September 17, 2006
Scripture:
Scripture:
Ministry:
Can we read a verse in Luke’s Gospel chapter 1; v. 29: “The next day John seeth Jesus coming unto him, and saith, Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world.” He came to take away the sins of the world; another verse says, “For He shall save His people from their sins.” What a work! I want to connect that with a passage in Hebrews that comes to mind. Hebrews 10:4: “For it is not possible that the blood of bulls and of goats should take away sins.” We see that that which was involved with the Jewish economy could not take away sins—the fruit. In John, He is able to take away sin—the root. How? V. 5: “Wherefore when he cometh into the world, he saith, Sacrifice and offering thou wouldest not, but a body hast thou prepared me.” We have been speaking of the blessed, precious Son of God; He had a divine place in eternity. Yet He was given a body, not of a lower creation as a lamb (what we have been reading is a type), but of a man—he became one of the human race, part of the kindred of Adam. V. 7: “I come to do thy will, O God.” God had a whole plan for His only begotten Son, who became the Son of man and represented us all when He went to the cross of Calvary, where He shed His precious blood. This was the divine purpose and wonderful salvation. What strikes me is the fact that in His work on the cross, when bearing our sins, He not only paid the price, He overpaid it, and by so doing, God was glorified. And by this, man is not only restored, but brought to the state in Revelation 5: we are able to gaze on that blessed One as those who, brought into that home above, can say, “Worthy art thou.” His blood has clearly made us whiter than snow; He was our sin offering; more than that, He was our burnt offering, bringing pleasure to God. He lifted us from Adam to the presence of God to worship, saying, “Worthy, worthy, worthy is the Lamb.” How wonderful has been our portion as we gathered today to worship Him. “On earth the song begins; in Heaven more sweet and loud.”
EG Hymn 282 – What a friend we have in Jesus, Prayer • Today we will look at six things from the life of Samuel. 1. I Samuel 1:38—As we saw last time, Samuel worshipped. 2. Ch 2:11—He ministered; Eli taught him how to do this. 3. Ch 2:18—He served, wearing an ephod. 4. Ch 2:21—Samuel grew before the Lord, and developed a more intimate relationship with God. 5. Ch 2:26—He grew in favour with God and man 6. Ch 3, the story of God’s call to Samuel; Samuel learned to hear God’s voice. These characteristics of Samuel are also steps of growth in a new Christian. Once he is saved, he will worship, and start to minister to God. He will develop a better relationship with the Lord. Because of this, God will favour him and show His will to Him. The world can offer many things that will try to make you happy, but this will bring lasting joy.
Address—Simon KempWhat we were just given here is a divine prescription for happiness, spiritual joy. That was the topic that we had before us last Lord’s Day in Montreal; we looked at some scriptures that lead us into a deeper appreciation of the joy that God wants for us as Christians. Christianity is first and foremost about our happiness: the Lord Jesus died to secure our eternal happiness, and the gladness of our hearts forever through the knowledge of Himself and the saving power of His blood, and a place in heaven and eternal life with Him. Turn to John’s Gospel chapter 15; this is where we started last week and some precious thoughts were shared and I look to the Lord for His help to gather them up for everyone’s benefit. Read v. 11. The Lord Jesus expressed two desires here: first, that His own joy might be in our hearts. I don’t think that we ever properly appreciate—at least I don’t—the real depth of the desire of the Lord Jesus here. It’s not just any old joy that He wants us to have, it’s His joy, the joy of the Son of God. That is a real, divine joy. Who can really appreciate more than God Himself, the Author of joy and happiness? The Lord Jesus came here to communicate that joy to us and to bring us into the reality of that joy that it may be for us. In another scripture He says, “Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you.” What a wonderful gift! Nothing else than the very peace that is in the breast of Christ Himself. Here, He is saying, “That my joy might remain in you.” Nothing less than the very joy of the Lord Jesus Himself is what he has given to us. His second desire is that your joy might be full. That’s His wish for us—the fulness of joy. We can look at chapter 17, in His prayer to His Father. Read v. 13. It was His desire, spoken to His Father, that we as His people might have His own joy fulfilled, made a reality in our hearts. The precious thing is that the Lord Jesus is our route to God, He is the way in which we access God. Turn to Romans 5, a few words into v. 11, it says, “We also joy in God though our Lord Jesus Christ.” The Lord Jesus said, “No one comes to the Father but by me.” And it is true that we cannot be in the enjoyment of God unless it is through the Lord Jesus Christ. We joy in God through Him. And this can make us a happy people, and it can make us a strong people, too. Turn to Nehemiah 8, at the end of v. 10, it says, “The joy of the Lord is your strength.” How do we get that joy? How do we obtain the joy of the Lord Jesus? Surely it’s only through being in close fellowship and communion with Himself. The extent to which we are in the joy of the Lord is the extent to which we are in close communion to Him. The further we are from the Lord, the less we are in the joy of Him. Have you ever had times in your life when there is a little sin, however small it is, deep down in there that you just won’t get on your knees about and confess, and it comes in between you and the Lord? It brings in unhappiness, doesn’t it? But it also makes you weak. When you are not in communion with the Lord, your prayers seem to lose their power, don’t they? The very idea of prayer doesn’t seem attractive; we don’t seem to want to get on our knees when there is something which we know we ought to confess to the Lord. And we each know the feeling at some time in our lives when we are not in closeness and happy fellowship with the Lord. It creates weakness, impotence, we are no good to God at that time, He cannot use us; we have no spiritual power. We are not in the joy of the Lord and we are weak, because as it tells us here, “the joy of the Lord is your strength”; it is our only strength as Christians—it really is. If we are not in the joy of the Lord Jesus, we are weak; we have no other strength. As the people of Christ, Christians, He alone is our strength, and we obtain that in direct proportion to our happiness in Him: the happier we are in Jesus, the stronger we are as Christians. That’s brilliant. And you know, there is a very floored assumption, made by many people who are not Christians, that Christianity and happiness don’t go together: Christianity involves lots of things. It involves not joining the rest of the gang, being different; Christianity means not being one with everyone else around you and maybe identifying yourself with a rather small group of people who don’t seem anything special. Surely that’s not the route to happiness! And individually, in our own lives, as we each grow nearer to the Lord, especially when we are younger and we learn to give up things of this world that we have been enjoying, sometimes the prospect of being a good Christian doesn’t seem to be a very happy one. But you know that’s not true. If we turn to I Epistle to Timothy, we will see why. Read the end I Timothy 6:17. Don’t let anyone persuade you that the things that you give up for the sake of the Lord Jesus will leave you deprived in someway, or lacking in happiness and contentment. The Lord gives richly, and He gives all things to enjoy. And so, in happy communion with the Lord, He may be pleased to give us not only many spiritual joys, but many pleasures of this life too. In happy fellowship with the Lord, we can enjoy many of the blessings of life on earth, with all the happiness and pleasures that it can afford. The Lord said, “I am come to bring life,” and as another translation said, “life in all it’s fulness,” “more abundantly” as it says in the King James. And that’s in all aspects of life, the joys of life which God Himself deeply appreciates—It is His pleasure to give us these things. Turn to Psalms 4:7. David the psalmist is looking at others around him and the ungodly, and all the riches and things that they have, seemingly to enjoy. When everyone around him brought in their harvest, had their huge harvest festivals, and celebrated everything they had achieved for themselves, he could say, “You have put more joy in my heart, more gladness than in the time of their plenty.” Let’s turn to Psalm 16. Again it is David here. Read v. 11. That is where we find that joy. If we want to get more of it, we have to get into the presence of God—that’s where that joy is. It is not tangible; it’s not a physical thing. And the Lord has a lot of work to do in our hearts to change our minds to understand that. The whole world around us is geared up to the fact that their joy is a very material thing. We live in material societies, where displays meet our eyes every day. It tries to persuade us that you are not going to be happy until you have updated your mp3 player with the next one; because your cell phone does not receive little pictures, you are not going to be happy until it does, and on and on. And that is the message that is everywhere. It has a very subtle affect on our minds. You know, as Christians, the Lord Jesus wants to bring us into the understanding that our joy is a spiritual one—and it is an eternal one, it’s not going to go out of fashion. It won’t be redundant with the next wave of new technology. It’s something which is enduring, everlasting, spiritual. And so it is that our joy as Christians ought not to be linked to our earthly circumstances. And the extent to which new things bring us happiness and new circumstances bring us joy here, is quite an accurate reflection of our closeness to Christ and our enjoyment of His personally, because if we really get our deepest, sweetest joy from Him, that will abide and remain the same no matter what changes in our lives around us. Now that is very difficult. As I think about it, I think it must be the zenith, the ultimate achievement of Christian happiness: to have a joy in your heart that is completely untouched when things around you change for the bad, seemingly. We know, we are assured, that all things work together for good to them that love God, so when things go badly for us, it is for our blessing. But it is often hard to be in the appreciation of that at the time, isn’t it? And the devil’s great aim is to take away our joy. He can’t take away our salvation. He cannot rob us of our eternal inheritance. But he can take away our joy; he has had 2000 years of experience of doing that to Christians and He is very good at it now. And through very subtle means, he has created a complex society around us with many ways of taking away the joy of Christians. We need to be aware of that; we need to know the fact that we can easily acquire many of the things of this world that we think will bring us happiness, but actually they are directly taking away our spiritual joy, because they are bringing us away from the Lord Jesus Christ, in a small, subtle, but very real way. Here is the place of fulness of joy, in Psalm 16: in the presence of God. It is a very real thing, and there is power of testimony in this. Turn to I Corinthians 15, a few vv. in the middle of the chapter. The apostle Paul was writing to the Corinthians about many thing concerning their spiritual condition, and one of those things was that at this time they were being persuaded by people teaching false doctrine that actually the Lord Jesus Christ hadn’t risen from the dead after all. Now the resurrection of the Lord Jesus is the cornerstone of our faith. We have our hope of eternal life because we share in His risen life, His resurrection life. His unending life is now ours. It cannot be constrained by the power of death. Read v. 19. If, as these people were saying, the Lord Jesus hadn’t risen from the dead, we only have some enjoyment of this faith thing now, in this life, because it is no good to you afterwards. But we know that’s wrong: the Lord Jesus has risen from the dead and we have eternal life in Him. So the direct opposite of this is that we, of all men, ought to be the most happy. We don’t have any part in this earth and all its troubles. We are free from the power of Satan. We are untroubled by thoughts of death because the grave has no horrors for us. There is power of testimony in our joy. It is a simple but a beautiful way we can serve the Lord Jesus every day, amongst the world around us. It is one reason we are called to be separate from this world. Separation is very important for the child of God, but not isolation. The two things are very different. Amongst the world we can radiate the joy and happiness that God had given us. We may not feel we have any particular gift to serve the Lord with, but one thing every one of us can do is to display the joy which he has given us. And in doing that, what we so poorly perceive and will probably never know until we get into the presence of the Lord in heaven, is the joy that it has brought to his heart to see us enjoying his joy. It is very circular. But it is very true—think of how happy the Lord must be to see His ransomed children enjoying His joy. What a victory; what fruits of His labour! So we can bring happiness to the Lord by being happy ourselves. It is all good, isn’t it? Very few things in this world are all good, but this is all good. The world is always searching after things that are really all good, things that require no solution, because every problem is solved. Pretty much every division of society around us is involved in the pursuit of solutions. We don’t need one as Christians. The cross and everything we remembered this morning, these precious principles seen in the life of that man of God, Samuel, are a recipe for our present joy and it is all good. But Satan will do his best to take away us from that joy. Turn to the first epistle of Peter. Peter was writing to early Christians who were scattered and surrounded by hostile nations and hostile religions and they weren’t really in the enjoyment of the happiness of Christ, and he was trying to encourage them very much. Read v. 6. They were rather depressed, through tribulations, hard times, difficult ones, very real and manifold. And they were cast down, and not in the enjoyment. But he really encourages them; read v. 7 & 8. The time when the faith of Christians can shine most brightly is in the face of hostility and persecution. Back in England, under the reign of Queen Mary—she was called Bloody Mary because she shed so much blood—there were between six and seven hundred people in the space of five years who were burned publicly for being Christians. And there were people who recorded the last moments of those dying saints and the thing that endures, and is such a source of inspiration for me, is the joy of those people as they were surrounded with flames. Their faces were turned heavenward. And whether the Lord delivered them from the pain of burning to death, we don’t know, but immense grace was given to them, and it is incredible what songs and hymns of praise they sung in the flames. They were in the reality of the joy of their salvation. Their eternal life in the presence of the Lord Jesus was just a step away. Their life on earth was being snuffed out for the sake of their faith; they didn’t care. There was no going back now; their persecutors were just hastening them on into the presence of their Saviour and eternal joy and glory. So it is in the face of persecution, it’s in the time when our circumstances can get difficult for us, that by being happy Christians, we not only, bring great joy to our Lord, but we can have a real power of testimony to the unbelieving around us. That doesn’t require any talent. That brings me much reassurance, that if I can do nothing else at certain times, I can at least be happy, and I can tell people why. It is a very real thing. None of us are in the enjoyment of these things every day of our lives, are we? There are times and seasons of happiness, and times of sadness. The Lord understands that perfectly; He doesn’t reproach or condemn us in any way. And it is very reassuring to read in Jude 24. He is speaking of God here. Read v. 24. That’s what the Lord can do for us. In Jude’s epistle, we read of fallen angels, fallen cities, and fallen men—here is the One who is able to keep us from falling. And he is able to present us in the presence of His glory with exceeding joy. The apostle Paul was caught up in his spirit into heaven, and he was given a glimpse of what we are going to enjoy. And he saw things there that were incredible, unspeakable. They were literally things that the human language did not have words that enabled him to tell us about it. It was just phenomenal, heavenly things. Earthly people formed the words and languages that we have on earth, and we describe things with adjectives and analogies using the objects and things in life around us. That won’t do when it comes to describing heavenly things. Furthermore, the apostle Paul said it was not lawful for him to try and speak of these things. It lifted Paul up with joy so immensely that God needed to tie him down. And so He gave him what he called a thorn in the flesh, a messenger of Satan. It was a problem in His body, a physical affliction. It made life really quite difficult for the apostle Paul. And that, as it were, kept his feet on the ground, because God wanted him to serve here, not be carried away with the expectation of the happiness he and everyone is going on to enjoy. He gave him a problem, weakness. But we are going on to that joy. The Lord Jesus can draw us into it more and more as we get closer to Him. There is power of testimony; it should be one of the defining characteristics of Christians. And if we look at Galatians 5, we can see what the Holy Spirit of God achieves in us if we really allow Him to work, if we are subject Him. Read v. 22. Look at that: first it’s love, then it’s joy. You can never have fulness of joy with out love. The two are very closely linked together. It is one of the reasons that Christians ought to be one of the happiest people in the world: it is they who know the love of God. The first fruits of the knowledge of God should be the practical display of that love, firstly other Christians and then other people around us. The first fruit of the spirit is love, but the second fruit of the spirit of joy. If we aren’t in the reality of that joy as Christians, then we are not in the reality of the love of God. And that is what the Holy Spirit wants to create in us: love and joy. And I hope this collection of verses will help us to be more in the sweet enjoyment of His joy. We can look back in John’s Gospel, just to remind ourselves of the desire of the Lord Jesus. Read v. 13. The Lord Jesus spoke these things on earth and our wonderful privilege is that here on earth, the place where Jesus died, we have these words to give us His joy in our hearts. May that be a deeper, richer reality for us each, day by day, for the Lord’s glory.
EG Hymn 229 – It passeth knowledge! That dear love of thine, Prayer