Sermons from Lone
Rock Bible Church Getting That Joy Down in My Heart (Part II) 1. We need to
know what “joy” is (17:13) What Jesus wants, according to these
verses, is His people to know the fullness of His joy. He wants us to be genuinely
delighted with what genuinely delights Him.
When the apostle Paul found himself in
Athens in the 17th chapter of Acts, he is on Mars Hill, arguing with a couple
of different groups who represented interesting philosophies of yesteryear. Really their
belief systems are with us to this day. They were the Stoics and the Epicureans. The
Stoics were fatalists, they were mostly concerned with how they could they could best
respond to whatever life would throw at them and retain what they call a flat aspect, not
be to shook up by it. The Epicureans intrigue me and I
decided a long time ago, once I learned what the Epicureans were all about, if Jesus is
not raised from the dead, if there is no hope of life eternal, if the Bible is not true --
I will be an Epicurean because Epicureans were quite proactive in their pursuit of
gratification. That is what they did, but they were smart about it. The Epicureans
understood that even as our fleshly cravings will pull us in this or that direction, their
whole life’s goal was to respond to that draw, but not to excess. Because if you go
to excess in response to any sort of craving, sooner or later you realize it is coming
back on you and it is not fun any more. They wanted to optimize pleasure. They were truly
the “eat, drink and be merry for tomorrow we die” crowd. I thought -- if there is no hope in
Jesus, as Paul argued in I Corinthians 15, if there is no resurrection -- what in the
world are we doing here? I would be among the Epicureans. The Epicureans were responding
to natural, earthly desires. They were seeking satisfaction. They were seeking joy and
delight in gratifying their flesh. They tried everything. They were like Solomon, who
wrote Ecclesiastes. Solomon had the power and the wealth and obviously he had the time and
inclination to go after everything he could, to grab for gusto in every department of
life. If you read the book of Ecclesiastes you see how Solomon would go to each one of
these various wells and always come up empty. It just was not worth it. Vanity of vanity!
Fruitlessness of fruitlessness! In the last two verses of Ecclesiastes
he tips his hand and says, if all that life is about is pleasing me or trying to build my
own delightful world, we are not going to make it. The only answer, he says, lies in
fearing God and in keeping His commandments, because He is the One -- and this is key --
He is the One with whom we have to deal. He is the ultimate reality. He is the judge,
jury, and executioner. He is the One who establishes and enforces standards of truth,
untruth, morality, and immorality. It is all about Him. Yet human beings, all of us, of
all time, have naturally tried to find that delight, to find that joy in so many different
avenues of our lives. Those who are honest realize, with Solomon, that we go to the well
and we come up empty. Remember what Augustine said in the
fourth century – “Our hearts are restless until they find their rest in Thee.”
I remind you of what C.S. Lewis said, “If I find in myself a desire which no
experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for
another world.” He is right! And that is what Jesus is saying. That is how He is
praying. He knows His disciples are going to be tugged and pulled and headed into the same
turbulent world He had endured and had emerged victorious. He knew that His disciples and
every generation of disciples to come, including you and me, and any who would follow,
will be drawn, will be tempted, will be inclined to find our satisfaction in any one of a
number of different places. Jesus’ prayer is, “Lord, I want them to know My
joy. I want them tapped into eternal delight.” The psalmist in Psalm 11:16 says,
“ In Your presence is fullness of joy; In Your right hand there are pleasures
forever.” That is the promise to the believer in glory. So Jesus says, “Do you
want it? I want it for you.” That is His prayer to the Father. What does Jesus want?
He wants us to have His joy. He wants us to
be genuinely delighted in what genuinely delights Him. In order for that to occur,
however, He knows we need a few things. We will discuss the second set of three of those
few truths this morning. 1. We need to know what “joy”
is. Genuine delight in what genuinely delights God. Joy is not giddy happiness. 2. We need to know our roots. We need
to know that if we are born again our spiritual origin, our citizenship is above, not
here. We are strangers and pilgrims here. This is not our home. We need to know our roots. 3. We need to know our place. Our
place is in the world. Our place is shining a light in the world. Our place is salt. Our
place is light. There, in that arena, we learn to trust Him and when we trust Him we are
not trusting ourselves. Therefore, He gets the glory. He gets the credit. He deserves it
and we grow in faith. 4. We need to know His Word. Jesus prays to the Father: 17"Sanctify
them in the truth; Your word is truth. Sanctify them. Set them apart, Father.
Mark them out in Your truth. Your word is truth. Re-groove their thinking, Lord. Make them aware that they do indeed represent a
class apart. They are Mine and I want them to think in terms of truth. We need to know His word. We need to
remember this too -- where does God’s Word originate? Where did these ideas, these
timeless truths, come from? Who thought this all up and began initiating the contact? It
was all from God above. One of the reasons biblical truth is so difficult for people in
the world to swallow is because it does not originate here. It does not say “I’m
OK. You’re OK.” The Bible does not say, as it would if
it originated among people, “If you are a good person you can work your way to
heaven.” Nowhere does it say that. The Bible says you cannot work your way to heaven;
you cannot deserve heaven. Heaven must be purchased for you. God must initiate. He must
invade your life by His grace. You must surrender to Him, not “You must make it your
way.” The Bible originates from above. God says you need to know the Word. It originates at home. I appreciated
Larry sharing this morning about his time in Iraq. My guess is that the news that really
matters to a soldier in a distant land is what he finds in his hometown paper. What really
matters to one who may be physically here but whose heart is really there is what he is
going to read from his hometown paper that somebody sends. He can go through and discern
for himself and rejoice and grieve over what is going on back home, what is going on where
he originates, where people are whom he loves, where his values are established or his
roots are, where his origin is. While he is on a distant battlefield, his heart is at
home. That is very nearly where we are as
strangers and pilgrims on this earth. The apostle Paul likens the Christian in this world
to a soldier on the battlefield. Like the gospel singer Duane Friend used to sing, “It’s
a battlefield, brother, not a recreation room.” We frequently forget that. The best
news we receive is not the griping that comes in the chow line. It is what we learn from
home. May I suggest the goal for the
believer who wants to know the Word of God. We need to learn to see this life, this world
through what is called “chapter and verse” eyes. We need to wear the green
glasses, if you will, like the ones in the original Wizard of Oz story that were issued at
the emerald gate so that everything was green. We need to see what is going on in our
world, what is going on in our hearts, what is going on around us through God’s
prism, that is His Word, His truth. He will explain to us there about the human heart,
above the liabilities of this life, about the certainties of spiritual warfare and the
glory of his victory. It is all in His Word. We get confused when we listen to
conflicting messages. We become what James describes as a double minded person with one
foot in the boat and the other on the dock. Our goal is to have “chapter and verse”
eyes, a right perspective, that is, God’s perspective, on the issues that we face,
and we all face them. What does God know and say about our personal issues, our
relationships, our finances? What is God’s take on current events, on history past,
history current, on science? Do we see His hand in all of life? Are we learning to see the
world through “chapter and verse” eyes? Here is where shoe leather comes in,
where we really live. We all struggle with trust and having peace and knowing the joy, the
delight that genuinely delights God. I ask myself, I ask each of us here, what input
shapes our thinking? How are we doing and growing toward having “chapter and verse”
eyes? What input is shaping our thinking? Films? Magazines? Pop psychology? I’m OK;
you’re OK. Music? Lyrics? Our friends? Or the heresy that says God is just here for
you and He will do good things for you if you just behave yourself? What shapes our thinking? God’s
Word need to. I don’t think we can improve much on what the Navigators came up with
as a tremendous visual aid and word picture, many years ago, talking about bringing God’s
truth, God’s perspective, God’s control, God’s victory, God’s honor to
our lives. They liken our imbibing of the Scriptures to the human hand. There are five
ways, the Navigators have taught for generations now, to bring the word of God into our
hearts, to be transformed by the renewing of our minds. We can look at our hands and say, how
do we get God’s Word in? We hear it. We read it, We study it. We memorize it. And the
opposing thumb works with all the other four -- we meditate on it. Of course, the hand is
the tool of action as well. We hear it, read it, study it, memorize it, meditate on it and
over time God’s Word will regroove our brains, our thinking, and we will see the
world thorough “chapter and verse” eyes and as we do that we see God’s
working. We see God’s hand more clearly and we know more truly what genuinely
delights Him and it begins genuinely to delight us as well. There is a transformation that
takes place. 5. We need to know our marching
orders (17:18) 18"As You sent Me
into the world, I also have sent them into the world. Our marching orders are given to us in
verse 18. As anyone on a sports team or in a military situation will know, if there are no
orders, what we are left with is confusion, ultimately discouragement, and then defeat. I
find it fascinating that what Jesus did not tell his disciples was, “Hey fellows, OK,
I’m going to the cross, going to pay for your sins, going to get you the Spirit. Hang
out until you die. Oh, get together, remind yourself of what I have done, but just hang
out.” He did not do that. Another thing he did not do is when He saved us, He did not
just whisk us away. He did not, because He has marching orders for His people. He has a
purpose for us. What are our marching orders? Look at
verse 18 -- there is some hard line theology in verse 18. He is praying to the Father and
says, "As You sent Me into the world”. Isn’t that Christmas? We
learn this whole business of God generating a plan somewhere in the heavenlies, eons ago,
formulating a plan to redeem fallen mankind and set the whole cursed creation back on the
right course. That all came from heaven and it critically involved sending His Son to do
the job. What was Jesus sent to do? Interesting, isn’t it? He was sent to live a
perfect life. He was sent to die an atoning death so that He could make disciples, so that
He could purchase for God with His blood, people from every tribe and tongue and people
and nation. That was His point; that was why God sent Him -- to make disciples. Paying for
that discipleship certainly through the cross. Isn’t it interesting, then, when Jesus
came to earth among the first words He preached to His new disciples and the last are
remarkably similar. In Mark 1:17 He starts out His
ministry by saying, “Follow Me and I will make you fishers of men. Follow Me and you
shall catch men. We are going to make disciples.” Then upon His departure in Matthew
28:19, “Go into all the world and make disciples.” The disciples, those eleven
at that point, were to pick up the very baton Jesus had carried himself. He came to make
disciples sent by the Father. He sends His disciples to make more. That is part of the
process. When Saul of Tarsus was converted on the road to Damascus he hears this voice
from heaven. It is the risen Savior, saying “Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting my
church?” No, that’s not what He said. He said,“Why are you persecuting Me? The theology is because we share the
same Holy Spirit as our risen Lord. There is an inseparable identification between Jesus
and his representative body on earth by virtue of the Spirit. Nothing has changed that
way. That is theologically indisputable. As you sent Me, I am sending them. Jesus was a
missionary. So are we. That is part of what it is to be a Christian, part of what it is to
identify with Him. Missionary -- that sounds kind of
technical, sounds kind of daunting. What does He mean? Missionary to whom? I suggest to
two different groups. Missionary first of all to the group I call the obvious; the sphere
of influence into which God has placed each one of us. No two people have exactly the same
companions because we are the variable. Our sphere of influence -- that would be our
families. Are we making disciples in our homes? Our neighbors -- God has placed us in a
community somewhere -- are we concerned that our neighbors know the God of the universe?
What about our co-workers, our peers, the obvious group? The second group I would call the
special group. These are the ones for whom we are burdened. Brother Andy is burdened for
young people. He is going after them with the gospel. He is a missionary. Janet West is
burdened for the children of Mexico City. She is there now. She is responding to that
burden. There are the obvious and the special.
Not everyone is called to leave home but all are called to pray and to encourage and to
support. We need to know our marching orders. Ours are the same as those of Jesus. As the
Father sent Him to make disciples, He sends us. It is very clear in verse 18. 6. We need to know our Lord (17:19) I am not being trite and I am not
throwing out a cliché. We need to understand who He is and what He has done and grow in
our knowledge of Him. Verse 19 is a loaded verse. Jesus is praying to the Father: "For
their sakes I sanctify Myself, that they themselves also may be sanctified in truth. “Father, in their behalf. Not in
my own, but in their behalf, that of My people, My disciples, I Myself set Myself apart.”
Jesus says I am putting Myself in a special, unique place, station, in behalf of these
people in order that they might come to be in a settled position in truth. He is so concerned about you and me
and that we know His joy and that we share His footing, that we be with Him where He is. Set apart -- that is the operational
word here. Some translations say “consecrate.” That sounds rather sanctified.
That’s another word. How about “specially designate and remove.” Pick up
and place aside. He says I have done this for Myself. I have set Myself apart for this.”
We like the idea. We sanctify things. Roughly three and a half years ago we
took a symbolic shovel, a bunch of us gathered around and we turned dirt on a sanctified
2-½ acre parcel north of here. We prayed and said, “God, this is Yours. We want this
to be sanctified to your use.” We meant it and we mean it today. But our
sanctification efforts are going to fall short from time to time. There will be sins
connected with the people who frequent the place. This is a fallen world and we are human
folks. Our sanctification efforts are not always the greatest. During my time with the Rocky Mountain
Bible Mission I participated in the legal dissolution of two church properties in two
different counties in western Montana. You stand and look at these buildings and realize
that how some years ago a similar group of people stood there and turned dirt and said,
“We are going to sanctify this building.” In one case the preacher ran off with
the secretary and the other one ran off with the money and everything collapsed. We are
not very sanctified sometimes, are we? Today those buildings are private homes, not what
they were designated to be. We try to sanctify our business and
sometimes we do not make wise choices. We try to sanctify our marriage and we will fall
short from time to time in our child rearing or in our selves. We realize, if we are
honest, that we are tinged by sin and our sanctification efforts, when we launch them, are
likely to have a glitch or two along the way, perhaps even fall flat. I think it is wonderful though, when
Jesus does it. When He sanctifies it is a done thing. When He sanctifies, when He sets
Himself apart to get it done and to keep it special, it happens. He set Himself apart in
the incarnation. Think of this. We are coming into the Christmas season. I cannot help but
think in terms of incarnation, Baby Jesus lying in the manger. Baby Jesus was in utero for
9 months. He sanctified Himself to endure gestation and human birth and infancy and all.
He said I am going to do this thing. I am going to do it right. I am going to do it
without the taint of sin. I will not have a human father. I am doing it right. He sanctified Himself in incarnation.
All those limitations, we see the Son of God learning and growing, setting Himself aside,
taking up the role of learning and growing. He is growing in wisdom and stature and favor
with God and man. He learned through the things He suffered, Hebrews tells us. He
sanctified Himself, submitting to home and family. He made his bed every day, even if his
brothers and sisters did not. There were times, I would imagine,
that His parents made a poor choice. He submitted to them, knowing better. He was the
model child. I do not think it was tough because He designed that home and family and then
submitted Himself to it. He submitted to teaching the slow. He set Himself apart and said,
OK, I am going to do this. I am going to teach people who are not going to get it. I am
going to take them through the Scriptures, which I am responsible for authoring. I am
going to tell them of myself. I am going to teach them the truth. I am going to be
accurate and clear and practical and powerful with that -- and they are not going to get
it. I am going to go over and over and over with them and they are going to get it, but it
will be slow. He submits. He sets Himself apart in
submission to Jewish rule and to the Roman government. “Render to Caesar what is
Caesar’s.” It was an odd marriage
there culturally and politically. Along the way, fickle crowds who on one day say, “Hosanna,
we beseech thee, come on in Son of David.” They see Him as the arriving, conquering
Messiah, as correctly He was. A week later they are clamoring for His crucifixion. He set
Himself apart. He sanctified Himself to go through that, as well as betrayal and denial on
the part of His closest companions, and arrest and false accusation and mock trial and
endured abuse and the sentence and execution of a criminal’s cursed death.” I
sanctify Myself.” This is our Lord and Savior. When He set out to set Himself aside and get this job done, He knew what was coming and He endured it all so that you and I and many, many others would know Him and come to know the fullness of His joy. Come to delight genuinely in what genuinely delights Him. That is heaven. The fullness of that will be in glory. We are growing toward it now, not because we sanctified anything, but so that we might rest safely and joyfully in Him forever. "Scripture
taken from the NEW AMERICAN STANDARD BIBLE®, Jim Carlson 2005, Lone Rock Bible Church, Stevensville Montana, USA |