Hope Church LV Sermons
Reasons to Rejoice
There is a biblical reality that is talked about both in the Old Testament of Scripture and in the New Testament of Scripture. This is a reality that those disciples who walked closest to Jesus while He was on earth experienced and their lives were changed because of it. This is a reality that the Apostle Paul who wrote two-thirds of the New Testament often prayed for both for Himself and for those that He cared about. This is a reality that large sections of Scripture are dedicated to explaining. This is a reality that Jesus when He was on earth taught and shared about. Here's the reality that Jesus followers at all times can experience joy. Regardless of what's around us, what's happening to us, Jesus followers at all times can experience joy. The book of Psalms tells us that our lips should shout for joy when we sing praises to God. Luke 24 tells us that the disciples, after worshiping Jesus, returned to Jerusalem filled with great joy. First Thessalonians 5 simply says, "Rejoice always." And Paul wrote in Philippians chapter 4 under house arrest, "Rejoice in the Lord always." Again, I say, "Rejoice." And I've read those Scriptures hundreds of times. But here's what I found is true in my life after 27 years on the planet, that there is a gap between what the Bible teaches me about joy and then what I honestly experience and truly live in every moment of every day. There's a gap and I'm not always experiencing everything that the Bible talks about in terms of joy that is given from God. Maybe you can relate. Now I have my good moments. I have moments when things are going well and I really feel like, man, I'm experiencing the joy of God right now, but there are other moments. And unfortunately, it's more often than not. When I don't, maybe you can relate with that. And because of that, we felt as a teaching team here at Hope that it was appropriate that we take this first weekend of 2010 and lay out some biblical principles about what God says about joy, that will hopefully serve as an anchor for us as we enter into a brand new year. Because I know everyone in the room has high expectations for this next year. We want it to be exciting. We want it to be good. We want it to be beneficial. But honestly, we really don't know what's going to happen this year. But we're going to look at a biblical principle this morning that if we will embrace it and apply it to our lives, I believe we can keep a consistent attitude and perspective in terms of how we relate to God and how we experience His joy. But before we talk about that principle, I think it's important, first of all, that we understand the big mistake that all of us make. Because we all really have one big reason why we do not consistently experience the joy of God. And it fleshes out a little bit different for everybody. But in essence, the big mistake that we make is the same. And I don't just want to share it with you. I want to show it to you. And I took the liberty of putting what's in my heart and my brain and probably what's in your heart and your brain on paper for us this morning. I believe every single person in the room has one of these. You have a list. And here's what's on that list. Things that are very, very important to you. And you think sometimes that if everything will just be in the good column on this list, that you'll experience joy. And we have things on there like our standard of living. Are we comfortable? Are we having great experiences in life? Things like our relationships, our friends, our neighbors, our health. Was the news from the doctor good? The news from the doctor bad? Are we on the right diet? Are we exercising enough? Things like our family? How's our marriage? How's our children? How are our parents? Our brothers? Our sisters? How's our finances? Are we saving enough? Are we budgeting right? Are we living off the right amount of money? Things like our career? How's our job? Are we on the way towards promotion or demotion? Are we using our time and our talent in the right way? And because all of us have this list, we naturally fall into a trap. Here's the trap. We begin to build our schedule and everything else around getting as many things on this list in the good column as we possibly can. And without us even knowing it, this list and everything on this list being in the good column becomes the consuming passion of our life. I'm sure you can relate with that. I do it all the time at least every other day. I'm walking through and evaluating the things on this list. And you may have a few different things, but I think you would agree all the things on here are important. And we operate evaluating are these things in my life good or are these things in my life bad? And if I'm being honest with you this morning, when the majority of these things on this list are good, guess what? My attitude, my perspective, and even my worship of God are good. But very often, when the majority of the things on these list is bad, guess what? My attitude is bad. My perspective is distorted. And even my worship of God is impacted in a negative way. And all of us have this list in some way, shape, or form. And we fall into the lie of the enemy that if these things will just be good, then we'll experience joy. If we can just keep over 50% of these things in the good column, we'll experience what we're really supposed to experience. And then we can, as Paul said, rejoice always. But until then, it's impossible. I believe one of the greatest things the enemy uses to hinder and discourage us in terms of our attitude, perspective, and worship of God is our circumstances. And we fall trapped to it time and time and time again, and rather than having joy that is based on God, we have joy that is based off of a list. And we walk through these things every single day. And if there's enough good, then we're happy. But if not, then it's no good. And our attitude, perspective, and worship of God suffer because of it. And I operate off this on a daily basis, and I'm sure you do too, and none of these are bad things. They're just not the source of joy. And I read the scriptures, like I read earlier, and I asked myself, what is it that they understood? What did the Apostle Paul understand where he could say, rejoice always that I need to understand, and you need to understand so that this year, I can experience joy, regardless of what the list says. We're going to look at a passage of Scripture this morning, and we're going to pull a principle out that I hope will help us gain clarity in terms of what God desires for us in the area of joy. So if you have your Bible, I want you to turn to a book in the Old Testament. It's the book of Habakkuk. And if you don't know where that is, there is no problem with looking in the table of contents. Nothing wrong with that. That's what it's there for. In my Bible, it is page 768. It's one of the minor prophets in the Old Testament. It's kind of towards the back of the Old Testament. So just find that there. And we're going to be in three verses in this great book this morning, the book of Habakkuk. I'll give everybody a chance to turn. Some of us haven't been there in a while, if ever. Habakkuk was a guy. He was a prophet to the nation of Judah. Here's what that means. That means he spoke on behalf of God to this nation. And God had given him a preview of what was in the very, very near future for the nation of Judah. And guess what? It wasn't good. The Babylonians were about to come in and totally wipe out the nation of Judah, destroy their economy, destroy everything that they knew as normal, take people into captivity, people would die. Everything that they knew was about to change in a negative way. And in the first chapter of Habakkuk, there's only three chapters. The first chapter, Habakkuk saying, "God, I don't understand." Why don't you do something, save your people, please intervene in this situation. Don't let war happen between the Babylonians and the nation of Judah. And they dialogue. Then in chapter two, God speaks in Habakkuk's life and clarify some things for him. And then chapter three is really just a prayer from Habakkuk's heart to God's heart. And we're going to read this morning three verses of that prayer. And I first want to read verse 17, and I'm going to talk about it for a second, and then we're going to look at the next two verses. We're going to pull a principle out of this that is absolutely life-changing. So let's look at verse 17. Habakkuk is going to clarify for us exactly how bad the circumstances that are coming really are going to be. It's what he says in verse 17, "Though the fig tree should not blossom, and there be no fruit on the vines, though the yields of the olive should fail, and the fields produce no food, though the flock should be cut off from the fold, and there be no cattle in the stalls." What does that mean? Well, I want to walk very quickly through each of these things he mentions, just kind of paint for you a picture of what was taking place. The first thing he talks about in verse 17 are figs, and figs were used to make cakes. It was really a delicacy. It wasn't essential to their life, but it was just a good thing, kind of like Starbucks. We don't have to have it, but it sure is a good thing. That's what figs were, and those were about to be gone. The next thing he says is there'll be no fruit on the vines, and primarily he's talking about grapes, because grapes were used to make drink for the people in the nation of Judah, and those were about to be gone, and they wouldn't have that anymore. The next thing he mentions is olives. olives were used to make oil, which was used for several things. One thing it was used for was cooking. It was used most of the time when they would cook something, oil would be a part of it, kind of like for us, as we use butter or margarine today, but they also used oil to light and to heat their homes, and that resource was about to be taken away. The next thing he says is there aren't going to be any food anymore. Their grain and barley and wheat was used as the primary substance for their nutrition. It was about to be gone, and also any other form of food that they may have grown in the fields, and we're not going to have anymore, which literally meant people were going to starve to death. Families were going to starve to death because there was no food. The next thing he says, he talks about the flocks, specifically flocks of sheep. You see, in this day sheep were groomed from a young age to grow and become big, and then they would sell those sheep for money, and that was a big form of their income in that day, so that was about to be gone, and they used sheep for wool, of course. They would cut the hair off and they would make coats or whatever they would need to to stay warm. The last thing he mentions here is cattle, and in some instances, cattle was used for meat, but more so it was used to plow the fields and other labor that required heavy moving or heavy lifting. They would use cattle for that purpose. It's a pretty bad picture. I want to show you Habakkuk's list if he had one. We've all looked at our things in our list, and you've probably evaluated in your mind where you would fall right now in all those things, but for Habakkuk, it was all bad. There was nothing in the green, everything. His standard of living, his relationships, his help, his family, his finances, his career were all headed downhill, and that's what he communicates to us in verse 17, that it's all bad. Everything's in the bad column. All the big pieces of his life were negative. Maybe you've had some of those moments where everything around you is just bad. Well, that's exactly where Habakkuk is living, and then in verse 18 and 19, we're going to hear his response to all this. To the reality that war is about to begin, the Babylonians are coming to wipe out this nation, and everything he knows to be normal for him, for his family, and for his people is about to change. So look with me in verse 18 and 19. He says, "Yet, or even though I will exalt in the Lord, I will rejoice in the God of my salvation, the Lord God is my strength, and he has made my feet like Heinz feet and makes me walk on my high places." And then because this was set to music later for the choir director on my string instruments. There's a principle in these three verses I want to share with you that I hope will help shape your attitude, your perspective, and your worship of God in this next year. And here's the principle. When there is no apparent reason to rejoice, we can still rejoice in the Lord. When there is no apparent reason for joy, when there's nothing we can see that just makes us say, "I want to be joyful." When everything around us doesn't come across as good or profitable, we can still, as children of God, rejoice in the Lord. A back up here could have responded in a lot of different ways. He could have said, "Okay God, forget you. I'm going to figure this thing out of my own." Or, "God, I'm going to devise another plan." Or, "God, I don't believe in your love anymore. God, my faith means nothing to me." He could have said that, but he didn't. He said, "God, when you strip it all away, when you take everything that's on my list that I think will produce for me a good life, when you take all that away, I'm still good and you're still enough." And that's very important for us to understand, because naturally, all of us gravitate towards that which is negative. No matter what context of life we're in, we gravitate towards the negative. And so it's important that even when everything looks negative, we can still rejoice in the Lord. There is still a reason to rejoice. So this morning, out of this principle, I want to give you three reasons while we can rejoice, regardless of what we can see or what we can't see, regardless of how we feel or what's going on around us. I want to give you three reasons that we should erupt with the joy in the Lord out of this text in Habakkah. And here's the first reason. We can rejoice because of who He is. We can rejoice because of who He is. Look at the first part of verse 18. He says, "Yet I will exalt in the Lord." The word "exalt" simply means to erupt inwardly with joy, regardless of circumstances, but specifically because of the character of God. It means to be joyful, to be filled with joy. Habakkah says, "I will be filled with joy regardless of everything else." A statement of application for us is this. Jesus followers can find joy in the reality that God is on the throne and His character is eternally consistent. As Jesus followers, we can find great joy, reason for rejoicing because our God is on the throne. And His character is eternally consistent. Because you see, when you base your joy off your circumstances or off your list, guess what happens? It's not consistent. Because one day, my relationships with my friends are great, other days they're not. There are some days when my finances are great, but there are some days where there's not. And if my joy is dependent on these things, then my joy is ever-changing. But when my joy is based off of a God who's consistent, and whose character is consistent, guess what? My joy is continuous and it doesn't change. That is very, very important for us to understand at this stage of our country and in our city because you see, God is not just the reflection of joy. He's the perfection of joy. God is the most joyous being in existence. And when we look to Him to fill us with joy, He does, and He gives us something supernatural. I love this verse in Psalms, chapter 9, verse 10. It says, "And those who know your name," that word name means character. "They know who you are. They trust you. They will put their trust in you for you, O Lord, have not forsaken those who seek you." The Bible says, "The more you know of God, the more you're going to trust Him. And the more you're going to find joy, and specifically who He is." And to bring clarity to this reason, I want to give you a couple of comforting aspects about the character of God. I don't know how much you have studied the attributes of this great God that we serve, but it's fascinating when you begin to explore all that He is and all that makes up His character. I just want to give you a couple this morning, two comforting aspects of His character. First of all, God is sovereign. A part of His character is the fact that He is a sovereign God. The word sovereign is defined as this, having supreme rank, power, and authority. And you can actually see the definition of sovereign in the word. If you look at the second half of the word, it is the word rain. That's what it means to be sovereign. That you reign over every creature, over every kingdom, and you are in absolute control. And God is sovereign. One of the most freeing realities in Christianity is the fact that I don't have to be in control because God is in control. I'm going to say that again. One of the most freeing life-changing realities is that I don't have to be in control, and I don't have to spend every moment of every day trying to get everything on my list in the good column and coming up with a plan and the time and the way and the process to do that. I don't have to spend my life trying to be in control. Why? Because God's in control and God is sovereign. And in the midst of a day that we're living in, it is comforting to know that as a part of the character of this great God is sovereignty. And He's in control. Because all of us, if you follow Jesus for any amount of time, have those moments when you say, "God, I don't understand." God, I'm frustrated. God, I don't see where this is going. And one of the only things you can cling to in those moments and that I can cling to in those moments is the fact that He's sovereign. And ultimately, He's in control. Charles Swindall said it this way, "Good times and hard times, happiness and hardship, gain and loss, promotion and demotion, joy and sorrow, ecstasy and tragedy, confusion and clarity, His sovereignty covers it all." God and God alone is in full control. We can rejoice in who He is because who He is is sovereign and He's in control. But another comforting aspect of God's character is the fact that He's faithful. The word faithful is defined as true to one's word or one's promises. Everything that God has ever said about you or said about Himself, He will stay faithful to. He's faithful to the center. He's faithful in temptation. He's faithful even in struggle. He says, "If you call on me, I'll answer you. If you confess, I'll forgive. If you seek me, you will find me." He promises us those things because He is faithful and He'll come through. A.W. Tozer said, "You can be sure that God will always be faithful. This faithful God who never broke a promise, never violated a covenant, who never said one thing and meant another, who never overlooked anything or forgot anything, is the Father of our Lord Jesus and the God of the gospel." A part of His character that should comfort us is the fact that He is faithful and we can find great joy in that because that will never ever change. We can rejoice in who He is. When I was 23 years old, I moved to Las Vegas and a lot of people where I'm from in Tennessee have never been to Las Vegas. And so all they think that exists here is the strip in Las Vegas Boulevard. And then that's all they want to talk about when you get here. You're on the phone. Well, how's the strip? How are things going? Are you living at Caesar's Palace? Is that right? And then when they come to visit you, guess where they want to go down there to Las Vegas Boulevard on the strip? That's all they want to do. That's all they want to see. And be honest, when I first moved here, that was me. I was blown away by the size of the buildings and the creativity and the magnitude of those structures. I would just drive down the street and see it from a distance and almost have a wreck because I'm just fixed on that thing looking at all those buildings and all those structures. But then I lived here for a little while. And I can't tell you the last time I went down to Las Vegas Boulevard. You just don't think about it anymore. And at one point, what was so magnificent and so amazing to me now is just kind of... It's cool. And I'm afraid that for a lot of Jesus followers, that's true in the context of their relationship with God. That there was a moment in your life and you stood in awe and in wonder of who God is. And you found great joy in the fact that you could worship Him, that He was in control, that He was consistent. His character was a good thing. And you were in wonder and awe about that, but then some time passed. And you lost the wonder. And you lost the awe. And you lost the reverence and the great joy that is found in just knowing who He is. But church, if we're ever going to find joy in our circumstances, it must start by us understanding there's a reason to rejoice because of who He is. And a part of that is us just simply standing in awe and in wonder of Him. And no, we don't understand everything. No, it doesn't all make sense, but He is God and we can trust Him. And we can find joy in who He is. Here's another reason, the second reason why I believe out of this text, we can rejoice. We can rejoice in what He has done. The second part of verse 18, Habakkukrites, I will rejoice in the God of my salvation. I will rejoice in the God of my salvation. Here's how that applies to us. Jesus followers can find joy in the reality that God has given us eternal life through His Son. We can find joy in that. And honestly, for me and probably for you, this is one of those things I just kind of blow by a lot of times and I neglect. But do you realize that if God never blessed you or me in another way, if there was never another provision given to us on His behalf, He has still demonstrated to us the greatest act of love that we will ever experience for all eternity. If He did nothing else, He has already demonstrated His love in such a way that it blows any other form of love out of the water. We can rejoice in what He's done in our lives because He did something for us. We could never, ever do for ourselves. I love the way the Psalmist puts it in Psalm 40. I love the imagery of this. He says, "I waited patiently for the Lord. He turned to me and He heard my cry. He lifted me out of the slimy pit, out of the mud and of the mire. He set my feet on a rock and gave me a firm place to stand. He put a new song in my mouth, a hymn of praise to our God." We should find joy in that because there was a point in time for every single person. We were stuck in a dark and nasty pit of death and there was nothing we could do about it. But God in His love decided that if we would put our faith in His Son Jesus, He would lift us out of that pit of death, that slimy mud and mire and put our feet on something that was solid on a rock and give us salvation. And then the Bible says, "He sent us on the way of everlasting life and put a new song in our mouth." And that song is a song of rejoicing. And despite what your list may look like, it doesn't take the song out. Regardless of what circumstances you're operating in, how bad or how good things are, that doesn't change the tune and the level of the song of rejoicing that God put in your heart when He saved you. And it is pivotal for us as we live in good times and bad times to understand the reality that we can forever and eternally rejoice in what He has done in us. Because the list can never change it. What people say can never change it. The economy can never change what He's done to rescue us. And He gave us a song of rejoicing. We can find great joy in that. We can find joy in who He is and in what He's done. But the third reason that we can rejoice, we can rejoice in what He continues to do. We can rejoice in what He continues to do. Look at verse 19. He says, "The Lord God is my strength, and He has made my feet like Heinz feet and makes me walk on my high places." That word strength that's in the present tense, meaning God is continually my strength. And this applies to us this way. Jesus follows, can find joy in the reality that God is continuously at work in and through our lives. Forget your emotions, forget what the news is saying, forget what you'd understand, God's at work. He says that He who began the work in you, meaning God, will continue that work until the day of completion, whether we can feel it or not, God's at work. And Habakkuk says, "Even though all this is going on, I can rejoice, because God is continually funneling His strength into me, and I'm able to stand on a stable way." That's what it means by Heinz feet. I'm able to stand on a firm foundation, and there's peace, and there's victory, because God is at work in my life. And I know we all go through seasons where the enemy just jumps on us about this idea. And the enemy makes us think, God's not at work in your life. You're just a failure. You've let this person down and this person down and this person down. God's not at work in your life. For other people, He makes you doubt. He says, you haven't spent time with God or seen anything from God a long time. You don't even have a relationship with God. He makes you doubt. For others of us, He makes us rebel. He says, God's not around. Don't do what you want to do. Don't jump into the deepest, darkest sin you can find so that you can forget about how bad your life is, and He makes you rebel. Don't fall for that lie. God's at work. Charles Stanley said it this way. God's silence is in no way indicative of His activity or involvement in our lives. The Bible says, we're receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, meaning nothing will throw God's plan off course. Nothing can take Him off the throne or offset His purposes. God is at work in the lives of His children and somehow, some way by His miraculous power, He is funneling everything for our good and His glory. We can rejoice in what He is continually doing in and through our lives. And most of the time, when we can't see His activity in our lives, is because we've led our list, mess up our attitude, our perspective, and our worship of God. And some of you may be there right now. Your list is hauling the bad call on what Habakkuk's was and you've made the wrong decision and now all you're doing is having a bad attitude, bad perspective, and the worship of God is not on your radar screen. And for you, I want to give you three questions very quickly as we finish, hopefully to help align your attitude and your perspective back with what scripture teaches it should be. And here's the first question I want you to ask. If you're at a place in your life and you're like, I don't know what's going on. I don't understand. I'm confused. I'm frustrated. I don't know what to do. Ask these three questions. First question, God, what are you trying to teach me? When I'm in this situation, it don't make sense. What are you trying to teach me in this? Can you look for His activity? Second question, God, who are you trying to show me? Who have you brought into my life as a result of the situation I'm walking in that I have never had contact with otherwise if it wasn't for this circumstance? God, show me who are you trying to show me in this situation and look for His activity and how He is continuously at work in your life? Third question, God, where are you trying to leave me? What door are you opening? What is taking place now that is somehow leading me in a direction as a result of these circumstances and look for God's activity? He's always at work. He is working in your life and through your life. And sometimes we just need to stop and align our attitude and our perspective with Him. And that helps a lot. And it puts us on a track of recognizing His activity. If you hear this morning and you're basing your joy off of the list, stop. You're wasting your time. It is possible for Jesus followers to consistently experience joy from God, but it's not based off of the list. It's based off of Him. And even when there is no visible reason around us, while we should find joy, we can still find it. We can still rejoice in the Lord. And who He is, what He's done and what He is continuing to do. For whatever reason, the past couple of weeks have been very, very difficult for me. There's been a lot of nights where I just didn't sleep, a lot of nights where I just kind of gripped my fist and was frustrated and just kind of said, "Why in the world is this happening now?" And even for me, because I struggle with this just as much as you struggle with this, I had to say, "You know what? My joy is not based off of my standard of living relationships, help family finances, career, or anything else you put on that list. My joy, my rejoicing, my excitement about life is based off of who this great God is, how He has rescued me, and how He is continually at work in my life." Let's pray. I don't know for you what your family is walking in right now. I know we are living in a time that is very, very difficult. Some of you, quite possibly, have had a lot of things stripped away from you. And maybe it's good for you just for these next few moments to just stop and realign. Realign your attitude, realign your perspective, adjust your heart to a place where you can really worship God in such a way that honors Him. So we're going to take a few minutes as a church and just respond to this truth this morning. And it gives all of us just a chance to really think about us, to think about our heart, and what we're living in right now, to think about the list that you and I have made over and over and over again and try to find joy in those lists, but it just hadn't happened. And if you're here this morning and you would just love for somebody to pray with you, you're just kind of walking in the middle of it all and you would just like a brother, a sister in Christ, to put their arm around you and pray for you. We have pastors and prayer volunteers all around this room and that's why they're there. You weren't meant to walk in this thing by yourself. God didn't design you to carry all the struggle and all the stuff alone. We're a family. We're a body. Maybe you're here this morning and you don't have a relationship with God. These pastors and prayer volunteers would love to show you from the scriptures how you can experience rescue. For the rest of us, our praise team's just going to lead us in a song and it's a song that as we have went through the weekend, I'm singing differently now. And it's forcing me really to move away from my list and to find joy in who God is. So Lord, we pray you would speak to us. God specifically into each and every situation we're walking in. I pray this room would erupt with your praise and rejoicing. Not because our lists are all in the right category or good things are happening right now, but because of who you are, because of what you've done and because of what you continue to do. We love you Jesus. I pray you would speak to us as we respond to you now in your name I pray.