Finding and Keeping the Joy of the Lord — Carter Conlon

Praise God. How many tonight have one of these cards with you. Prayer card. You raise it up raise them up if you have them with you. Well, praise God now what we're doing here at Times Square Church is there's a prayer card that you can get at the information table and it's an opportunity to go to people that are In your neighborhood or people you meet throughout the day and just say I'm going to a prayer meeting on Tuesday night and I'd like to pray for you and folks you'd be.

I was today. I went into to a shoemakers and I walked up to the owner of the shop and I said I'm going to a prayer meeting tonight and The Lord's put you on my heart to pray for you. Is there anything I can pray for and this gentleman is?

Known for his abruptness. Let's put it that way and. And He just melted he said for me. I said yes, and it's true. I said God put that on my heart to pray for you. And he said what would you. And he started listing the things that would you pray for my wife?

She's not well. And would you pray for my family and would you pray. And he was just it just wouldn't stop talking to me. It was just so. And folks we're living at a time when people they're they're living without hope.

For tomorrow and and you would be surprised if you and I would have the courage to just reach out and Just say I'm going to a prayer meeting Tuesday night now. You have to come to a prayer meeting Tuesday night, or it's not true.

Okay, and Give them a card and say listen, would you would you? Like to fill out on this there's an opportunities you can check a box or you can write in your name and What it isn't and I'm gonna hold on to that and I'm gonna keep.

I'm gonna keep praying for this man. I'm gonna go back and see him. I'm gonna visit him and tell him I'm still praying for you. How's that situation? Going with your family and. So what we do on Tuesday night is those who have a card for somebody to pray with they raise it up and those who don't just gather around them and they'll actually tell you who the person is and Some information about their prayer request then we we join together and we pray for actual people.

That people in this congregation have encountered and we believe God to answer those prayers. I believe God that he's going to answer my prayer. And so for those who have a card now, would you raise it up nice and high just like I'm doing those have a card okay, those who don't look around and find the nearest person around you that has a card raised up and Form a circle and those who raise the cards up tell the people around you do it now tell the people around you.

Who it is and then pray together and let's truly believe God and as soon as you I've done that start to pray.

Hallelujah, hallelujah. Hallelujah, hallelujah. Thank you Jesus. Thank you. Jesus. Thank you. Jesus. Thank you Jesus. Hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah. Hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah. Father we thank you.

Thank you dear God for hearing our cry. Thank you Jesus for stirring our hearts with faith. Oh God. It's so good. It's so sweet to trust you. It's so good. It's a delight to our hearts to come before a God who listens who hears and who cares about our every need.

God you care about our neighbors. You care about our co-workers. You care about our family members who are lost dear God you care about them with the same love and Compassion that you showed for us when you rescued us from the pits of hell and you brought us into an everlasting Kingdom father.

We pray the same for our co-workers. We pray the same for our neighbors. God we stand like those lepers that cannot be content with with all the delights of the pleasures and the Benefits dear God of this gospel.

We were constrained dear God in our hearts to share with others dear God the goodness that we've tasted. That we've seen in Christ Jesus God. So we pray for the same grace to meet them at the point of their need.

We pray for the same grace That met us and broke the chains and broke the prison doors for our lives. We pray that for the same grace the saving grace the delivering grace the healing grace the restoring grace.

The same grace to meet our Neighbors. The same grace to meet our co-workers. The same grace to meet our family members. God we thank you. We pray that every prayer request each and every one those for healing.

Those for finances. Those for troubled marriages. Those for troubled children. God we pray for each and every one of them to turn them around for a praise report. To the glory and honor of your name that father they would be astounded at how fast you answer prayer.

And how awesome you are. God that there would be praise reports. They would come to us saying I don't understand it. But God has come through. God make a testimony for your name to the glory and honor of your name.

And for the saving of their souls. God save each and every one of these if they don't know you bring back the backslider. Dear God bring back dear God the wayward children bring them back. Bring back husbands that have left their wives.

They're gonna bring them back restore families restore homes dear God and glorify your name. We believe you. God you are a God who cannot fail. You are a God who never fails. You are a God who knows what they need Jesus better than they know themselves.

God we thank you for this in Jesus name. We pray I.

The Joy of the Lord as Strength

Want to talk tonight for a few moments about how do I keep the joy of the Lord. Number one what is the joy of the Lord and how do I keep it now? You and I are experiencing somewhat of the joy of the Lord tonight.

We've come in we've clapped our hands. Yeah, I've seen a lot of you jump up and down. I Gathered most of you weren't doing that throughout the day today. And your boss might have been jump back up and down screaming at you but you weren't jumping up and down and you come into the house of the Lord and say well what is the joy of the Lord and Because the Bible says the joy of the Lord is my strength and So, how do I understand the joy of the Lord and how does it give me strength?

And how can I keep the joy of the Lord? This was a question in my heart. It used to annoy me When I would be in a bad mood when I was a young Christian and people would say Oh cheer up The joy of the Lord is your strength.

Well, there has to be a reason for that. There's got to be a foundation that that's built on. Other than me just trying to smile and look like I'm happy if it's not been that kind of a day in my life.

I want you to turn with me to the book of Nehemiah, please if you find Psalms and go back three books you'll find Nehemiah and Chapter 8 and I want to go look at the origin of the verse the joy of the Lord is your strength.

Now while you're finding that I'd like to pray father. I thank you tonight for the anointing of your Holy Spirit. I Thank you Lord that you are able to make this word sing inside of us. You're able to make it live.

You're able to make your word burn. You're able to give us understanding and Lift us out of Every trap and pit and wrong impression even of God that we might find ourselves in. I Asked tonight Lord. Did you just use me as a vessel?

Lord to build this foundation of understanding What the joy of the Lord is? For you yourself Lord said in the book of Psalms that we're to sing praises with Understanding and so help us to understand help me to explain this.

And God help us to lay hold of it. And I ask it in Jesus name. Now Nehemiah the whole book is about a people coming back to rebuild what they had lost. The people of the nation of Israel had an incredible promise that they would be blessed and be the children of blessing and the earth and as They we do as as they did at that season.

They dealt casually with the things of God the promises that were given them the life that they were promised they dealt casually with it and they began to walk outside of the borders of what God said their experience with him should be and subsequently were taken into 70 years of captivity into a foreign nation and At the end of that 70 years according to the Word of God that he gave to Jeremiah they were sovereignly released by the hand of God and everyone who was released had to have known that and they came back home to build and They were building out of the ruins and out of the rubble and they were trying to in In waves and generations coming back into the homeland trying to make something out of what had Technically become a mess and it's very similar to what you and I try to do.

We were given life and we we take that life and live it in a way that doesn't really bring honor to God we stray outside of the lines and we end up with a lot of a mess and We come back to the house of God just like these people people came back into Israel and we start to rebuild This life in this testimony that God has given us and his here's where we start Ezra the scribe and Nehemiah and others they gathered the people together and they began to unlock the mysteries and the truths of the work of the Word of God and in verse 6 of chapter 8 I Want you to bring yourself into this scene now if you will you're let's let's suppose.

We were standing there. We're trying to build something that glorifies God out of what has become a mess. We're trying to get back to what we've lost and it says in Ezra bless the people Bless the Lord the great God and all the people answered.

Amen. And they met with lifting up their hands. They bowed their heads. They worshiped the Lord with their faces to the ground and we've done essentially some of these things tonight and all of these people in verse 7 it says caused the people to understand the law and The people stood in their place.

In other words, they there were men. Given the ability to unlock to open this book and and speak it in a way that people could understand it so they read in the book of the law verse 8 of God distinctly and gave the sense and caused them to understand the reading and Nehemiah which is the Tershatha and Ezra the priest the scribe and the Levites that taught the people said unto all the people This day is holy unto the Lord your God.

Mourn not nor weep for all the people wept when they heard the words of the law. In other words they they finally understood what they had done and There'd be a lot of sorrow. I mean there there were 70 years of sorrow.

There were there were families that were lost. There were children that didn't make it there were there were homes and inheritances that were forfeited because of their behavior and What they had done and suddenly sitting in the presence of God with the God's Word open they understand understood what they had done.

Just as can happen to you and I they understood why the mess had come into their lives in the first place then now Nehemiah Says something incredibly To the people he says then he said to them verse 10 go your way.

Eat the fat drink the sweet and send portions to them for whom nothing is prepared. For this day is holy unto our Lord neither be sorry for the joy of the Lord is your strength now. They're just they're hearing what they had done wrong.

They're seeing they're wrong for the first time. They're understanding why such captivity and tragedy came into their lives their homes their families their their past. They're in a place of trying to rebuild and around them.

It looks like it's ruins and suddenly they're told not to be sorry. But go home and have a feast. Because the joy of the Lord is your strength. So the Levites still all the people saying hold your peace for the day is holy and neither be you grieved and all the people Went their way to eat and to drink and to send portions that means to to share really this joy and to make great mirth great celebration.

Because they had understood the words that were declared unto them now not just the words of the law. Which had shown them why they had come into such bondage. But there were other words that were declared to them and that's the cry of my heart tonight that somehow You can understand and I can fully appreciate myself what the joy of the Lord really is.

Is it possible? It's something that we've not really thought about or fully understood. What is the source of this joy? How do I partake of it? Do I just clap my hands until I just get into a frenzy and get happy?

Do I go to a place where other people are happy and hope it's contagious to me. What is the basis of this joy now? So put a marker there now go with me in the New Testament to Luke chapter 15. We're going to Hopefully have an understanding tonight of what the joy is and how I get it and how I keep it.

The Prodigal Son Leaves the Father's House

Now in Luke chapter 15 There's a parable given by Jesus of a man who had two sons and one of these sons a younger one. Suddenly one day it came into his heart that is I think is he filled his father's house was too restrictive.

Too narrow. There's more to life than this then coming to church and Reading the words of my father and living in this and the borders of it. There's more to life than this. I've been born for more than this.

Obviously the world's got to have something to offer me. So this younger son just more or less escaped the borders of his father's house. And it says he took he took his he took his inheritance. Now we have an inheritance of a thinking mind.

We have an inheritance of a heart that can seek God. We have we have a voice that can speak and we have the power of reason. As a matter of fact, we're the only thing in the entire universe that can say no to God.

Did you know that? Everything else just obeys the geese don't have a Conference about when to fly south and who's going to lead and how are they going to do it? They're simply programmed by God and they obey him the only one created in the image of God that was given the power in effect to reason and to say no was you and me and This younger son took this life and took this blessing of God and took the power to reason and took his future and Everything it says he went far away from the house of his father far away.

Many many people have done that in our generation. Some people have done that who are here tonight. And says he spent his substance with riotous living and really in the in the original Greek it means self-consumption.

He just took this life that he was given and just spent it on himself and he He lived any way he wanted to live and he did what he wanted to do until the day that a mighty famine came into that land where he was living and Suddenly a desire came into his heart.

Because there was more to life than what he had found. He tried to get help from people around him or we're living in the same place. He was but he couldn't find help there one day. He came to himself and said I don't know what I'm doing here because the hired servants in my father's house have Enough to spare enough bread to spare and I'm perishing with hunger.

That's got to be the testimony of somebody here tonight. You didn't come here because you necessarily wanted to you came here because you're starving. Be honest with yourself. I know there are people here like that tonight.

So I wouldn't be here if I wasn't in the condition. I'm in my life is a mess. I went out I did my own thing. I've got some background in church. I went to Sunday school I sat somewhere my somebody read the Bible to me, but I just took that and said well, that's too narrow.

Life's got a lot more to offer. So I headed out for New York City Land of opportunity heaven's waiting room. Everybody makes it big in New York City, don't they? No, I guess not and so Living and walking and trying and doing just left you in such a place where I said I'm dying of starvation.

I'm just going to give God's house to try one more time. He said I'll arise and go to my father and say to him father I've sinned against heaven and before you and I'm no longer worthy to be called your son make me as one of your hired servants.

How shocked he was as he got up and he couldn't have been more than a dot on a little dot on a map. And and he's coming down the road and he's rehearsing his mantra. What am I supposed to say when I get back to church?

Oh, yeah, I'm a sinner. I'm not worthy make me a slave like my brother is you know. My brother who just doesn't seem to have any joy, but he never left like I did and Make me like one like him and when he was a great way off.

It says his father had compassion saw him and ran and fell on his neck and kissed him. What an incredible moment that must have been as he sees this this gray-haired father come running down the road.

His robe probably flowing behind him running as fast as maybe a 70 or 80 year old man can run and and Falls on his neck and kisses him in spite of the fact. He's been in a field with pigs. He stinks like any smell that this world can put on him.

He's made a mess of his life. He's drug addicted. He's been into pornography. He's been into relationship after relationship. His mind is messed up. He's lost his inheritance as he sees it and the man who actually was in charge of giving him his life in the first place comes running down the road and just falls on his neck and embraces him.

How shocking that is many people don't have that picture of God? They have a picture of God is standing sitting on the throne with his arms folded in his right foot tapping say it's about time. Didn't I warn you when you headed out the mess you've made of your name the mess you've made of the family.

Oh the evil report that you brought of the father's house. You are fortunate that I would even consider making you a slave in my house. No, the father doesn't say any of that. He runs and falls on his neck and kisses him so glad to have him home so glad so glad.

And I want you to know tonight that if you walk far away from God God is glad that you're here tonight. There's a gladness in the heart of God. There's you're not you haven't come to a place where a finger is pointing from God in your face.

No on the contrary. There are two arms that are reaching out to you and running towards you and saying my son my daughter. Thank God you finally come home. I've been waiting for you. I've been sitting on the porch and I have watched you and I've heard reports about you and I've longed for you and now I See you face to face and you've come home.

The son starts his mantra father. I've sinned and I'm no longer against heaven that sounds holy doesn't it. And in your sight and I'm no longer worthy to be called your son and Expecting some kind of reply, but the father doesn't even speak to him.

Doesn't acknowledge anything. He's saying doesn't nod his head in agreement doesn't do anything. The first thing the father does is clap his hands and says Bring out the best robe the one that is reserved for royalty and put it on him cover him.

How stunned that son must have been as the father brings out that robe and and all he can do is lift his hands and allow them to put the robe that covers the smell of the field and the smell of the hogs and the smell of the addictions and the smell of what he's Done, and it's all covered and as he's walking into his father's house.

It's as if he'd never sin. Against God it's all covered. We have a righteousness the Bible says a cleanness in the sight of God that is not our own. It is God's and it is freely given to those who know that they need a Savior.

Jesus said I didn't come to call the righteous to myself. I came to call sinners to repentance. I came to call those who know they need a Savior. I came not to die for those who think they're holy in their own strength.

But for those who know they've made a mess of it all and they know they need mercy. Then how strange it must have been. As if it'd be enough like for you and I sometimes we think it's God. It'd be just enough that you covered my sin and my frailty and there's a stunned silence between him and the father as they walk down the road and suddenly another command is given the father says bring out the ring of authority the ring that represents my power and My authority and my name and put it on the finger of my son.

That ring that bears a royal seal that has the power of God behind it. The power of God to tread on Serpents and scorpions and over all the power of the enemy. The power of God to stand against every voice in society that would try to condemn him again.

And to declare that he has a righteousness not his own but given to him of his father. The power of God to speak into darkened places and as he had received the love of God. To see the love of God go through that spoken word into places that only God can reach.

The power of God to become what he could never be in himself to go where he could never go in his own strength and and to Have what he never could hope to possess freely given to him of his father then the father says and Put shoes on his feet.

Now it speaks of a journey, you know in the Bible when when God tells Moses take off your shoes tells Joshua take off your shoes. He's basically saying no farther in your strength. No farther with your strategies.

No farther with your plans but when we're ready to walk with God that he says now put your shoes back on and He brings out the shoes and puts them has them put on the feet of his son says now son. We're gonna have a journey together because you're about to learn something of me that many people don't know.

People who stand in their own sense of goodness. People who could point in your face and say well, I've never made the message you've made. People who seemingly all their lives have been good and are quite proud of how good they have been.

And they've not done what you've done, but they're not gonna know what you know. Then with the shoes on his feet and the ring on his hand and the robe on his back. He brings the Sun into the house and Says to the musicians bring out the instruments Kill the fatted calf.

The Father's Joy in Restoration

We're gonna have a feast and Let's dance. Because the older brother it says when he came to the house, he heard music and dancing. Amazing picture comes into my mind when I see this as the Sun is just barely inside the door just like many of you tonight.

That are here you're barely barely inside the door of God's kingdom and he's standing there and he's got a robe. That's not his own. He doesn't the people inside don't even know what he's done and Quite frankly, it looks like nobody really cares.

He's got a ring of authority on his hand that everybody looks and goes. Whoa, look at did you see that the authority the giftings has given to this young man? He's got shoes on his feet. Which is an evidence that he's been invited by his father onto this incredible journey a faith it's about he's about to be the blessing it was supposed to be in the beginning and the band starts to play and The fatted calf was put on the table and it's a celebration like nothing This young man has ever seen in his life.

But what tops it all off is suddenly his father starts to dance. I've seen it only once in the King David Hotel in Jerusalem. I'm sure pastor Davis you've seen it a lot of times that the way that the Jewish dance goes his father just starts to dance and the boy is Standing there and suddenly realizes that it's his father's joy to cover his sin.

It's his father's joy to put a ring of authority on his hand. It's his father's joy to invite him on this journey. It's not his joy. It's his father's joy. And that's why the joy of the Lord becomes his strength.

That's what Nehemiah was trying and Ezra trying to tell the people yes, you've made a mess and yes. You went into captivity and yes, you've come home and yes, it looks like you're building with ruins.

But you need to know you've come home because you are still the joy of your father God you are still the joy of his heart. And it is it is the father's joy to cover your sin. It is the father's joy to put a ring of authority on your hand.

It is the father's joy to invite you on a journey of telling others about the mercy that you yourself have received. That's why Nehemiah said go home eat the fat drink the sweet and Send something to somebody else who doesn't understand this yet.

Tell somebody what God has done for you. Do you to the Lamb of God glory to the Lamb of God. Glory glory to the name of Jesus. The joy of the Lord is my strength. That's what it is. And that's how I keep it.

It's a mental picture in my mind that should be in yours now that no matter how your day is gone. The father is still Dancing over you with the holy angels in heaven. He's not ashamed of you. He hasn't rejected you.

He loves you with a passionate love so deep so profound so powerful that it sent him to a cross. To pay the price for your wrong so that you may have the privilege again in your life of knowing. That it is the joy of God to receive you and to restore you.

When this knowledge comes into your heart I have to tell you you have to want to go to hell after that point. You have to want to you have to you have to profoundly choose to go to hell when you finally see how much God Loves you his joy.

His joy, that's that's what we sing about. It's not mine. It's his and when I finally see it it becomes my strength. It's his joy. How when's the last time you saw God dancing over you? He says I will rejoice over you with singing.

It's in the scriptures. It's there. We just are so Dull to seeing it. We get a view that that God became a man came to the earth because he felt some obligation to redeem us this mess that he created.

That rebelled against him and he just oh, I might as well go down and die for them. They'll never get out of hell on their own. Somebody's got to do something and Many people have that view of God and they go they completely gloss over the scriptures that I'm reading to you tonight.

And and just even the what the prophet Isaiah said a nursing mother may forget her child. But I cannot forget you. I have loved you with an everlasting love. I've engraved you on the palms of my hands this passionate love of God for his children.

No matter what you have done or where you have been or what you look like. Or what kind of a mess you have brought into the house of God tonight above and beyond everything else. I want you to know that Jesus Christ Passionately loves you.

Hard for some people to accept that. Maybe you were raised under an older. There was this young man had an older brother who was just harsh. He he had what I call a joyless goat-less religion. Came to his father and says you never even gave me a goat to celebrate with my friends.

After I've so faithfully served you all these years and the father said to him Son, everything I have has always been yours. He wasn't talking about the the palace. And the the farm instruments and he was talking about his heart.

But Everything I Have has always been yours. I've always wanted to give you this understanding of what my work is in the earth. You know folks when there's no greater joy in the heart of God than over one sinner.

Heaven Rejoices over Repentance

Who repents and if we choose to have that heart he'll give it to us and become partakers of that joy. Every time we see a soul turn to God, there's something in us that should cause us to want to join the party and dance.

It shouldn't be just a whole hum thing. You know or people come home and and say well, how was church tonight? Well, it wasn't very good. There's only two people got saved. I mean how tragic is that because the whole of heaven is dancing over those two people.

The scripture says the angels in heaven are rejoicing. Why are they rejoicing? It's because they know what's in the heart of God and they're just simply joining in what's going on in the heart of God and there's and you can just picture in your mind that Heaven is rejoicing and there's there's clapping whether it's feathers your hands your wings.

I don't know what their clap all different kinds of created beings are. Shouting glory to God. It's all going and we go home and say oh, it wasn't very good. There's only two people say no. He says whatever I what I've had has always been yours if you wanted it.

You could have had it and I don't know about you, but I want that heart. I want I want to understand the joy of the Lord. I want to enter into the joy of the Lord and I want to keep the joy of the Lord by being an ambassador of Jesus Christ in my generation.

And not looking on the salvation of one soul is somehow. Remember I remember the man who won me to Christ. Before he died. One year he said to me he was so disappointed. He looked so discouraged and I said what's wrong?

And he said, you know, you're the only one I ever won to Christ. I Remember saying to him what what am I chopped liver or something? Was it not worth it? And is that is that a defeat in your life? Because I'm the only one you ever won to Christ.

Does that mean your life has not been worth it coming to my door was it was a waste of time? Spending three months trying to talk me into my salvation not giving up. That was all a lost effort because I was the only one you ever won to Christ.

It's strange sometimes how we think tonight. I Want to give an altar call? I want to give an altar call for. Now we have this word that we use in the Christian church. We use a lot of words that people don't understand.

Backslider is one of them, you know, I'm first time I heard it. I thought I had a picture of somebody going down like cuz I'm from Canada. Down a hill in the wintertime on their back, you know. No idea what they're talking about.

You might be a backslider or are you written in the Lamb's Book of Life and Which really means that you had. You had some knowledge or some relationship with God and you were moving in the right direction and suddenly you took off and went in the wrong direction.

That's what it means. You slid back from wherever you were. You've slid back from there. It's really what it means. It means you you were walking with God at least marginally and it could be when you were a child.

That was it was something in your heart, but you you walked away from it and now. You're you've made a mess and you're trying to build out of the rubble. But I want you to know tonight that it is the Lord's joy to restore you.

It's the Lord's joy it's his joy and if you could come down to an altar like this tonight or in the front of this auditorium and Finally see that that I'm not coming here to make any promises to God because my promises are worthless.

I can't keep them, but I'm just going to lift my hands and let him put the robe on me. I'm gonna put out my hand and let him stick the ring of authority on my finger. I'm gonna lift my foot and let him put shoes on me because that's all I can do and the rest is up to him and he promises to Live inside of me and change me from the inside out and invite me on this journey.

And what's going to be my message? What am I going to tell this generation? Mercy. It's the mercy of God that saved me. It's the love of God that keeps me. It's the joy of the Lord that gives me a song that the world can't take away from me.

It's all mercy. I live by mercy. I'm cleansed by mercy. I grow by mercy. I'll become what I'm going to be by mercy. Everything is mercy in my life and that will be your message. And I'm telling you that's a message that people can relate to in New York City.

It's not a list of do's and don'ts in the kingdom of God. Just do this or come back and be a slave in the house of the Lord. No, it's come home and receive the mercy of God. Let God touch your life let him set you free from everything that captivated you and Give you authority over what dominates your mind and is robbing your home and robbing your family and causing you to think you have no future.

And let him put shoes on your feet and send you out to tell others all around That what God did for me he can do for you. That is the Christian message. If you have walked away from God, I want to simply invite you to come home.

Just come home. Don't come home with your your your prayer of I'm as I'm unworthy make me a slave. Just be quiet. Just come home and let God touch you come home and let Jesus Christ fall on your neck and embrace you.