The Missing Jewel

Our ability to influence the world is related to the joy they see in us. Ladies and gentlemen, we will never convince the world that we have the answer if we are not convinced ourselves. And even if we are convinced, we will never convince anybody if we are lacking the ingredient that is the underground wellspring of all that we do, that deep resonating gladness in spite of sorrow and triumph, there is that joy and the world says you've got something. Many Christians walk through life with a gloomy disposition and a sour demeanor.

Have you seen or met people like that? And they wonder why the world's not attracted to Christianity? Who wants to be part of something that seems to make people miserable? What's missing in the church today? Stephen Davey believes that the missing jewel in the church is joy. How about you and your church?

Is your life marked by joy? Today on Wisdom for the Heart, we return to the book of Ezra. Stephen has a lesson for you called The Missing Jewel.

Here's Stephen with that message. William Barclay wrote a number of years ago, he's now with the Lord, some interesting words. He wrote, a gloomy Christian is a contradiction in terms. The Christian should be a person of joy. The Christian is the laughing cavalier of Christ. Kind of a shocking way to put who we are that almost sounds irreverent. But here was a rather brilliant expositor who wrote dozens of books saying that we are to be laughing cavaliers of Christ. The truth is, I believe, far different. The Church of Jesus Christ seems to be anything other than a place of joy, a fellowship of cavaliers who laugh.

And it ought to be, but it seems far from it. And the world, by the way, has noticed that we're not necessarily characterized as a place of joy. A survey taken by the Gallup organization several years ago underscored that truth as 60% of the ones that they surveyed said that they believe that the church or did not view the church as a place that enabled people to enjoy God, but as a place, an organization that simply tried to support itself and preserve its past.

Why would anybody want to join a group of people that one author characterized as a group of people who seem to be seasick through their entire voyage of life? Self-centered, self-absorbed, self-engrossed with our own discouragements and our own aches and pains, a people who seem unable to gather about them, a people unable to contain, and certainly a people unable to exude this thing called joy. Where is this life that Jesus Christ told us that we would have in John 10-10 when he said, I have come to give you not only life but to give you life more abundantly? You ask the average Christian, are you experiencing the abundant life that's an internal thing, not an external materialistic thing? Do you have joy?

And I think the average Christian would hang their head and if transparent enough say, not really. That little chorus that children sing, I've got the joy, joy, joy, joy down in my heart. Do you know that one? Where? Down in my heart. Where? Say it with me. I've got the joy, joy, joy, joy down in my heart. Where?

Down in my heart to stay. I think we relegate that to children because children seem to be the people that have it. One author wrote that worship is the missing jewel of the church. While I would agree in part, I also disagree to some extent because worship is action, but joy is the attitude behind the action. Worship is ministry, but joy is the motivation behind the ministry. Even Jesus Christ, it is said of him, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, despising the shame. Who for the joy, the joy of what all that crosswork would produce, Peter wrote that the believer even in the midst of suffering could experience an exceedingly great joy. 1 Peter 4.13. Paul implied to the Thessalonians in 1 Thessalonians 5.16 that they should be capable and able of being engaged in perpetual continual joy.

Paul in Romans 14 characterized the kingdom of God as being a kingdom not of food or drink, that is not of material things, but the kingdom of God is a kingdom of righteousness and a kingdom of peace and a kingdom of joy. Yet that very ingredient missing in many believers' lives, that quality that supposedly sets us aside and apart from the world who cannot find it, that sparkling jewel that attracts as it were a needy, unfulfilled, disillusioned, unhappy world to the gospel is joy. Where can it be found? Well, I want to excavate it from the hard rock of human experience uncovered in Ezra chapter 6.

It's buried under hard clay of common life and you discover it here. In Ezra chapter 6 where we left off in our last study, if you have a pencil or pen ready you might underline a word that appears two times in these final verses of this chapter. In verse 16 it appears, notice, in the sons of Israel, the priests, the Levites, and the rest of the exiles celebrated the dedication of this house of God with what? With joy. Then at the end of the chapter in verse 22 it says they celebrated the feast of an leavened bread seven days with what? With joy.

Here's the first clue to help you in your search for this elusive ingredient or element that is lacking today. It is first as we'll see it in their lives discovered in submission to God. Let's go back now and start with verse 14. And the elders of the Jews were successful in building through the prophesying of Haggai the prophet and Zechariah the son of Edo and they finished building according to the command of the God of Israel and the decree of Cyrus, Darius, and Artaxerxes, king of Persia. And this temple was completed on the third day of the month Eder.

It was the sixth year of the reign of king Darius and the sons of Israel, the priests, the Levites, and the rest of the exiles celebrated the dedication of this house of God with joy. The key words are in verse 14 that give us the foundation for this joy. They are the words they finished building according to the command of God.

He also adds the summary statement of help from those royal persons who helped finance and fund and protect this building process. It tells us they finished building according to the command of God. Ladies and gentlemen, whenever you and I submit to the will of God in obedience and we finish it, we accomplish something, something small. It might be getting through the day with grace and character.

It might be completing an assignment at school or a project at work, whatever it might be. When we do it to glorify and honor God, we finish it. They're waiting for us this sense of joy. Joy, by the way, is a Hebrew noun here in the text that denotes deep seated gladness that emanates from the heart, that comes out of the soul. It isn't some trivial happy-go-lucky, oh, let's all be happier today now that we have been to church and we've talked.

No, no, no, that's not what he's talking about here. It's a deep resonating gladness over accomplishment and submission to the will of God. One author that I read that compared happiness which is fleeting with joy that is deep and residing illustrated it this way. He said, happiness is kissing your girlfriend.

Joy is celebrating your 50th wedding anniversary. I was on the phone last night congratulating Tom and Patsy Stroud. Six years ago, these members of our church waved goodbye to his career in finance and their comfortable lives surrounded by family and friends. And they packed their kids into a car and they headed off to Dallas, Texas to obey for them the will of God, which meant preparing for vocational ministry. And it's hard for those of you that know the Strouds and for myself to think that six years have gone by. And so I called them last night because yesterday he graduated.

And I can tell you that they are still living on a very thin nickel. And it has been a hard road. But in her voice and then in his voice, you can hear the quality of joy. Joy is not necessarily easy, but you discover it along the road marked obedience.

Second, joy is discovered in confession. Verse 17, and they offered for the dedication of this temple of God 100 bulls, 200 rams, 400 lambs, and as a sin offering for all Israel 12 male goats according to the number of the tribes of Israel. Then they appointed the priest to their divisions and the Levites in their orders for the service of God in Jerusalem, as it is written in the book of Moses. And the exiles observed the Passover on the 14th of the first month for the priests and the Levites had purified themselves together.

All of them were pure. Then they slaughtered the Passover lamb for all the exiles, both for their brothers, the priests and for themselves. Sacrifices here are offered. Sin is admitted, not covered, but confessed. And the grace and mercy of God is remembered as they looked over their shoulder into their past history and that Passover moment when it first inaugurated with the shedding of the lamb's blood and the painting of it upon the doorposts and the death angel sweeping over Egypt and allowing those with the blood on the doorposts to go free. Jesus Christ is our Passover, our Paschal lamb, the final and complete, the infinite sacrifice for sin.

Sin that is confessed, not covered. And so they are offering. And you notice the middle part of verse 17 again has a sin offering for all Israel. They offered 12 male goats corresponding to the number of the tribes of Israel.

And I want you to note that because I want to take just a minute or two and get off, chase a little rabbit here, but I think I need to say this. There's an interesting theory that is held by a number of cults called the British Israel theory. Maybe you have heard of it. It's a theory that basically states that since the tribes of Benjamin and Judah are the only tribes specifically mentioned after the captivity of Babylon and, of course, Assyria that was later conquered by Babylon, that these are the only two tribes existing, the other ten tribes have become lost. They refer to them as the ten lost tribes.

They were lost, that is, until they surfaced in Great Britain and later came to America, eventually settling in Utah and other places. Now, it's a theory that basically makes the white Anglo-Saxon peoples a special race and a special class of people that have this unique covenant with God. The Book of Ezra, by the way, puts that theory to sleep, which is where it belongs. By the end of the captivity, you ought to know the term Israel had become synonymous with the term Jew or Hebrew. And throughout the Book of Ezra, and we don't have time, but I have seen it as we've gone through this book and I thought I need to catalog that and mention it, but you go all the way back to chapter 1 and you hear all of Israel being referenced. Chapter 2, verse 70, all of Israel is dwelling in their cities. Here in your text, chapter 6, verse 17, twelve male goats were offered according to the number or corresponding to the number of the tribes of Israel. If you look over at chapter 8, verse 35, it talks about the exiles who offered burnt offerings to the God of Israel, bulls for all of Israel. If you're still not convinced that ten tribes were not lost, the New Testament Book of James puts the final nail in the coffin of that fanciful theory as he begins the writing of that book by saying to the twelve tribes who are dispersed abroad, greeting. There weren't twelve or ten lost tribes then, nor are they now somehow absorbed into the bloodline of the white race of British people and those who supposedly came to America on the Mayflower.

That theory can't hold water any better than the British ships could hold their tea outside of Boston. My third point is taken from verse 21, let's move on, and the sons of Israel who returned from exile and all those who had separated themselves from the impurity of the nations of the land to join them, notice this, to seek the Lord God of Israel, they ate the Passover. Joy, ladies and gentlemen, is discovered in our preoccupation. What is your preoccupation, not your occupation?

What are you preoccupied by? What is the substance of your dreams, the fodder of your hopes? They came, it says here, to seek what?

Joy? No. They came to seek things? No. They came to seek fulfillment? No. They came seeking comfort and security? No.

No. They came to seek the Lord God of Israel. Ladies and gentlemen, I can't imagine that there is any greater thief of joy than us being preoccupied, than our preoccupation with something other than the Lord. Some, perhaps in this auditorium, are preoccupied with your past, and you are shackled by it, hindered by it. Some of you may be preoccupied with the future, terrified of it. Preoccupation with the Lord means that whenever you remember your past, you remember the Passover and the blood of Jesus Christ that cleanses all of your sin, all of your sin, and you have been set free in Christ. To be preoccupied with Christ is to look into the future and discover the One who has already been there and has come back to give you the promise through His Word that He will shepherd you through it.

The world is preoccupied with everything. It thinks it finds this and it slips away. It thinks it has grasped happiness and that eludes them.

It thinks it has found fulfillment and then the rules change. We have the One who has said, I have taken care of your past. I am guarding over your future. Nothing sorrowful or joyful can occur until it first sifts its way through my sovereign fingers, and I am here.

Will you please pursue me? A man by the name of David Elkin wrote of a memory in his journal. He writes, I remember visiting my middle son's preschool class at the request of the teacher so that I could observe the class and its activities. It so happened that I was sitting and observing a group of boys, including my son, who sat in a circle nearby talking. So dad is kind of eavesdropping here. He said their conversation went kind of like this as these children compared themselves.

And by the way, if you have preschoolers, you know they start comparing very early on. One child said to the others proudly, my dad is a doctor and he makes a lot of money and we have a swimming pool. Another child chimed in, well my daddy is a lawyer and he flies to Washington and has talked to the president. Another boy added, well my daddy owns his own company and we have our own airplane. Then my son said something that could not be topped.

With a proud look in my direction, he said, my daddy is here. That little boy was experiencing joy, which is the product of a relationship with the Spirit of God who gives it to those who seek him the fruit of love and joy. So the question is not, do you have joy? That really isn't the question. The question is, do you enjoy your father?

He is here. Fourth, discovering joy is a matter of our perception or perspective. Verse 22, and they observed the feast of unleavened bread seven days with joy.

Can you imagine seven days in a row with joy? And the Lord or for the Lord had caused them to rejoice and had turned the heart of the king of Assyria toward them to encourage them in the work of the house of God, the God of Israel. And don't think for a moment here that the people had missed this point. They had already learned it from Zechariah. Nothing ever built for the kingdom of God is built by the power of man, period.

Not by might or by power, but by my Spirit says the Lord. They came to the end of it, the completion of it, and they had no one to thank but God. Notice again the middle part or the latter part of verse 22, for the Lord caused them to rejoice.

He had turned the heart of the king of Assyria toward them to encourage them in the work. You see, that's the proper perception or perspective of what really had happened. God had done this. We're not building the temple. We are the temple, right? In fact, we're not even building the church down the street. Remember, we are the church.

That's brick and glass. It's our command post. It's our lighthouse. It's our base of operation.

And when they got to the completion of this project, they could only praise God as we praise God for the base of operation that He is building for us and what He is doing in our lives. You're going to forget these four things, aren't you? Submission, confession, preoccupation, perception. Well, they say if you repeat things, you'll remember.

So let's say them together. Submission, confession, preoccupation, perception. You're going to forget it, but I want you to remember this. There was a gentleman in a church that was just characterized by joy, and a friend of his one time asked him, how is it that you seem to have joy? And the man said, oh, my joy is the result of my good looks.

It is? Look number one, looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith. Ladies and gentlemen, I'm not talking about some syrupy smile, you know, and we don't deny moments of sorrow, feelings of sadness. I happen to believe that the Christian can feel sorrow at a much deeper level than an unbeliever. We weep with a different perspective. We feel sin. We know separation. We know the impact of this world and its cultures who are at enmity with God.

Jesus could weep over Jerusalem like nobody else. So I'm not talking about, OK, let's all chin up and we're going to go out here and be happy because we talked about being happy. No, we're not. We're talking about celebrating when life isn't perfect.

Can you do that? As we're six, as you can. I mean, just think for a moment.

We're over time. But just for a moment here, they're dedicating this temple and I want you to remember it's nothing compared to the other temple. Solomon's temple was magnificent.

This is a shack. And they celebrated with joy because they had their eyes on their God. It didn't matter. They had obeyed him. They had submitted to him. They offered, it said here in the text, a hundred bowls and two hundred rams and on and on and on.

It was nothing. Solomon and his nation celebrated tens of thousands of animals, so much so the text tells us they could not number them. They're celebrating?

Yes, they are. How could they? Submission, confession, preoccupation, perception. You know what the world desperately needs to see? Is that in us, that sparkling jewel that attracts them to the gospel of Christ. Quickly, Hayden Planetarium, you can pack your stuff away. That'll make you feel like you're going to leave earlier, even though you're not, sent out a sort of a bogus advertisement, which to me didn't seem to be very nice, but they did it with a purpose in mind to sort of learn a little bit more about the psyche of people. Hayden Planetarium in New York City invited those, published an advertisement in the newspapers in New York, inviting those who would like to make the first journey to another planet to live there to submit an application. This is a long time before Heaven's Gate, but it sure gave me a perspective on that. Submit an application.

Within a matter of days, over 18,000 people applied. Now, don't become cynical. Say, well, that's New York. We have New Yorkers here. They think they've moved to another planet to come to North Carolina.

Speak another language here. These are just ordinary people. The applications were then handed to a panel of psychologists to evaluate, who upon reviewing them concluded that the vast majority of those who applied were simply so disillusioned with life on this planet, they hoped to believe they could start a new life on another one. Ordinary people, not society dropouts, not strange fanatics of cults, but as one author wrote, these were people who had discovered that life was not producing joy and fulfillment, even as they possessed more things.

And when they even searched out an answer from the neighborhood church, they discovered that the church had nothing of joy to offer them either. Ladies and gentlemen, we will never convince the world that we have the answer if we are not convinced ourselves. And even if we are convinced, we will never convince anybody if we are lacking the ingredient that motivates that ministry, that is the underground wellspring of all that we do, that deep resonating gladness in spite of sorrow and triumph, there is that joy and the world says you've got something.

Well, would we ever provoke thought or question? Walter Knight, and I close with this, wrote, joy is the flag that flies over the castle of our hearts announcing that the king is in residence today. Is the flag flying over the castle of your heart?

What does it mean? Confession, preoccupation, perception. I trust that these four principles will shape your life as it relates to joy. If you joined us after we started this message, you're listening to Wisdom for the Heart. This is the Bible teaching ministry of Stephen Davey. Stephen is the president of Wisdom International. He's also the president of Shepherd's Theological Seminary. If you or someone you know is interested in graduate level theological training, consider studying with us at Shepherd's Theological Seminary. The school offers a special program called Shepherd's Institute, where you can earn your master's degree in one year. This unique one-year program offers a life-changing opportunity to all believers, no matter your vocation. We've had men and women join us right out of college and before entering their career. They spend one year in God's word, earn a master's degree, and then enter the workforce, better equipped to serve God in their church and community. We've also had men join us who believed they were called to be a pastor. They did this program and then transitioned into the Master of Divinity program. Retired people have done this program because they wanted some advanced biblical training. Whatever God has called you to, investing one year like this will help you. Learn more at wisdomonline.org forward slash STS. Then join us next time to discover more wisdom for the heart. you