Where is The Joy?

Where is the Joy? Where is the excitement?

Isaiah 12:3

What is joy? Perhaps it would be easier to start off with looking at what it is not.

Men have pursued joy in every avenue imaginable. Some have successfully found it while others have not. Perhaps it would be easier to describe where joy cannot be found:

• Not in Unbelief — Voltaire was an infidel of the most pronounced type. He wrote: “I wish I had never been born.”

• Not in Pleasure — Lord Byron lived a life of pleasure if anyone did. He wrote: “The worm, the canker, and grief are mine alone.”

• Not in Money — Jay Gould, the American millionaire, had plenty of that. When dying, he said: “I suppose I am the most miserable man on earth.”

• Not in Position and Fame — Lord Beaconsfield enjoyed more than his share of both. He wrote: “Youth is a mistake; manhood a struggle; old age a regret.”

• Not in Military Glory — Alexander the Great conquered the known world in his day. Having done so, he wept in his tent, before he said, “There are no more worlds to conquer.”

• Where then is real joy found? — The answer is simple, in Christ alone. The Bible Friend, Turning Point, May, 1993[i]

Isaiah tells us with JOY shall ye draw water from the well of salvation. This tells me something,

We need have to have joy to draw from the well of salvation

Do you come to church because it is time for church, or do you enjoy church?

Enthusiasm and joy are twins (one breeds the other)

- We live in a world of suppression to the things of God. We succumb to that fear of being thought a fanatic or extreme Paul prayed to be bold.

- If we would dare to give up our sophistication, there is no telling what God might do.

- That God would help us to have an overflowing blessing every now and then.

- Why is the excitement missing? Excitement and expectation run together.

[i]Galaxie Software: 10,000 Sermon Illustrations. Biblical Studies Press, 2002; 2002