Today on Fellowship in the Word, Pastor Bill Gebhardt challenges you to become a fully functioning follower of Jesus Christ. Notice the response then, and so they went on their way from the presence of the council rejoicing. Wasn't that a great flogging? Well, that guy knew what he was doing. You see, they went on their way from the presence of the council rejoicing that they had been considered worthy to suffer shame for his name.
And every day in the temple and from house to house, they kept right on teaching and preaching Jesus as the Christ. You see, you couldn't have a bad day and take their joy away. You know why? Because joy makes you unsinkable. You see, when you have the joy of the Lord, it's unsinkable.
It is not tied to bad circumstances. Thank you for joining us today on this edition of Fellowship in the Word with Pastor Bill Gebhardt. Fellowship in the Word is the radio ministry of Fellowship Bible Church located in Metairie, Louisiana.
Let's join Pastor Bill Gebhardt now as once again he shows us how God's Word meets our world. This past week, I was reading an article about the Dead Sea. It was entitled The World's Most Desolate Lake. No fishing.
No fish. No water skiing. You've got to be careful not to splash water into your eyes. And of course, the blistering heat.
And yet it's one of the most therapeutic destinations on Earth. Beaches are filled with bathers, caking themselves with the mud from the Dead Sea. By the way, it works. We had some friends that went there and brought some mud back and.
It works. The Dead Sea is the lowest elevation on Earth. Fourteen hundred feet below sea level. The Jordan River flows in. But no water flows out.
And so the only way water is lost is through evaporation. As a result, there's an extremely heavy layer of saline and mineral content in the lake or the sea. It's 10 times saltier than the ocean is.
But what's most interesting to me is it's denser than your body. And so what that means is if you're in the Dead Sea, you cannot sink. The picture, by the way, with the article was a man who was reading a magazine sitting on the water in the Dead Sea, just reading a magazine in that hostile environment and all that heat and all those minerals.
A guy totally relaxed. Reading a magazine. You see, the Dead Sea. Will render you on sinkable.
I was thinking about that and. A couple of weeks ago, I was reading Jeremiah and Jeremiah said this. He said the waters closed in over my head and I thought I was going to perish. And he also wrote in a different place.
He said this. Your words were found and I ate them. And he said in your word was to me the joy and the rejoicing of my heart. He went from total despair to joy.
And so putting the two together, I thought about it this way. You and I can have an sinkable joy. Or put it another way, joyful Christians are unsinkable.
Or maybe most importantly, we have to learn to float. In the water of God's joy. I know how hard that is for many of you. Christians, if we have a reputation, a national reputation and we ask people to check a box, I don't think joyful is going to come.
Anywhere near the top. For some of you, it's your whole life you have conditioned yourself to be pessimistic. Or melancholy.
Or just discouraged. But because of who God is and because of what Jesus Christ has done. We can determine to be joyful people. We can actually choose the attitude of gladness.
We can bathe in God's joy and discover the secret of unsinkability. I've been interested in joy for many, many years. Many years ago I read the book Desiring God by John Piper and it was a book that had a profound effect on my life. And ever since then I've been trying to sort of get a handle on and really understand from the Bible's point of view this idea of joy. And it's astounding when you study it, the concept of joy, the word joy or some of the synonyms occurs over 700 times in scripture. It's astounding what the Bible says about joy. And the expectation of the Bible is that the people of God will be known by their joy. And that has always been difficult for me because there's a lot of things that I see in the people of God. But prevailing joy is not one of them. And so what I want to look at today is let's just look at a few of the things that the Bible says about joy and how do we appropriate this in our lives. The first one is going to be found in Zephaniah.
That's right. Zephaniah, chapter three. Zephaniah, Haggai, Zechariah.
You find a Z, you're around it. Zephaniah, chapter three. And the first thing I want to say about joy, if you think about it, may be startling to you. He is a God. Of joy. Now, when you think of the concept, God. Is joy what you think of?
You see, but he is. A God of joy, joy. Listen to what Zephaniah writes, verse 17 of chapter three. He said, the Lord, your God is in your midst, a victorious warrior. He will exalt over you with joy. He will be quiet in his love. He will rejoice over you with shouts of joy. Now, that's typical Hebrew, three times joy is introduced in verse.
Instead of using exclamation points, they repeat. And it says here that he will rejoice over you with shouts of joy. That word shouts is the Hebrew word rina.
And I wish they would have translated it maybe a little more accurately. It is shouting, but it's shouting and singing in the same time. In other words, it's singing loudly.
Now, think of this. Under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, Zephaniah says that God. Will rejoice over you and he will sing loudly. With joy. About you. How many of you ever thought about God singing about you? See, that's amazing and joyfully singing about you. It's astounding.
But not surprising. God radiates joy like the sun radiates light. The joy of the Lord, you hear that expression all the time. The joy of the Lord is not just something that he gives to you. The joy of the Lord is something the Lord possesses. He is a God of joy. Jesus picks up on that and the great intercessory prayer in John 17, and he's praying to the Father and he's praying about us.
And he says this. I speak these things so that they may have my joy made full in themselves. Jesus prays that we would have his joy, what he already has, made full in us. He is a God of joy.
Not surprising, then the second point would be this. God's home is a joyful place. Turn with me now to the book of Psalms, Psalm 16. Psalm 16. A great psalm of David. Last two verses, verses 10 and 11.
And David says this. He says, For you will not abandon my soul to Sheol, to the grave. He's praising God for not abandoning his soul. He says, Look, when I go to the grave, my soul won't be there. He says, You will not abandon my soul to the grave.
Neither will you allow your Holy One to undergo decay. He's speaking not only of himself, but prophetically about the Messiah, our Lord Jesus Christ, a thousand years later. And then he says this. You will make known to me the path of life. That's another reason for praising God. You would show me how to live. That's one of the great things about having a personal relationship with God.
You actually know how to live. And then he says this. In your presence is the fullness of joy. He says, In your right hand there are pleasures forever. God's home is a joyful place. In First Chronicles 16, the writer of Chronicles said, Strength and joy are in his dwelling place. Joy floods our eternal home. Now, that is something I think we do expect. I mean, we certainly think that heaven ought to be a joyful place.
But I don't know if we understand just how joyful it is. In Matthew Chapter 25, Jesus is giving some parables concerning his second coming and his judgment that will occur. And he has these parables of the talents. And he sends out people to do something, and a couple of them do it well and others not so well. And Jesus says something to them that I would imagine every single one of you have heard.
But we always stop after the first line of what he says and never think about the second line. The very first line that Jesus says to these two who have this responsibility and serve the Lord well, Jesus says to them, Well done, good and faithful servant. And you hear all the time people say, and that's the words I want to hear. When I go to the judgment seat of Christ, if there's one thing the Lord could say to me that would be more pleasing than anything else would be, Well done, good and faithful servant.
And everybody seems to remember that part of the verse, but hardly anyone remembers the second part. He says, Now enter into the joy of your master. Enter into the joy of your master.
God's home is a joyful place. You think what it would be like? You ever see how teams, whether they be high school, college teams or professional teams, when they win the championship how they act? I mean, you know, we just went through NHL and NBA and then you have the Super Bowl. You ever see the locker room after they win a championship? It's just nothing, sheer joy, just joy.
Now, don't want to offend anybody here. What did you win? I mean, really, what did you win? We got this trophy.
We're number one till next year. I mean, but the whole point is it's just a game. But notice how we celebrate. We just celebrate. It's euphoric. Just imagine what it's like when you have something worth celebrating. Victory over sin and death.
Just imagine what that locker room's like. That's joy. You see, that's just, as Peter says, unspeakable joy.
I can't imagine how many high fives there'll be in heaven. You know, the whole idea of it is it is an extremely joyful place. He is a God of joy. God's home is a joyful place.
There's more, though. Joy is woven into God's creation. Turn a few pages to your left at Job 38. Job chapter 38. A famous chapter in the book of Job. Even if you're not familiar and haven't read the book for yourself, you all know about the story of Job and all the suffering he went through, probably more than anybody ever has. And the theme of the book the whole way through is Job has friends who come to him and keep telling him why he's suffering. And almost always it's the same thing. You did something bad and God's getting you for it.
A lot like our friends would tell us. Job knows that he hasn't done something really bad. So Job keeps saying the whole way through the book, look, all I want is five minutes with you.
All I want is to stand in your presence and just say, plead my case and say, hey, what happened? Now, from our point of view, this sounds like a really perfectly legitimate request. Not exactly from God's point of view. In chapter 38, Job actually gets the Lord to grant the request. Beginning in verse 1, it says, Then the Lord answered Job out of the whirlwind and he said, Who is this that darkens counsel by words without knowledge?
Gird up your loins like a man. And I will ask you, and you instruct me, where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth? Tell me if you have understanding. Who said its measurement since you know? Or who stretched the line on it?
On what where its basis sunk? Or who has laid its cornerstone? So God basically says to Job like, okay, you're going to question me? Now, let's get this straight. I know who I am. I'm God. Now, who are you? Tell me about your infinite knowledge that you have.
Kind of interesting. But then he says something quite fascinating about creation. Verse 7, When the morning stars sang together and all the sons of God shouted for joy. When the physical universe was created, the angelic world sang and shouted for joy. It was God's intention that creation be a joyful experience. Joy is even woven into the very fabric of God's creation. The Bible says this all the way through it. In 1 Chronicles and in Psalm 96 it says, Let the trees of the forest sing and let them sing for joy before the Lord. Everything should sing that was created.
Creation is a joyful thing. Turn with me to Psalm 98. A psalm kind of dedicated to that. Psalm 98.
And I'll just simply read it. It's a very short psalm. The psalmist writes, O sing to the Lord a new song, for he has done wonderful things. His right hand and his holy arm have gained the victory for him. The Lord is made known as salvation. He has revealed his righteousness in the sight of nations. He has remembered his loving kindness and his faithfulness to the house of Israel.
All the ends of the earth have seen the salvation of our God. Shout joyfully to the Lord all the earth. Break forth and sing joy and sing praises. He says sing praises to the Lord with a lyre.
And he said and with a lyre sound of melody. He said with trumpets and the sound of the horn shout joyfully before the king the Lord. Let the sea roar and all it contains.
The world and those who dwell in it. Let the rivers clap their hands. Let the mountains sing together for joy before the Lord.
For he is coming to judge the earth and he will judge with righteousness and the people with equity. The psalmist is just simply saying joy is the natural state of creation. He said not only do angels sing, man should sing, mountains should sing, trees should sing.
The rivers should clap their hands. In other words the whole idea of the physical creation was joy. He did it for the joy of it. Of course we know that even under the curse, creation still vibrates with joy.
Birds still sing. But there is a curse. It's a tarnished joy. Sin has sort of caused the chill to run through the universe. But there's something in this psalm that says God has solved that. Verse 2, the Lord has made known his salvation. He has revealed his righteousness in the sight of the nations. Even though sin brought death, God says but I can still retrieve the joy through salvation. You see I can still reconcile the creation to me.
I can still redeem this world. You see that's exactly why Jesus came. Isaiah 61 3 says Messiah will give us the oil of joy instead of mourning.
That's what Jesus Christ has done. So the fourth point is this, Jesus came to reinstate joy. Turn with me to a famous passage, Luke chapter 2. Luke chapter 2. This is a chapter we usually read on Christmas Eve service here.
But we're going early this year. Luke chapter 2. The shepherds are in the field. Verse 8, in the same region there were some shepherds staying out in the fields and they were keeping over their flock by night. And an angel of the Lord suddenly stood before them and the glory of the Lord shone around them and they were terribly frightened. But the angel said to them, do not be afraid. For behold, I bring you good news, and then these words, of great joy which will be for all the people. We always talk about the good news. The good news of Jesus Christ, and it is good news, but notice what he says. The angel says it's good news, that's right, of great joy.
You see this is going to be so joyful. This great inner sense of well-being, joy should mark the people of God. You see joy should mark us. At church, we should be a village of joy. That's who we should be.
We should be joyful people. But if you stood where I stand every week, you'd really wonder. You'd really wonder. Now I won't go as far as Chuck Swindoll said many years ago. I heard Chuck Swindoll, and he actually said this to his church, but he said when I stand and look at my church all the time, I think that how many of these people look like they were baptized in dill pickle juice?
And I think what he was just reading was their faces. We'd be a community of joy. You see that's the whole point. He's a God of joy. His home is a joyful place. He has woven joy into creation, and Jesus came to reinstate joy.
And I want you to see how he did it. Turn with me now to the book of Acts, the beginning of the church in chapter 2 of the book of Acts. And look at some early Christians. In verse 46, a description of the early church. He said, Luke wrote this, he said, day by day, continuing with one mind in the temple and breaking bread from house to house, they were taking their meals together, and it says in the numeric and standard, with gladness and sincerity of heart.
That word, gladness, is agawasis, kind of a compound long Greek word, almost always translated joy. And they were taking their meals together with joy and sincerity of heart. The church began, and it was so joyful. And you say, well, yeah, that's sort of like when I came to Christ.
That was a great day, and I was really joyful that day, too. But it continues. Turn with me now in the book of Acts to chapter 5 and verse 40. And the early church has enemies, real enemies. These are enemies that eventually will martyr almost all of the disciples.
And it says in verse 40 that they took his advice, and after calling the apostles in, they flogged them and ordered them not to speak in the name of Jesus, and then they released him. Now, I think all of us would do this, but I would call a flogging day a bad day. If you were taken by the authorities in that world and you were flogged, that's a really bad day. In fact, for many of us, and remember, happiness and joy are two different things. Happiness is circumstantially driven. Joy is internal well-being.
Notice the response then. And so they went on their way from the presence of the council rejoicing. Wasn't that a great flogging? Well, that guy knew what he was doing. You see, they went on their way from the presence of the council rejoicing that they had been considered worthy to suffer shame for his name.
And every day in the temple and from house to house, they kept right on teaching and preaching Jesus as the Christ. You see, you couldn't have a bad day and take their joy away. You know why? Because joy makes you unsinkable. You see, when you have the joy of the Lord, it's unsinkable.
It is not tied to bad circumstances. You've been listening to Pastor Bill Gebhardt on the Radio Ministry of Fellowship in the Word. If you ever miss one of our broadcasts, or maybe you would just like to listen to the message one more time, remember that you can go to a great website called oneplace.com. That's oneplace.com, and you can listen to Fellowship in the Word online.
At that website, you will find not only today's broadcast, but also many of our previous audio programs as well. At Fellowship in the Word, we are thankful for those who financially support our ministry and make this broadcast possible. We ask all of our listeners to prayerfully consider how you might help this radio ministry continue its broadcast on this radio station by supporting us monthly or with just a one-time gift. Support for our ministry can be sent to Fellowship in the Word 4600 Clearview Parkway, Metairie, Louisiana 7006. If you would be interested in hearing today's message in its original format, that is as a sermon that Pastor Bill delivered during a Sunday morning service at Fellowship Bible Church, then you should visit our website, fbcnola.org.
That's fbcnola.org. At our website, you will find hundreds of Pastor Bill's sermons. You can browse through our sermon archives to find the sermon series you are looking for, or you can search by title. Once you find the message you are looking for, you can listen online, or if you prefer, you can download the sermon and listen at your own convenience. And remember, you can do all of this absolutely free of charge. Once again, our website is fbcnola.org. For Pastor Bill Gebhardt, I'm Jason Gebhardt, thanking you for listening to Fellowship in the Word.
