Living in the Joy of the Lord | Advent at Victory Week 3

Man, it's great to be here, love this house, love your pastor, and I took him to Greece with me, about 18 pastors from around the country, we all went on a tour of Greece about a month ago, a little over a month ago, to retrace the steps of the Apostle Paul's second missionary journey, really kind of in-depth, really intimate, really beautiful time, and your pastor was in the back of the bus as the class clown, stirring up trouble and telling jokes and cutting it up, and he's the life of the party, we just had a great time, and just like he said, we've become just dear friends, and one thing I want to say though is, yes, he's my friend, and a close ministry peer, but your pastor, and I say this genuinely because I've seen the opposite, he loves Jesus, he loves you, he loves his family, John is the real deal, and that's why he's my friend, and so, if you've ever wondered what he's like behind the scenes, he needs a little more Jesus, but he loves Jesus. It's great to be here with you, I love Prophetic Presbytery weekend, and so tonight, looking forward to that, I really have an anticipation that tonight is going to be a very special time here at OKC and at Edmond, last night was incredible at Grapevine, and there's just an open heavens over this church, an openness to hear the voice of the Lord, so you're not going to want to miss tonight, the Cowboys' hopes were dashed when my Detroit Lions crushed you on Thursday Night Football, so you ain't gotta worry about it, and please love me anyways, so please come tonight, and it's also a joy to be here specifically during Advent season, this is, for me, one of the most special times of the year, not just because it's supposed to be, but really, when I look back on my life, some of my best memories, childhood memories are at this time of year, with family, just the awe and the wonder as a kid kind of growing up, the whole kind of sacredness of this time, and the music and church services and family gatherings and all those types of things, I just, I have incredible memories of it, so much joy, but I also recognize that for a lot of us, Christmas comes with all the words of peace, hope, love, joy, the words of Advent, but it can also be a very, very difficult period of time to live those things out, as much as we know that we're supposed to have a whole lot of hope and the Christmas stories about God's love for us and He's the Prince of Peace, and as we're gonna talk about this morning, the joy of the Lord is our strength, oftentimes those ideals are difficult for us, because when we look at the realities of our life, we find ourselves in circumstances that are way harder

than we would have chosen, we are living in the reality of some of the things that we've lost, some of the people that we've lost, and some of the dreams that have not yet become reality or some of the hopes and the intentions of our life that we don't know how we're ever gonna get there, I've got good news for you this morning, it's possible for us to live in the joy of the Lord, even when our circumstances are not perfect, that's the good news, and when I was thinking about joy, one of my favorite authors is C.S. Lewis, I've read everything that C.S. Lewis has written, listened to countless interviews, he has one of his famous books is called Surprised by Joy, and so I went there looking for some insight into joy, knowing that this was the weekend of joy in Advent, and two amazing quotes from him, the first one is this, he says, joy is the faint melody of an unlearned song that you have never heard yet when it reaches you, you recognize it as the music of your true home, it's just beautiful, it's just powerful, and then this other quote, he says, joy is never a possession, it's always a desire for something longer ago or further away or still about to be, it all boils down to anticipation. I've given joy a definition, and here's what it is this morning, joy is an... emotion that's acquired by anticipation, expectation, or acquisition, or even the expectation of something great or wonderful. I'll say it again. Joy is an emotion that's acquired by the anticipation, acquisition, or even the expectation of something great or wonderful. Joy is not just happiness. Joy is not just peace. Joy isn't a momentary fleeting reality. Joy is eternal because joy is connected to the presence of the Lord. And so this morning I wanna share with you, Victory Church, what it means to live in the joy of the Lord. I'm gonna draw your attention to one verse this morning.

It's Nehemiah chapter eight, verse 10. You're gonna recognize the back end of this verse where Nehemiah is talking to the people of Judah who've all been regathered after about 100 years of exile and they're living in the city of Jerusalem. They have had a dream and the dream was that God would bring them back one day and now here they are, they're back. And when they came back into the land, their dream was to rebuild the temple that had been destroyed. But before that can be secure, you have to rebuild the walls that have also been knocked down. And against all odds and insurmountable enemies, they have now accomplished in 52 days what they could not do in 52 years, which is to rebuild the walls of the city of Jerusalem. And Nehemiah has been the leader to do that. And on this particular day in Nehemiah chapter eight, the task is done, their exile is over, their city is secure. He gathers them all together. He has Ezra the priest come and he says, I want you to read the law of the Lord over the people of Judah. Remind us of God's promises. Remind us of his goodness. Remind us of the fact that we are special in his sight in spite of all the things that we've just experienced.

And so Ezra begins to read the law on what should be a special celebratory time of the miracle of God in their midst. And instead of them rejoicing, the Bible says they began to weep. They began to grieve, emotionally emote, and their tears are the overflow of their grief and of their trauma, their pain, and their fears. And so what does Nehemiah do in that particular moment? This is what he says to them. Then he said to them, Nehemiah eight verse 10, go your way, eat the fat, and drink sweet wine, and send portions to anyone who has nothing ready. For this day is holy to the Lord. Do not be grieved for the joy of the Lord is your strength. This is Nehemiah's charge to them on this holy time, in this holy time. And much like we're in a season of Advent right now, which is holy, it's sacred, it's set apart, sometimes in the midst of what should be a joyful season because of all that God has done and his goodness and even his promises for what is still to come, that's what Advent is. We're looking back on the fact that God rescued and saved us the first time Jesus came, and that inspires us to live with anticipation about the fact that one day Jesus is coming back. And the Bible says that when he steps out of eternity again and back into history to return to the earth to judge the living and the dead,

the Bible says that he's gonna wipe away every tear, he's gonna make everything that's wrong right, and he's gonna establish peace on the earth. Anybody anticipating that's gonna be a glorious day when Jesus comes back? The only reason we can anticipate that is because we look back and remember. But even during a sacred season like Advent, it's possible for us to find ourselves grieving because of our momentary afflictions or because of our circumstances and situations that we find ourselves in that are temporary, but they're very real, and not attaching ourselves to the eternal availability of joy. Joy that is much more than just happiness. Joy that is much more than just circumstantial. Joy that is found in the presence of the Lord. The Bible says in the presence of the Lord there is the fullness of joy. In other words, nothing can thwart the joy of the Lord because nothing can thwart the joy of the Lord. Nothing can thwart the presence of God. If you've got the presence of God, let me tell you, doesn't matter the circumstance or situation you find yourselves in, the joy of the Lord is stronger than every voice of the enemy. The joy and the presence of the Lord is stronger than every obstacle and wall in your life that seems to have crumbled and you don't know

how you're gonna put it back together because the way maker is in your life. And so this morning, I want to draw out of this verse, Nehemiah's prescription for joy. He gives us a prescription even when we find ourselves grieving or mourning or sad or not able to really enter into this time or feeling isolated or feeling trapped by what's going on around us like Judah was. There is still a prescription for how to live in joy. And I'm gonna give it to you. It's all locked up in this verse. The first thing is this. Nehemiah's prescription for joy is number one. He says, go your way. Go your way. What does that mean? That means in order for you to live in the joy of the Lord, you're going to have to leave your pain and your fears behind and go in a different way. You can either choose to live in your fear and your pain connected to either where you are or where you have been that has disappointed you, has let you down or has traumatized you or has triggered something from your past that causes you to now feel anxious or fearful or has stolen your joy. You can stay there or you can go a different way. And the way that we need to go is a way of faith, hope and expectation that God is with us even though life can be hard.

How many of you know life can be hard? In fact, let me just say, not only can it be hard, let's just be real, life is hard. When we grow up, I think we're told that, maybe it's just a presupposition, but here's kind of what we all believe. We believe life is supposed to be good and every once in a while, it gets hard. And you know what that does? It sets us up for disappointment when we realize that most of the time, life is hard and every once in a while, it gets really good. Am I right? I mean, if we've been, I remember the four spiritual laws. God loves you and has a great plan for your life. That's how we started, I used to do street witnessing. We'd pass out tracts and tell everybody, do you know that God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life? And then I began to read the Gospels where Jesus said, if anyone wants to follow me, let him deny himself, take up his cross and follow me. And I began to realize the real Gospel is this, life is hard and God's got a really painful plan for your life, but it's got eternal glory attached to it. And when we realize that, it can encourage us to go a different way because what happens often is exactly what happened with Judah. Here they are in a moment where they should be celebrating,

God has accomplished what we didn't think was possible. We rebuilt the walls, we're back. But they were still living in the pain of their past. They're still living in the generational trauma of being exiled to Babylon, to being controlled by Persia, to have been under the threat of extinction in Persia by Haman, to now coming back into their land and looking at their legacy, the city, the temple, their past, and it's just lying as broken stones that are a constant reminder of the enemy's assault against them, their own disobedience, their own shame and humiliation. And if they stay there, the walls will never get rebuilt. You see, the most powerful thing about Nehemiah as a leader, as a re-leader, is not that he inspired them to rebuild the walls of the city, that's amazing, but what Nehemiah really rebuilt that they needed more than anything was he rebuilt the walls of courage to re-believe that God was who he said he was and that even though it had not happened yet, God would be faithful to his promises. Even though it had been delayed, even though it seemed impossible, God was still able to do exceedingly abundantly above all they could ever ask or think. He got that on the inside of them and they decided to go a different way. On this particular day, though, they're grieving.

They're weeping. They're triggered, and Nehemiah says you've got to go a different way. You see, we have an innate ability as human beings to ruminate on our past. Have you ever noticed that? How many times our default setting is to sit around when we have too much time, or when we're going through a hard time, and just think about everything that's gone wrong in our life? Think about all of the defeats, all of the dreams that we had that didn't really happen the way that we wanted to, the disappointments in life, or the discouragement that we've gone through. If you get stuck there, listen, hell will never sympathize with you. You will never convince the devil to take it easy on you. The only option that we have is to go a different way, and the Bible says that we do not walk by sight, but we walk by, we are called to walk by faith. Well, what's faith? Faith is the evidence of things not seen. It's this conviction that rises up on the inside of us that if we'll go a different way, if we'll make a different decision, that God will meet us. And you know, unfortunately, in our discouragement, we oftentimes make life-altering decisions. You should never, ever make life-changing decisions in seasons of discouragement. We should always choose, I'm gonna go a different way, I'm gonna go the way of faith, I'm gonna believe again, I'm gonna allow courage to rise up, even though things are a mess, and believe that God is going to do something significant. This, listen, I lived this out, you know, sometimes as pastors, we preach stuff and it sounds good until it shows up at our house. And Jane and I walked through this season last year, our oldest daughter,