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THE JOY OF BEING A CHRISTIAN

#1 · July 21, 2006, 11:29 am

Quote from Forum Archives on July 21, 2006, 11:29 am
Posted by: henkf <henkf@...>

**************************
"Opa's Rule of Thumb:
---Never use your thumb for a rule

You'll either hit it with a hammer or get a splinter in it."
*************************
Our Blog ...   http://opahenk.blogspot.com/
Dear God cartoons..... http://www.worldoutreach.ca/DearGod
Our books http://lulu.com/Frijters
“SermonsOnTheNet” http://welovegod.org/groups/sermonsonthenet
******************************************************

THE JOY OF BEING A CHRISTIAN

Psalm 16

     Today we want to talk about the Joy of being a Christian. In the past we have seen books on the joy of sex, the joy of cooking, and the joy of making a million dollars, but the one area that has been vastly undersold is the joy of Christian commitment. And yet, the testimony of the Scriptures and of human experience is that that is where the only real joy is to be found.

     I believe that you'll agree with me when I say that the world today is desperate for happiness, for pleasure, and for fun. Many people in our society are bored. They mope around, fantasizing about some secret joy that lies out there somewhere.

     "I'm looking for adventure, excitement, and beautiful women," said the young man to his father as he was leaving home. "And don't try to stop me!"

     "Who wants to stop you?" said his father. "I'm going with you!"

     The ironic thing about seeking such pleasure, however, is how little joy it really brings. In fact those who seek it hardest are often among the unhappiest of people.

     There is a great illustration of this from the book of Ecclesiastes (chapter 2) in which Solomon, a man known for his wisdom, attempts to define and achieve pleasure. He set out to enjoy himself, trying to find meaning to his life by making pleasure his goal. And he has left a record of his experiments for us all to read. First he thought the road to pleasure would be in intellectual pursuits, but this brought him no satisfaction. He says: "I applied my mind to know wisdom and to know madness and folly. I perceived that this also is but a striving after wind. For in much wisdom is much vexation, and he who increases knowledge increases sorrow." Then he tried the path of alcohol: "I searched with my mind how to cheer my body with wine." But this also produced frustration, as he noted in the Proverbs: "Wine is a mocker, strong drink a brawler, and whoever is led astray by it is not wise." Then we see that he turned to more constructive activities. He says: "I made great works; I built houses and planted vineyards for myself; I made myself gardens and parks, and planted in them all kinds of fruit trees." He built these great monuments to himself but they did not produce lasting satisfaction either. From that Solomon turned to the accumulation of wealth: "I bought male and female slaves. . . I had also great possessions of herds and flocks, more than any who had been before me in Jerusalem. I also gathered for myself silver and gold and the treasures of kings and provinces."

     Then he tried sex: "I got singers, both men and women, and many concubines, man's delight." Women were rather high on Solomon's pleasure list, but even a thousand wives and concubines left him still unfulfilled.

     And then he turned to worldly fame: "So I became great and surpassed all who were before me in Jerusalem." Even the Queen of Sheba came to observe his glory, but here too he found no permanent happiness. His pleasure-seeking experiments were all eventually summed up in these plaintive words: "Whatever my eyes desired I did not keep from them: I kept my heart from no pleasure. . . Then I considered all that my hands had done and all the toil I had spent in doing it, and behold all was vanity."

     Solomon was neither the first person, nor the last, to discover that a life devoted to sensual pleasures is not the path that leads to joy.

     Contrast Solomon's plight to the pleasures described by his father, David:

     "I have set the Lord always before me: because he is at my right hand, I shall not be moved. Therefore my heart is glad, and my glory rejoiceth: my flesh also shall rest in hope. For thou wilt not leave my soul in hell; neither wilt thou suffer thine Holy One to see corruption. Thou wilt show me the path of life; in thy presence is fullness of joy; at thy right hand there are pleasures forevermore." (Psalm 16:8-11)

     David found the secret of life. And he shared that secret with us: "I have set the Lord always before me: because he is at my right hand, I shall not be moved." Doesn't that sound like a dynamic, living relationship with God in which David can live boldly, confidently, creatively, and freely in the knowledge that he is a child of the King? There is no identity crisis here.

     At an army boxing tournament in France, in between two of the bouts, they led around the ring a soldier from a hospital who had lost his memory through a traumatic battle experience. The hope was, because many of the spectators were in the army, that someone with whom he had served might be in the audience and recognize him. None, however, did. As the man, frustrated, was led down from the ring he threw out his arms and cried, "Will nobody tell me who I am?" ( C. Thomas Hilton. )

     Today we hear that cry coming from every direction we turn: "Will nobody tell me who I am?"

     A university student in Texas recently described his high-school career as the pursuit of one identity after another. During his freshman year, he took on the identity of a cowboy and dressed accordingly. During his sophomore year, he took on the identity and appearance of a motorcycle gang member. In his junior year, he adopted the unusual clothing and hairstyle of the "new wave." And, in his senior year, he took on the button-down look of a "preppie" on his way to college. Each year he had a new identiy, complete with its own costume, its own peer group, and its own values. (Harold Hazelip and Ken Durham, JESUS OUR MENTOR AND MODEL, (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Book House, 1987)) He wasn't a bad kid. He was just trying to find out who he was.

     But DAVID KNEW WHO HE WAS.

He walked in daily fellowship with God. He was not perfect by any means, but he knew the sweet forgiveness of a loving and compassionate God.

     "The Lord is at my right hand, I shall not be moved."

     It is said that during World War II, in the cinemas of Cardiff a notice would sometimes appear on the screen interrupting the films: "An air raid has sounded. Be British. Don't panic."

     That's great, isn't it? So British. A similar admonition ought to satisfy followers of Jesus. Be Christian. Don't panic.

     Do you have the inner peace and certainty that can liberate you from your fears and anxieties and give you joy?

     But inner peace is not quite enough.

DAVID ALSO HAD A DIRECTION FOR HIS LIFE.

As he said, "Thou wilt show me the path of life..." No wonder so many people seem so insecure and uncertain about life. Life for them has no direction, no goal, no divine purpose.

     Track star Jim Ryun made that truth quite apparent when he suddenly dropped out of a race in Florida a number of years ago.

     Jim Ryun was the first high school athlete to break the four-minute mile. After that, he set a goal to break the existing U.S.A. mile record. Then, when he accomplished that, he raised his goal to be the fastest man in the world.     After he succeeded there as well, reporters bombarded him with questions, asking him what his next move was. And he replied that he was going to try competing in some different running events. And once again he reached his objective.

     Subsequently, in the famous race in Florida, Ryun stopped abruptly in the middle of the race. He said that he had just lost interest, and that he couldn't make himself run anymore. It might well have been that the activity was just becoming too boring for him: there was no challenge in it. But after that, Ryun retired from running for a while.

     After several months of little training, however, he had greatly weakened his running abilities, and that raised the challenge for him. Accordingly, he started competing again. (Gerald D. Bel, THE ACHIEVERS, (Chapel Hill: Preston-Hill, Inc. 1973), p. 120. )

     We all need a challenge, a goal, a direction, a reason for being. Harry Emerson Fosdick wrote, "Hold a picture of yourself long and steadily enough in your mind's eye and you will be drawn toward it. . . Great living starts with a picture held in your imagination of what you would like to do or be."

     "Thou wilt show me the path of life. . ." Let God help you discover your reason for being here. Discover that divine plan for your life and you will discover another important element of Christian joy.

     BUT WHILE YOU ARE SEEKING AND STRIVING, DON'T FORGET TO "SMELL THE ROSES ALONG THE WAY."

David writes, ". . .at thy right hand are pleasures for evermore." The Christian faith is not meant to be anti-pleasure. God created a pleasurable world for us. God gave us the freshly ground coffee that delights our nostrils in the morning. God gave us bodies that respond to healthy exercise and recreation. God gave us intellect and emotions that are stirred when we read a good book. Jesus said that he came so that we might have life and have it abundantly. It is heresy to say that Christianity is anti-pleasure. Christian joy merely comes from discovering the right pleasures.

     There are pleasures that are anti-life. They cripple our bodies and put at risk our futures. They endanger our relationships and shrivel our souls. They look like they will give us life, but they are a distorted backward glance into a mirror in which we think we see `live' but instead, when read right-to-left, is 'evil.'

     The gift of joy is at our door. It is ours for the taking. It grows out of faith in Jesus Christ. The mother of Goethe once wrote these simple but meaningful lines:

     I rejoice in my life because the lamp still glows;

     I seek no thorny ways;

     I love the small pleasures of life,

     If the doors are too low, I bend.

     If I can remove a stone from the path, I do so;

     If it is too heavy, I go around it.

     I find something in every day that pleases me.

     The cornerstone, my belief in God,

     Makes my heart glad and my face shining.

Who could put it any better than that? Christian joy comes from the simple and beautiful pleasures in life. It comes from loving and being loved. It comes from walking daily with God. It comes from believing that God has a plan for our life, and that the path on which he leads us, leads to pleasures forevermore.

→

Dear God cartoons..... http://www.worldoutreach.ca/DearGod

**************************
"Opa's Rule of Thumb:
---Never use your thumb for a rule

You'll either hit it with a hammer or get a splinter in it."
*************************
Our Blog ...   http://opahenk.blogspot.com/
Dear God cartoons..... http://www.worldoutreach.ca/DearGod
Our books http://lulu.com/Frijters
“SermonsOnTheNet” http://welovegod.org/groups/sermonsonthenet
******************************************************

…..

Posted by: henkf <henkf@...>

**************************
"Opa's Rule of Thumb:
---Never use your thumb for a rule

You'll either hit it with a hammer or get a splinter in it."
*************************
Our Blog ... http://opahenk.blogspot.com/
Dear God cartoons..... http://www.worldoutreach.ca/DearGod
Our books http://lulu.com/Frijters
“SermonsOnTheNet” http://welovegod.org/groups/sermonsonthenet
******************************************************

THE JOY OF BEING A CHRISTIAN

Psalm 16

Today we want to talk about the Joy of being a Christian. In the past we have seen books on the joy of sex, the joy of cooking, and the joy of making a million dollars, but the one area that has been vastly undersold is the joy of Christian commitment. And yet, the testimony of the Scriptures and of human experience is that that is where the only real joy is to be found.

I believe that you'll agree with me when I say that the world today is desperate for happiness, for pleasure, and for fun. Many people in our society are bored. They mope around, fantasizing about some secret joy that lies out there somewhere.

"I'm looking for adventure, excitement, and beautiful women," said the young man to his father as he was leaving home. "And don't try to stop me!"

"Who wants to stop you?" said his father. "I'm going with you!"

The ironic thing about seeking such pleasure, however, is how little joy it really brings. In fact those who seek it hardest are often among the unhappiest of people.

There is a great illustration of this from the book of Ecclesiastes (chapter 2) in which Solomon, a man known for his wisdom, attempts to define and achieve pleasure. He set out to enjoy himself, trying to find meaning to his life by making pleasure his goal. And he has left a record of his experiments for us all to read. First he thought the road to pleasure would be in intellectual pursuits, but this brought him no satisfaction. He says: "I applied my mind to know wisdom and to know madness and folly. I perceived that this also is but a striving after wind. For in much wisdom is much vexation, and he who increases knowledge increases sorrow." Then he tried the path of alcohol: "I searched with my mind how to cheer my body with wine." But this also produced frustration, as he noted in the Proverbs: "Wine is a mocker, strong drink a brawler, and whoever is led astray by it is not wise." Then we see that he turned to more constructive activities. He says: "I made great works; I built houses and planted vineyards for myself; I made myself gardens and parks, and planted in them all kinds of fruit trees." He built these great monuments to himself but they did not produce lasting satisfaction either. From that Solomon turned to the accumulation of wealth: "I bought male and female slaves. . . I had also great possessions of herds and flocks, more than any who had been before me in Jerusalem. I also gathered for myself silver and gold and the treasures of kings and provinces."

Then he tried sex: "I got singers, both men and women, and many concubines, man's delight." Women were rather high on Solomon's pleasure list, but even a thousand wives and concubines left him still unfulfilled.

And then he turned to worldly fame: "So I became great and surpassed all who were before me in Jerusalem." Even the Queen of Sheba came to observe his glory, but here too he found no permanent happiness. His pleasure-seeking experiments were all eventually summed up in these plaintive words: "Whatever my eyes desired I did not keep from them: I kept my heart from no pleasure. . . Then I considered all that my hands had done and all the toil I had spent in doing it, and behold all was vanity."

Solomon was neither the first person, nor the last, to discover that a life devoted to sensual pleasures is not the path that leads to joy.

Contrast Solomon's plight to the pleasures described by his father, David:

"I have set the Lord always before me: because he is at my right hand, I shall not be moved. Therefore my heart is glad, and my glory rejoiceth: my flesh also shall rest in hope. For thou wilt not leave my soul in hell; neither wilt thou suffer thine Holy One to see corruption. Thou wilt show me the path of life; in thy presence is fullness of joy; at thy right hand there are pleasures forevermore." (Psalm 16:8-11)

David found the secret of life. And he shared that secret with us: "I have set the Lord always before me: because he is at my right hand, I shall not be moved." Doesn't that sound like a dynamic, living relationship with God in which David can live boldly, confidently, creatively, and freely in the knowledge that he is a child of the King? There is no identity crisis here.

At an army boxing tournament in France, in between two of the bouts, they led around the ring a soldier from a hospital who had lost his memory through a traumatic battle experience. The hope was, because many of the spectators were in the army, that someone with whom he had served might be in the audience and recognize him. None, however, did. As the man, frustrated, was led down from the ring he threw out his arms and cried, "Will nobody tell me who I am?" ( C. Thomas Hilton. )

Today we hear that cry coming from every direction we turn: "Will nobody tell me who I am?"

A university student in Texas recently described his high-school career as the pursuit of one identity after another. During his freshman year, he took on the identity of a cowboy and dressed accordingly. During his sophomore year, he took on the identity and appearance of a motorcycle gang member. In his junior year, he adopted the unusual clothing and hairstyle of the "new wave." And, in his senior year, he took on the button-down look of a "preppie" on his way to college. Each year he had a new identiy, complete with its own costume, its own peer group, and its own values. (Harold Hazelip and Ken Durham, JESUS OUR MENTOR AND MODEL, (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Book House, 1987)) He wasn't a bad kid. He was just trying to find out who he was.

But DAVID KNEW WHO HE WAS.

He walked in daily fellowship with God. He was not perfect by any means, but he knew the sweet forgiveness of a loving and compassionate God.

"The Lord is at my right hand, I shall not be moved."

It is said that during World War II, in the cinemas of Cardiff a notice would sometimes appear on the screen interrupting the films: "An air raid has sounded. Be British. Don't panic."

That's great, isn't it? So British. A similar admonition ought to satisfy followers of Jesus. Be Christian. Don't panic.

Do you have the inner peace and certainty that can liberate you from your fears and anxieties and give you joy?

But inner peace is not quite enough.

DAVID ALSO HAD A DIRECTION FOR HIS LIFE.

As he said, "Thou wilt show me the path of life..." No wonder so many people seem so insecure and uncertain about life. Life for them has no direction, no goal, no divine purpose.

Track star Jim Ryun made that truth quite apparent when he suddenly dropped out of a race in Florida a number of years ago.

Jim Ryun was the first high school athlete to break the four-minute mile. After that, he set a goal to break the existing U.S.A. mile record. Then, when he accomplished that, he raised his goal to be the fastest man in the world. After he succeeded there as well, reporters bombarded him with questions, asking him what his next move was. And he replied that he was going to try competing in some different running events. And once again he reached his objective.

Subsequently, in the famous race in Florida, Ryun stopped abruptly in the middle of the race. He said that he had just lost interest, and that he couldn't make himself run anymore. It might well have been that the activity was just becoming too boring for him: there was no challenge in it. But after that, Ryun retired from running for a while.

After several months of little training, however, he had greatly weakened his running abilities, and that raised the challenge for him. Accordingly, he started competing again. (Gerald D. Bel, THE ACHIEVERS, (Chapel Hill: Preston-Hill, Inc. 1973), p. 120. )

We all need a challenge, a goal, a direction, a reason for being. Harry Emerson Fosdick wrote, "Hold a picture of yourself long and steadily enough in your mind's eye and you will be drawn toward it. . . Great living starts with a picture held in your imagination of what you would like to do or be."

"Thou wilt show me the path of life. . ." Let God help you discover your reason for being here. Discover that divine plan for your life and you will discover another important element of Christian joy.

BUT WHILE YOU ARE SEEKING AND STRIVING, DON'T FORGET TO "SMELL THE ROSES ALONG THE WAY."

David writes, ". . .at thy right hand are pleasures for evermore." The Christian faith is not meant to be anti-pleasure. God created a pleasurable world for us. God gave us the freshly ground coffee that delights our nostrils in the morning. God gave us bodies that respond to healthy exercise and recreation. God gave us intellect and emotions that are stirred when we read a good book. Jesus said that he came so that we might have life and have it abundantly. It is heresy to say that Christianity is anti-pleasure. Christian joy merely comes from discovering the right pleasures.

There are pleasures that are anti-life. They cripple our bodies and put at risk our futures. They endanger our relationships and shrivel our souls. They look like they will give us life, but they are a distorted backward glance into a mirror in which we think we see `live' but instead, when read right-to-left, is 'evil.'

The gift of joy is at our door. It is ours for the taking. It grows out of faith in Jesus Christ. The mother of Goethe once wrote these simple but meaningful lines:

I rejoice in my life because the lamp still glows;

I seek no thorny ways;

I love the small pleasures of life,

If the doors are too low, I bend.

If I can remove a stone from the path, I do so;

If it is too heavy, I go around it.

I find something in every day that pleases me.

The cornerstone, my belief in God,

Makes my heart glad and my face shining.

Who could put it any better than that? Christian joy comes from the simple and beautiful pleasures in life. It comes from loving and being loved. It comes from walking daily with God. It comes from believing that God has a plan for our life, and that the path on which he leads us, leads to pleasures forevermore.

→

Dear God cartoons..... http://www.worldoutreach.ca/DearGod

**************************
"Opa's Rule of Thumb:
---Never use your thumb for a rule

…..