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God is good. And all the time, he's a good God. What an honor it is to be with you in the presence of God today. And we just joined together with all of our locations. Come on. Can you welcome here at Grants Mill, every location, welcome the church of the Highlands family. We love you with all of our heart. And I am just so excited, so fired up to be with you. Just to celebrate today, the goodness of God. Thank you for being in church. Thank you for just worshiping with all of your heart. And, God, we thank you for your presence today. I want to pray for us. God, we are just. We recognize right now we are standing in a moment where you are present. We welcome you here, every room, every location, every correctional facility online around the world. God, we're in a moment of your presence. And, God, we say thank you for being a good, good God. God, touch us today. Mold us today from the power of your word. We want to leave here looking more like you. In Jesus name, everybody said amen. Come on, Put your hands together one more time. Awesome. All right, we're about to get in the word of God. Before that, high five your neighbor and say welcome to church from the person on your right. The person on your left. You can have your seat. That's awesome. Well, y', all, I had to wipe a few tears away, actually, backstage before I came out. How powerful was that moment? And just so much to celebrate across church life. So much to celebrate of what God's doing in all of our lives, y'. All. We even have a lot to celebrate from yesterday. Every team in the state of Alabama and Georgia won those games yesterday. I pray differently on Saturdays now. I want everyone to come to church happy on Sunday. And so such a joy, joy, joy to be with you today. I love you with all of my heart, Jill. And I love you with all of our heart. And we just love the way God is moving right now in our church. If you have your app for notes today, please pull that out. You're definitely going to take notes today. Today's going to be a whole lot of fun as we dig into the word of God. Really a Bible study today, hopefully very practical as well. But we're going to study our Bibles today, and that app lets you. If you pull up those message notes, lets you follow along with us in that. And if you are new with us today, we're so glad you're here. Once again, I know you're welcome to every location, but I'm so glad you're here today. Thank you for Being a part of this moment, whether in person or online. But we are now in week eight of a nine week series called the goodness of God. And so we are just celebrating God's goodness. And I've been excited about this day. I know your campus pastors already kind of shared the big idea today, but today is a day of celebration. Come on, look at your neighbor and say, we're gonna party today. Come on. Cause Jesus, our God, is a God that celebrates. And that's the big idea. Today is our God is a God of celebration. And again, if you're new at Highlands, you just got to know this is the perfect day. Because this is just kind of who we are. We love to celebrate at Church of the Highlands. This is not a sad church. This is. We are proudly, boldly, a happy church. Not that everything's always going amazing. We all go through tough situations. Life is real. We talked about suffering last week. But in the middle of that, we choose joy. At Church of the Highlands, which I don't know about you, but it's very different than the church I grew up in. We did not choose joy. It felt like we chose to suffer during church. And church was not happy. Church was kind of solemn, which is something kind of almost to endure. And, you know, there was a few sins in church. My grandmother, she briefed me on these every time I sat next to her in the back pew on the right side, which is where she sat every single Sunday for all 102 years of her life. And these were sins in church. You will not talk in church. Anybody else ever get that? Talk? You're not going to talk. But a bigger sin was, you're not gonna chew gum in church. That felt like that was like the ultimate sin. And then for her, the biggest sin was if the preacher went long. Cause then she didn't get out before the Baptist and she got to the restaurant late. And so it was just, you know, that was the church I grew up in. It was like God was kind of the wizard of Oz, super mysterious, kind of behind the curtains, kind of. You know, he's pulling the strings, but you're not really sure what he's all about. The church I grew up in, maybe this is different for you, but the Holy Spirit was on a permanent vacation. Never really heard much about the Holy Spirit. And it really felt like Jesus was the security guard. He was the one that was kind of in the middle of it, checking it all out. And so I was just. I really celebrated when church was over. But come on, somebody church Is not sad. Psalm 122:1 says, I was glad when they said unto me, let us go to the house of the Lord. If you love your church, can you put your hands together and let's celebrate that this is not a sad church? And Jill and I came to Highlands back in 2001, and it was very different. The experience was immediately different. I pray it's still this way. I know it is at every location you drive in that parking lot. Back for us at the beginning was at Mountain Brook high school. And the first person you see, the amazing parking team and the brightest color on planet earth, that yellow. And what are they doing? They are smiling. I mean, the first thing you receive when you come to church of the Highlands is they smile from the parking team. You come in the doors, and if you're a parent and you have kids, it's that glorious moment where you get to drop your kids off at Highlands kids. Any parents thankful for Highlands kids out there? Can we just thank God for that team and then grab a cup of coffee And I mean, just glo. We can drink coffee in church. If you don't know that you can do that. You can even chew gum. There's no gum police. Just please don't spit it or stick it, you know? You know. But then coming in the doors with the amazing greeters and then praying that every time you're here, we always start with a praise song. Always start with a phrase song. Just thanking our God for who he is. Worshiping God, enjoying his word. Come on. This is even a church. This is kind of an announcement here. This is even a church where we combine church and movies. Y' all do know at the movies is coming back in three weeks. That was a way to get to this announcement, which is a whole lot of fun. We are gonna have the series we've had here traditionally coming up in three weeks. I'm so excited about it. Next week, we'll finish out this series. We after that, Pastor Chris is going to share an amazing kind of standalone message. And then three weeks from now, we are kicking off at the movies. And just another example of how we like to have fun in church. And we will do anything and this is what you need to hear. We will do anything possible to reach people to let them experience the God that has changed our life. Amen, everybody. And so church is not solemn. And really, that's because God is not solemn. I want to just again, grab your app. We're going to get into the word of God today. There are so many Examples of God celebrating throughout the Bible. And as I was studying, I gathered a ton of them, and we could have taught any of these. Today, we see early on in the Old Testament how the Israelites are rescued from Egypt and they go through the Red Sea. And on the other side of that, what do they do? They celebrate the goodness of God. We see David literally dancing in the Bible. He's dancing before the ark of the Covenant, and they tell him to stop dancing. He's like, I will not stop celebrating. I will even become more undignified than this. In the New Testament, so many celebrations, we see Jesus sitting at a table at Matthew's home with sinners and tax collectors, celebrating with people that he loves so much. We see the prodigal in the parable of the prodigal son. We see the father celebrating when the son comes home. And y' all do know that heaven throws a party. That's right. I said a party. Every time a single person gives their heart to Jesus. I mean, what a beautiful picture of our God, who loves to celebrate and just gotta testify here. For the last 24, almost 25 years, every single Sunday here at Highlands, heaven has gotten to throw a party. We have never had a Sunday here at Highlands where somebody to God be the glory, did not give their heart to Jesus. That's worth celebrating. But what I want to teach is really kind of in the. And I think this is powerful because it's two stories. One in Genesis, one in the Book of John, where we see the first moments of celebration in the Bible. And there's so much we can learn when we see a first moment in the Bible. So I want to go all the way to Genesis 1:1. And really to show how God's goodness is celebrated throughout Scripture. And of course, you know, this verse, in the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. That creation, God creating is powerful to understand because God didn't just make the world. He could have, like, you know, like, without emotion, without passion. He could have just. He could have just, you know, built the world. Like, I'm a dad of four boys. We have built a lot of Legos at my house over the last 17 years. Isn't it interesting? At least for me, maybe you love Legos. I'm not the biggest fan of the process of building it. I'm really just building it to get finished with it. The building process is not emotional. It's like, let's just get done with this. And there's page after page, block after block. That is not how God made The world Church. You need to know this. He created the world. The word is bara in the Hebrew. He poured his passion and his goodness like an artist creates. God is a creator. He is an artist. He poured his goodness into this world. So he didn't just make light. He made color. I mean, the orange of the sunset and the sunrise, the blue of the ocean. Come on. Our God is a good God. He didn't have to do any of that. That's what I want to highlight here. He didn't have to paint the world, like, literally, like the most beautiful painting and the green of the forest. He didn't have to do any of that, but he did. You know, he didn't just make humans. He made image bearers. He put his image inside of us. Anybody thankful that the breath of God lives inside of us? And he poured himself into us, his goodness into us. You know, he didn't just make food. He created flavor. I know. We love this one in the South. God could have just made eating functional because we need, you know, to eat, to live. We need calories to live. But He. He created flavor. He created barbecue. And I got to testify, I had some barbecue from the Shack in Talladega, Alabama, yesterday. And you probably don't know, but you should know. It's worth the drive. And I did not get paid for that endorsement. All right. It was that good. Come on. God created queso. The gift of God. I mean, chocolate chip cookies. I'm just. I'm having fun. But the highlight, he's an artist. He poured. He poured his goodness into the world. God didn't just make sound. He created music. God didn't just make animals, thank God. He created dogs. And I do have to pause here because I've been getting some hate mail. People are convinced I hate cats. No comment. But God did create cats as well. All right, so that's all I'm gonna say. And he didn't just make time. He made weekends. And for us to enjoy this rhythm of Sabbath. Talk about a little bit later and just, hey, everybody, God's a good God. But here's the key. He teaches us from the very beginning. Number one, he's pouring his goodness into creation. But he stops and he celebrates it after each day. What does the Bible say? He reflects. What does he say? It was good. God saw that it was good. More than an observation. This is the first celebration, and this was actually revelation for me. I've been studying the Bible my entire life and did not know this until this last couple weeks. Studying for this, this shows us church. And this just proves that we're supposed to have fun in church. The first emotion of God, the first emotion of our God in the Bible is joy. And God saw that it was good. God, me, made the world very good. Like a chef creates food. They may eat some of it themselves, but a chef, you know, a cook is just cooking, maybe functionally, but a chef, like an artist, creates a meal for others to enjoy. Y', all, that is our God. And he celebrates the fact that we're all gonna get to enjoy those sunsets. We're gonna get to enjoy the ocean, the forest, the flavors, each other. Come on. God is a good God. So that's where we see celebration first in the Bible at the very beginning. I mean, it's in the first story what's really cool and powerful. So this is big for us that we. This is, I believe with all of my heart, God's trying to catch our attention. And I'll talk more about that in just a minute of how important this is. Because the very first story of the ministry of Jesus is also a story of creation and celebration. The greatest goodness of God, without a doubt, is the fact that he sent himself, his son, Jesus to the earth. John 3:16. You know it. If you grew up in the south, you know this Bible verse. Listen, Tim Tebow did not write this. This is in the Bible. All right, John 3:16. For God. So what loved the world that he gave his only one and only son his goodness in himself, he gave himself, that whoever believes in him shall not perish, but have eternal life. So we see Jesus born, and we've talked about this in this series, and he grows and then he launches his ministry at age 30. And the first story we have is a miracle at a wedding in Cana in John chapter two. I won't read the story today. Go read it. Where he comes to this wedding. A again, just a reflection here. We could talk about celebration all day. It's everywhere in the Bible. Jesus demonstrates the first place he goes in his ministry is a party. He goes to a week long Jewish wedding celebration full of people. They had great food, enjoying each other. And of course, along the way, if you know the story, at what point during the week the wine runs out, the party's about to end. Jesus could have let it end. He even says, it's not yet my time. He says that to his mom, this is not. She's like, do something about it. He's like, mom, this is not my time yet. He refuses for it to End. He turns that water into wine. He expresses his goodness. The first demonstration of his power. The first sign in the book of John. And it's not just average wine. This is what the Bible says in John 2:10, everyone brings out. This is what the master of the ceremony is reflecting. Everyone brings out the choice wine first. Then the cheaper wine. After all the guests have had too much to drink. But you have saved the best till now. It is celebrated. Bottom line. What is this teaching us? Write this down in your notes. Really? Again, these two stories. But what is the Bible teaching us about celebration? Our God is good and he is the God of celebration. One more time today. God is good. Come on with all of your heart. God is good. And all the time. And God's goodness is meant to be experienced. Our key verse for the series, Psalm 34. 8. Taste and see that the Lord is good. Blessed are those who take refuge. Blessed are those who experience it. His goodness, tasting and seeing it. And here's the key for today. Celebration does just that. It allows us to taste and see the goodness of God. Every location, please, everyone looking up here right now. Just open your heart up to this. This is like I've been praying for this revelation for all of us. We are so busy. Life is happening so fast. There is so much pain around us. We can be surrounded by the goodness of God. Look at me, church. And we can miss it if we don't stop and celebrate. Celebration is really a gift of faith that God gives us to push away the busyness, to push away the pain and to say in the middle of it, we around it, you are a good God. And we are going to celebrate that goodness like we just sang. Come on, somebody. All the days of my life. I'm not gonna miss it. And this is huge because celebration as an act of faith allows us to go through all of this life and yet experience his goodness every single day. This is huge. I do believe this is a lost art, if you will, especially for America in 2025 because we are so busy, we got so much going on and God is trying to catch our attention in the word of God today and say, hey, just stop, celebrate, enjoy my goodness. And it will change not only, not not only the things around us that, that it changes our perspective, but it changes our hearts and allows us to experience God in a powerful way. This is what the great theologian Dallas Willard said. He said celebration is the completion of worship, for it dwells on the greatness of God as shown in his goodness to us. We engage in celebration when we enjoy ourselves, our life, our world, in conjunction with our faith, it is all about faith and confidence in who God is. His greatness, his beauty and his goodness. This is less of a theologian, but y', all, this next quote is just as powerful. This is from a guy named Ferris Bueller. Some of y' all are like, get. Thanks for Ferris. I promise you, in the history of the world, Dallas Willard has never been followed with Ferris Bueller. First time ever, right here. Life moves pretty fast, doesn't it, everybody? And if we don't stop and look around once in a while, we are gonna miss it. So that's what the gift of celebration really is all about. So here's what's cool. And this is where we're gonna get practical today. God is so good. He knew we would struggle with this. So he didn't leave us in our struggle. He stepped into humanity and he gave us a framework for celebration. Now, in the Old Testament, this actually was a part of the law. This is how excited God is about celebration. He put it into the law for the Israelites. You are going to celebrate. I'm going to require you to celebrate. And the way he did it in Leviticus 23 is he instituted seven yearly festivals or feasts, y'. All. Isn't God good? He knew he would struggle with it, and so he gave us his framework. Now, the good news for us, as followers of Jesus, we do not live under the law. Can I get an amen right there? We live under grace. So these were all just a shadow. And I just got to testify here. We'll even pray this at the end. Everything we have access to is through Jesus. Jesus perfectly fulfills. Well, number one, Jesus celebrated these festivals, and then he fulfilled these festivals. This is powerful. Matthew 5:17 tells us this. Do not think I've come to abolish the law or the prophets. I have not come to abolish them, but to fulfill them. That is good news, everybody. But here's what I want you to catch. And if you've been around Highlands, we have other models of this, how the Old Testament is still a framework for us. Some of y' all are familiar with the tabernacle prayer. Well, come on, wave at me. We no longer need a tabernacle. We no longer need that protocol to get in God's presence. But that is still a helpful framework for us. So we no longer are under the law in these feasts. But I think this is so much fun. They are still a helpful framework for us. They're gonna help us Today, each one, in a very practical way, of how we can live in a rhythm that a discipline, a life of revelation, of celebration. And again, these are powerful. I was gonna say they're not all like crazy revelation. They're simple. And I think in that is actually the power of it. So there are seven feasts just for time's sake. Today we want to look at the first four. All four of these happened in the spring. And these are all very important again in Jewish tradition, but very important for us. The first one is the feast of Passover. The feast of Passover, which comes from Leviticus 23:5, says the Lord's Passover begins at twilight on the 14th day of the first month. And simply put, this festival for the Israelites was a chance to remember and celebrate how God had rescued them from Egypt and how the angel of Death passed over their homes because of the blood of the Lamb on the doorpost, remembering how God rescued them. For us, we celebrate. What do we learn from that? We celebrate by remembering God's goodness in our lives. And again, I told you, these aren't crazy revelation, but these are incredibly powerful for us. So even right here in this service, I just want to take a moment for us just. I want to lean in for a moment and for us just to remember the goodness of God for the next 10, 15, 20 seconds. In your own heart right now, can you just reflect on God's goodness in your life right now? I mean, we all have breath in our lungs when we woke up this morning. Think of a situation or a moment this past week. Can we think of just the goodness of God in our family right now? Just a situation or a moment? I mean, listen, we all have a list of complaints. Let our list of complaints never be longer than our list of praise. Come on, somebody. God is a good God. Come on, think of the goodness of God in your past. I know I don't deserve to be here right now. I've done many things that would disqualify me from being a follower of Jesus or from preaching or doing everything else. That God loves us and he covers us with his grace and he blesses us and he allows us to walk with him in relationship. What a powerful testimony of our God. Can we just thank God for the goodness of God in America? And listen, there's a lot of negative things going on, but we are free to worship Him. Come on, we're in a building right now with air conditioning. Yeah, put your hands together. We got a lot of things to be thankful for. And listen, remembrance is always combined with. It's good to remember. But you combine it with Thanksgiving and it's activated into celebration. And when we do, it just pushes us into God's presence. In fact, Psalm 100. Enter his gates with thanksgiving and his courts with praise. God loves when we thank him. God loves when we praise. But God also knows how healthy it is for us. Incredibly simple thought, but I bet there's a good chance not all doing this. Here's the celebration. Practice daily for us, a moment where we remember and give God things. Now, will that change the things happening around us? Probably not, but it will change our experience of those things. You know, I think all of us love holidays. We don't have the seven festivals, we have holidays. Everyone has their favorite holidays. I'm giving you a chance to make some noise when I shout out your holiday. So where are my Christmas people at? So if you're at Grant's Mill, you need to know your campus pastor, Blake Lindsay is Elf from the movie Elf. He literally loves Christmas. That's his favorite. He was over here screaming the loudest. Maybe you. I don't know, Valentine's Day? Any Valentine's Day people? Yeah, that's what I thought. Okay. Okay. You're in church. We all got a scream right here. Anybody love Easter? Of course we love Easter. Honestly. How about the Fourth of July? You might love the Fourth of July. It's so much fun. Okay. All these great holidays. My favorite is Thanksgiving. Where are all my Thanksgiving people at? Facing the front row. All right, here's why I love it. And this is. I'm gonna pass this on to you. I think this is wisdom. I love it because you have football food and no presents, so there's no pressure. So you just get to eat as much as you want. You get to watch football, and then none of the pressure of having the right gift and all that stuff. And I just love the weather this time time of year, all the things. And of course, you gotta love the food. My dad always smokes a turkey for us for our family gathering at their house. And it's just my favorite. Y', all. My plate. There is no, you cannot. We. We, you know, big plate. You cannot see my plate. Anybody else out there, you're just gonna. Jill can't let her food touch together. I'm convinced of this, that all the casseroles are good alone, but once they mix together, it's just one big good casserole. That's disgusting. The meal is great. I'm just. I'm reflecting the meal Is great, but it is the atmosphere around it that makes it amazing. Because our family probably like, you do something like this. We all do something like this. Kind of go Whoville for a moment. We gap right before the meal. We grab hands, everybody's ready to eat. It could be just functional. It could just be on the calendar. We grab hands, we take 15 or 20 minutes, and every single person, from the youngest to the oldest, goes around and thanks God for something this past year. And then we pray over that meal. And come on. It changes the atmosphere. I'm telling you, in your quiet time, tomorrow morning, maybe two or three times a day, at lunch, in the evening, reflecting. Come on, somebody. God has been so good to us. Let us not forget to thank him. That's the first festival. Here's the second one again. These aren't crazy revelations, but these are powerful and they're disciplines we can build in. This is a lesser known festival. It was called the Festival of the Unleavened Bread. It actually happened the day after Passover. So on the 15th day of the month of the Lord's festival of Unleavened Bread begins. For seven days, you must eat bread without yeast on the first day, hold a sacred assembly and do no regular work. So a lot I could say here, but what's important to know is this actually represented. They left Egypt, the Israelites left Egypt. They didn't even have time for their bread to rise. It was unleavened, it was without yeast. In the Bible, that represents spiritual purity. God was rescuing them from slavery. He was saying, you're never going back. You're going forward with me. But what I think is so powerful, we just read it at the end right there, is that for the Jewish people, this day, this celebration begins and ends with rest. Write it down. We celebrate by resting in God's goodness. Hebrews 4, 9. There remains then a Sabbath rest for the people of God. For anyone who enters, God's rest also rests from their works, just as God did from his. Now we are going to talk not today as much for time, but even in 2026, in a huge way. It is on my heart to teach on physical rest on the principle of Sabbath. Wouldn't you all agree? We need to learn how to rest a little bit better. But what I really felt led to lean into today is this. And this is really a celebration for us that rest physically, it's important, but it's really only powerful if our rest starts spiritually. That ultimately we are able to all. All rest is a byproduct true, like soul, body, spirit, rest is a byproduct of that Sabbath rest in Hebrew 19, which is this, we rest in the finished work of the cross. The greatest statement probably in the entire Bible is when Jesus says it is finished. And now we have nothing left to earn with God. We have nothing left to prove with God. We are, hey, look at me, Church. You're loved, reconciled. And if you've asked Jesus in your heart, you are redeemed. Jesus, child of God, can we put our hands together and celebrate that? And the turmoil and the striving and the really the feeling that we are the ones. There's two ways to live church. Like this, like it's all gonna. It's all on me. It's my effort, my strength. And even if we go on vacations, if we live like this, we will never rest. Or in faith, we do this. And God, I'm trusting you. I'm going to rest in the finished work of the cross. This is what Tim Keller says in Christ. Oh, this is so good, church. We can rest from the crushing burden of self salvation. We no longer have to do that. Listen, we are living not under the law, but under grace. And I just felt it even in my heart. Middle of this message right now, in this moment. I don't know who this is for. You are exhausted in church today. And again, faith and celebration is connected to our faith as an act of faith and celebration, even right now, in this moment. In fact, can we all put our hands like this? I don't know who this is. Not for everybody, but just so we all do it, can we put our hands like this? Some of us came into church like this, calling in Jesus name. Right now, receive his rest. Open your hands. Take that deep breath. We can rest in the finished work of Jesus. Can we thank God? Thank you, Jesus. And we're gonna have a moment of prayer in a second, just again to celebrate what he's done for us. We never have to go back to slavery. We would now rest in him. Here's the third celebration. Y' all enjoying this? Isn't this fun? I mean, I don't want to end church. We're just gonna throw a party today. Hey, listen, potluck lunch after church. We didn't plan for it. We'll figure it out. All right, here's the third one. Feast of first fruits. And this would have been a few days after that second feast. The unleavened bread. It says, when you come into the land and reap its harvest, bring to the feast A priest, a sheaf of first fruits of your harvest. The first fruit of the Jewish harvest was typically barley. They would take the first kind of bushel of barley, whatever, and they would take it to the priest. Really cool. The priest would wave it before the Lord and they would say, we're giving you our first, and we trust you with the rest. We rely on you. And church, this one is huge. We can celebrate every single day by relying on God's goodness. And I know you've seen an illustration like this before, but I have a chair on stage just to kind of prove this point. Okay. We all. You're sitting in a chair. We all sit in chairs every single day. And not one of us, even with, like, blink when we sit in that chair. Why we're relying on the chair. We just trust the chair has got our back. So I'm gonna sit in this chair just to say three things that we can rely on and we can trust. And no matter what, we're going on in our life. Y' all ready for this? God has been good. Secondly, God is good. Thirdly, God will be good. We can rely on him. And God is showing us in first fruits. He's showing us that generosity. Or when we give first to him. We are celebrating this truth. God, we give. We live a generous life because you have been good, you are good, and you're going to be good. And we are putting. Every time we trust God with our first, we are putting our lives squarely in his hands. It is a beautiful way to live. The happiest people on earth aren't the ones who have the most, but those who live faith filled, generous lives. Honestly, the biggest party here at Highlands is the fact that from the beginning, this was always in Pastor Chris's heart. And we're gonna live this out for the next 25, 50, 100 years till Jesus comes back. This is a first fruits church. We give God our first, and we trust him with the rest. We give God the first of our time. When we were a pray first Church, we seek him first. We go to him first. We trust him. We worship him. Come on, Church, we are a God. You get the first of our time, Church God, you get the first of our talent. We're letting you redeem us, show us how we can make a difference. We all have things that we do a lot. Those things are all important. But the most important thing we do is we bring glory to God through serving on the Dream Team, through leading our families, through representing him at work, representing him at school. It's an honor to give God the best of our talent and we even honor God with our treasure. We give the first of our of our income. How? It's just a sign. God, we trust you with this and we're trusting that you're going to bless the rest. We're relying on you and we get to celebrate that you're our God and we're in good hands. I had an amazing story I heard from our Daphne campus a few weeks ago. We start all of our meetings on Tuesday. The first meeting we do in the office is we look back on Sunday and we just ask ourselves the question, you know, how can we celebrate what God did? And then how can we always get better? How can we always pursue excellence? But we always start the meeting celebrating what we call mission in the middle. What's what it's all about. And this story was shared from our Daphne location a few weeks ago. And I just think this is the perfect picture at every way of who we are as a church and church we gotta keep we've been living it. Let's keep being a first fruit church. God, you get the first of my time every day. God, my talent is yours. I'm gonna use it for your glory. Where I ever I am. I mean I can be where I wanna be but where I am I'm gonna use it for your glory and God you get the first of my treasure. It's an honor to give to you and to trust you with that. And when we do, it's a celebration. But listen to this story. This is Tommy who's been with the Daphne campus since the very beginning helping launch the campus in the summer of 2018. He jumped all in and now serves on the outreach and resource team. He loves helping people and even loves stuffing worship guides. I love that because every God he knows is a person will be handed to a person. Tommy's passionate about growing in his faith. He shared. When I graduated high school, I could hardly read. But since joining this church and being encouraged to take next steps in my faith, I took reading seriously and now I read all the time. It is a miracle from God I can do this. Through family trials and health challenges, Tommy has persevered and continued to serve at our campus and community. He's never complained and has never asked for anything more than prayer. Even in difficult financial seasons, he would show up with a gift card to help other people in need. That's just who he is. He's a giver. Meanwhile, Tommy was was living in a small camper in extremely Poor conditions, no hot water and no air conditioning. But he never complained. He never even mentioned it. Once the campus realized the situation, by God's grace, we as a church were able to provide him with a new trailer. Tommy said, I couldn't have dreamed my church would do something like this. Honestly, it's hard for it to even sink in. When we asked him about sharing his story, he just said, be sure you give God all the glory, because God is good. Come on, look at Tommy right here. The goodness of God. So he gives his first. We as a church, gave our first. And what a celebration. That God owns it all. And we just get to be a part of that. God, I'm going to give you my first. And here's the last one, the fourth feast that I want to celebrate. And this is a good one. Y' all ready for the. This is a real good one. That is the feast of Pentecost. 50 days after first fruits, to end the harvest and to celebrate the law at Sinai, the Israelites held this massive feast. But hey, church, look at me. We don't celebrate the law on that day. We celebrate the day that God gave us his spirit, the day the Holy Spirit came to live inside of us. And here's the good news that really activates this entire message now. Joy is not external. Joy is internal. And we get to live a life of celebration. Joy now lives in us, and we celebrate by rejoicing in God's goodness. Joy is no longer external. It is internal. Rejoice in the Lord always. I'll say it again. Rejoice the fruit of the spirit. Joy now lives on the inside of us. You know, the world chases happiness, hoping to find joy. But as followers of Jesus, we receive joy that produces true happiness, which we can live a means we can live a life of celebration. No matter what we face, we can always choose joy. Come on. Joy is our worship. Joy is our testimony. Joy is our reward. Come on, somebody. Joy is our response. Joy is our eternal destiny. Nehemiah 18. The joy of the Lord is our strength. The party lives on the inside. And that doesn't mean everything is easy. It means no matter what I face, I can choose joy. And one of the greatest weapons God has given us, joy, is actually a superpower for living here on planet Earth. My joy will go with you. That God lives inside of us. We can have joy no matter what. We've been praying as a church, as always, for the global missions, but we've been praying specifically for the persecution that's happening in Nigeria. Right now as a church and finding great partners there to come alongside what's happening there and just do our part, which is what an honor. But it's just had me praying for those who are sharing Jesus on the front lines and I came across a story, I'm sharing this story whenever I share stories, tommies or whoever's else. It's to build faith, but also to celebrate the superpower of joy today that somebody right now would get the joy, joy, joy, joy down in their heart. Man named Richard Warren Braun lived in the early 20th century. He grew up an atheist, complete, I mean, had proven done the research, knew without a shadow of a doubt God wasn't real until he was 23 year old, 23 years old, extremely successful. Woke up one morning and recognized that the sadness and weight and heaviness he was carrying and the hopelessness of his belief, it was going to crush him. He was having these literally suicidal thoughts. And in the middle of all that pain, he met Jesus and was radically saved. He began to preach. This is in, this is now in the, in the 1920s, 30s, in comm. In the, in the, in the Soviet Union. So communism, it's illegal. He ends up getting arrested, going to jail. He spends years in prison. When he gets out, he forms the voice of the martyrs, which is still an amazing ministry that does so much for the persecuted church around the world. But y' all just get this in your heart today. This is what he wrote about his time in prison. Says, they took from me everything they could, but there remained one thing they could not take. Christ's joy in my heart. It was strictly forbidden to preach to other prisoners. It was understood that whoever was caught doing this received a severe beating. A number of us decided to pay the price for the privilege of preaching. So we accepted their terms. I love this. We preached and they beat us. We were happy preaching, they were happy beating us. So everyone was happy. Come on, joy's a superpower. I can go through anything. The joy of the Lord. Alone in my cell, cold, hungry and in rags, I dance for joy every single night. The joy of the Lord was my strength. I have known happiness such as no one on earth can understand who has not suffered for Christ. Come on, put your hands together and celebrate the gift of the Holy Spirit. The greatest goodness of God is his son, Jesus. I love that Jesus celebrated these festivals. Can I tell you what's even more powerful? He fulfilled them. He made a way for us to remember, which means we can experience, to rest. When he made a way for us to Rely to receive the power of God. So demonstratively did he do this, that church Jesus on Passover the night before, which is when, of course, the day starts. In the Jewish tradition, He celebrated with his disciples the Last Supper. He said, what? Do this in remembrance of me. And on Passover day the next day, he died on that cross. He then went into the tomb on the festival unleavened bread. You know where Jesus was? He was resting in the tomb. And the finished work that he had done on the cross. Hey, church, guess what day he resurrected on. First fruits, a demonstration. I'm coming out of that grave. Nothing can keep me. I have now conquered death. The first fruit of. Now what we all get to experience. And come on. He sent us the Holy Spirit on Pentecost. Jesus is the fulfillment. And he is good. Can I pray for us today just to receive what God has done for us? God, we thank you for your presence. Right now, let's let the Holy Spirit minister to you. And we just stand right now in your goodness. I feel like I'm on assignment in this moment to come back to what I said earlier in the beginning of the message. Don't miss it today. His goodness is all around. He wants you to taste and see. Miss it. For some of you, that means salvation. Today God is speaking to your heart. He's knocking on the door of your heart. Don't miss this moment. We're not gonna embarrass you, call you to the front. I wanna pray at every location right now for anyone who you just know the message is preached. You already know it. Don't miss it. This is your moment. You know today is the day of salvation or even rededication. Pray this with me and mean it in your heart. Just say, jesus, today I give you my life. I'm asking you to forgive me of my sins, my mistakes. I repent and I receive you as my Savior and my Lord. And now I'm asking you to fill me with your Holy Spirit so I can live for you for the rest of my life. God, thank you for those who are literally tasting and seeing your goodness right now in their life. That area of salvation for the rest of us. I don't know what don't miss it means, but I know there is a lot to celebrate. Come on. Even in this moment, I want to pray for us. But in this moment, as we did earlier with our hands open wide, can we just remember God's goodness? Come, we're going to walk out into a crazy world. We choose this moment to thank him. Remember and thank him. Come on. Right now. We rest in his goodness. I can't do it. So I'm going to stop striving. I'm going to trust God. Trust God in my family, Trust God in my financial situation, my relationships. God, we rely on you because of that. God. We're going to give you our first this week. First of my time, first of my talent, first of my treasure. And all that because your power lives inside of us, God. We receive fresh and new the power of the Holy Spirit, the spirit of joy inside of us. We love you. Today. You're an amazing God. In Jesus name, everybody said, amen. Can you put your hands together to celebrate all those who just made.