Address—D. Rule
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Singing together #135.
Someone could start it for us please.
Bow in prayer.
Refers to.
Several passages. We'll start in First Thessalonians chapter 5.
First Thessalonians, chapter 5.
And verse 16.
Rejoice.
Evermore.
Now let's.
Turn over to.
Philippians, Chapter 4.
Philippians chapter 4 and verse 4.
Rejoice in the Lord, Alway.
And again I say, rejoice.
First Corinthians.
No, I just a minute Second Corinthians.
Chapter 6.
2nd Corinthians chapter 6 and verse 10.
As sorrowful.
Yet always rejoicing.
Romans, Chapter 9.
And verse two, I'm going to read it from the new translation.
I have great grief.
And uninterrupted pain.
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In my heart.
And.
First Peter chapter one.
Verse 3.
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, which, according to His abundant mercy, hath begotten us again unto a lively or living hope, by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.
To an inheritance incorruptible and undefiled, and that fadeth not away reserved in heaven for you.
Who are kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation, ready to be revealed in the last time.
Wherein you greatly rejoice, though now for a season if need be, ye are in heaviness through manifold temptations, that the trial of your faith being much more precious than gold that perisheth.
Though it be tried with fire, might be found unto praise and honor and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ.
Whom having not seen ye love, in whom, though now you see him not yet believing, you rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory.
It's on my heart this afternoon to speak about.
Uninterrupted joy.
Unceasing joy.
It is the desire of God and the purpose of God for your heart and mind to go through this life.
With joy.
The joy of which we have read about.
Not part of the time, not according to some circumstances and not others.
But the Lord would have you wake up in the morning and go to bed at night with joy in your heart.
And mine as well.
Rejoice evermore.
It is not the intent of God that our life be broken up into periods of.
Great grief and mourning.
And other periods of joy.
And the.
Two, shall I say, never meet.
But it is natural to us to sort of have one in our minds or the other and not both.
And brethren, it's important to go through each day.
With an uninterrupted joy.
With the Lord.
It's the intent and purpose of God that it be so.
But I think what we are naturally, and what some so easy to us is it is so easy to become occupied with that which does, and it does, and it's allowed of God for a purpose, bring grief and sorrow into our hearts and into our lives.
And often, if allowed, it robs us of the other side of the truth.
And that is the thought of continued joy.
We might say, well, I know I have joy to look forward to, but at the present, well I can't. If you knew my circumstances and what's going to happen next week and so on, you might say, well, I, I really can't be happy at the moment, even though I anticipate and I'm confident of that happiness in the long run.
The apostle Paul that we read said I have great grief.
And uninterrupted and that is possible as well.
And allowed of God.
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Peter spoke about.
The joy and then, he said, put to grief.
By if need be, and spoke of present things that produced grief.
But then before he finishes, he goes on and said, Whom having not seen ye love?
Yet believing you rejoice.
And so, brethren, according to the Word of God, I believe we can say that it is possible for us to experience grief and sorrow.
Over things in this life, on the one hand and at the same time.
At the same time, continue to experience a joy that this world can either give nor can man take it away.
And so it's on my heart this afternoon to give emphasis and stress to the thought.
Of uninterrupted joy in your heart and in your life, today, tomorrow.
And of course for eternity, when the Lord comes.
Just to give a little expression of what I'm saying.
A few minutes ago we heard word of a sister in the Lord who was taken home.
If there is any compassion in our heart, any sense of knowledge of the person involved.
It produces within us, and naturally so, what we call sorrow and pain.
And what produces that in US is a sense of what we've lost.
We've lost from our presence one whom some know better than others and love with a greater love than others. And so when we think about something with respect to ourselves and with respect to perhaps loss that it has brought to us, it produces in us a sorrow or grief.
But that's only half of the truth.
When we look on the other side of it, and we think in this case of a sister who has brought into the presence of the Lord.
And what we understand and know to be the better part.
It produces a joy.
In our hearts.
We think of that and we say what a wonderful portion that person now has in the presence of the Lord.
And so on the one side, there is a sense of loss and sorrow on the other side. And I say at the same time.
There can be, and I say should be in the heart.
A rejoicing.
When we think of that person and their portion and their joy.
And the joy that it brings to their Redeemer to have them with Him.
We rejoice for them.
And we enjoy.
In fact, we rejoice with them and often we hear the expression at such times, Oh, I wouldn't wish them back.
Because in that way, we're thinking of them and the joy that they have entered into.
Turn with me now to John's Gospel.
Chapter 15.
This John chapter 15 and John Chapter 16 and chapter 17 at least give us a convenient place in which to think about some of the joys that are ours to have now.
That, as the Lord said in these chapters, no man takes from us. They're not joys that we wait for.
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They're not joys that depend on present circumstances in our lives to produce, but they are joys that are to be common to each one of us to enjoy and live out each day of our lives without regard to things that would, and legitimately so, allowed of God for good.
May also produce grief or sorrow with us.
Verse one I am the true vine and my father is the husbandman.
Verse five. I am the vine, and ye are the branches.
He that abideth in me, and I in him the same, bringeth forth much fruit.
Verse six. If a man abide not in me, he is cast forth.
It's only suggested here and it's not really the primary thought in the chapter.
Which in these pre verses has more to do with bearing fruit in our lives, God producing fruit and using us for fruit.
But he starts out I'm the vine and near the branches.
Part of the Gospel of John particularly is to bring out.
The Sun.
Manifesting the Father to us, man. And so the Lord Jesus the Son comes into this world.
And manifests the Father to us.
And then brings out a wonderful revelation for us by saying and.
The position that I hold with respect to my father is the position into which.
God is bringing you.
One of the highlights, if you will, of the joy of the Lord Jesus.
Brought out in this gospel is on the morning of the resurrection.
When the first person that the Lord Jesus speaks to in resurrection is Mary, and almost the first words that he says to Mary is my Father and your Father.
Oh, what a joy to his heart to say those words.
To say Mary.
The very relationship in which I stand and have throughout, you might say, the gospel throughout my life.
Is now I can say to you the relationship in which you stand.
With the father.
My father and your father.
Brethren, God.
The creator.
Wasn't satisfied just to have us as creatures in relationship to himself, as his creatures on earth.
But his desire of his own heart was to bring us into a relationship with himself in which we might, as the Lord Jesus could say, my Father.
And if our hearts enter into that, it is a relationship which produces in us a joy that is to be ours now and forever. The joy of relationship.
All may we enjoy it every day, regardless of the circumstance of the day. In fact, the very joy of saying I have a problem today, I have a need today. I can speak to my father about it.
And to come to him.
And say father.
And so the first joy that I'd like to mention and I just giving them names to make them a little easier to remember, the joy of relationship.
Is yours?
Regardless, it's yours to enjoy as a present enjoyment in your soul.
And it belongs not matters not what the circumstance of the day may be.
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It is yours to enjoy daily.
The second one is also just kind of alluded to here, but he says if any man abide in me.
If any man abide in me, I'm going to just use it in the sense of fellowship.
Here.
There is a joy of fellowship.
That is yours.
For each day. For each moment of each day.
Again, I say regardless of circumstance.
We may go through the moments of our day.
God would desire our Father would desire the Lord. Jesus desires that moment by moment, day by day, we walk together in common fellowship, one with the other, and in the joy that accompanies it.
Let me give a little example of it. In Luke's Gospel, chapter 15, we have this expression. There's joy in the presence of the angels of God over one Sinner that repenteth.
Now, that isn't really talking about the angel's joy, although it's sometimes referred to that way, but it's the joy in the presence of the angels of God.
It is the joy of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit when a Sinner repents.
A joy of fellowship together concerning something.
And it is the desire of God that you and I walk through the day with that same kind of common interest and common joy.
Of sharing things together.
The joy of fellowship.
Verse 7.
If you abide in me and my words abide in you, he shall ask what she will.
And it shall be done unto you.
Go over to the next chapter, We'll come back, but go over to the next chapter for a moment.
In verse.
24.
Or verse 23.
In that day you shall ask me nothing, barely verily I say unto you, whatsoever you shall ask the Father in my name, he will give it you.
Hitherto have you asked nothing in my name? Ask and you shall receive that your joy may be full.
When the Lord Jesus was here in John's Gospel, whenever the disciples had a need, they went to the Lord.
And he was the one who took upon himself the responsibility of meeting those needs.
And they had a sense in their souls.
That he had a relationship with the father that they did not.
He often presented himself with respect to the father. I came forward from the father and my father this and my father that, and they gradually perhaps came into a better comprehension of who he was as he revealed himself to them and have his relationship to the father.
And particularly striking, perhaps, was in the.
12Th chapter.
For the 11Th chapter.
Um.
Chapter 11.
When Martha talks to the Lord after the death of Lazarus and she's of course very burdened about it.
And she says to him something like this, If thou has asked of the Father, he would do it for you.
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In other words, she realized that he was in such a relationship to the father that he could ask the father and the father would would grant to him whatever was asked.
And now here, he's bringing out a revelation to their hearts in connection with asking. He's saying.
But.
I'm bringing you into a relationship with the father or we are bringing into you into a relationship with us.
That you can go to the father directly.
For he's your father.
Anticipates the cross here and so.
You don't have to ask me, but you can go right to the father, and you can ask the father and he'll give you.
What a joy.
What a joy to the heart, a joy that can be experienced in prayer, to realize that we can go directly to our Father, not as the sense of distance, but in a sense of assured and confident relationship when there is a need and we can say Father.
It says he'll give it to you.
Like to illustrate it this way? It's pretty homely. Little illustration, but.
Sometimes those things touch us more than complicated ones.
We've often heard, and if we're parents, we've experienced.
That sometimes a child goes to its mother and it says.
Mommy, I need lunch or I need some food.
What's involved in such a simple question is that or request if you will, is that.
What's involved is a relationship.
Between the child and the mother.
Expressed in the endearing term, perhaps Mummy.
There is a sense of relationship in the child with its mother that gives it the sense of right.
And confidence to make known its need and ask.
In the mother's heart there is a sense of desire to meet that need.
A sense of joy to be able to satisfy the need of the child.
Through that relationship of love.
And so, brethren, it is with ourselves and our Father.
There's a sense of relationship.
That makes it such that our Father desires to meet the need.
And we'll do it.
You may ask what you will.
Let's turn back to Chapter 15.
I.
Verse 10.
If you keep My commandments, you shall abide in My love.
Even as I have kept my father's commandments.
And abide in His love.
These things have I spoken unto you, that my joy.
Might remain in you, and that your joy might be full.
This is my commandment that she loved one another.
As I have loved you.
Notice verse 11 speaks about two joys, my joy and your joy.
Here the Lord Jesus is saying to us, to the disciples, and in spirit now to us.
On Earth, I had my joy.
And the joy that I have and have had on earth in my life is the joy that I want you to experience and have in your life.
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And it doesn't have a bound, does it?
As he says, may be full.
The Lord Jesus went through his life.
With a fullness of joy.
Yes, he was the Man of Sorrows and acquainted with grief.
And it was an uninterrupted sorrow constantly in His life, having to deal with sin and the spoiling of the creation that had been so perfect, and the darkness of the world, and so on. All had its weight upon His spirit. Daylight.
But I say at the same time.
He experienced a joy.
Take from him a fullness of joy that he says, my joy.
And now he presents it to the disciples in this afternoon, as it were, to your heart and mind, I want you to experience every day of your life.
That joy.
If you keep my commandments.
There's an F in it.
In Psalm 40.
We won't take the time to turn to it, but the Lord Jesus, prophetically speaking, says.
I delight.
To do thy will.
Oh my God.
The joy of the heart of the Lord Jesus, every moment of every day of his life.
Motivated by love.
Was to do the will of his father.
And there was for him the joy of obedience.
Much, much, much of the sorrow, the bitterness, Not all of it.
Because love can produce sorrow in US and does true love.
But for us, much of the bitterness, much of the frustration, much of the sorrow that we may experience in daily life.
Is because we do not wholeheartedly.
Have before our souls as an Object to delight, to do the will.
Of our Father, and consequently we set something else before ourselves.
Who's going to win the football game?
Who's going to do this? Who's going to have that something we're going to do?
That may not have anything to do with the will of our Father, but our heart gets set on it.
Our happiness gets tied to it and as a consequence, when it doesn't come to pass as we hope it produces.
Sadness or frustration?
In US.
Lord Jesus never had to experience that kind of learning.
In flesh.
But he found his daily delight.
In the joy of obedience.
And obedience motivated by love.
It was reciprocal, too. We talked about the joy of fellowship.
When the Lord Jesus went through his life here on earth, it was a perfect delight.
Of joy to the heart of the Father every day. The Father every moment of every day. He looked down upon earth.
And they're walking through the midst of all the misery and sin of the earth. He found delight.
In that one who lives.
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To obey.
In love to him.
At times.
He just doesn't work at the baptism. He opens heaven.
Just so he can say, this is my son in whom I have found my delight.
Oh, it's the heart of the Father, for the same as the Father in the next John 17. When he's talking about joy, he's saying to the disciples in his prayer.
As the as you have loved me, the Father.
That same love is your love for the children, the others.
He wanted in His prayer that they enter into the thought that that the same love that He had for the Son is His love for us.
And so it is, and so it's his desire that as you go through this day, as I go through this day, we go through it in such a way that his heart finds joy in your life.
And likewise.
You find joy in that daily obedience.
Of a submissive heart.
Delighting in the life.
And the nature of God that's been given to you in the Lord Jesus Christ, living that life.
It's the joy, if you will, I, if I can use that expression of the Spirit of God to produce it in you.
Because we have in Galatians.
The fruit of the Spirit.
Is Lovejoy.
The Spirit of God working in your life is to produce in you.
That joy.
That comes through that love.
Walking in obedience to the will of the Father.
We spoke a little bit about prayer a few minutes ago and and we ask and he hears us.
Do you think the Lord Jesus walking in that spirit of loving obedience ever ask anything that the Father had to say? Sorry, Son.
You don't quite understand me for my purposes and so I have to say no and explain to you where your thoughts and mind are separate, no?
God by the Spirit desires and delights to work in us so that what we want.
In fellowship with the Father.
As always, can I say on the same wavelength is consistent one with the other?
And according particularly to submissive, obedience is the path to the daily experience of the joy that we are talking about.
You know in.
Matthews Gospel Chapter 11. In that gospel we see the Lord Jesus going out into his public ministry and going up on the mountain and giving what we call the Sermon on the Mountain, explaining the Beatitudes and so on. We see him going out doing good and healing and giving life to those who had died and so on.
And when we get finally to the.
The 10th chapter In the 11Th chapter, what's the well we'd say? I hope there's been a wonderful result of all that work of good and blessing for man.
But in reality, it comes to that chapter and.
He's totally rejected.
All that he had labored for his was producing no outward result in the souls of men. And they had said, no, we want to get rid of this man, and their hearts were set against him.
But does it not say he rejoiced?
In spirit and said, I thank thee, O Father.
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Where could he get joy like that in the Such is It, where all his teaching and preaching and doing good seem to have produced nothing but hatred and animosity and a desire to get rid of him, and yet he could rejoice in spirit.
And say I thank thee, oh Father.
There was a joy of submission.
There was a joy of obedience to the Father's will, and there's that joy in him that could look on. And as it were, from that point on he goes out to all men, not just to the Jew, but also to the Gentile. He says to all mankind, Come unto me.
Then I will give you rest.
Take my yoke upon you and learn of Me, and you shall find rest unto your souls. The first rest that he speaks about, he might call it a gospel rest, going out to the lost and inviting them to come.
The second rest and it's connected with joy.
Is learning of him.
Oh, I trust this afternoon that in some little measure at least, our hearts are reminded. Or maybe if you're younger, a little bit of learning to recognize the true path of.
As the Lord Jesus did going down.
To accept everything, whatever that circumstance may be and said learn of me.
Perhaps he would say it to your heart and mind this afternoon. Learn of me, come down to where I am.
For he speaks of it as as in this world it's not as glorified in heaven, but as he was here on earth. The lowly man, he says, come down as it were to me.
Here, where I'm at, if you enter in with me into my heart, you're going to find rest.
For yourself.
We won't try to get off on it, but.
The same rest and peace that was his, he said. I want you to experience that rest and peace in your life as well.
And so there is not only to be a present and abiding joy in daily life, but there is and should be with us a present and abiding rest and peace in our souls.
Let's go on to.
Chapter 16.
I.
Verse 19 And Jesus knew that they were desirous to ask him, and said unto them, Do ye inquire among yourselves of what I said, A little while, and you shall not see me. And again a little while, and you shall see me barely, barely. I say unto you, that you shall weep and lament, but the world shall rejoice.
Miserable joy. It's kind of joy that the world gets, and you shall be sorrowful, but your sorrow shall be turned into joy.
A woman, when she is in travel, has sorrow because her hour has come.
But as soon as she is delivered of the child, she remembereth no more the anguish for joy.
That a man is born into the world.
And ye now therefore have sorrow, but I will come again to you, and your heart shall rejoice.
And your joy, no man taketh with you.
Take it from you, and in that day you shall ask me nothing.
Guess we'll stop there.
Now, therefore.
And ye now therefore have sorrow, but I will come again to you, and your heart shall rejoice, and your joy no man taketh with you.
I believe the Lord Jesus here is talking about.
Anticipating.
Is going to the cross.
And they're observing him there on the cross.
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And his head bowed in death.
The taking of him down from the cross, and carrying him to the grave.
And in that way, he's separated from them, as the two on the way to Emmaus said. We had trusted that it had been he who would have redeemed Israel, but their hopes now lay in the grave. And of course, we know man has no communication with the dead, as in that sense at that moment their sorrow was we've lost him.
We don't have them anymore.
But what a wonderful day the resurrection day was for them when Mary comes to them and said, I've we've seen the Lord.
And they then too many of them said he was speaking to here on the first got to see him as well.
And what a joy. I don't suppose we can't imagine very well.
What it must have meant to those disciples who had followed with the Lord Jesus for for 3 1/2 years, most of them.
And watched what took place at the cross and the burial.
And then on the resurrection day, to see him face to face.
A joy.
I suppose as we some say about certain things, you have to experience it to appreciate it.
So of knowing the Lord Jesus, we say taste and see that the Lord is good.
It has to be experienced individually in the soul to be understood and appreciated and so for them.
Tremendous joy.
I believe it goes beyond that thought as well, which is not our purpose this afternoon, that he was going to come again and take them home to heaven. He was going to come and set up a Kingdom reign and so on. So it looks forward as well.
But what does he say about that joy?
He says.
No, man.
Your heart shall rejoice, and your joy no man taketh from you.
Those disciples entered into a joy that was theirs to experience.
The rest of their lives here on earth that absolutely no one could rob them of it.
A joy that was so strong in their souls they could die.
The martyr's death.
With a song in your heart.
I'm going to give it the name The Joy of Possession.
Brethren, God has given to us possessions.
That are valuable beyond description.
From the treasure House of his love that are ours to enjoy, That no man, no circumstance, nothing can take him from us.
Not even failure.
Yes, the enjoyment of them makes flee from us, but the possession cannot.
And so it was for them, the joy of their Lord and resurrection. He was theirs. He conquered death. They belonged to Him.
And he says you're mine for eternity.
You could take a piece of paper and a pencil this afternoon, and if everyone of us had it and every one of us started to write down the possessions that we have in the Father and in the Son and as members of the body of Christ and so on, it's a list that we couldn't finish.
And it's a list.
That if we understood it, perhaps what we're talking about, of eternal things to rejoice in, that cannot be taken from us.
No man can rob him of them.
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And the joy is full.
Too overflowing.
A joy that knows no end. You can't get to the bottom of it.
It's yours, it's mine.
In the position into which we have been brought with respect in John to the Father.
Which is John's ministry, and in Paul's ministry Joyce connected with the body of Christ, the church.
To rejoice in.
Let's do it.
Let's do it.
I don't want to dwell on the negative side, but.
I will point out, since I think most of us could say we don't always live in these joys all day every day.
It's not the Father that's keeping us from it, it's not the Lord Jesus that's keeping us from us, but it is some hindrance in our own soul that may keep us from the practical experience on a daily basis of the joy.
What I mean by that is we started with the joy of relationship.
And if you aren't consciously in it, you won't experience that joy.
Sometimes I know when I was a young boy.
For a number of years I experienced uncertainty about whether I was saved. I got saved many times in my heart, for at least only once really. But in my thoughts I told the Lord I I believed in Him and my Savior many times.
I wasn't in a settled piece of relationship and so my joy came and went because of it. I remember one time I was sitting in a room like this.
And a brother was preaching the gospel, Ernie Wakefield. And as some whoever heard Ernie Wakefield speak, his particular method or whatever what he was strong at is like taking your soul and shaking you over the pit of hell.
Scaring you?
And I remember sitting in a row of boys and I looked down the row and I was scared and all of them had their legs crossed one way, but I had mine crossed the other. And boy, I crossed my legs the right way just to make sure that everything was OK. I didn't have the joy of relationship at that time in my life and I thank God I have it now and have for many years.
The joy of fellowship.
Communion.
If you go your way, you're not going to enjoy it. You can't.
Can two walk together except they be agreed and so if I go my way?
I will not experience the joy of fellowship. I can't have it on my own terms.
The joy of obedience you don't obey, you don't enjoy the.
It's been said many times.
In things of God, happiness and obedience go together.
If you walk your own way, you say I'm going to have my fun.
You may have it, but not with, not with the Father. That is, if your joy is in your own things and not in His.
Possessions. The joy of possessions.
Yesterday I was looking at a video with some of my grandchildren. I don't know what how much they understood it. I did a little bit and enjoyed it.
But it was about some Christian paleontologists, people that.
Go find fossils and study them.
And this was about some dig in western Colorado, and the video was discovering some.
Dinosaur bones of various types.
And one of the comments of the people that were doing the work was they say they showed some pictures in a museum and you could see the skeleton and all the work when it had been finished, they said. But out in the field, it's very, very difficult sometimes to distinguish between the bone and the rock.
And I noticed that when they showed this picture of discovering this very rare fossil, those who knew and understood what they were looking at, we're all excited.
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Extreme joy.
But some of the others I don't think had a clue to what they were being, what there was to be happy about. They're just looking at some rock to them they couldn't distinguish. And they didn't know perhaps of the rarity of the find either.
If you don't live in the book.
You won't understand the value of your possessions and consequently you won't enjoy them to the same extent.
That someone else who has an appreciation for the value of them and what they mean to his soul.
Mean to him.
Get in the book live. In the book Psalm 119. In the early verses he talks about My delight is in the Word.
He loved to be in the Word, found joy in the Word of God, and in doing so gains the enjoyment of the possessions that were his.
Times almost done. One last one. Revelation last chapter.
Revelation 22.
Middle of verse 16. I am the root and offspring of David the bright and morning star.
And the Spirit and the Bride.
They come.
The joy of hope.
To be enjoyed today, not when the hope is realized only.
Could go to many places. We rejoice in hope of the glory of God, O brethren.
It's a joy to the soul to anticipate.
Daily and rejoice in hope.
The Lord Jesus, we know what it's like to anticipate with joy something that's not yet happened.
To our hearts.
We were coming down the road here Wednesday.
I think we saw over 100 cars and trucks in the ditch.
Wasn't very pleasant driving and we stopped at a rest area for a moment and there was a little boy.
Who was talking to my wife and she was all excited because he had his, not his sled escape.
I forget what you call them skate. I want to say skateboard, but I'll call it a sled. He had his sled in the car and they were going somewhere and when they got there he was going to have fun. And all the way there he was going in the anticipation of it. He wasn't worried about what was happening outside. That was his dad's problem.
His was to enjoy.
The end of the road and what he was going to do.
Can't we also have that joy?
I will take you. I will safely bring you home. There will be nothing that will keep you and I from reaching the end of the destination. It's a sometimes people say of Christian hope, a deferred certainty. We're going to be there, we're going to get there, and our hearts daily can say in response to the Lord expressing his desire that we be together in that way.
Say with the Spirit of God Even so come Lord Jesus.
Let's pray.