city of Jericho.

You know what I'm saying? And you know what God asked them to do. It's to worship and pray around this wall. Play the instruments. Let the instruments play. And then, on that last time around the wall, you remember what God asked them to do? Shout. Shout. From victory. Not for victory, but from victory. You usually don't shout until the victory is already done, right? But in this case, God was asking them to shout before they saw the victory so they in faith, they can believe that God is good. And so, I believe this. You guys, we're going to get there. And we're going to shout together.

It takes faith to shout when you don't have the answer. It takes faith to shout for victory when you don't feel like it. It takes faith to shout for joy when everything's going wrong in your life. And it takes faith to shout when everything's going right as well. And so, what I'm going to ask you to do is in all humility, take a moment. Just to close your eyes just for a moment and I want you to think before we shout to God with the loudest shout that we've ever given. I want you to think in your heart and in your mind right now why am I shouting? Why am I shouting? Why am I doing this? And I want you to remind yourself of everything that God has said to you. And in His presence, there is fullness of joy. That in you, you are made right with God. That in Jesus, He has brought peace to your life. We have a reason to shout.

That God will never forsake you. He will never leave you. He will never abandon you. You have a reason to shout. You have a reason to shout tonight. So, remember that and this is what I want to do on the count of three. What shouting means, if you have a voice that means you raise it as loud as you possibly can, in faith and in humility. So, are you ready, church? Let this be worship flowing out of your mouth into the atmosphere. And if you're shouting for the first time for Jesus, something's going to break in your life as you do that. Something's going to break. So, on the count of three, I want us to give a big shout to the Lord. Are you ready? One, two, three.

Thank You, Lord. You know, I just want to tell you this. You know we're going to keep going. Some of you need to take off your sweatshirt because you're about to sweat like crazy. After the walls came down, Joshua declared. He said, "There's a curse on anybody who tries to rebuild those walls again." And so, the fear and the anxiety and the depression and all the things, all the walls that have been built up in the name of Jesus, they will never come back.

In the name of Jesus. And so, I believe that God is restoring your life. I believe that God is restoring your joy and so, we're going to do it again. And we're going to do it again out of faith and we're going to do it again and you can practice this in your life anytime that you need to practice joy for your life and what Jesus has said. So, are you ready? I said, are you ready? One, two, three.

You know what? That's the first time we heard that song and that song hit hard. And I don't think we're done. I think we should do it one more time. So, like little kids, let's worship. Let's rejoice. Let's celebrate.

In God's presence, His fullness and joy. This is what the kingdom looks like. A kingdom of righteousness and peace and joy. This is RE 2024 and I know Jesus released incredible faith over these last three days. I know some of you got a word that is going to change your life. That you're going to carry every day throughout this year and some of you throughout your entire life. And I know there's something that God was doing really specifically. Like He kept just speaking out and reminding us just about being like a child. And so, I think for some of you over these last three days, what He has invited you to is He wants to redeem your childhood. Whatever happened in your childhood to steal your joy, He's going to redeem that and He is redeeming that.

Some of you, you had a great childhood, but throughout life, that childlike joy has been taken away. He wants to restore that. He is restoring a childlike joy in life to you. And for some of us, He started a new work. He started a new work of righteousness. He started a new work of peace. He started a new work of joy and He is faithful to complete the good work that He began in us. So, 2024 has just begun, but we believe righteousness, peace, and joy are going to be marker stones in your life this year. That you will look back and you will see the goodness and the faithfulness of God with the righteousness, peace, and joy. So, God's kingdom is a party. God's kingdom is a feast. We get to feast on God's goodness on His Word, on His ways. And we get to feast on pizza.

So, hey, we got pizza out there available to purchase so we get to break the fast together. So, don't rush out. Go grab some pizza. Go celebrate. Put the kingdom on display. But may this year the banner over your life be righteousness, peace, and joy. We love you. RE 2024. We'll see you Sunday.