Mike Bickle emphasizes the gladness of Jesus, arguing that many believers perceive God as primarily angry or sad, which hinders their intimacy with Him. He asserts that God's true disposition is one of joy and gladness, which is essential for understanding His love and affection towards us. Bickle encourages believers to behold God's gladness, as this revelation transforms their own hearts and spirits, leading to a deeper relationship with Him. He highlights that God's emotions, particularly His gladness, are crucial for the prayer movement and for fostering a vibrant faith. Ultimately, Bickle calls for a shift in perception, urging believers to recognize that God delights in them, even amidst their weaknesses.

Father, we come to you and we ask you to bless the hearing and the speaking of your Word. Lord, we ask for Lorne now, just as he's still on the airplane, arriving, that you would strengthen his spirit, you would strengthen his body, and just all the disruptions and the mechanical failures on the airplane he was on and all that. Lord, we ask that this would be a time where there's an open heaven of sorts above him. Tonight, you would kiss his heart, even in a dream. You'd strengthen his body, he'd wake up tomorrow unusually refreshed in his spirit. And I ask for tomorrow night, Lord, that there would be a time of impartation to this mission's base for one of the premier missionary leaders of the 20th century. Lord, we so thank you, even ahead of time, we say, blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord, we thank you ahead of time for this choice servant that you have decided to bless this people with, in Jesus' name, amen. Okay, beholding the gladness of Jesus. Again, we looked at this last week, we'll do a little bit of review, cover some of the same points, but look at them from a different angle even. Why this subject? Because wrong ideas on the subject of the gladness of God's heart hinder our intimacy with God, it blocks intimacy. The subject of Jesus' gladness is dynamically related to the subject of experiencing intimacy with him. Most believers that I know think of God as mostly mad or mostly sad when he relates to us. He's either mad, he's angry because of our compromise, our failure, you again, how many times do I have to tell you, stop doing that, you again. We have this image, it's just, it's so natural. And it's more than natural because there's demonic powers working to facilitate this deception in our heart. But it's also the unrenewed mind, it's natural to imagine God is mad because most of our earthly authority figures are mad when they relate to us. So our unrenewed mind plus demonic spirits create strongholds in our heart. He's mostly mad. Well, some people say, well, I don't think he's mostly mad, but he's mostly sad. He's not angry, but he's grieved. He's disappointed, it's like, you know, I'm not really mad at you, but I really am disappointed with you, again. And so whether he's grieved or whether he's angry, that is the emotion that most of us just automatically assume God has when he relates to us personally. And the truth is, from the Scripture, that the disposition of God's heart is mostly glad. The Bible is very clear about that. He is glad. Now, this is going to be a hard number to say just right. 99.999999999% of his eternal life, he's glad. And you can take that 99.99 all the way to the end, as far as you can go. Actually, only a few times, only a few times from the Scripture is it clear when we consider God's eternal existence, is he actually mad? It's a rare occasion, actually. It's not the primary disposition of his personality. He's filled with pleasure. He's filled with happiness. He has a free spirit and a happy spirit. Now, Julie Meyer had a very important visitation from the Lord the other day where the Lord revealed his indescribable gladness to her. And she shared it several times with us. And where it wasn't a dream, it was more than a dream. That's not important to define that right now. But she saw the Lord's just indescribable happiness. And she goes, it was shocking. I just could not believe this. And the verse kept coming to her mind, Hebrews 1.9, which we're going to look at. God has anointed Jesus with gladness above all the companions, every other human being. That verse kept coming to her in this supernatural experience. God has anointed, the Father has anointed his Son with gladness more than any other human being that's ever lived. And that verse, not that verse, that reality, the reality of that verse was way, the weight of it was touching her. And she just, she says, I was awestruck at the measure of gladness. It was just indescribable. It was not possible, her natural mind kept telling her. If God is this happy, I have it made. That's what she was thinking, I have it made. If God is this happy, life in the kingdom is really the place to be now and forever, but it's not just that he's happy in eternity, he's happy now because he never changes. As happy as God will be about you in a million years, his personality never changes. The Lord never changes. Malachi 3.6 and several other places as well, I am the Lord, I do not change. So the way that God feels about you positively in a billion years is the way he feels about you today through the gift, through the blood of Jesus and the righteousness of Christ. And the important part is if we can get it now, it will change the way we live now, not just something we want to discover on the other side. It's true now, it's not just true when you die. It's not like when you die, suddenly God becomes glad. God has been glad long before you were born and long before you die and long afterwards. And he's lovesick, he loves you, he likes you. And the idea that the creator of the universe, having this kind of emotional disposition, this kind of personality is really good news. I mean, it just affects everything, absolutely everything. I like to talk on the emotions of God, on the personality of God or the emotions of God. You can call it the knowledge of God. I believe it's one of the most important subjects for the prayer movement. I believe it's one of the most important subjects for the end-time church, is the subject of God's emotions. When I talk to leaders of prayer ministries, whether large or small, it doesn't matter, I tell them, you must feed the people on the revelation of God's emotions. We call that subject intimacy with God. And often I talk to a prayer leader and they're a little mystified. They go, really? Well, I was thinking of more teaching them on principles of prayer. I go, I think we should teach them on principles of prayer. But I believe that we have to feed them constantly on the revelation of how God feels. Because the way that we perceive that God feels dynamically affects the way we feel. You want to keep them motivated in intercession. You want to keep them alive and vibrant in their spirit. Feed them regularly on the way God feels. And it will dynamically change the way they feel. And it's not enough to hear it once. It's not enough to get a set of notes. It's the sort of thing where I want to take this stuff. I've done a bit of this through the years and I want to do it more. I want to turn these truths into living conversations with the Lord in my personal life. I want to talk to Him about His gladness. Thank Him for it. Ask Him to show me more. Rejoice in it. And that revelation grows in my heart more and more. And when it grows more, my own gladness is awakened. Believers should be the happiest people on the earth. Not because we are living in unreality. Not because we're disconnected from the real hard facts of life. And it's not just we're glad because God is sovereign and we know bad things will turn out well in the end. Though we are connected to the sovereignty of God. And that's massive and that's worth being glad about. But that's not the whole story. Our spirit is glad because we are connected to a God with a happy spirit. And when we connect with Him, when we behold Him, when we encounter Him, connect with Him, behold Him, what we behold about Him is imparted and awakened in us. That's the principle here of 2 Corinthians 3, verse 18. Let's read it. Here on the note, 2 Corinthians 3, verse 18. But we all, beholding the glory of the Lord, we are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as by the Spirit of the Lord. Now for the word behold, you can put something like this, encounter. For we all encounter the glory of the Lord. You can put the word connect with God if you want. You can put the word meditate and study. Whatever we meditate and study on related to the glory of God, we will be transformed. So you might put connect, encounter, experience, meditate, study, pray over, there's any number of words that carries the essential idea of what Paul's talking about. Behold. Now the word glory is important. The glory of the Lord. Now the glory of the Lord, as I have in paragraph A, I'm not going to cover everything we looked at last week. I'm going to take on a few new ideas, even from the same notes. It's a very, very big subject, and we just barely introduced it in one message. The glory of the Lord speaks of God's power for sure. The glory of the Lord speaks of God's great power to create the heavens and the earth. His power, His glory. But the glory of the Lord is much more than God's power, though His power is absolutely stunning. I mean, if you can speak and create the sun, you have power. You know, it's the thing you heard when Jesus said, Lazarus, come forth. It was important when He brought Lazarus out of the grave and He raised him from the dead that He said the name Lazarus. Because if He would have only said, come forth, every grave would have been opened. It was important He wasn't overly enthusiastic with all the power that He operates in. Now whether that's really true, you can figure that out yourself. But the glory of the Lord is more than power. It's more than wisdom. God's wisdom is so stunning. Not just the fact that He can balance the universes with perfect understanding, but His plan for us is so intricate, it's so complex. There are so many turns and surprises in the great drama and romance of what He's planned for us. You take the greatest storytellers of all of history, they can't compare to the surprising twists and turns of the great drama of the human story. Absolutely brilliant He is! That's part of His glory, His wisdom. Not just His wisdom to figure out our problems. Not just His wisdom to figure out the math of keeping the stars in order. I'm talking about the wisdom, the creative wisdom to come up with the drama of the human story that goes on for billions of years. We will be as fascinated in a billion years as we will be in two billion years. He will keep us fascinated forever. Now that is a good storyteller. Yay, more than a storyteller. It's not that he came up with a story. He is gonna walk it out a billion years from now. We will be fascinated, and a billion years later we will be just, if not more fascinated with the same God. He is really smart. That's part of His glory. But I believe the greatest dimension of His glory, and I say this really thought through, measured. It's not just a kind of an off-the-cuff thought. The greatest dimension of God's glory is His emotions. It's not His power. His power is part of His glory. It's not even His brilliant intellect and wisdom. That's part of His glory. It's not what He can do. It's not what He knows. It's how He feels. His emotions, because it's what He feels determines the why behind the what. The what of creation. Yes, He used power and wisdom in Genesis 1. But the question, the great question isn't what did He do in Genesis 1? And how did He do it with power and wisdom? It's why did He do it? That's the great question. He didn't need to act in Genesis 1, create the heavens and the earth for us. He wanted to, because His heart burned with desire. There's something in His spirit that moved Him to exert power and to administrate, I mean to show forth wisdom. It's the why behind the what that is the greatest dimension of His glory. King David's called the man after God's own heart. And I believe one of the greatest reasons he's called the most important reasons he's called the man after God's own heart is because he was a student of God's emotions, which is a student of God's glory. Yes, David studied God's power. And yes, David studied God's wisdom. But more than that, David studied God's emotions. He loved to know what God felt. He wanted to know the why behind the what of power and wisdom. Yes, there was a great breakthrough in Israel and the armies of Israel won. Power and wisdom, yay! And then David would go home and get his guitar out and say, why did you want us to have victory tonight, today in the battle? Why did this, why did you want this? And the Lord would smile and say, now you're asking the right question. I can pull off a victory anytime I want. You're asking the right question, David. It's why do I want to give you victory? Because I delight in you, David. I delight in my people. They are the apple of my eye. They are my great prize of all, the great prize of the treasure of all of eternity is God's people to his heart. Beloved, and we are as dear to God now as we will be when we have resurrected bodies. We don't become more dear to God when we enter into more of resurrected glory. We are dear to him now. That's why there is a plan to give us resurrected glory because we're dear to him now. That's why the plan to give us a new body exists because of how he feels about us now. So, when Paul says we behold the glory of the Lord, to study it, to encounter it, to experience, to think on it, meditate, connect with it, put all kinds of words there, the glory of the Lord, put power if you want to of the Lord, the wisdom of the Lord, but I would write the word in the notes if I had a pen, I would write the word emotions, the emotions of the Lord. Again, it's not only God's emotions, but it's the greatest dimension of his glory is his emotions. Now, we could prove that many places in Scripture, and the place I have in the end of paragraph A is Exodus 33, verse 18 and 19. And we looked at that for a moment last week, but I think it bears repeating. In Exodus 38, in Exodus 33, verse 18 and 19, I mean, Exodus 33, verse 18 and 19, Moses says, show me your glory. And the Lord says, okay, I will show you my glory because here's what I'm going to do. I'm going to proclaim my name. I'm going to proclaim my personality to you. When God says I'm going to proclaim my name to you, he means I'm going to show you my personality. So the great prophet of God, Moses, show me your glory. The Lord says, I would love to show you my glory. And here it is. This is what I'm like. This is my personality. This is my name. And then chapter 34, verse 6, you have it right there. He says, I'm abounding in mercy. I'm filled with a gracious spirit. I'm kind. I'm tender. I'm forgiving. And he goes on and on. He goes, this is my name. My name is the God with a generous spirit towards his people. I mean, I'm rewording it, but that's what it means. The God with a happy spirit. That's my name. The God who looks at your human weakness and in the grace of God, I find a way to give you a new beginning and a way to succeed before me, even in your brokenness. I'm the God that abounds in kindness. Wow! Moses, after the end, I'm sure he could have said something like, the guy's back down in the camp. You know, he's up on the mountain. What was it like? I saw his glory. What did you see? Power, wisdom. What secret? He goes, well, I saw power, and I could tell you some things he told me, but the most stunning thing, he likes us. He's got a happy spirit. He finds a way to make us succeed and to have a new beginning. That's his glory. This is fantastic. Now, notice here in 2 Corinthians 3, we're beholding, connecting, experiencing, studying, revelation, understanding the emotions of the Lord. And what happens? We are being transformed into the same image. Meaning, when we study His gladness, it awakens the same image. It awakens gladness in us. When we study His affections, it awakens affection in our heart back to God. When we study God's pursuit of us, it awakens in us a desire to pursue Him. In the passage, I cannot resist quoting. I quote it every time. I don't have it on the notes, but I probably quote this verse more than any verse. It's 1 John 4, 19. We love Him because He first loved us. And that verse, I use that verse over and over and over to explain how the human heart is transformed. We love because we first encountered a lover. Right? When God wants to make us red-hot lovers for God, what does He do? He reveals Himself as a lover. When God wants us to become a lover, He lets us see a lover. When God wants us to make us, when God wants to make us lovers of God, He reveals Himself as a lover of people. And so the book I wrote some years ago called Passion for Jesus, people say, how do you get passion for Jesus? I go, I can tell you how. I can tell you the most important thing. Study Jesus' passion for you. Because we love because He first loved. We have passion for Him because we first know He had passion for us. We pursue Him because we first know He pursued us. There's many words you could put in 1 John 4, 19 instead of the word, we love because we first saw a lover. We are diligent for God because we first understood He was diligent for us. Whatever characteristic you study in God's heart about towards you is what will be awakened in your heart back to God. And I realize for those of you who have been around, I've said this principle so many times, you can finish the sentences. But it bears repeating a thousand more times over and over and over. You want to have a happy spirit? Study the happiness of God's heart towards you. Because it says here, you will behold the emotions of the Lord, the glory of the Lord, and you will be transformed into the same, it's a corresponding reality, the same thing you beheld is what you will become. Underline the word same. I guess you don't have to. It's underlined. You will become in your heart what you see in His heart. You will become in your heart towards God what you see in God's heart towards you. I'm going to say that again. It's real simple. You will become in your heart towards God what you behold or study or understand about God's heart towards you. Not thinking of our summer teen track, 200. We are so, we love it when we have the summer teens come in. It's just so, it's such a joy. But I want 200, 14, 15, 16, 17-year-olds going back home understanding how to bring, I want you guys to bring this message to other 15 and 17 and 18-year-olds when they go, I don't know, God, I don't know how to love God. Say, oh, I know, 1 John 4, 19. You love God by studying God's love for you. If you will behold His glory, you will be transformed into the same image. If you behold His love for you, you will have that same corresponding thing back for God. They'll say, where is that in the Bible? You're going to take it, you're going to pull out these notes, you're going to scratch my name off of it, you're going to put your name on it, you're going to retype it, and you're going to say, here's my notes, and talk about your notes. And they'll come next year to the summer team track and they'll say, man, that guy stole my friend's notes. And I call that success if that happens. That's perfect. That's perfect. That old guy stole my buddy's notes, man. He ought to get a real job. Okay. Well, we've said this just over and over and over, haven't we? So I guess we'll move on. Okay. B. Encountering God's emotions. And again, it's the same word as beholding. The emotion of God's happiness, the emotion of God's joy, and it releases it into us. The paradigm, fancy word for the perspective, the word paradigm is the same idea as perspective, or picture. The picture most common today is a God who is mostly mad or mostly sad when He relates to us. See, they don't necessarily think God's mad as long as He's running the universe. Like God's running the universe, He's all engaged in running the universe. You know, the angels and the stars and all this. Make sure nothing collides out there. Kind of a cosmic, you know, policeman, you know, just keeping everything in order. But then He looks at us. Oh, God, I love you. Please help me. Forgive me again. Oh, no. What is the deal with you? Every time you talk to me, you need forgiveness. I want you to know that that does not throw the Lord off at all. That doesn't surprise Him. I told last week how I was shocked when I was young. In my younger years, in my teen years, I studied missionary biographies. I went to go die as a martyr in China. Jay Hudson Taylor was my hero, and I figured, let's just go. And so I thought I was the most dedicated guy. Me and my buddies, we were the most dedicated people in the world. And then everything's going fine until I start running into my own sin and weakness. And I'm confused because I think I'm a missionary guy. You know, I'm 17, 18. I'm going to go die as a martyr on the mission field. But I have sin, and I have compromise, and I get under pressure, and I would compromise in sinful ways. And it was so confusing to me because the God I love the most and my life vision to be totally radically His, I would just put it on hold for a minute or two, or an hour or two, or a day or two, and I'd go, ah! And I remember saying to God, I can't believe it that I did this. And the unspoken idea was, can you believe I did this? As though because I was surprised that God was surprised. And if God's surprised, maybe He's going to renegotiate everything in His relationship with me. It was a terrible, terrible, terrible time. I hated that feeling. B, at the bottom, how does God feel most of the time? It's one of the most important questions that you can answer because the way you answer this will impact the way you will feel about yourself for the next several decades. The way you think God feels, and then more particularly, how He feels about you, and then even more particularly, how He feels about you in your weakness will greatly determine and form the way you feel about yourself. And when you feel like a hypocrite, and when you feel dirty, and you feel false, there is no amount of preaching on prayer that can get you to enjoy the prayer room. Who wants to go to a prayer room when you feel dirty and you feel false? Meaning you feel like a hypocrite. False meaning you feel like your commitments are all fake. People buy into them, but you know they're not real. Who can go to a prayer room feeling dirty and feeling like they're a liar, they're a hypocrite? Nobody can. Nobody can. Well, then, God, we've got a problem. If you've got this great end-time prayer movement, you're only going to be able to use people who are above failing. And that's not the answer, because the end-time prayer movement is filled with people who are struggling while they're praying. And the break-in of God comes in incremental ways. They get a break-in in one area, but not the other area. And then later on, they get a break-in in that area, but then there's another thing pops up. Like you think you get them all settled, then all of a sudden there's this new emotion, this new mindset, this new feeling, this new bitterness, this new lust, this new ambition, this new feeling that takes a hold of us that we didn't even have or we thought we didn't have it. So, Lord, you're really in a quandary here, because how are you going to raise up an end-time prayer movement? How are the bowls of prayer going to be full in heaven while all you have to work with on the earth is broken, weak people? And the Lord's answer is like, hey, that's not a problem for me, because I will take away that spirit of rejection and condemnation so they can enjoy my presence while they're growing, not just after they grow, but actually while they're growing. It's magnificent. Who can sit in the presence of a God who's mostly mad and mostly sad? God, break-in a revival in Kansas City, break-in a revival in India and Cambodia and Taiwan and everywhere. God got it. We look up and, ah! He's looking frowning. Who are you to be talking to me about Cambodia? I'm saying that because we were praying for Cambodia a few minutes ago. If we look up, or whatever that means, I mean, you don't have to look up, but imagine that the God we're praying before is shaking his head, you know, looking, the Father's looking, the Son, get a load of that guy going on like that. What do you think about that? Hypocrite, isn't he? That's how most of us feel. We cannot endure the presence of God with that kind of image in our spirit. And it's not just I'm trying to get positive. I want to get biblical. I want to get accurate. I want to be accurate. I'm not trying to have positive preaching. I want to have accurate preaching. This is the truth. Nobody can sit in front of a God who's mostly mad and mostly sad at them. It's just too heavy. Sitting in a room, just you and God, and God's frowning at you, and you're supposed to endure it with, oh, I love you. Oh, I love you. Oh, I'm getting out of here. The Lord knows all this. We were built that way. Our spirit was constructed. We need to feel embraced in order to embrace him back. We don't embrace him and then finally he gives in and embraces us. He embraces us when we're kind of all like, oh, I don't even know what's going on here. He embraces us and that gives us the power to embrace him back. We call that loving God. And it's critical that we understand this issue of the God of a glad heart. There's a lot of fuzzy thinking today in people's mind on this subject, a whole lot of fuzzy thinking. And I love to get people to think about it. And I say, again, I've used this analogy so many times, but you long-termers just didn't do it again. I like to go to theologically minded people. You know, they got their PhDs and this, that and the other and I love to ask the question, is God happy? What? Because they're not even expecting it. Is God happy most of the time? It's a weird question. Where did you come up with that question? I think it's a question that's critical to my well-being and I want to know what you think. You're real smart. Is God happy most of the time? And the very, I mean, I always get a mystified look like, huh? And that revelation is so deficient in the body of Christ. But God's raising up an army of forerunners all over the earth. I don't mean just in our little, little dinky part of the world. I'm talking about worldwide. He's raising up a church that's going to stand before him as a bride in confidence. It's happening all over Asia, South America, Africa, Europe. It's not about this place or that place or, you know, ten key places. God is raising up a bride with an understanding, a church with an understanding she is a cherished bride and the delight of God's heart. We have to go deep on this because we will never understand God's affection for us if we don't understand His gladness. The gladness of God, I believe, is the easiest emotion to get a hold of. Of all the different emotions of God that I'd like to focus and lock into, the gladness of God is, I believe, the easiest one to relate to. It's still out there. It's still a challenge, but it's when people say, we want to understand God's transcendent beauty. That's a phrase we use around here. God's beauty. His transcendent beauty. That means almost nothing to everybody who says it. It's not entirely true. There are some people that mean something, too. And that's not to put down to the people. That is such a big, lofty... What on earth does that mean? I don't know. His beauty. Isn't that awesome? Yeah. What's it mean? I don't know. It's just awesome, isn't it? His beauty is all of these areas of His emotions and His power and His wisdom. Let's work back, okay? God's burning, lovesick heart is a critical part of His beauty. Ah! If you can't understand God as being lovesick and on fire for you in His emotions, you'll never understand His beauty. His beauty is the final pinnacle of our understanding. I mean the full beauty of God. We have to get little portions of His beauty to understand it. His fiery love. Okay, God is lovesick for me. Most people honestly go, that's a great statement, but I cannot feel the power of that to save my life. How can you feel and understand a God who's lovesick if the God deep in your understanding is a God who's mostly mad or mostly sad when He looks at you? He can't be lovesick. He's mostly mad at you. So we go, He's lovesick. I am altogether lovely. This is really a hard one to put together because you're mostly mad. I don't know how a mad Scrooge is lovesick. I cannot figure how a Scrooge is lovesick. It's not working in my mind. And most people have an image of God as Scrooge and they try to figure out He's lovesick and beautiful and it does not work. The first on-ramp, I believe, is to begin to lay the foundation of understanding that God has a glad heart, a happy spirit. We work on that for a while and then a little bit down the road we figure out He's happy towards me. See, a glad heart, a God with a happy spirit, eventually the understanding says if He has a happy spirit He might be happy towards me. And if He's happy towards me He might actually like me if He's happy towards me. And if He likes me He might be lovesick. And if He's lovesick He might be beautiful. But the beauty is way out there. It's on the other mountaintop. We got to see a God that's lovesick but that's not even going to happen. A Scrooge image of God cannot be a lovesick God even if we hold the line and say He's lovesick, He's lovesick. No, an angry God is not likely to be lovesick for you. We have to go right down to ground zero. Does He mostly smile or does He mostly frown? I don't know. We have to know because until we lock into that reality we are never ever going to bring it to the next level. We have to begin somewhere real close to here. There might be several other places that might be beginning points but this is certainly one of the primary beginning points. Okay, we're going to skip C because we looked at that a lot last week. Let's go to B. I mean, Roman number 2, I'm sorry. The gladness of Jesus. In these last few moments. We looked at this last week as well. I just want to say it again. Peter, on the day of Pentecost here in Acts chapter 2, it's A down here in the paragraph A. Peter is describing Jesus' personality here in Acts 2. And Peter is quoting Psalm 16. Psalm 16 was a very well-known psalm. Peter is quoting Psalm 16 talking about Jesus. Now, if you go back and study Psalm 16 David wrote Psalm 16, the man after God's own heart. David wrote Psalm 16. He was writing on two levels. And he understood. I believe he understood he was writing on two levels. I don't think David always understood it. But just the language, if you just pay attention to the language, it seems clear to me that it was clear to him he was talking about himself. That's level 1. And he was talking about the Messiah of Israel, Jesus. The one who would come after him. He undoubtedly knew he was talking about someone other than himself while talking about himself too. It's fantastic. Peter focuses in on what David understood about Jesus, the Messiah. I mean, Peter might say, hey, I really like how this applies to David, but let's lay this aside right now. Let's focus on how Psalm 16 applies to Jesus. And he quotes it. And this is really an absolutely, I mean, it's a stunning passage. It's like, wow! It's really full. Because what's happening, David is eavesdropping on a conversation between God the Father and God the Son. It's like David's over there leaning. He got into a spirit of worship. Spirit of Holy Spirit's on him. He's kind of like listening to the Father and the Son talk. I'm sure it didn't happen just that way. But that's the essence of it. He's actually catching the dialogue between the Father and the Son. And he's writing it down in one of these great worship songs. And he's describing his own relationship to the Father, but he is aware he's talking about someone else's relationship to the Father, namely the Messiah's. David has a front row seat on God's emotions right here. He's sitting on the front row. David is one of the great theologians of the emotions of God in the Bible. There's very few that give more insight into God's emotions than King David. Jesus would give more than King David. And the New Testament gives different angles of God's emotions. But David did some of the most unique and singular work, meaning there's no one that brought it even to another level besides Jesus Himself. Psalm 16 is describing how Jesus lived before the Father. Now this matters because we're getting insight in the way Jesus lived before the Father. Why do we care about the way He lived before the Father? It's telling us what kind of personality the Messiah has because the kind of personality He has impacts the way He relates to you. You know, the guy comes and says, Hey, I hear we got a new coach. Yeah. Have you met him yet? No. Have you heard anything about him? I heard he's really tough. He's really mean. Ugh. Hey, I heard we got a new coach. Yeah. Have you met him? No. Have you heard anything about him? Oh, I heard he's really nice and positive. Ooh, good. So my point being, the way that Jesus relates to the Father really is important because it tells us about what He's like, what kind of leader He's going to be for us. This passage really matters to us. So don't look at it and say, Well, hey, that's between the Father and the Son. It's none of my business. Oh, yes. It's the kind of leader He is that is revealed here. And there's four different revelations of Jesus. Four different revelations of Jesus. In Acts 2, Peter only focuses on three of the four things David said. David said four things. Peter only mentions three of them. But Acts 16, which is B, gives us all four of these things. Now let's look at those four. Number one. Well, let's read the passage. In Psalm 16, verse 8. Because He, the Father, is at my right hand, I, Jesus, shall not be moved. Therefore, my heart is glad, my glory rejoices. And in Your presence, Father, is the fullness of joy. And at Your right hand, Father, are pleasures forevermore. That's Jesus speaking to the Father. And it's David speaking to the Father. So what we find out, Jesus' heart is glad. Look at it. It says it. It says that my heart is glad. Therefore, my heart is glad. The Messiah is a God and a man with a happy spirit. His heart is glad. He's not just glad before the Father because He never changes. If He's glad before the Father, it is His disposition to have gladness. Now we know from many passages, He's not just glad before the Father. His spirit is glad. That is fantastic. Last week, we looked at these four points. And so, we're going to bypass them because we looked at them last week for about three or four minutes, each one of them. Let's go to C. Jesus possesses the anointing of gladness more than any other man in history. Here's the two passages underneath. It's Hebrews 1.9, which is actually quoting Psalm 45.7. Hebrews 1.9 is quoting it. And it says in the book of Hebrews, clearly, it's talking about Jesus. Read Hebrews 1. And it's clear it's Jesus that Psalm 45 is talking about. See, if you only read Psalm 45, you would think it was talking about someone else, possibly. You might not know. You might not be sure. There could be some debate on who the glad person, the most glad person that ever lived is. But in Hebrews 1, it's clear the man is identified as none other than Jesus himself as the subject of Psalm 45. So, we love Hebrews 1.9, really helps us. Although, without Hebrews 1.9, Jesus would be the main vote. It looks like Jesus to me. But Hebrews 1.9 takes away all question. Your God has anointed you with the oil of gladness more than your companions. Instead of the word companions, but more than all the other human beings. There's no man like Him. He has more gladness than any other of His human companions. And Psalm 45 says the same thing. Let's look at the next verse. Luke 10, verse 21. Jesus rejoiced in the Holy Spirit. And He said, I thank you, Father. You have hidden these things from the wise and you revealed them to babes. We picture Jesus rejoicing ecstatically in the Holy Spirit. Jesus had so much, instead of the word rejoice, you could put the word joy, enjoyment. Jesus was filled with joy in the Holy Spirit. Because this is what, this is how Jesus lived. Now it is true that Jesus had, Jesus has anger in His personality. Anger is not the predominant emotion in His personality. Anger is in His personality. His anger is not a contradiction of His gladness. God never suspends one attribute to exercise another. God never makes His anger disappear in order to show gladness. And He never makes His gladness disappear to show anger. His anger is actually an expression of His gladness. You think that sounds confusing. No, it's not. It isn't in the heart of God. It's confusing in the human sense because when a human father or an authority figure is angry, his gladness is gone. And so we try to understand the anger of Jesus only through the grid of a human example that is deficient and then we come up confused. Jesus' anger is actually His commitment to remove everything that hinders love. His anger is His zeal to move everything out of the way that spoils love and gladness. His anger is actually a commitment, an expression of His commitment to establish affection and gladness in the whole created order. At least, well if you say of the whole created order, I mean of those that have said yes to Him, of the righteous. Because those that say no live in eternal separation with no gladness at all. And so that's technically a part of the created order as well. But Jesus' anger is His zeal to remove everything that spoils love and gladness. Why are you angry? Because I want gladness to be everywhere where my rule is in the midst of a people who say yes to me. Why are you angry? I want to remove everything that hinders love. My anger is not opposite of love. It's because of love. It's because of love. Jesus' anger, I mean Jesus' gladness does not mean He agrees with everything in our lives. Gee, and that's the point I ended with last week. I was giving the example of my two sons which is the same example of me and the Lord. The Lord looks at me and He says, Mike, I really like you but I don't like this area and I don't like that area. And I'm going to deal with this area and that area because I like you so much. God's correction is never His rejection in the lives of those that say yes to Him. God does not correct us when He... He does not reject us when He corrects us. I was giving the example of my sons last week when I would find an area in their life that as a father I wanted to focus in on and discipline but that never ever, ever even remotely brought up the idea that I would renegotiate my relationship with them or my delight in them. That never crossed my mind. And I'm a wicked and weak man. Jesus says you're evil. If you being evil know how to do good. Meaning in our ungenerated, unrenewed mind all we can do is come up with something short and less than God's goodness. He goes if you in your own resources can only produce evil and you can have that emotion towards your own children how much more does your heavenly Father have abundantly greater kindness and patience towards you. An unsaved man can distinguish in his five year old son or daughter he can distinguish between the issue that needs to be corrected and the little child themselves. An unsaved man with no redemption with no Holy Spirit activity can see that clearly with an unrenewed mind that's fallen. And Jesus said if you guys can sort that out clearly how much more can my heavenly Father sort that out. Look at if you would turn in your Bibles to Proverbs and we're just going to end with this. This is where we ended, got last week isn't it? So I guess bring your notes in 30 days. Okay Proverbs Proverbs 3 let's end with this. Proverbs 3 How about I ask you to sing that song that solo that you had a minute ago. Yeah, burden me. If you need any help I can help you out a little bit maybe. Okay Proverbs 3 look at this verse 11 this is really important passage we're going to end with this. I'm going to have anybody who wants prayer to come forward we're going to pray this over them. I mean something related to this. Proverbs 3 verse 11 My son do not despise the chastening of the Lord. The chastening means the correction means the discipline. Don't despise don't give up when the Lord corrects you. That's what that's saying. I'm just breaking it down. Don't give up don't despise don't say I don't like this I'm quitting it's too heavy. Don't detest don't resist God's corrections. Here's why He says for whenever the word for is in sentences like this it means you can put the word because it's giving the logic because whom the Lord loves He corrects. You can put the word whom the Lord enjoys whom the Lord is committed to. Beloved put the word whom He enjoys whom He is committed to He corrects. Now look at here just as a father corrects the son in whom He delights God says I love I correct you and here's the key phrase just as in the same way that a human father corrects his son because that father delights in his son He corrects them because He likes His children He corrects them. He says do not think and get overwhelmed that when I press in on an issue that is wrong in your life and I'm gonna make it a little bit uncomfortable there's gonna be an ouchie in the equation you're gonna hurt it's gonna count I'm gonna get your attention don't assume because I've got your attention that I have written you off but rather understand this I have corrected you because I delight in you it's exactly opposite I corrected you because you have a future because you you delight my heart because I'm committed to you I like you I'm not just gritting my teeth enduring you I actually like you that's why I corrected you so don't run from me don't draw back run to me with confidence understand that I'm a God of desire and a God of gladness even when I'm correcting you Amen We'll stop with that Let's stand