Okay. We’re kicking off a new set of messages this week, so here’s a new question for you to consider: On a scale of 0 to 10, how much are you enjoying your life? No, really, I’m serious. How much are you enjoying your life, from 0 to 10?

Why are People Living Joyless Lives?

It’s a bit of a landmark for me this week because I’ve just come back from a couple of weeks of vacation. As much as I love doing what I do, man, it’s nice to get away and just rest and sleep and enjoy things with my wife. We travelled a bit to one of my favourite countries in the world: New Zealand.

Now as an Aussie, I don’t like telling the Kiwis that too often, but gee it’s a beautiful place, but it was just so special to be able to relax – you know what I mean? I have to tell you, though, that getting back into harness at work … well, it wasn’t easy for the first few days. My body was kind of objecting to this notion of having to get up early in the morning and stumping up to work.

No doubt you’ve been there too. Those first few days back at work, no matter how much you happen to enjoy your job, they’re not easy. It’s like a severe dose of Mondayitis. It’s funny, isn’t it, how our feelings and our responses to our environment go up and down, and how much we’re influenced by the externalities of what’s going on in our lives?

It’s pretty easy to enjoy life when you’re kicking back and taking a break, but when the pressures of life come crowding back. Well, it gets harder and harder. We all have pressures; I do, and you do. They come in all different shapes and sizes. Of course, there’s always some amount of pressure associated with work. Relationships are a big source of pressure.

I was just praying with a man on the phone the other day for healing in his relationships with his wife and his daughter. Our own perceptions of things, the way we see things, that in itself can cause pressure, a sense of insecurity or inadequacy. Perhaps someone’s marriage isn’t going particularly well, or they’re feeling as though no one needs them, or people need them too much. It’s a pretty long list, and in the middle of all that, many people end up feeling like battery hens just churning it out and grinding it out, day after day, without much of a sense of meaning or purpose or achievement. I’m not saying that everyone’s life is like that, but there’s something about the modern-day human condition, the pace of life, the demands of life, the pressures of life, that drain the joy out of our lives, and that I think is why so many people are living joyless lives.

I wonder if I were able to get a show of hands from all the people round the world who are listening to this message today how many would consider their lives, their hearts, to be full of joy, overflowing with joy. I wonder how many people would put their hands up in the air to that one. You know what I suspect? A few hands would go up; a few, but not all that many.

The words ‘Joy’ and ‘Rejoice’ and all their various derivatives together appear around three hundred and seventy times in the Bible. Now, that’s rather a lot. That makes it rather a big and important subject. And as I read my Bible, what I discover is that joy is something that God wants us to have. Let me say it more specifically: joy is something that God wants you to have; not just in those happy times in life, but during the difficult times of life as well. James chapter 1 verses 2 to 4:

My brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of any kind, consider it nothing but pure joy because you know that the testing of your faith produces endurance. And let endurance have its full effect, so that you may be mature and complete, lacking in nothing.

Philippians chapter 4, verse 4, written by the Apostle Paul on death row, in a Roman dungeon strapped to his guard:

Rejoice in the Lord always; again I say, rejoice!

If I were to give you a choice between a life that is full to overflowing with joy and one that isn’t, it’s pretty obvious which one you’d choose right? And so you have to ask yourself, given all that He’s put about the subject in His living Word (the Bible), why is it that so many people, people who believe in Jesus with all their hearts even are living such joyless lives? Why is that? Is it because God’s joy isn’t available to us? No, that’s not it because the Bible says, Romans chapter 14 verse 17:

The Kingdom of God isn’t a matter of food and drink, but righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit.

So it can’t be that. Clearly, God wants us to experience His joy in an abundant measure when we enter into and live in the /Kingdom of God. In fact, one of the equal shortest verses in the whole Bible is 1 Thessalonians chapter 5, verse 16. It says this:

Rejoice always.

You know, I travel a lot around the world in my role, meeting with church-leaders, visiting churches, speaking at churches, participating in worship-services, so as far as having a representative cross-section of God’s Kingdom, a statistically valid sample if you will, well … I have a pretty good one, and even taking into account the enormous cultural differences in the expressions of worship in different countries from say a Ghanaian service where they’re dancing in a conga line down the aisle of the Church, to a more conservative service say in a place like India where in many churches, men sit on one side of the church and women sit on the other. Taking all that into account, I am so struck by the absence of joy in so many places, in so many churches, in so many of the Christians that I’ve met and with whom I’ve interacted.

I remember just recently being asked to speak at a rather large church at an important occasion for that church, and sitting on the platform waiting to get up to speak, watching the leaders and the bishops all dressed in their finery, sitting across from me during a time of worship with this abject look of boredom on their faces. What’s the matter with us, people? Why are we living such joyless lives? What’s going on in the Kingdom of God, hmm?

The title of this series that we’ve kicked off today with this programme is ‘The Joy of the Lord is Your Strength’. That’s a quote from the Old Testament book of Nehemiah chapter 8, and we’re going to take a good close look at that story surrounding that quote a little later in this series, but for the moment, let’s just consider that Scripture at face value.

The ‘joy of the Lord is your strength’. So many people who love Jesus feel helpless and weak in situations of temptation, in the middle of the pressures of life. You can feel like you’re being blown to and fro like a tiny little boat on an angry ocean. Have you ever felt that? And you wonder, ‘Where am I going to get the strength to make it through this’, right?

The answer is that you get your strength from the joy of the Lord, from God’s very own joy; because when you’re enjoying God, when you’re really, really enjoying your relationship with Jesus, you know what happens? He fills you with such incredible strength, with such amazing power, that you wonder: ‘Wow, hang on. Where did that come from?’

Clearly the Bible teaches that strength is a by-product of joy. Let me say that again. Clearly the Bible teaches that strength is a by-product of joy, and if that’s true, if that’s really the case, then having the joy of the Lord happening in you, it’s not some optional extra, some nice-to-have. It’s not the icing on the cake; not at all. It’s the very foundation of your whole life in the Kingdom of God.

So, if maybe you’re not one of those people who’s able to stick their hand in the air in response to the question: Is the joy of the Lord filling you to overflowing, if you right now can’t answer a resounding yes to that question, then stick with me throughout this series – ‘The Joy of the Lord is Your Strength’, as we discover how to remove the road-blocks to joy, and how to be filled to overflowing with the joy of the Lord – because I come back to it. Right through the Bible, it becomes very clear that God wants to fill you with His joy, the joy of the Lord.

What Exactly is “Joy”?

One of the things I love doing is to watch advertisements on television and analyse what it is that they’re actually selling, and what it is that they’re actually promising. One of the big new trends in holiday travel is cruising on big, opulent ocean liners. Nothing wrong with that, but I’m interested in the advertisements that depict happy couples enjoying each other’s company on a beautiful ocean liner. ‘Cruise with this line, and you’ll experience romance and intimacy’, or they show kids having fun while parents relax by the pool, or go out for a sophisticated dining experience. It seems to me that what they’re promising is happiness. That’s the end product. The ship, the relaxation, the rest, the exotic experiences, the entertainment – they’re all stepping-stones to the final brand-promise of happiness: Smiling faces; fun; enjoyment … in fact, that’s the case for most of the advertisements for most of the products that you see or hear. Not all of them, mind you, but most of them. The end-product, the commodity that they’re really pedalling isn’t the product or the service that they’re advertising. What they’re really actually trying to sell you, most of them, is happiness, so I went to my dictionary to check out the meaning of these three words: Happiness, fun, and joy. This is what I found.

The dictionary-definition of happiness is this: The state of being happy. Well, ok, so what does it mean to be happy? It is apparently a feeling of pleasure or contentment. Well, fair enough, so what then is the definition of fun – something that we associate with happiness? It’s enjoyment, amusement, light-hearted pleasure – well, so far, so good. Then I finally decide to check out my dictionary for the definition of joy. Joy, we’re told, is a feeling of great pleasure and happiness, and you know, that fits in pretty well with our understanding that happiness and fun and joy are all pretty much the same thing, or if not exactly the same thing, then very closely-related. In fact, in our language, we often use the words happy and joy interchangeably. When something makes us happy, we would say that we enjoyed it. Right? That’s the common understanding. That’s the world’s understanding, but what if I told you that, that is an understanding that is diametrically, one hundred and eighty degrees opposed to what God tells us about joy?

Firstly, the word joy and its various derivatives appear around three hundred and seventy times in the Bible. On the other hand, happy and its various derivatives appear only twenty-six times in the Bible. Big difference! Empirically what that tells me is that God isn’t interested so much in my happiness; what He really wants for me is His joy. Interestingly, in one verse, these two words appear together. Esther chapter 8, verse 16:

For the Jews, it was a time of happiness and joy, gladness and honour.

So clearly the two words have different meanings; otherwise, there’d be no need to put them both in the one sentence. Now you and I know what happiness is. Sometimes we’re happy, sometimes we’re sad. When are you happy? Well, when things are going your way; when you have a good experience; when you’re being praised or promoted; when you’re involved in something that’s fun; when you have something good to look forward to, like a holiday on one of those cruise ships. Happiness by and large is a response to our circumstances, and we’re sad when bad things happen; when we lose a loved one; when someone tramples on our emotions, right? There’s happy, and then there’s sad. Totally different! But if that’s our understanding of joy, the joy that God promises us, the joy of the Lord that the Bible talks about, then we’re completely missing the point. If that’s our understanding of what joy is, then this Scripture simply doesn’t make sense. James chapter 1, verses 2-4:

My brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of any kind, consider it nothing but pure joy because you know that the testing of your faith produces endurance. And let endurance have its full effect, so that you may be mature and complete, lacking in nothing.

It doesn’t make sense because you can’t be happy whenever you’re facing a trial of any kind, right? When things are tough, it’s impossible to be happy, and yet God here is telling us to consider a trial as nothing but pure joy. The New Testament Greek word that we most often tend to translate into the word joy, the one used here in this passage, comes from the same root word as grace; that word is ‘chara’, from which we get the word charismatic, for instance. In other words, the concepts of grace and joy are fundamentally linked. Grace is a free gift from God and joy is one of the most powerful expressions, manifestations, results of God’s grace. So in sharp contrast to our worldly understanding of joy being synonymous with happiness, what God means when He promises us His joy is a free gift from Him.

So let’s get this straight: Happiness is a reflection of, and our response to, what’s going on around us; happiness comes from the world. Joy on the other hand is a free gift from God, and that’s why you can have joy even when your circumstances are against you. The joy of the Lord and the happiness of this world are profoundly different things. God’s joy is borne out of His love for us and as a Father who loves you, His compassion for you when you’re hurting, when the pressures of this world are seemingly going to crush you, is unbelievable. And that’s why right in those difficult times, He will give you the gift of His joy at the very time that the happiness of the world deserts you. That’s why the joy of the Lord truly is your strength.

It’s amazing actually how often in the Bible joy is spoken about in times of suffering. You see, in our human understanding, suffering and joy just don’t go together because after all, we use joy and happiness interchangeably and it simply doesn’t make sense that you could possibly be happy while you’re suffering, and you can’t, but joy? Well, that’s a whole different thing. Have a listen to these couple of Scriptures. Firstly, Romans chapter 12, verses 12:

Rejoice in hope, be patient in suffering, persevere in prayer.

Joy and suffering are used in the one verse there. 1 Peter chapter 1, verses 3-7:

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, for by His great mercy, He has given us a new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, and into an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled and unfading, being kept in heaven for you who are being protected by the power of God through faith, for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. In this you rejoice, even if now for a little while you have had to suffer various trials so that the genuineness of your faith – being more precious than gold, that though perishable is tested by fire – may be found to result in praise and glory and honour when Jesus Christ is revealed.

Did you get that? In this you rejoice, even if now you have to suffer! So joy and suffering again come together. Listen, God’s joy is different from the world’s happiness. God’s joy is profoundly and infinitely better than the world’s happiness, because it comes from Him and not from the world, and so the joy of the Lord is reliable, it’s powerful, it’s freely available, irrespective of the circumstances that we’re immersed in. That’s why the joy of the Lord really is your strength.

The Joy in Your Life

Over the next few weeks on the programme, we’re really going to unpack this whole subject of you experiencing God’s joy in your life, because He really does want to fill you full to the brim, full to overflowing actually, with His joy. He makes that really clear in His Word (the Bible), but right now, let me ask you: How much of God’s joy do you experience on a day-to-day basis in your life? Would you describe yourself as someone who’s overflowing with the joy of the Lord, or at the other end of the scale, as someone for whom the joy of the Lord seems to have eluded you?

On a scale of 0 to 10, how much of the joy of the Lord do you actually experience for real in your life? That’s the first question, and the second one is this: How often do you read your Bible? How often do you engage with God’s Word; think about it; pray about it; ponder it; set about living it? And again, on a scale of 0 to 10, when 0 is almost never, 10 is every day?

Right. So you’ve scored your level of joy, and you’ve scored your Bible-reading pattern. And if I were a betting man, which I’m not, but if I were, I’d be prepared to bet that there’s a very close correlation between those two scores. Am I right? And the reason for that is that God speaks to us primarily through His Word (the Bible), the living Word of God.

It’s not the only way, by the way, that He speaks to us; the Bible itself tells us about the many ways that God speaks to His people, but it’s the main way – the most important way, and if the joy of the Lord comes from … well … the Lord God Himself, and you and I aren’t listening to Him speak (to His Word), then why are we at all surprised that we don’t experience His joy? We, kind of, toddle along to church (many of us) to get our hit, our injection of joy if you will. That’s the theory at least, and yet the rest of the week, so many Bible-believing, Christ-following Christians live with such little joy in their lives. I see it all the time, and it’s so sad. It’s a tragedy of massive proportions in the Kingdom of God.

A good friend of mine, Paul Bartlett, has recently published a book called ‘Thank God it’s Monday’. What a great title! Now Paul is the pastor of a large and, in the eyes of many, a ‘successful’ church. Now I put inverted comas around that word ‘successful’ because that’s more of a worldly judgment than a Godly one, but you get my drift, and one of the strong themes of his ministry is this: Church is not all about Sunday. So many people and so many churches and so many pastors work their way up to that big Sunday church event as though it’s the main thing, and what Paul’s saying in his book is, ‘no’. Actually Sunday is all about preparing you for Monday and the rest of the week. The main part of being a Christian is the rest of the week, not just that one event on Sunday.

I love that because in a very real sense, that’s exactly what the Bible teaches. Following Jesus is an everyday thing, not just a Sabbath thing. Just think about that book-title again: ‘Thank God it’s Monday’. It speaks of a great anticipation of what’s in store, of what’s next, of what God is bringing into our lives. When we kick off each new week, you and I, we have no idea what’s coming – the good, the bad or the ugly; we have no idea, but here’s something we can do. We can choose to live this next week, and the one after that, and the one after that, with a sense of anticipation and celebration in our hearts.

I saw something recently that I really liked, a quote that goes like this: A bad attitude is like a flat tyre; you can’t move on until you change it, so imagine how different our attitude towards life becomes when we choose to live every moment of every day as a celebration of what God has done for us – every day in the joy of the Lord. Now all of a sudden, it all makes sense. The joy of the Lord really is your strength. Right?

So, where do you get your joy from? Where do you go to get your strength? How do you get what you need to cope with the challenges and the pressures of life? It seems to me that there are two possible answers to those questions. We can either go to the world, or we can go to God. I wonder which one of those two is likely to have what you’re looking for?

The Joy of the Lord

Well, last week on the program we started our look at the joy of the Lord. Now, the joy of the Lord isn’t an idea that I’ve come up with, it’s something that the Bible talks about. And that phrase, the joy of the Lord, is a phrase that appears only once in the Bible. It’s in the Old Testament Book of Nehemiah in chapter 8.

So we’re going to take a look at that today, in a whole bunch more detail, because it’s one thing to talk about it, but it’s another thing altogether, to experience it, day by day in our lives.

But before we go there, let’s just recap on the important, the profound difference between happiness and joy. Because unless we get that difference, the rest of our discussion about the joy of the Lord, will I suspect, miss the mark.

Remember that happiness is our response to our circumstances. We’re happy when our circumstances please us, when things are going our way. We’re happy when we feel blessed, when we feel loved, when we feel valued, when we have enough to eat, and enough to drink. Happiness is our emotional reflection of positive circumstances, and so happiness is of this world.

It’s not a bad thing, don’t get me wrong, but it’s a fleeting thing, because our circumstances aren’t always in our favour, are they? So happiness deserts us when we need it most – when the going gets tough.

Joy, on the other hand, is a gift from God. The Bible talks a lot about joy, and remember, the Greek words for joy and for grace, are almost identical. They come from the same root word meaning that joy, is the free gift of God. And the reason that the Bible can so often talk about joy in the context of suffering is that joy doesn’t desert you when the going gets tough.

To the contrary, the joy of the Lord is actually your strength. It’s an important difference and that brings me to Chapter 8 of the book of Nehemiah where we’re introduced to this concept of the joy of the Lord being our strength. So here’s the situation:

Israel has not long returned to Jerusalem following a 70 year exile in Babylon as slaves. When they get back, by God’s grace, they discover not surprisingly, that Jerusalem has been destroyed, it’s been 70 years after all. The most important thing in the beginning is to rebuild the wall that surrounds the city to protect them from attack. That’s where Nehemiah comes in, God anointed him to lead that massive building effort and they’ve just finished.

Now this wall was around 4 kilometres or 2½ miles long, not so bad you think … but wait on for a bit … it was over 10 metres or 40 feet high, and thick, thick enough not to be destroyed by enemies who would come against the city. It had gates and watch towers and battlements built into it.

For over three years, they’d been slaving away to build this wall by hand, moving massive stones – remember there were no cranes or trucks or power tools. These people had been slogging their guts out for God and for the city. And the easiest thing in the world to do when you are doing that, is to lose your joy. So let’s pick up the story. Nehemiah chapter 8, verses 1 to 10:

All the people gathered together into the square before the Water Gate. They told the scribe Ezra to bring the book of the Law of Moses, which the Lord had given to Israel. Accordingly, the priest Ezra brought the law before the assembly, both men and women, all who could hear with understanding. This was on the first day of the seventh month.

He read from it facing the square before the Water Gate from early in the morning until midday, in the presence of the men and the women and those who could understand; and the ears of all the people were attentive to the book of the law.

The scribe Ezra stood on a wooden platform that had been made for the purpose; and beside him stood Mattithiah, Shema, Anaiah, Uriah, Hilkiah, and Maaseiah on his right hand; and Pedaiah, Mishael, Malchijah, Hashum, Hash-baddanah, Zechariah, and Meshullam on his left hand.

And Ezra opened the book in the sight of all the people, for he was standing above all the people; and when he opened it, all the people stood up. Then Ezra blessed the Lord, the great God, and all the people answered, ‘Amen, Amen’, lifting up their hands.

Then they bowed their heads and worshiped the Lord with their faces to the ground. Also Jeshua, Bani, Sherebiah, Jamin, Akkub, Shabbethai, Hodiah, Maaseiah, Kelita, Azariah, Jozabad, Hanan, Pelaiah, and the Levites, helped the people to understand the law, while the people remained in their places. So they read from the book, from the book of the law, with interpretation. They gave the sense, so that the people understood the reading.

And Nehemiah, who was the governor, and Ezra the priest and the scribe, and the Levites who taught the people said to all the people, ‘This day is holy to the Lord your God; do not mourn, do not weep.’ For all the people wept when they heard the words of the law. Then he said to them, ‘Go your way, eat the fat and drink the sweet wine and send portions of them to those for whom nothing is prepared, for this day is holy to our God; and do not be grieved, for the joy of the Lord is your strength.’

That’s a pretty amazing story from a number of perspectives. And it’s a story that we’re going to unpack today and over the next couple of weeks, because there are some powerful truths in there about how to lay hold of the joy of the Lord.

The first and most amazing thing is that the people stood there in the square for several hours to listen to the Word of God being read and preached. Man, I know churches these days, where if the preacher goes over his allotted twenty-five minutes, everyone starts getting twitchy.

They got everyone together, the whole city and they listened to the Torah, the law of God, being proclaimed and explained … and it cut them so deeply to the heart, that they wept. It moved them so deeply that it cut them to the quick. I wonder how many of us have ever linked a real heart for God’s Word with the deep joy in our lives. I wonder…

The Word of God

Before the break, we joined the nation of Israel at a time in their history when joy was apparently in short supply, and understandably too. The rejoicing that they’d experienced on returning to Jerusalem after 70 years in slavery and exile in Babylon, had probably worn off a little bit, because they’d spent several years building a massive 40 foot high, thick defensive wall around the city.

Hard work, exhausting work, as they laboured by hand day after day for years, to build up their defences. So their leader in this venture, a man by the name of Nehemiah, called everyone together, under the Scribe Ezra and had them engage with God’s Word, not just a little bit, but a lot. Let’s quickly recap on part of that story, Nehemiah chapter 8, verse 3:

He read from it facing the square before the Water Gate from early in the morning until midday, in the presence of the men and the women and those who could understand; and the ears of all the people were attentive to the book of the law.

Early in the morning … let’s be kind and say that was around 8am, although it was probably earlier even than that! So these people – men, women and teenagers (those who could understand) stood there for at least four hours listening to God’s Word being read and proclaimed in their midst.

Now, in some parts of the world that’s hardly remarkable. I’ve been to plenty of five-hour church services in India for instance. But in other parts of the world, comfortable western countries in particular, that’s almost unbelievable. What was Nehemiah thinking? What was Ezra doing?

Well, as a leader, Nehemiah had the wisdom to know that the people had been slogging away, day after day, hard labour to build this massive structure, and when you’re working that hard for that long, the joy and the peace of life drains out of you. You’ve been there right? You’re doing good things, but they’re draining you and you turn around, only to discover that there’s no joy left inside you.

And when you’re joyless, you become weak. I mean, it’s easy to keep on keeping on at something you really enjoy, but something that you don’t enjoy, it’s amazing how the strength, the resolve just drains out of you, isn’t it?

My wife recently decided for health reasons she would start drinking dandelion tea. I’m not sure what it’s supposed to do for you and I’m not sure how much scientific evidence there is that it’s good for you, but here she goes, she’s decided to drink dandelion tea.

Now, have you ever tasted or smelled dandelion tea? Well I did, just once – it is absolutely disgusting! Really! Whenever she drinks it, she screws up her whole face up. I can guarantee you one thing – it’s not going to last very long. You can’t keep on drinking something that tastes disgusting, no matter how good it’s supposed to be for you. And in the same way, you can’t keep on doing something diligently over and over again, if you don’t enjoy it.

I by and large don’t naturally enjoy exercise. Some people do, I don’t, but I’ve found a few forms of exercise that I really do enjoy. I love interval training on an exercise bike, I love getting out there and walking and I enjoy weight training. So those are the forms of exercise that I do.

In the same way, you can’t keep on honouring God, unless you’re enjoying it. And that’s what Nehemiah understood. That’s why he brought God’s people back to God’s Word. That’s why he organised for Ezra and the other Levites to get out there and to teach and to explain God’s Word to the people. Nehemiah chapter 8, verses 4 to 8:

The scribe Ezra stood on a wooden platform that had been made for the very purpose; and beside him stood Mattithiah, and a whole bunch of guys with hard to pronounce names. And Ezra opened the book in the sight of all the people, for he was standing above all the people; and when he opened it, all the people stood up.

Then Ezra blessed the Lord, the great God, and all the people answered, ‘Amen, Amen,’ lifting up their hands. Then they bowed their heads and worshiped the Lord with their faces to the ground. Also Jeshua, and a whole bunch of other guys with really hard to pronounce names, Levites, helped the people to understand the law, while the people remained in their places.

So they read from the book, from the law of God, with interpretation. They gave the sense, so that the people understood the reading.

So this wasn’t just reading, it was understanding. And the impact on the people was truly amazing. Nehemiah chapter 8, verse 9:

And Nehemiah, who was the governor, and Ezra the priest and scribe, and the Levites who taught the people said to all the people, ‘This day is holy unto the Lord your God; do not mourn or weep.’ For all the people wept when they heard the words of the law.

They wept – the Word of God cut them to the quick. God’s Word penetrated their hearts. And that, right there is the place where you begin to discover joy. That right there, when your heart softens and you hear the amazing things that God has done for you and they reach you deep inside, and your heart wants to burst, it brings tears to your eyes.

When I’m preaching and I start talking about Jesus on that Cross, I almost always choke up, because that’s what the amazing love and the amazing grace of God does for you, and when you get that love and that grace inside you. Bang! You get GOD inside you and when you get GOD inside you, His joy comes with Him!

Nehemiah chapter 8, verse 10:

Then he said to them, ‘Go your way, eat the fat and drink the sweet wine and send portions of them to those for whom nothing has been prepared, for this day is holy unto our Lord; and do not be grieved, for the joy of the Lord is your strength.’

And when you get the joy of the Lord into you, it becomes your strength. It becomes easier, much easier to honour God, to obey God, to follow His call on your life, because you’re filled with His joy. Obedience is no longer like dandelion tea … it’s like sweet nectar that you’ve never tasted. That’s how it’s meant to work – because The Joy of the Lord is Your Strength!

Isn’t that just a beautiful thing? For some reason, churches are filled with Christians who don’t take the Word of God seriously. Listen up, the Bible Engagement Centre in the United States did some really serious research. They wanted to know what, if anything, a Christian could do in order to experience victory in their lives, to win the day as it were.

They surveyed several tens of thousands of people and asked them all the things that they do as an expression of their faith. They pray and go to church and sing worship songs and attend small groups, on and on, all that stuff, including reading the Bible. Several dozen different things.

And here’s what they discovered: The one thing, THE ONE THING, more than any other, that gives people the victory that they’re looking for, is engaging with God’s Word four times a week or more. Not three times, not two times – four times a week or more.

The head researcher said this: ‘The statistical correlation between reading your Bible four times a week or more, and living in victory, is stronger than the statistical correlation between smoking and lung cancer.’ Nothing else even came close. Go figure!

And you want to know WHY that is? Because in order to have victory, you need to have strength. And where do you get the strength that you need to overcome temptation, to defeat Satan, to persevere through trials, to love difficult people? Where do you actually get that? The Joy of the Lord is your Strength and the place where you get that is the living Word of the living God.

Just like these people of God under the leadership of Nehemiah and the tutelage of Ezra. Are you getting this? Do you see why God’s Word is so important? Do you see why the joy of the Lord is absolutely vital in your Christian walk? So … what are you waiting for?

Celebration as a Way of Life

When you think about it, no matter what happens to be going on in your life just at the moment, you actually have rather a lot of things worth celebrating.

Last week on the program we were looking at the time in Israel’s history when they had just returned from seventy years of slavery, in exile in Babylon, and they had done probably the most important thing they needed to do in re–establishing Jerusalem. They had built the massive protective wall around the city that they needed in order to be able to defend it against invasion.

But they were tired, they were exhausted and so a lot of the joy had gone out of their lives. That’s why their leader, Nehemiah, brought them back to God’s Word, because, as we saw, hearing God speak – when we let the Word of God really touch us deep inside – fills our hearts with joy.

I’m not just talking here about sitting through some boring sermon and letting your mind wander – we’ve all been there, right? I’m talking here, or in fact, God is talking here in the book of Nehemiah Chapter 8, back in the Old Testament, about letting His Word penetrate your heart.

That’s what, as we saw, happened to the Israelites, as they gathered to hear the scribe Ezra and his helpers preach God’s Word. They were moved to tears. Have you ever had someone say something so kind, so generous, so loving to you that you were just moved to tears? Well, that’s what was going on here when the Israelites were so deeply moved by the Word of God. Nehemiah chapter 8, verse 9:

And Nehemiah, who was the governor, and Ezra the priest and scribe, and the Levites who taught the people said to the people, ‘This day is holy to the Lord your God; do not mourn or weep.’ For all the people wept when they heard the words of the law.

And that’s the sort of preaching that you and I need to hear, that’s the sort of preaching that we need to listen to, the sort that’s anointed by God, the sort that is clearly God speaking to us through the preacher, not the dead, boring words that some people preach, but words of power. Many, many years later the Apostle Paul put it like this, 1 Corinthians chapter 2, verses 1 to 4, he said:

When I come to you, brothers and sisters, I don’t come proclaiming the mystery of God to you in lofty words or wisdom. For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ, and him crucified. And I came to you in weakness and in fear and in much trembling. My speech and my proclamation were not with plausible words of wisdom, but with a demonstration of the Spirit and of power, so that your faith might not rest on human wisdom but on the power of God.

Powerful, anointed, Spirit–filled proclamation of God’s Word, that’s what you and I need. So, they were deeply moved … moved to tears, and yet the next thing they were told by the Levites is a bit surprising. Let’s take another look, Nehemiah chapter 8, verse 10:

Then he said to them, ‘Go your way, eat the fat and drink the sweet wine and send portions of them to those for whom nothing has been prepared, for this day is holy to our Lord; and do not be grieved, for the joy of the Lord is your strength.’

In other words, go and celebrate what God has done for you. Go and celebrate the fact that He’s brought us back out of exile, out of slavery and helped us to build this amazing defensive wall against all the opposition that we were confronted by.

Go and celebrate the Word of God that you’ve just heard, His power, His majesty, His grace, His mercy. Go on, eat good food, drink good wine, share it with the poor, celebrate this day, for God is our God and we are His people. Go on, celebrate!

Celebration of God’s goodness and love and provision is so important. As you read the Old Testament, you discover that the Jewish calendar was full of celebrations and remembrances. And today, we continue with that theme, every time we participate in communion, remembering what Jesus did for us.

One of the reasons I think that there is so little joy in people’s lives, well two of the reasons really, are these:

Firstly, as I said before the break, we don’t take God’s Word to heart, we don’t listen to the amazing, powerful, loving words that God is speaking to us. That’s the first one. And the second one, is that we simply don’t celebrate enough the goodness of God in our lives. Not just at church on a Sunday, not just at Easter or Christmas – they’re great celebrations to be sure – but each and every day of our lives.

There’s a choice I made a long time ago. I decided to live my whole life as a celebration of what God has done for me. That doesn’t mean that every day is a fantastic, wonderful day, where the sun’s shining and the birds are singing. No, some days are dark and stormy and uncomfortable and hard and challenging and painful, right?

But when we celebrate God and all that He’s done for us, when we remember the goodness of God, on the good days and the bad ones, life changes. That happiness that’s deserted us in the dark times, is replaced by a joy that never leaves you, no matter how bad things get.

You see, our problem is that we stick all that spiritual God stuff over here in this box, a box that we open maybe on Sundays, or every now and then when we pray or read our Bibles, but a box that remains closed for much of the rest of the week. Have a listen to this Scripture, 1 Corinthians chapter 10, verse 31:

So, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do everything for the glory of God.

Everything about your life can be a celebration of God’s glory. And when we celebrate the good things that God has done for us through Jesus, in our lives, for real – that joy that we so desperately need, comes flooding back. And with the joy, comes the strength that we need to make it through.

Compare that to how you feel when you’re grumbling and complaining, right? Come on, the joy of the Lord really is your strength!

It would seem on the surface of things that joy and suffering are incompatible, and yet when God talks about joy, His joy in His Word (the Bible), more often than not He talks about joy in the midst of suffering. That, I think, is worthy of a closer look.

Joy Under Fire

In this world, the basic law of the jungle is that you have to work hard for everything you want – You work at it, you get it! It’s a performance-oriented world. Ok, every now and then someone may win the lottery and get something for nothing, but that’s pretty rare, and it’s the exception rather than the rule.

In my lifetime, I’ve only known one couple who has won a big prize in the lottery. The rest have all had to work hard for whatever they have. My hunch is, you (like me) are one of those, so when someone comes along with the idea that you can have something for nothing, well, that doesn’t sit too well with us. You know the old saying: If it sounds too good to be true, then it probably is.

Over the last couple of weeks on the programme, we have been taking a look at the joy of the Lord. Joy, after all, is something we all want to have in our lives, in our hearts. Man, if you could have joy overflowing out of your heart in any and every circumstance, wouldn’t that just be awesome? Although, it does sound just a bit too good to be true. Joy and suffering, after all, don’t go together; at least not in our mind-set, and this is what we’re going to chat about today on the programme. God’s joy can be His free gift to anyone who’s willing to accept it: Not the sense of happiness that waxes and wains as we go through circumstances, but a deep abiding sense of joy that never leaves you.

When a person accepts Jesus into their lives as their Saviour (the One through whom suffering God forgives) and as their Lord (the One whom they follow and live for) for the rest of their lives, something amazing happens. The promise of God is that the moment that you do that, the Holy Spirit (God Himself) comes to dwell in you. That’s exactly what Jesus said. Let’s have a listen. John chapter 14, verses 15-27:

’If you love me, you will keep my commandments. And I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Advocate to be with you forever. This is the Spirit of Truth, whom the world cannot receive because it neither sees him nor knows him, but you know him, because he abides with you and will be in you. I won’t leave you orphaned; I am coming to you. In a little while, the world will no longer see me, but you will see me; because I live, you also will live. And on that day, you will know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you. They who have my commandments and keep them are those who love me, and those who love me will be loved by my Father, and I will love them and reveal myself to them.’

Judas (not Iscariot) said to Him, ‘Lord, how is it that you will reveal yourself to us and not to the world?’

And Jesus answered him, ‘Those who love me will keep my Word, and my Father will love them, and we will come to them and make our home with them. Whoever does not love me does not keep my words, and the Word that you hear is not mine, but it is from the Father who sent me. I have said all these things to you while I am still with you, but the Advocate, the Holy Spirit whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you everything and remind you of all that I have said to you. Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. I don’t give to you as the world gives; don’t let your hearts be troubled, and do not let them be afraid.’

It’s a pretty amazing promise, and it’s true; that’s exactly what happens, and as the Holy Spirit starts to help us to grow and to change and to get closer to Jesus, it’s like that process bears fruit, and in fact that’s exactly what the Bible talks about – the fruit of the Spirit. Galatians chapter 5, verse 22:

The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.

There are nine things in that list, and one of them is joy. By the way, it’s closely linked to the other eight, but joy is a natural consequence of being filled with the Holy Spirit. It’s not something you have to go out there and get for yourself; it’s something that God gives to you through His very presence in you, and as we saw earlier in this series, the original Greek words for joy and for grace actually come from the same root; they’re actually almost identical. The idea is that joy is the free gift of God.

So that’s why God can talk about giving you joy amidst the trials and tribulations of life. In fact, think about it. If God is in the business of giving His children His joy, the time we most need that joy is when things aren’t going well. Right? That’s why you read things like this in the Bible. James chapter 1, verses 2-5:

My brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of any kind, consider it nothing but joy because you know that the testing of your faith produces endurance. And let endurance have its full effect, so that you may be mature and complete, lacking I nothing. And if any of you is lacking in wisdom, ask God, who gives to all generously and ungrudgingly, and it will be given to you.

Just think of how bizarre that sounds for a moment. Whenever you face trials of any kind, consider it nothing but joy. Another translation says, nothing but pure joy. See, that flies completely in the face of worldly wisdom, and yet God … He wants you to have joy in the midst of your trials, because there’s meaning there. He’s doing something there. He’s growing you and maturing you and making sure that as time goes by, you will be mature and complete, lacking in nothing. Who else does that for you? Without God, you’re out there suffering on your own, but with God, He’s right there with you, giving you His joy in the knowledge that He is refining your character and giving you the wherewithal to handle the things that this world throws at you. That’s how the apostle Paul can write in 2 Corinthians chapter 7, verse 4:

I am overjoyed in all our affliction.

God means to give us His joy when we’re under fire because then all of a sudden, we discover His strength. His joy is the path to His strength, right when and where we need it.

Robbed of Joy 1

Do you know, I don’t think there’s any sweeter combination than God’s peace and God’s joy. When I’m filled with the peace and the joy of the Lord, it doesn’t seem to matter what the world throws at me; I’m able to get through it. That doesn’t mean that we don’t all have some bad days mixed in with the good ones, but God loves you, and He wants to make a difference in your life, and one of the ways that He does that is to bless you with His free gift of joy; ‘cos when you’re filled with His joy, the joy of your salvation, the joy of knowing Jesus, the joy of knowing that He has everything in control and how He loves you and cares for you, well honestly, that makes you strong. That’s why the Bible says in Nehemiah 8:10 that the joy of the Lord is your strength, but as I said earlier, the devil doesn’t want you to be strong. He wants to rape and pillage your life and steal away all the good things that God’s given you and including your salvation. If he can get you to turn away and walk away from Jesus, then he’s won, and he can’t do that while you’re strong in the Lord, so how does he do it? Well, the devil’s read the Bible too. He knows that when you’re filled with God’s joy, then you’re strong, so why not rob you of God’s joy? Why not tempt you and test you, to see if he can get you to let go of the joy of the Lord, and become weak so that he can plunder your life and undermine your salvation?

This is important stuff we’re talking about today because that is exactly how Satan works. Have you ever wondered why it is, after you’ve had a great time of prayer with the Lord that’s lifted you up and filled you with His peace and joy, why is it that you walk out of that and straight into some sort of conflict or some sort of attack? It’s because the devil doesn’t want you to be filled with the joy of the Lord, that’s why.

I want to come back to one of my favourite passages today. It’s about the fruit of the Spirit, which includes joy. Galatians chapter 5, verse 22, but I want to read you the bit before that as well, so have a listen. We’re starting in Galatians chapter 5, beginning at verse 16:

Live by the Spirit, I say, and do not gratify the desires of the flesh. For what the flesh desires is opposed to the Spirit, and what the Spirit desires is opposed to the flesh, for these are opposed to one another to prevent you from doing what you want. But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not subject to the Law. Now the works of the flesh are obvious: Fornication, impurity, licentiousness, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, anger, quarrels, dissensions, factions, envy, drunkenness, carousing, and all those sorts of things. I’m warning you, as I warned you before: Those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. By contrast though, the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. There’s no law against those things, and those who belong to Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. If we live by the Spirit, let us also be guided by the Spirit. Let us not become conceited, competing with one another and envying one another. (Galatians 5:16-26)

So, what’s God saying here? Basically this: That sin robs you of the fruit of the Spirit. You go out there and deliberately disobey God by gratifying the desires of your flesh … and there’s a long list of those there, right? You live your life for yourself and not for God, and do you really expect to have the fruit of the Spirit in your life, I mean really? Do you really think that God’s love and His joy and His peace are going to be happening in your heart? That’s why the devil tempts you. He wants to slip under your guard, and get you involved in just a tiny little sin to start with. You know the sort that God probably won’t notice, or if He does, it’s only a little one and so He won’t worry too much about it? Yeah … you’ve got to be kidding. Right? As though there is any such thing as a small sin to a perfect and holy God. Let’s face it: Eating that piece of fruit from the tree that God says, ‘Don’t eat from this one’, could that have been such a big deal really? It is, after all, only a piece of fruit, and yet look at the terrible consequences of that one seemingly small innocuous sin on Adam and on Eve, and on the rest of humanity up to this day!

Listen up: There is one thing for certain. If we live our lives in sin (for ourselves, rather than in the Spirit for Jesus), we are not going to experience the joy of the Lord and the moment … the moment you lose God’s joy, you become weak and vulnerable. Now the enemy has a foothold in your life, and he’s going to exploit it to get what he wants. In Ephesians chapter 4, verse 27, we’re told not to make room for the devil, nor to give him a foothold. That’s why. The number one thing that robs you of God’s peace and His joy is sin – rebellion. Think about a child who rebels against its parents – a child who explicitly does what mum or dad told it not to do. How much peace and joy do you reckon is going to be going on around the dinner table tonight in that family when that child comes to the table unrepentant, continuing in its rebellion? Not a lot, right? I’ve been there as a kid, let me tell you. I’ve experienced some frosty receptions at the dinner table, and rightly so; that’s what rebellion gets you.

It’s the same with God. You want His joy? Then live your life for Him. You want His peace? Then stop fighting with Him, and all it takes to restore your fellowship with God and get His joy happening back in your heart is for you to go to Him, to admit your mistakes, and to ask for His forgiveness. Now, theologians will call that repentance; I call it just plain common sense. It’s not complicated; doesn’t need to have a big word attached to it … Sin will rob you of God’s joy each and every time. Did you get that? Every time, and it’s a downward spiral. That’s exactly what the enemy’s plan for you is: To alienate you from God, to get you while you’re weak, and to mall you, and to destroy you, but remember: The joy of the Lord is your strength. It’s not rocket science.

One of the things I know is that there are some people listening today who feel like they’re a million miles away from God because the devil has done just what I’ve been describing, and on top of everything, he may have filled your heart with the lie that things are so bad between you and God that He just doesn’t want you back anymore; it’s over between you and God, but I’m here to tell you that Jesus died for every sin of yours – past, present, and future, and by His blood, by His sacrifice, as long as you put your trust in Him, you are forgiven.

So the best way that I can think of using the next minute or so that we have left together is to pray with you, to bring you back into that delightful fellowship with Jesus.

Lord God, you know I’ve sinned. I am so ashamed. I’m so pained by the things that I’ve done, and yeah, the devil’s been plundering my life to the point where it feels like it’s over between You and me, but I’ve just been reminded of Your mercy; of Your grace; of Your love, through what Jesus did for me on that cross, and I’m coming to You in His name because I believe that Jesus did that for me, and I ask for Your forgiveness, in Jesus’ name. I don’t have any right to expect that, but I know that You purchased that right for me at Calvary. Lord, please forgive me. Please, fill me with Your Spirit and please, bring back Your joy and Your peace to me. I’m asking You today in Jesus’ name. Amen.

Let me tell you, if you prayed that prayer with me today, then God has heard you. God has pardoned you and right now, at this very moment, He’s wrapping His loving arms around you. Is that good news or what?

Robbed of Joy 2

As I travel round the country, indeed around the globe, I meet so many people who say that they believe in Jesus and yet, it doesn’t take me long to notice that they’re experiencing a chronic lack of joy, and can I tell you I’ve found myself in that place too from time to time. Now before the break, we saw that sin of any kind is going to disrupt our deep joy, and rob us of that joy and make us weak and susceptible to further attacks from the enemy – attacks that will most certainly come, so let’s be clear here. God’s plan is for you to be filled with joy. That’s what the Bible tells us over and over again. Romans chapter 15, verse 13:

May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that you may abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.

But one of the things that works so strongly against that joy and that peace and that hope in our lives is that chronic sin: A sin that becomes worse the more affluent our society becomes. It’s the sin of selfishness, and not just self-centredness, but being self-absorbed.

Awhile back on the programme, we spent some time looking at the way in which narcissism has gone from being a rarity to a plague, and the reason is that the more affluent we become, the more the advertising industry tells us that it’s all about you. You deserve it; you’re worth it; spend your money on yourself. We’re bombarded with this stuff day after day and eventually, it becomes part of our psyche. It sounds good, doesn’t it? Now add to that the smartphone phenomenon that puts the world in the palm of your hand, that makes you a publisher of selfies in social media, and you can see why so many people have become so self-absorbed. We live in the age of the selfie. They’re even making selfie sticks now so that you can put your mobile phone on the end of them, and take pictures of yourself. There’s a whole movement. In fact, it’s the zeitgeist of our times. It’s the selfie – me at the centre of the universe. That’s exactly what the Bible said was going to happen. 2 Timothy chapter 3, verses 2-5:

People will become lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boasters, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, inhuman, implacable, slanderers, profligates, brutes, haters of good, treacherous, reckless, swollen with conceit, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, holding to an outward form of Godliness but denying its power. Avoid them.

Do you like that? People will become lovers of themselves, and that leads to all that arrogance and boasting and all that long list of other things. We’ve been taught by the society in which we live to put ourselves at the centre of the universe, and the younger you are, the more you’ve been influenced by that. I at least grew up under parents who’d experienced the horrors and deprivation of World War Ii in Europe, and so built into their psyche was a sense of duty and sacrifice and serving. Some of that rubbed off on me, but we baby-boomers have passed something entirely different on to our children, and they on to their children. If conspicuous consumption and rampant consumerism had become more the norm, we’ve taught them that they’re so precious (which of course they are), but to the point where they really do think and believe, whole generations of them, that they are at the centre of the universe.

The problem with being self-absorbed though is that the rest of the world doesn’t see you as the centre of the universe, because they all think that that’s a position that belongs to them! So being self-absorbed ends up making you incredibly insecure. I know, because I used to be so incredibly worried about how I looked, how I sounded and how I succeeded, and this and that and … all that other stuff: What people thought of me, and that is a treadmill of self and insecurity that completely robs you of the joy of the Lord. Why? Because it’s the complete, one hundred and eighty degrees opposite of God’s way, God’s plan for your life.

Of course, there’s nothing new in any of this. It’s just that these days it’s happening in plague proportions. It’s a chronic disease that’s robbing so many of Jesus’ followers of the joy that He has ready and waiting for them. Let’s go back and take a look at Jesus’ advice and His teaching to two of His disciples who were suffering from this very problem. Mark chapter 10, verse 35:

Now James and John, the sons of Zebedee, came forward to him and said, ‘Teacher, we want You to do for us whatever we ask of you.

And he said to them, ‘What is it that you want me to do?’

And they said to him, ‘Grant us to sit one at Your right hand, and one at Your left in Your glory.’

But Jesus said to them, ‘You don’t know what you’re asking. Are you able to drink the cup that I drink or be baptised with the baptism that I am baptised with?’

They replied, ‘Of course we’re able.’

And Jesus said to them, ‘The cup that I drink, you will drink; and with the baptism with which I am baptised, you will be baptised, but to sit at My right hand or My left hand is not Mine to grant, but it’s for those for whom it has been prepared.’

When the other ten heard this, they began to get angry with James and John, so Jesus called them all together and said to them, ‘You know that amongst the Gentiles, those whom they recognise as their rulers lord it over them, and their great ones are tyrants over them, but it’s not so among you. Whoever wishes to become great amongst you must be your servant, and whoever wishes to be the first among you must become the slave of all. For the Son of Man came not to be served, but to serve, and to give His life as a ransom for many.’ (Mark 10: 35-45)

So there it is. If selfishness, self-absorption, self-centredness (the great paradigm of our times) is robbing you of the joy of the Lord, then there’s only one way to get it back. It’s this: To follow Jesus’ example – the Son of God, the Creator of the whole universe, who came to serve you and to die for you. Get a revelation today. You are not the centre of the universe, any more than I’m the centre of the universe, and the moment we get that into our heads, everything changes.

What if I told you that there was something really simple, so simple almost that you’d laugh at me, something simple that you can do to lay hold of the joy of the Lord in your life – anywhere, anytime, no matter how good or bad your circumstances might be? Would you be interested?

The Power of Gratitude

Last week on the program we were chatting about the degree to which self-centeredness, which is very common … it’s the zeitgeist of this century … is robbing people of the joy that God wants to give them.

It is in many respects, a natural human trait to want to put ourselves at the centre of the universe, and yet when we do, we end up living joyless lives. The question is, how do you turn that around? Well, interestingly the word ‘repent’, which sounds a bit old and stuffy to be sure, it literally means, to turn around.

The self–centred person spends most of his or her time, looking at all that they don’t have, and desiring more. And they set their lives on a course of getting more, not realising that it will cost them everything. The opposite of that, is looking at all that you have and all that you can give, and being thankful for those things.

And that’s what we’re going to be chatting about today on the program – thankfulness. Now, thankfulness, is one of the simplest things to do, even when you think you don’t have much to be thankful for.

I remember a time in my life a couple of decades ago, when I was really feeling that there was nothing to be thankful for. It was a dark time, it was a lonely time, and yet it was in that place that I first met Jesus. The only way I can describe it was – it was like a small light that shone all the more brightly in my heart, because of the inky blackness that I was surrounded with.

Whilst I’d never wish that time on my worst enemy, I shall remain ever thankful for that time in my life, because it was the beginning of a new life for me. That was hard to see back then, in fact, I couldn’t see it, but I remember the joy of coming to know Jesus and spending time with Him as though it were yesterday. And it remains to this day, one of the sweetest, most sublime things that has ever happened to me.

And as I look at all that’s happened to me during the time since then, good and bad, what I see as I look back is the goodness of God in my life. And that is something that I am so thankful for. He has blessed me with a good and wonderful wife, He has blessed me with a roof over my head.

Are there downsides to my life? Are there some things that I’d like to change, that if it were up to me, would be different? Of course there are, absolutely. But the question really is, which of those will I focus on? What I have, or what I don’t have? Which one of those two would you focus on?

The Apostle Paul was an amazing guy. Some people think of him as a saint, but if he were here, he’d tell you that he’s no more a saint than you or I and he would, according to God’s Word, be absolutely right. When he was close to the end of his journey, locked up in a dungeon on death row, he wrote these words – we looked at them a little earlier in this series but I want to come back to them here, because they speak so powerfully of the joy that thankfulness can bring into your heart. Have a listen, Philippians chapter 4, verses 4 to 6:

Rejoice in the Lord always; again I say, Rejoice. Let your gentleness be known to everyone. The Lord is near. Do not worry about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

He’s saying there exactly what we’ve been talking about this last little while on the program – that we should rejoice, in other words, revisit our joy – in every and all circumstances, even it would seem, right there on death row. But how do we do that?

Well, instead of worrying, instead of focussing on what we don’t have, let’s go to God with thanksgiving in our hearts and let Him know our needs. Not with grumbling or complaining or worrying or fear.

Those heart attitudes never get you anywhere with God, but with thanksgiving. By giving thanks – thank you God! – that’s a heart attitude. And when you go to God with that attitude in your heart, the promise of God is, through this scripture, that a peace that doesn’t make any amount of sense in our circumstances, a peace that surpasses all our understanding, will guard our hearts and our minds in Christ. Hey, that’s good! Peace right where we need it. And notice that our rejoicing is built on the foundation of thanksgiving.

So … you want to get joy back in your life? Then start thanking God for what you have. Now, I know what you’re thinking. That’s not easy when you’re on death row. That’s not easy when things are going tough. I agree, it’s not.

And so Paul goes on, in the very next breath, to tell us how to do that. Verses 8 and 9 of Philippians chapter 4 – here’s the ‘how’ of being thankful when life is tough:

Finally, beloved, whatever is true, whatever is honourable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is pleasing, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence and if there is anything worthy of praise, then think about those things. Keep on doing the things that you have learned from me and received from me and heard and seen in me, and the God of peace will be with you.

How do we get thankfulness happening in our hearts, when it’s hard? We think about all the good things that God has done and is doing. You know when you have something you’re worrying about or you’re afraid of, you kind of churn it over and over in your mind, again and again. And the more you do that, the more down in the dumps you become.

Well, in exactly the same way, Paul is saying, instead of thinking about that stuff, what you don’t have and all your problems and all your losses, think about what you do have, think about God’s goodness. Churn those good things over and over and over again in your mind, and what you’ll find is that you will want to start thanking God for them. And when you do that, you’re doing exactly what Paul said to do, you’re going to God with thanksgiving. And what happens when you do that, is that you’ll end up rejoicing in God’s goodness and experiencing His joy.

Is that complicated? Well no, actually it’s not. It’s just a habit that you and I can get into in order to experience God’s joy. Because we end up trusting God based on all the good things He’s done before and the worry and the fear … well they just disappear.

Do you see the power of God’s Word here? This is rather practical, rubber hits the road stuff. And the thing is that when we’re thankful, when we have God’s joy in our hearts as a result, life gets so much better.

It’s true you know! The joy of the Lord really is your strength. So … if you’re down in the dumps, if you’re worrying or you’re afraid, or you think life is unfair, if you can’t find anything to rejoice about, start thinking about God’s goodness in your life.

Start thinking words of thanksgiving to God – and based on all the faithfulness He’s shown you to date, believe in God, put your trust in Him again, for whatever it is that you’re going through today. And the peace of God which surpasses all understanding will really truly guard your heart and your mind in Christ Jesus! Now, think about it … what’s the alternative?

The alternative is continuing on, down in the dumps, not trusting God, not experiencing His joy, not having His peace. Why would you want to possibly do that for Pete’s sake?

Nineteenth century writer and theologian G.K Chesterton put it this way: I would maintain that thanks are the highest form of thought; and that gratitude is happiness doubled by wonder.

He’s absolutely right! The simplest thing that you and I can do to lay hold of God’s joy in our lives is simply to be thankful. Thankfulness is a heart attitude that sets us free from the burdens of today and releases us into the love and the faithfulness of God.

Don’t believe me? Just give it a spin …

The Power of Praise

Before the break we were chatting about the importance of thankfulness towards God, in laying hold of His joy, which is after all, our strength.

Thankfulness really is a heart attitude that lifts the burdens off your shoulders and fills you with the unspeakable joy that only comes from God. But there is something more that thankfulness does – it takes us to another, deeper level of gratitude. Thankfulness and gratitude are closely related, but they’re not quite the same thing.

Here’s how the nineteenth century Swiss philosopher and poet Henri–Frederic Amiel put it: Thankfulness is the beginning of gratitude. Gratitude is the completion of thankfulness. Thankfulness may consist merely of words. Gratitude is shown in actions.

I love that, because it’s true. When we go to God with thanksgiving, it changes our hearts, it changes to the point where we end up living in deep gratitude. And that gratitude, that new perspective, causes us to think differently, to act differently, to speak differently. It’s life-changing to the point where we are filled to overflowing with the joy of the Lord. You get to the point where you just can’t contain it anymore.

Methodist William Arthur Ward, back in the 20^th century put it like this: feeling gratitude and not expressing it is like wrapping a present and not giving it. That’s good isn’t it?

When we have that gratitude and joy welling up in our hearts we need to do something with that. We need to express it and that’s where praising God comes in. There is nothing so uplifting and empowering as laying down our lives before God and praising Him and worshipping Him.

And yet, as I said, praising God is not the easiest thing to do when things aren’t going well. That’s why beginning with thankfulness, focussing on all the good things that God has done for us and continues to do for us. Thanksgiving fills us with a joy and in rejoicing, the natural thing that we want to do next is to praise God.

Well, that’s a great theory lesson Berni, but is it possible? Is it feasible? Is it real? Not unreasonable questions, so to answer them, let’s go to the best place of all, the Bible – God’s Word. We’re going to pick up the story of the Apostle Paul and his helper Silas, who were out there, proclaiming the Good News of the risen Jesus. Remember, they were doing good, and then something bad, something really bad, happens to them. Acts chapter 16, verses 16 to 24:

One day, as we were going to the place of prayer, we met a slave-girl who had a spirit of divination and brought her owners a great deal of money by fortune-telling. While she followed Paul and us, she would cry out, ‘These men are slaves of the Most High God, who proclaim to you a way of salvation.’ She kept doing this for many days. But Paul was really annoyed, and so he turned and he said to the spirit, ‘I order you in the name of Jesus Christ to come out of her.’ And it came out of her that very hour.

But when her owners saw that their hope of making money was gone, they seized Paul and Silas and they dragged them into the marketplace before the authorities. When they had brought them before the magistrates, they said, ‘These men are disturbing our city; they are Jews, they are advocating customs that are not lawful for us as Romans to adopt or observe.’ The crowd joined in attacking them, and the magistrates had them stripped of their clothing and ordered them to be beaten with rods. After they had given them a severe flogging, they threw them into prison and ordered the jailer to keep them securely. Following these instructions, he put them in the innermost cell and fastened their feet in the stocks.

Well, things have never quite happened for me that way, but to be sure, I’ve experienced similar, if not quite so drastic things. There is nothing more disheartening than getting out there, serving God, honouring God, and then, finding that you’re punished, or you’re hurt, or you’re disadvantaged as a result.

Our most common response is to throw our hands up in the air, and look at God and say, Well Lord, that worked well? What were You thinking? Where were You when I needed You? Yeah I know, you’ve been there too, right?

But let’s take a look at how Paul and Silas responded – quite differently to how you or I might respond. We are going to continue on – Acts chapter 16, verses 25 to 34:

About midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the prisoners were listening to them. Suddenly there was an earthquake, so violent that the foundations of the prison were shaken; and immediately all the doors opened and everyone’s chains were unfastened.

When the jailer woke up and saw the prison doors wide open, he drew his sword and he was about to kill himself, since he supposed that the prisoners had escaped. But Paul shouted in a loud voice, ‘Do not harm yourself, for we are all here.’ The jailer called for lights, and rushing in, he fell down trembling before Paul and Silas. Then he brought them outside and said, ‘Sirs, what must I do to be saved?’ They answered, ‘Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved, you and your household.’ They spoke the word of the Lord to him and to all who were in his house.

At the same hour of the night he took them and washed their wounds; then he and his entire family were baptized without delay. He brought them up into the house and set food before them; and he and his entire household rejoiced that he had become a believer in God.

Paul and Silas, crazy guys that they were, responded to their beating and imprisonment by … by doing what? By grumbling, by complaining, by shaking their fists angrily at God, by swearing at God? No! They responded by praising God. They’d been beaten, they were sore, they had wounds! And they sat there in their chains, in the dungeon and they prayed and they sang hymns – so loud that everyone could hear them.

And then it happened – the power of God was unleashed in that place, the prisoners were set free, the guard and all his family came to know Jesus. And just quietly, the other prisoners were no doubt impacted by this amazing turn of events.

If only we understood the power, the incredible power of God that is unleashed in our lives, when we choose to praise Him in our affliction. Let me say it again – if only we understood the power, the incredible power of God that is unleashed in our lives, when we choose to praise Him in our affliction.

That’s why the Bible commands us to rejoice in the Lord always – again I say rejoice. That’s why the Bible commands us – Ephesians chapter 5, verse 20:

To give thanks always and for everything to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.

That’s why the Bible commands us, Psalm 150, verses 1 to 6, to:

Praise the Lord! Praise God in his sanctuary; praise him in his mighty heavens! Praise him for his mighty deeds; praise him according to his excellent greatness! Praise him with trumpet sound; praise him with lute and harp! Praise him with tambourine and dance; praise him with strings and pipe! Praise him with sounding cymbals; praise him with loud clashing cymbals! Let everyone that breathes praise the Lord!

Because you and I, we are more than conquerors through Him who loves us. God isn’t interested in making us happy for a short time. God wants to fill us with His abiding joy, forever. Every moment of every day – especially when we’re in chains, especially when we’ve being beaten, especially when we feel like caged animals.

It’s in that place that your God wants you to experience His joy – for the Joy of the Lord is your Strength. And it’s His strength that makes you not just a conqueror of your circumstances, but more than a conqueror.

And if that doesn’t make you want to shout HALLELUJAH! I just don’t know what does!

Joy – A Happening Thing

As our time together in this series draws to an end, I just want to finish with one important thing. I know there are still some people out there, perhaps you’re one of them, struggling to believe that God would actually fill YOU with His joy. Have a listen to what Jesus said, John chapter 16, verses 23 and 24:

Very truly, I tell you, if you ask anything of the Father in my name, he will give it to you. Until now you have not asked for anything in my name. Ask and you will receive, so that your joy may be complete.

In other words, Jesus wants to make your joy complete. Just stop and think about that for a minute. And what He’s saying here to His disciples who were about to go through great fear and great suffering is, just ask me and I’ll give it to you. One of the things that I’ve discovered is that when we take God at His Word, when we take Jesus at His Word, He actually honours that. Psalm 118, verse 24 says:

This is the day that the Lord has made, let us rejoice and be glad in it.

That’s not such a bad piece of advice now, is it? God made this day for you. None of it is any surprise to Him. He knows exactly what He’s doing. He is in your past and in your present and in your future – they’re all connected. He can and will make a difference for you right now, by bringing His joy into your life – so just ask Him.

And when your heart is overflowing with joy, at the same time as your eyes may be overflowing with tears, there is nothing sweeter than that, because it’s in that place that you discover in your own experience the grace and the faithfulness and the love of God.

So let me give you this Word, God’s Word for you today. Colossians chapter 1, verse 11:

May you be made strong with all the strength that comes from his glorious power, and may you be prepared to endure everything with patience, while joyfully giving thanks to the Father, who has enabled you to share in the inheritance of the saints in the light.

Because when you are filled with God’s joy, it transforms your life. You may have heard me say this before, but it’s so important I’m going to say it again. The biggest – THE BIGGEST – revelation that I had when coming to Christ is the buzz of serving God!

The buzz of being His servant – that’s something I don’t do because I’m a good guy, it’s something I’ve become addicted to through the joy of the Lord in my heart. The incredible satisfaction and contentment of using the gifts and abilities that God has given you to bless other people and to serve Him, and to enjoy your life – is something you can get so easily addicted to.

I stupidly spent the first thirty-six years of my life trying to live with me at the centre of the universe – and as hard as I tried, it didn’t work. I was tough and brave on the outside, but on the inside I was a quivering mass of insecurities, always wondering what people were thinking, what people were saying behind my back, and never really impacting anyone’s life for good.

Needless to say, there was no joy in my life. Then by God’s grace, He got a hold of my life and started to show me a different way. It wasn’t easy at first, and still, some days it’s not easy! But the more I walk along the dusty road of life with Jesus, and the more He shows me the opportunities He’s set before me to use my gifts in the lives of other people – which is what it means to be a servant – the more I’m enjoying my life. And that’s exactly the way it’s meant to be for all of us, including you.

So when we come to the same conclusion about Jesus and our lives that John the Baptist came to, then all of a sudden God’s joy abides in us more and more. What did John the Baptist say, when His disciples came to him worried that Jesus’ ministry was becoming more prominent than his own? John chapter 3, verse 30:

He must increase, but I must decrease.

What a great way of looking at life. What a great path to the joy that Jesus has ready and waiting for you! Be filled with the Joy of the Lord – for The Joy of the Lord is Your Strength!