Joy is Fleeting (Part 2)

Welcome to No Compromise Radio, a ministry coming to you from Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston. No Compromise Radio is a program dedicated to the ongoing proclamation of Jesus Christ, based on the theme in Galatians 2, verse 5, where the Apostle Paul said, but we did not yield in subjection to them for even an hour, so that the truth of the gospel would remain with you.

In short, if you like smooth, watered-down words to make you simply feel good, this show isn't for you. By purpose, we are first biblical, but we can also be controversial. Stay tuned for the next 25 minutes as we're called by the divine trumpet to summon the troops for the honor and glory of her King.

Here's our host, Pastor Mike Abendroth.

John Owen on Peace, Obedience, and False Happiness

Welcome again to NoCompromiseRadio .com, or No Compromise Radio, whichever you prefer. It is Thursday, July 22nd. Pastor Mike is on vacation enjoying the sun and surf and family in Santa Cruz, California, and I am soldiering on here in New England.

We started talking yesterday about happiness, mentioned a few wrong views, or at least incomplete views of what happiness might be, and I thought we might go back to the great writer and puritan John Owen, who wrote a little bit called Peace and Stupidity.

And if you know me, you can tell why I'm drawn to it right away, but here's part of what he said. He said, the peace which some enjoy is a mere stupidity. They judge not these things to be real, which are the substance of Christ's present reward, and a renunciation whereof would deprive the church of its principal supportments and encouragements in all its sufferings.

It is a great evidence of the power of unbelief when we can satisfy ourselves without an experience in our own hearts of the great things in this kind of joy, peace, consolation, and assurance that are promised in the gospel.

And he concludes with this, without the diligent exercise of the grace of obedience, we shall never enjoy the grace of consolation. He says, listen, you wanna have peace, you wanna know grace, you want that grace to be all-consuming, but you don't want to obey him.

And he goes, that's just stupid. That's just foolish. You can't know peace and joy and happiness without knowing obedience. And that is so contrary to what we hear in the world today. That's contrary to what we hear in much of the church today.

You know, it's like, you don't have to be obedient. Jesus just loves you just as you are. You big ragamuffin you, you just come here and give me a hug. It is not like that. The gospel is not like that.

Jesus Christ transforms lives. He doesn't leave you the same rascal that you were before. He changes your heart. He changes your life. He changes your actions, your desires, and you are a new creation in Christ.

Not perfectly, but if you wanna know in part why you struggle with happiness, with joy, may I suggest to you that part of that reason may be a lack of obedience, may be a lack of focusing on the things above.

And so we were talking yesterday about happiness and I mentioned, as I said, some wrong views and how even Christians are caricatured. I remember myself, I had a buddy in the army and there was a guy who was a born-again Christian.

In fact, there were a few of them, but one guy wasn't a so-called born-again Christian and then he was and everything changed and that guy was all about evangelism and all the things that he used to do, well, he didn't do them anymore.

And he said, well, I don't know what happened, but he certainly had his life changed and that's what God does. And I was mentioning Martin Lloyd-Jones yesterday, a great preacher, great expositor of the word.

And I remember the first time I heard Martin Lloyd-Jones, I just thought, this guy's actually quite dull and then he got going and I was blown away. Let me tell you, we mentioned Jesus speaking in John 17, I read part of that yesterday, Jesus speaking in John 17, the high priestly prayer and he mentions in verse 13 that he wants his disciples to have his joy fulfilled in themselves, his joy.

It's kind of interesting that he phrases it that way, his joy, it's a joy that he alone can give. But Lloyd-Jones went on to say how it was mentioned so often in the epistles, in the letters of Paul.

And so we talked a little bit about that and he actually said, listen to this, and this is actually John, in the 1st John 1 .14, these things I write unto you and to a group of believers that your joy might be full.

I mean, when we think about 1st John and the series really of tests it gives so that people can figure out whether they're saved or not, people call it the book of assurance. I like to call it sometimes the book of unassurance because if you read it and you go, okay, this is what Christians do but I'm not really living up to that, that's not very assuring, is it?

It's kind of unassuring, which is poor English but it gets the point across. And my point to you today is if John wrote that and if he said these things I write to you that your joy might be full, well, if 1st John is really about, do I love Christ, do I not love Christ, how do I show that I love Christ by my actions?

Well, if we want that joy to be full then the more we obey as Christians, the happier we will be. Why? Because sin, and this is a shocking thought, sin separates us from God. It creates that kind of almost a loneliness, you know, an alienation.

When you had arguments with your parents that didn't somehow improve the relationship, how much more when we as God's adopted children rebel against him, how is that going to foster any kind of a sense of closeness, of bonding?

And certainly on our part, it just drives us away from God. He goes on, does Martin Lloyd-Jones, he says, and this is something I sort of mentioned yesterday but I'll repeat it. They, speaking of the world, have thought of the Christian as someone who is melancholic, someone who is never going to experience any happiness or joy in a sinful world like this, but who really does look forward to a great joy of unmixed bliss in the land that lies beyond.

In other words, no fun in this life, but, you know, happiness in the life beyond. Listen, even Christians think about it that way and that's just wrong. He said it himself, it's tragically and pathetically wrong.

But Lloyd-Jones goes on to say we should never so emphasize the future as to kind of deprecate, as to put down the present. We are to be joyful now in this life, joyful now. Our Lord says that he prays in order that we might have or that we might, his joy might be fulfilled in the disciples, in us.

The Christian is meant to be a joyful person, one who is meant to experience the joy of salvation. Do you have that joy of salvation? You know, we often say, or we would be like the psalmist and say, you know, restore to me that joy of our salvation.

Again, sin separates us from that joy. Lloyd-Jones goes on to say the opposite of carnal and fleshly joy is not to be miserable. It is to have the true joy and the joy of Jesus Christ himself. And in light of all these exhortations from him and from the apostles throughout all the New Testament, we must start by realizing that it is our duty to possess and to experience this joy of which the Lord speaks.

We have no right not to have it. That is a great thought. If you're out there and you're a Christian and you're depressed and you're miserable and you can't figure out why your life isn't getting better, well, maybe, A, you're not in the word, B, maybe you're in sin, C, maybe you're not in fellowship with God, meaning maybe you're not praying.

Maybe you're not in fellowship with other believers, but may I suggest to you, whatever the situation is, that you are focused on the wrong things. Because Christ has overcome the world, we are meant to have this joy and to experience, we are meant to be a Christian people who rejoice.

Listen to this, this is great from Lloyd-Jones. He says, a miserable Christian does not, and obviously cannot, that is cannot, glorify the Lord Jesus Christ. We can't go around with a virtual cloud over our heads, you know, grumbling and griping and complaining about every single thing in life, and then say, you know what, I have good news for you.

I'd like to share the good news that changed my life. Really? That made you so miserable that no one wants to be anywhere near you? I mean, when I think, I mean, I struggle with this myself. I think about the people that I've known who just are the most joyful Christians.

You just go, I want to be exactly like that person. I just want to walk up to everyone and tell them about this great Savior who has saved me, and I just want to go on and on and on about Him, and that's how we should all be all the time.

Well, Lloyd-Jones goes on, he says, if the Lord Jesus Christ has done what he claims to have done, and has come to suffer that all that he suffered in this world, to the end, that he came to suffer all that he did, to the end that his people, us Christians, might be made different, they are obviously to be joyful people.

He has done all that in order to make it possible for us, and so our failure to be joyful in our lives is to detract from His glory, and to cast queries or doubts upon His wonderful work. Would you want to do that?

Would you want to undermine the work of Christ by your own actions? People look at you and you go, I would never want to be a Christian. Forget that. We are commanded to rejoice, and if you are commanded to do something, well, you need to do it.

People say that it is no use, Lloyd-Jones goes on, he says, it's no use to going up to a miserable man and telling him to cheer up, but there is a sense in which you can do that. Not directly, but indirectly, and it will result in joy.

This is what we must consider together. Rejoice in the Lord always, and I say again, rejoice. Well, that is what we are meant to do as Christians, and we are meant to be joyful, not only for our own sakes, but still more for His.

We reflect His glory when we rejoice in Him. When people say, what are you so happy about? And you say, I can't believe that the God of this universe would come and save me. I have nothing to be sorrowful about.

I have nothing to be down to the dumps about. I have everything to be joyful about because I have been forgiven for all the sin that I have ever committed. That is an amazing thought to me. I have been adopted by the God of this universe, not because I'm great, but because He is great, because He paid the price for my sins.

Note again, and Lloyd-Jones says that it is His joy. It is Christ's joy. Now, this is important because it means that it is not the kind of joy that sometimes people seem to think it is. It's not kind of an ephemeral, a transitory, a momentary joy.

It is the kind of joy that He Himself, Christ, possessed, and therefore, we can say of necessity, it's not carnal or fleshly, and it was not boisterous. Listen, it's not some kind of like, look at me kind of thing.

What did Jesus Christ do? He did the Father's will perfectly, and what did that do? It brought Him joy. It brought Him joy. Obeying brought Him joy. Lloyd-Jones says, you cannot think of Paul as a kind of hail fellow, well-met man.

It is inconceivable. In other words, we wouldn't think that he was some kind of stand-up comedian, that he was always jocular, that he was always having a good time, and yet, Lloyd-Jones says, yet no man had a greater joy.

He talked in the terms of our Lord Himself, and that is the joy that you and I should have. Think about all the things that Paul went through, how he was shipwrecked, all the beatings he went through, the times he had to run for his life, all the suffering he went through, and yet, what does he say?

Well, actually, he's kind of counting up all the things that he had before, you know, he was a Christian, all the education, all the heritage and everything he had, and he said, I'd count that all rubbish, compared to what?

The surpassing, what is that? The surpassing joy of knowing Christ Jesus, the surpassing beauty of knowing Christ Jesus, the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus, all those things. No man had greater joy than he did.

Listen, joy itself is from Christ. Lloyd-Jones goes on to say, he is its source, so it is a joy that is impossible to have apart from him, because it derives and it emanates from him, it is a joy that he gives to his own people, and it is part of the fruit of the Holy Spirit, something we mentioned the other day in Galatians 5.

You cannot have joy apart from, not true joy, apart from the Holy Spirit. Listen, you can be happy because you sank a hole in one, you can be happy because someone gave you something that you like, but you know what?

All those things are gonna pass. Like I used to say to guys, they would work and work and work so they could have a boat, so they could have a new car, so they could have this, that, the other thing, and I said, I used to put it in kind of earthly terms and say, listen, on your deathbed, with all your kids surrounding you, you are never gonna say, you're never gonna look at them and go, oh, kids, let me tell you something.

I wish I could have worked one more spot of overtime. I wish I could have had one more round of golf. That would have made me so happy. What you can say on your deathbed as you look at your loved ones, is you can look at them and say, I am so thrilled that Christ has brought me thus far and he will take me the rest of the way, and that I will spend eternity with him, not because of my own goodness, but because of his finished work on the cross.

And may I urge each of you, I mean, wouldn't that be a great way? We're all going to die someday. Wouldn't it be a great way to die, to just have your whole family around you and to just say, listen, this is my last message to you.

I want you to love Christ even more than I have. I want you to obey him even more than I have. I want you to set your eyes on the cross and never remove them. Be faithful right to the end. Another thing about joy is that it is entirely above and independent of the world and its circumstances, and yet, or, and it is in no way produced by them.

In other words, joy doesn't come from anything in the world. When we think about, again, about the joy of Christ, what did he say in Hebrews 12, I read it yesterday, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.

When we think about that as joy, he rejoiced in seeing how many people would come to faith in Christ, how many people he would set free from the yoke of sin. Our joy should not be dependent upon what is happening to this world or the things around us, what is happening to us physically.

Listen, if it's physically, every day we're gonna get more and more miserable because our physical bodies, our outer man is decaying. But if you know Christ, if you love the Lord Jesus Christ, then your inner man is being renewed day by day.

And that's the blessing, that's the hope, that's the joy. When we think about verses even like Romans 8, and we consider what Paul wrote about never being separated from the love of God and Christ, that there's nothing that can separate us from the love of God and Christ.

When we focus on that, when we think about all the promises of scripture, when we even think about how, what does Christ say? He says that those who believe are in his hand and no one can take them out.

What does he say? That he will in no wise cast those who come to him out. I mean, think about that. Once you are saved, you can never be lost. You belong to Christ. You can never be lost. Your salvation is sure.

Well, then what do the trials and tribulations and difficulties and bills and emotional heartaches of this life, what do they have to bear on? How bad can they possibly be? And you say, well, you don't know my life, Steve.

You really don't. No, I don't know your life, but here's what I do know. I do know life in general. I've seen a lot of sad situations, but I know this for a fact that there is nothing in life. That is sadder than to attend the funeral of someone who didn't know Christ, of to see someone pass into eternity who didn't know Christ.

That's the saddest thing ever. And if you're listening to nocompromisedradio .com or you're listening to WVNE 760 AM, where we are carried, I would just like to take a few minutes with you to just kind of challenge you to think about joy rightly, to think about your lives lately.

And not only is it not circumstances in our lives that should make us happy, it's something we shouldn't fake. It's something that we really can't fake. It's something, joy comes from thinking about His love for us, all that He did for us, even in leaving the Father's side, Jesus Christ leaving the Father's side, coming to this earth, taking on a human body, a human nature, suffering.

I mean, Jesus didn't have to do that. He didn't have to suffer. He didn't have to come here to be hungry, to be sorrowful, to see all the things that human beings go through, to physically experience them, to be tired, all the things that as God, He never would have had to experience, the sorrow that He felt when He saw people die, all these kinds of things.

But when we think about His love for us, His love for us, the Father's love for us, He sent His Son, Jesus Christ for us. He sent Him. And listen to John 17, verse six, Jesus praying. And He says, "'I have manifested your name to the people whom you gave me out of the world.

Yours they were, and you gave them to me, and they have kept your word.'". Listen, out of the entire world, God selected, the Father selected some people, and He gave those people to the Son. We should be happy about that.

What an amazing thought that the Father would choose anyone and then to give them to the Son, why? That the Son ultimately, as we would read on in John 17, would return them to the Father. We are, in essence, I don't know if you've ever thought about this, but those who are saved are, in essence, and kind of an inner Trinitarian love gift.

They are given from the Father to the Son, and then from the Son back to the Father. And in the midst of all that, the Spirit works in their lives to make them more Christ-like, to conform them into the image of His Son.

When we think about the finished work of Jesus Christ, His perfect death, we think often of His death, His death on a cross, and then His resurrection on the third day. But how much, you know, Romans 5 would say we're saved even more by His life.

Well, what does that mean? That His life is accounted to us. His perfection is accounted to us. And so we enjoy that also. We have His promises to keep us, that nothing will separate us from the love of God.

And listen, finally, our joy is shown by our obedience, our obedience. If we love Him, we will do what? Jesus said, if you love me, you will keep my commandments. How can we not do that? You know, I'd just like to close because there may be some of you here who do not know Christ, some who are listening who do not know Him, do not have that joy, cannot have that joy.

Sin, Selfishness, and the Way of Salvation

Let me just give you this. If you're out there and you're struggling, I want you to think about this even if you are a Christian. There is one God, one God who made everything, who owns everything, and who will someday judge everything.

You know, the Bible even says that this entire world and the heavens, everything that we see is going to be burned up. And you know why it's gonna be burned up? Because God hates the sin it contains that much.

Everything has to be physically destroyed, why? So that He might create a new heavens and a new earth, one that doesn't have the stain of sin. That's how much God hates sin. Because everything is the Lord's, He sets the standard and perfection is the standard.

And the sad reality is that you, like every human being, including me, since Adam and Eve were cast from Eden was born with a sin nature. We sin because we want to and because we were born with a sin nature.

From the time you could even think you sinned, you served yourself, you were selfish. I mean, you want to know what the greatest source of unhappiness is? It's selfishness. And you know what the greatest selfishness is?

Sin, sin against God, violating His standards, violating His word, failing to love Him with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength. And even one sin, you know, you say, well, I'm not really that bad.

One sin is enough to send you to hell forever. And you know what? There is no joy on your deathbed. If you're sitting there as you're closing your eyes for the last moment and you're about to die, knowing or not knowing where you're going to go, knowing that maybe you're going to hell, there's no joy in that.

But for the believer, there's absolute peace. Why? Because we've trusted entirely in the finished work of Christ. And the good news that we bring to you is that Jesus Christ is the mediator. He's fully God.

He came into this world to save sinners. He lived a perfect life. He died and was raised on the third day, as I was saying, and that those who believe in Him, and that is not just to say, you know what?

I know that there's a person named Jesus. I know that He was a really good person. I know He did a lot of good things, or maybe I even think that He died for my sins. Listen, not enough, not enough. You have to believe in your heart those things.

You have to believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead. And if you believe in your heart those things, God will change you. It will transform your life. You will love God's word. In fact, you want to know something else?

If you're not happy, I would say that there's a good chance you're not reading the scriptures. You're not into it. You're not thinking about yourself rightly. You're not thinking about God rightly. And you're certainly not thinking about Christ rightly.

And I would urge you today to flee from any kind of thoughts you have that you're good enough, that you're close enough, that somehow God's gonna overlook what you've done. You need to repent. You need to turn to the one who takes away sins, the one who can forgive you.

And if you'll do that, you will know the joy and the peace that surpasses all understanding. This is Steve Cooley, NoCompromiseRadio .com.

Station Identification and Closing Disclaimer

No Compromise Radio with Pastor Mike Abendroth is a production of Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston. Bethlehem Bible Church is a Bible teaching church firmly committed to unleashing the life-transforming power of God's word through verse-by-verse exposition of the sacred text.

Please come and join us. Our service times are Sunday morning at 1015 and in the evening at six. We're right on route 110 in West Boylston. You can check us out online at bbchurch .org or by phone at 508 -835 -3400.

The thoughts and opinions expressed on No Compromise Radio do not necessarily reflect those of WVNE, its staff or management.