JOY: KEEPING THE TANK FULL

JOY: KEEPING THE TANK FULL Psalm 65:1-13 August 19, 2007 Given by: Pastor Rich Bersett [Index of Past Messages] Introduction There is a law on the books in Nicholas County, West Virginia, that no member of the clergy is allowed to tell jokes or humorous stories from the pulpit during a church service. What a funny law! Actually, I guess it is most un-funny. Makes you wonder what might have happened to prompt such a rule. I suppose many people think it is not very proper and religious when we laugh and enjoy ourselves. One of the great writers and poets of the past century, Czeslaw Milosz, has written that “It's madness to live without joy.” What a great text is Nehemiah 8:10: “The joy of the Lord is your strength!” Of course, Nehemiah spoke this to a worried, wearied nation facing severe aggravation from their enemies. The New Testament promises an even more astounding reality. Jesus came to make our joy complete! John 15:10-11 tells us, ““If you keep My commandments, you will abide in My love; just as I have kept My Father's commandments and abide in His love. These things I have spoken to you so that My joy may be in you, and that your joy may be made full..” And the apostle Paul goes another step, actually commanding Christians to have joy: “Rejoice, and again I say, rejoice!”.[webmasters note: Philippians 4:4] The great secret of the Christian life: we can experience joy because we have been given joy! And in that joy is our invulnerable strength. I’m not talking about happiness. Happiness depends on circumstances—things getting better or brighter. Joy is a profoundly spiritual condition—the deep-settled confidence that arrives when God is the living center of one’s life. If Nehemiah is right, and he certainly is, when he declares that “The joy of the Lord is our strength,” then Christian joy is the fuel on which our lives run. Focus on God I want to present four recommendations this morning that can keep your tank full. And I trust that when you receive and apply these principles, you’ll be more “tankful.” Oddly enough, these recommendations rise out of a text that really isn’t about joy. But as I read through this psalm recently these four surfaced as things we should be reminded to do that will in fact keep our joy tanks “topped off.” Read with me the first two verses: Praise awaits you, O God, in Zion; to you our vows will be fulfilled. O you who hear prayer, to you all men will come. One thing is clear. The author of this psalm is absolutely fixated on the Lord. He is about to refer to thirteen things that God is and God does in the thirteen verses of this psalm. And it makes him, and his countrymen in Israel, most ready to praise Him and to fulfill their vows toward Him. When we fix our attention on God, and decisively not on ourselves, we are healthier, more fulfilled human beings. While the world around us clamors for self-importance and self-esteem, thinking it will give them joy, they remain in a continual state of disappointment. Focusing on God releases people from the disgusting demandingness of themselves. We are never really happy when we are desperately serving ourselves. Blaise Pascal, one of the most brilliant minds of the 17th century, said, “There is a God shaped vacuum in the heart of every man which cannot be filled by any created thing, but only by God, the Creator, made known through Jesus” It is when we find and focus on God our equilibrium and human beings returns to us. No one goes to the Grand Canyon to increase his own self-esteem. This is not what happens in front of such an awesome demonstrations of God’s creative perfection. It isn’t WE who are at the center of our health and happiness. It is God, whose wonder inspires and transforms us from inside out. In my young adult days I was always plagued by a deep concern that I needed to figure out who I was, why I was in the world, what the meaning of life was. And it was oppressive to me. Then I met the Lord Jesus Christ in a profoundly personal way. Bit by bit, slowly, imperceptibly, He unburdened me. And it wasn’t by giving me deep esoteric wisdom or philosophic insight. It was through fellowship with God. Coming to know Him personally caused all my other issues to dry up and blow away. He didn’t GIVE me answers. I came to understand He IS my answer—the only one I’ll ever need. In that relationship is found genuine joy. You are released from the burden of being your own god, and working feverishly and furiously to satisfy yourself. May I suggest that we Christians need a reminder that God is all we need. And when we get low on fuel for living, re-focusing on Him is all we need. As Richard Foster put it, real joy comes from centering our lives on Him. I urge you who have resisted surrendering your lives to Christ, stop wasting your life with the relentless pursuit of happiness, the cheap and temporary substitute for joy, come to Him who is your all in all, and find joy. Remember His Salvation David was a man after God’s own heart, the Bible assures us. But he was by no means perfect. He was a sinner and fell short of God’s expectations regularly, just as we do. Psalm 51 is the recorded prayer of his repentance following one such fall, and there in verse 12 He pleads with God, Restore to me the joy of your salvation. And God did restore to him that joy. David and we help keep our joy-tanks filled when we remember and meditate on what God has done for us in Christ. Perhaps the healthiest thing we can do is to rehearse, within ourselves and before others. That is precisely what David is doing in the next two verses: When we were overwhelmed by sins, you atoned for our transgressions. Blessed is the man you choose and bring near to live in your courts! We are filled with the good things of you house, of your holy temple. Did you notice that phrase you atoned for our sins? All David knew religiously was the sacrificial system of atoning for the guilt of sins through regular and repeated animal sacrifices to God. As far as God’s chosen people were concerned, they atoned for sins through their sacrifices and offerings. But David acknowledges that GOD made atonement. We don’t know how much David understood of what he said, but this is a prophetic word about the coming of Jesus into the world to die for the sins of the world! Did he know that the Christ who would appear 1,500 years hence and His atoning sacrifice were prefigured in the Jewish sacrificial system? Did he have understanding as we New Testament believers now do that the once-for-all sacrifice of Jesus would fulfill, transcend and render obsolete that elaborate system of sacrifices? Probably not. Paul tells us that this was not made known to men in other generations as it has now been revealed. (Ephesians 3:5) The patriarchs and prophets and even the angels longed to look into these things and understand, but they couldn’t. But it’s not the look forward to the salvation of Christ that fills our joy tank, it is the looking back on our salvation that blesses us. Have you thought lately about the day when you first trusted Christ—the day you began to understand what God had done for you—the day you gratefully took God at His Word and received the salvation he offered you? To the degree you’ve not kept that precious and personal memory before your eyes, to that degree your tank is not as full as it can be. Oh, what a wonderful, wonderful day! Day I will never forget! After I’d wandered in darkness away, Jesus my Savior I met. O, what a tender compassionate Friend, He met the need of my heart, Shadows dispelling, with joy I am telling, He made all darkness depart. There is immeasurable value in remembering your salvation, Christian. It will refuel you, remind you, rekindle you, revive you and reignite you. Christian, don’t forget to remember! Never let a day go by that you don’t remind yourself that God has forgiven you of your sins and cancelled your death debt. Don’t for any reason skip the daily discipline of reading God’s Word and seeing once again the incredible grace of God that saved you. Make sure you never waste precious moments at the communion table by not recalling that salvation He bought for you at so great a cost. Take full advantage of every occasion to meditate, cogitate, deliberate and ruminate on the thrilling reality that because of His great love for you, God has adopted you as His own child. Never mindlessly miss an opportunity to share your redemption story with someone who needs to hear it. And you will live in joy! We cannot leave verse four until we see what else gave David such joy. Did you see it? He was chosen and forgiven, but, more than that, he said he was brought near to God to live in His courts. There he says he is filled with the good things of God’s house. The temple was the church of the old covenant people. He is glad to be part of God’s family, the church! When we are saved we are not left to wander aimlessly in a sin-wracked world. We are given a refuge! We are in God’s family! His household! More than that—one day soon we will live with Him in the place of no tears, no sorrow, no suffering and no death. Heaven is our destination and our perfect home forever. Our present prelude to that glory is the church. What’s so great about the church? Not much if you’re looking at it carnally! But I have to tell you, I was rooting around in Ephesians 1 the other day, and I saw something there about the church that positively startled me! Ephesians 1:22 extols Jesus as Lord over all things. And the Word there says God appointed Him to be head over everything for the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills everything in every way.!!! Brothers, let us perfect the joy He has given us by focusing and centering our lives on God, remembering our salvation and being thankful for the church! Wonder at His Works Look at verses 5-8:You answer us with awesome deeds of righteousness, O God our Savior, the hope of all the ends of the earth and of the farthest seas, who formed the mountains by your power, having armed yourself with strength, who stilled the roaring of the seas, the roaring of their waves, and the turmoil of the nations. Those living far away fear your wonders; where morning dawns and evening fades you call forth songs of joy. If you want to be filled with the fullness of joy in God, you must learn to wonder at His works. What David enumerates here--God’s awesome deeds, from creation to world-ruling power displays—is enough to take his, and our, breath away! While in Niger I was privileged to go out into the bush with Tim Eckert, the missionary we supported for years. We met a group of nomadic Woodabe people and Tim began to teach them from the book of Genesis. I thought it was an odd place to begin and was hoping he would soon get to the gospel and share Jesus with them. And he would have, but they got absolutely hung up on the creation account. As Tim spoke with them in their language, Fufulde, he would occasionally turn to me and fill me in on what he was teaching. They would hardly let him move on. With each day of creation, they interrupted and clarified, God made everything? He made the night and day? He created all the plants and animals? These men were incredulous at how powerful God is! They could hardly believe what they were hearing—yet they did most certainly believe it! Suddenly as I sat there on the dry Sahara sand under the only available tree, I suddenly realized they appreciated the creation story more than I ever had! There I was, bored and impatient, and they were worshiping God! I vowed then and there that I would try to always read the pages of scripture with such simple and straightforward faith. I wanted to find anew the place of awe before God. And the Lord has honored that vow. Ever since then I have experienced a freshness in my study of His character and His mighty works. More than that, I have come to a more profound honor toward God when I study the world around me. I was watching hummingbirds the other day. I was transfixed. The smallest of these little birds (3 inches long and weighing in at a tenth of an ounce) beat their wings up to 70 times a second! Their metabolism is astounding, their heartrate averages over a thousand beats per minute. They hover in mid-air, stationary in one place, and can fly backwards. They migrate hundreds of miles annually. Somebody is trying to tell me these incredible creatures evolved from other birds! Somebody’s crazy! I am slack-jawed, wide-eyed and ga-ga about what God has created in this marvelous little species. And then there are the millions of other kinds of creatures that were spoken into existence by God. Read your Bible and worship God. Then get out a good science book and worship God. Then look in the mirror and worship God. Then stare into space and worship your Creator. The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands. Day after day they pour forth speech; night after night they display knowledge. (Psalm 19:1-2) Do that and two things will happen: you will become lost in wonder and praise and you will find deep joy filling your heart. Celebrate His Fruitfulness David lastly turns from God’s creative power to His continuing care over the creation. I see him focusing on God’s provision. We are drawn by this psalm to a thoughtful and grateful admiration of the way God sustains us and all He has made. Read verses 9-13 in wonder with me. You care for the land and water it; you enrich it abundantly. The streams of God are filled with water to provide the people with grain, for so you have ordained it. You drench its furrows ad level its ridges; you soften it with showers and bless its crops. You crown the year with your bounty, and your carts overflow with abundance. The grasslands of the desert overflow; the hills are clothed with gladness. The meadows are covered with flocks and the valleys are mantled with grain; they shout for joy and sing. God has created everything, gracing every detail of the universe with unique design and purpose and He causes all of it to work together for the good of every creature. Wow! You are worthy, our Lord and God, to receive glory and honor and power, for you created all things, and by your will they were created and have their being. (Revelation 4:11) Of Jesus, Colossians 1:15-17 says: He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For by him all things were created, things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things were created by him and for him. He is before all things and in him all things hold together. Hebrews 1:3 summarizes: The Son is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of his being, sustaining all things by his powerful word. Brothers and sisters, there is no more appropriate thing than to fall on your face in worship of our God. And there is no more fulfilling, joy-producing thing than to humbly acknowledge Him, confessing we are His created beings. David said that the hills are clothed with gladness. Meadows, flocks, valleys and grain shout for joy and sing. If even the inanimate members of God’s creation know to praise Him, how much more incumbent on us, who have the high-functioning brains and the image of God stamped into us, is it to glorify God? Don’t lose sight of the fruitfulness of all that God makes and sustains. Everything David identifies in this psalm eventually blesses us human beings: the ground, both hills and valleys, the produce of the land and the animals for food, even the plants that generate life-giving oxygen for us. He bears fruit to bless us. But the Bible gives witness to an even more important fruit bearing that is of crucial importance to God. That is the fruit He wants to bear in us and through us. The fruit of the Spirit is the product of God’s extreme grace—He has chosen to live in His people by His Spirit. His powerful presence in us purposes to bring about change in our lives that will glorify Him. By the way number two in the listing of the fruit of the Spirit is what? Love… JOY… And He wills to bear fruit through us. He goes so far as to describe it as “fruit that lasts” in John 15. I am the vine, you are the braches. If a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing. If anyone does not remain in me, he is like a branch that is thrown away and withers; such branches are picked up, thown into the fire and burned. If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be given you. This is to my Father’s glory, that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples. . . You did not choose me, but I chose you to go and bear fruit—fruit that will last. (John 15:5-8, 16) By the way, right smack in the middle of that teaching, Jesus also said, I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete. (John 15:11) When we center on Him, gratefully remembering His salvation; when we give ourselves over to wonder and awe for His creation and power; and when we cooperate with His Spirit to bear fruit in our lives and through our lives, we may be certain that He will fill us with His incomparable joy.   [Back to Top]