Have you ever said, or heard it said that becoming a Christian takes the joy out of life, or some similar statement? Oh, I have, but please pardon my grammar, 'taint so. The Lord's Way is the surest way to genuine joy, friend that you will ever find. Stay tuned; let's see.
Greetings to you, my friend! Thanks for inviting us into your home for Bible study In Search of the Lord's Way. The Lord’s way is the only way to become a Christian and the very best way to live that mankind has ever known. Those who have seriously tried it have found it so. We pray we'll both be blessed by our study together on the subject of "Joy."
While becoming and being a Christian is a very serious and solemn thing, it's also the most joyful way, too. I mean I'm talking about genuine Christianity and genuine joy. Oh, I know, some of us Christians may act sometimes as though we hadn't experienced a joyous moment since we were baptized. But it was neither being baptized or becoming a Christian that made us that way. That kind would probably be that way anyhow. Christians are taught to "Live with a due sense of responsibility, though not as men who do not know the meaning and purpose of life, but as those who do" (Ephesians 5:15 in the Phillips translation). And people who live with a purpose, that purpose being bigger than themselves, find joy in it. People don't have to be irresponsible pleasure-seeking drifters to be joyous people. They can live joyously and still live soberly and righteously and Godly in Christ Jesus just as Christians are taught in Titus 2 and12. Well, we're glad you are with us today.
If you think you would like a free CD or an audio cassette tape or a printed copy of this study, our address is, In Search of the Lord's Way, P.O. Box 371, Edmond, OK 73083. Our e-mail address is searchtv@searchtv.org. If you prefer to call, you may use our toll-free telephone number: 1-800-321-8633. You might want to visit our website, too, at www.searchtv.org. Ken Helterbrand's going to lead us now as we sing, and then I’ll be back and we’ll read a part of that Fifty-first Psalm.
The Fifty-first Psalm is one of the prayers that David prayed after that terrible incident with Bathsheba; and I suggest that you read the whole chapter because it is one of the prayers, but we are not going to read it all. We are going to begin at verse 10 and read through verse 13. “Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me. Do not cast me away from Your presence, and do not take your Holy Spirit from me. Restore to me the joy of Your salvation, and uphold me by Your generous Spirit. Then I will teach transgressors Your ways, and sinners shall be converted to You.” That is through verse 13. Now let’s go to God in prayer. Holy Father, we are so thankful for this example of contrition on the part of Saul, on the part of David after he committed that sin with Bathsheba. We pray, Father, that it will be an inspiration and a source of encouragement to us to live on a higher plane and to repent when once we have sinned in Your sight. Forgive us now as we pray You in Jesus’ name. Amen!
Webster defines "joy" as a noun as, "the emotion evoked by well-being, success, or good fortune or by the prospect of possessing what one desires." As a verb he says it's, "to experience great pleasure or delight." Well, there’s a difference between joy and happiness, isn’t there? Happiness is a state of being that exists when things seem to be going right with us, but as we are about to learn, the heart or life of an individual can be filled with joy even in the most difficult times. Many people lived joyously even in the “great depression” of the 1930s and I know; I was there and I remember it very well. So, people can live joyously in our present economic conditions even. The word "happiness" doesn't appear in the Bible at all (in the King James Version), but "joy" appears 63 times. Joy is different to a person who gloats or glories or exults in well-being or success or by the prospect of possessing what he wants, than it is to the person who is living his life with a due sense of responsibility, who knows the meaning and the purpose of life, as we are taught in the Scriptures. Christians may joy, may be in a good experience, even though the conditions may be extremely unfavorable, even hostile as in Acts chapter 16, verses 16-25. And it may not even be discernable to other people. "Joy" is a fruit of the Holy Spirit as we read in Galatians 5:22: "The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self control, and so on” (Galatians 5:22-23).
I've prefaced my remarks about "joy" with those distinctions because I fear in most preaching today "happiness" is equated with and maybe even substituted for Christian "joy;" and people are led to believe something the Lord hasn't even promised. The Lord Jesus Christ didn't guarantee His followers happiness and health and monetary prosperity in this world by following Him and teaching His word. No! No, no, friend! Christianity, following Jesus Christ, is not without cost. In fact, it will cost you your life! Look—
One day Jesus and some of His disciples were walking along the road when one of them said to Him, "Lord, I will follow you wherever you go" (Luke 9:57). Perhaps you are thinking, "Oh! That must have been some good news to the Savior." But listen to His response, will you? He said, "Foxes have holes and the birds of the air have nests; but the Son of man has nowhere to lay His head." What a reply, you say, to someone who's just volunteered to be a follower. Yes it is; and it is strange. It's even more interesting what He did not say, though. He did not say, "That's good; follow me and you'll be happy and healthy and prosperous and successful; and the fellowship is great and I have all kinds of ways of meeting your every need, and we'll all love you, and you'll really like us." Well, quite to the contrary; He was saying, true discipleship may lead you into poverty. It will certainly cost you your life. He didn't mean you would have to die for Him necessarily. Oh, you might have to do that, alright, many people did; but He was saying you will have to give your life over to Him and to His cause. Well, discipleship is not about us and our happiness or health or wealth or comforts or success. It's about our unhappiness with our sinfulness. It's not about our sickness, but our sin. It's about our poverty of spirit without Christ. It's about our alienation from God.
The next verse (Luke 9:59) says that, "Jesus said to another, Follow me. But he said, Lord, let me first go and bury my father.” The Hebrew Scriptures taught them to "Honor their fathers and mothers." That was the fifth commandment. Remember? So, the man was not asking for time to do something dishonorable. Whether his father was recently deceased, or was near death at the time, we are not told. We're not sure whether it was his father or his father's estate that this man was so interested in. But, "Jesus said to him, Let the dead bury their own dead, but you go and preach the kingdom of God. And another also said, Lord, I will follow you; but let me first go and bid them farewell, who are at my house. And Jesus said to him, No one, having put his hand to the plow, and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God."
You see, Jesus doesn't accept just anything anybody wants to give or do. His is a way of devotion and sacrifice, and the more a person puts into it, the more he receives in this life, and in the world to come eternal life. Earlier in this same chapter (verses 22 through 26), He had said, "The Son of man must suffer many things, and be rejected by the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and be raised the third day...If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow Me. For whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake will save it. For what is a man profited if he gains the whole world, and is himself destroyed or lost? For whoever is ashamed of Me and My words, of him the Son of Man will be ashamed when He comes in His own glory, and His Father’s and of the holy angels.” So, my friend, you see, Jesus' invitation to follow Him, is not a "seeker-friendly" one. Oh, No! He wouldn’t fare well in today’s church. His way up is down. His way to greatness is to become a servant. His way to live is to die. You don't hear it preached much on radio or television or even in some pulpits. Because you see, the aim of most of 21st Century American Christianity is to be "seeker-friendly." The theme today is "inclusiveness." We’ll gladly receive the man who says He will follow Jesus anywhere but he doesn't really understand or intend even to do it. Yes, we will welcome the one who wants to first go and bury his father; and then the one who wants to go home and to enjoy a farewell party with his friends before he follows Jesus.
So now, let's turn to our Bible and see what it has to say about "joy" in following Jesus. We've been studying in the ninth chapter of Luke. In the eighth chapter (verses 5-15) is probably Jesus' first parable. It's about sowing the seed of the kingdom, the Word of God, the gospel which is the power of God to salvation to every one who believes it (Romans 1:16). Here Jesus says as the farmer sows his seed, some of it falls on the wayside soil or by the fence row, some on the stony ground, and some among the thorns, and some on the good ground. These are four kinds of hearts, friend: the unprepared heart, the hard hearts, the crowded hearts, and the honest and good hearts. The Lord mentions that some people, some of those people "receive the word with joy!" Now despite the fact that from what we have seen earlier, Jesus' invitation to come follow Him sounds like a hard one, still there are people who receive it with joy!
Well, it's seen again in Acts, the eighth chapter. The Secretary of the Treasury of Ethiopia was returning from worship in the Jewish fashion in Jerusalem. Philip, one of the seven chosen by the Jerusalem church to serve tables, preached Jesus to him. "And as they went down the road, they came to some water. And the eunuch said, See, here is water. What hinders me to be baptized? And then Philip said, If you believe with all your heart, you may. And he answered and said, I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God. So he commanded the chariot to stand still. And both Phillip and the eunuch went down into the water and he baptized him. Now when they came up out of the water, the Spirit of the Lord caught away Philip, that the eunuch saw him no more; and he went on his way rejoicing” (Acts 8:36 through 40).
He demonstrated again the joy of becoming a Christian; and it is demonstrated even again in Acts chapter 16, verses 25 to 34. Paul and Silas were cast in prison for preaching things that were contrary what the people believed and practiced in that city (verses 20 and 21). However, at midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing and the other prisoners were listening to them, when a great earthquake occurred. The prison was terribly shaken and any prisoner who so desired could have escaped. And the jailor, seeing the danger, asked Paul and Silas "What must I do to be saved." He was told to believe in Christ and they taught him. And when the man heard, he believed...And when he and his family had been baptized, they all “rejoiced” believing in God.
So, for several reasons, there's joy in the Lord. The sixth book of your New Testament is great reading. In the first chapters it assures us that all people are under sin, whether Jews or Gentiles, we're all under sin and each of us by our own sins have been alienated from God; separated from God. However, please notice chapter five, verse eleven: "And not only so, but we also joy in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom we have now received the atonement." That word "atonement" could be defined as "at-one-ment," meaning people, sinners like you and me, whether Jew or Greek, men or women, are no longer alienated from God by their sins, but are made at one again by coming to Jesus Christ. What a joyous thought is the sinner's atonement with God through Jesus Christ.
In 2 Corinthians chapter 8, verses 1 and 2, the Bible speaks of the joy Christians have in giving of their money to the work of Christ, to the poor in this instance. It says of the churches in Macedonia “that in a great trial of affliction the abundance of their joy and their deep poverty abounded in the riches of their liberality.” People living in poverty, I mean deep poverty, found joy in sharing what they had with the poor. And not only that, they were Gentiles giving to their Jewish brethren in Christ in Jerusalem whom they had never met, or known, or even seen.
Now, here's another strange or curious cause of joy for Christians. James 1, verses 2 and 3 says, "My brethren, count it all joy when you fall into various trials, (oh, that is strange isn’t it?) knowing that the testing of your faith produces patience (or endurance or perseverance)." Similarly 1 Peter chapter 4, verses 12 and 13 say, "Beloved, do not think it strange concerning the fiery trial which is to try you, as though some strange thing happened to you but rejoice to the extent that you partake of Christ's sufferings, that when His glory is revealed, you may also be glad with exceeding joy.” And the Holy Spirit says in Hebrews chapter 2, verses 1 and 2: "Therefore also, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which does so easily entangle us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has set down at the right hand of the throne of God." What a powerful example for finding joy in Jesus Christ. More in a minute; now let us pray. Holy Father, we are so thankful for the joy that we have in Christ Jesus, and the provision by Your grace that You have made it possible. In His name, we pray You. Amen!
Oh, awhile ago I said Hebrews chapter 2. I was hurriedly speaking, it was Hebrews chapter 12. In the beginning of today's program we read a part of King David's prayer of penitence for his sins in the Bathsheba scandal. Most of us can easily remember the national shame we felt a few years ago, in a similar incident; therefore, we know something of the situation in all Israel in this one. (And incidentally; this is one reason I believe the Bible is the word of God, and not a man or committee of men made it. Men minimize the evil done by a friend or colleague in this kind of predicament. They'll make all kinds of excuses and apologies for him. But despite the fact that the Bible repeatedly says God, quotes God as saying, "David is a man after my own heart," He tells us the whole story of David’s sin with Bathsheba. Men don't do that.) Anyway, when his preacher, Nathan, confronted him with the evil, thank God for Nathan, David openly admitted his mistake and he prayed about it, not just once but many times. And verses 12, 13 and 14 of the Psalm we read awhile ago reveal something of the agony David lived after that. Here, he prayed to God, "Restore to me the joy of Your salvation, uphold me by Your generous Spirit." Oh, what joy there is in salvation which is in the Lord. How very, very grateful ought we to be, and how we ought to joy in it. If you are a Christian you know what I am talking about, and if you are not I know you don't know this joy; you're missing out on it. And I pray you will want to be baptized into Jesus Christ at once.
We're glad you were with us today and we pray you have been blessed by our study. Should you like a free printed copy, a CD or audio cassette tape of the message, simply address your request to In Search of the Lord's Way P.O. Box 371, Edmond, OK 73083. Or by e-mail it is searchtv@searchtv.org. If you prefer to use our telephone, toll-free telephone, we would be happy to pay for the call. That is 1-800-321-8633. We are here free of all appeals for money through the joyful generosity of some churches of Christ and some individual members of those churches, your friends and mine, right here in this area. I'm inviting you now to worship with them at your very first opportunity. Will you do that? You might want to tell them that we sent you, and thank you for having a part in this program.
If you would like one of them to pay a get-acquainted-visit at your home, please let us know that, too. We would be happy to make the contact for you. We will be back next week. We hope you can, too. God bless you now. We love you.
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