Our theme together is the centrality of God in your heart and the centrality of God in your thinking and the centrality of God in your preaching.

So those are our three times together,

and I pray that God would make himself central in your life. I have an assumption now in this first talk and

let me tell you what the assumption is and then try to warrant it for a moment. It goes like this.

A pastor's heart, a pastor's mind, a pastor's preaching will not be God-centered unless God is the center of his joy.

Your heart won't be, God centered, your thinking and mind won't be God centered, and your

preaching won't be God centered unless God is the center of your joy.

Let me read you a verse from Psalm 43,

verse 4

4 I will go to the altar of God to God my exceeding joy

There's a really unusual Hebrew phrase behind that.

My exceeding joy is literally two words. Simhat Gili, the gladness of my joy. I will go to God the gladness of my joy. That's very strange. I take it to mean that in all of our joy, God must be our joy.

There are many things we rejoice in

that are not God,

and that's incredibly dangerous and he's given them to us. Family, beautiful sunrises, church, ministry, food. And I think we're idolaters if we don't have God at the center of that joy.

I will go to the altar of God, to God, the gladness of my joy, the heart of my joy, the heart of my joy, the essence of my joy,

the joy of all my joys, I will go to God. So I only mention that

verse to illustrate what I mean by the phrase center of your joy.

Your heart won't be God centered, your thinking won't be God centered, your preaching won't be God centered,

unless God is the center of your joy, the joy of your joy, the joy, the gladness of your joy.

Permeating all your joys is joy in God. You should be radically God-besotted people.

And in that way, then your heart would be God centered,

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