Now open your Bibles with me
to the book of John chapter 15. I've been preaching through this
chapter, and my goal is to set forth before
us all the nature of the believers' warfare, spiritual warfare, the
warfare, the battle that every sinner saved by the grace of
God, every believer in Christ, is engaged in against three great
enemies, the world, the flesh, and the devil. And as I've opened
these messages, I've I hope you can understand that in order
to engage in that kind of a battle, you have to be familiar, you
have to know the enemy. So many people in religion don't
know the enemy. They don't know really what the
world is, what the flesh is, and really, they don't know who
the devil is. They have an idea, they have things in their mind,
much of it myth, much of it based on feeling. But here we're dealing
with the world. The Lord told his disciples here
in verse 18 of John 15, he said, if the world hates you, he says,
you know that it hated me before it hated you. Again, talking
about that world system or any aspect of that world system that
is in opposition or ignorance or negligence of the glory of
God in Christ. It doesn't matter if it's religious,
economic, political, government, whatever. Whatever is against
Christ and His church and His truth and the gospel of God's
grace. That's what He's talking about
in the world. Any individual, any groups of individuals. And
He says in verse 19, if you were of the world, the world would
love His own. You're not of the world. If you're in Christ, you're
not of the world. You're in the world. You have
to deal with the world. You have to fight with the world.
Again, a spiritual battle. This is not physical warfare. Don't get out your guns and knives
and all of that. That's not biblical. Anybody
who does that in the name of Christ is a liar. Now, that's
so. Understand that. This is a spiritual
battle. Paul wrote in 2 Corinthians 10,
the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but they're And our
weapon is the gospel. And we read about the armor of
God. You've heard, you've read that
in Ephesians chapter 6. The whole armor of God, every
piece of that is spiritual and has to do with something of the
glorious person and finished work of Christ as we set forth
the gospel of God's grace. But here he's talking about hatred.
Hatred from the world because it hated him. And so I've been
talking about what is it that separates us from the world?
What separates God's people from the world? It's not what we wear,
and how long our hair is, or how short, or things like that.
It's not the taste, not touch, not handle, not. Paul wrote in
Colossians chapter 2, that's worldly in and of itself. If
you think that recommends you unto God, that's worldly thinking.
It's not the things that many religious people refer to, but
he lists them here in John 15. That's what he's doing as he
talks about himself as the vine and believers as the branches.
The life comes from the vine. Flows through the branches so
that the branches bear fruit, all of that. He's listening here
before he tells them, now the world's going to hate you, don't
be amazed at that. And he tells them over in John
16, this is amazing, he said, they'll even throw you out of
their religious assemblies because they don't want to hear what
you have to say. They don't want to hear your testimony of the
grace of God in Christ. And what he's talking about there
is the world that rejoices in and exalts themselves in their
works, in their will, in all those ways, that which is highly
esteemed among men in religion. He says it's an abomination to
God. You walk into a religious assembly where they're applauding
men and exalting the works of men and you tell them that's
an abomination to God, they'll throw you out. They'll tell you,
don't come here anymore. We don't want to hear that. And
that's the light that men hate, John chapter 3 and verse 19.
He said, this is the condemnation that light has come into the
world. That's the light of God's truth in Christ. That's Christ
himself and all that he accomplished to save a sinner from sin by
his blood and righteousness, his obedience unto death. Not
by my works, not by your works, not by our works collectively,
but what Christ did and accomplished on Calvary. And that's the only
thing we have to boast in and glory in is Christ and Him crucified
and risen again. But men love to boast about their
heritage. You know where I come from, what
church I grew up in. I was baptized. They like to
boast in that stuff. Their accomplishments are what
they've done for the Lord. That's what men love to do. But
that's not what the gospel's about, you see. And if we do
that, we're part of the world, but we're separate from the world.
What separates us? Well, he tells them, he says,
our union with him separates us from the world. That's what
he means up there when he says, I'm the vine and I'm the true
vine and you're the branches. We're united to Christ. Before
the foundation of the world, we were united to him by God's
electing grace. At the cross, we were united
to him by God's redeeming grace. He died for us. And then we're
united to Him by faith. Our faith in Christ separates
us from the world. And that faith in Christ is totally
submitting and resting in Him for all salvation. That's God-given
faith. That's part of the fruit that
we bear. We're not fruit producers. We
bear fruit. The branches bear fruit from the life of the vine.
We don't produce it. Christ does. We bear it. And
we abide in Him by faith. Our love for Christ separates
us from the world. And that love is seen in our
worship and in our obedience. Our obedience to Christ separates
us from the world. It's the obedience of grace and
love and gratitude. It's not legalism. It's not serving
God just to see what we can get out of Him. But serving Him because
of His intrinsic value, His glory, who He is. We're His children.
And He loves us. And herein is love. Not that
we loved Him, but that He loved us and gave His Son to be a propitiation
for our sins. It's like I always use the example
there about your children. You have young children. Would
you rather them obey you because they know you love them and you're
going to provide everything they need and protect them and keep
them? Or would you rather them obey you because if they don't,
you're going to kick them out of the family? You see what I'm saying? And
that's why most people think more highly of their own love
than they do of God's love. But then he comes to this. Now,
look here in verse 11. In John 15, he says, he says,
if you keep my commandments, you shall abide in love. Now,
we've talked about that last week, but the keeping of the
commandments there doesn't mean legalism. You know, we think
of the Ten Commandments, that's not what he's talking about.
He's talking about all obedience to His commandments in the New
Testament. The commandment to believe in
Him, the commandment to repent of our dead works, the commandment
to love Him and to love one another, to follow Him, all of these things,
not in order to be saved, Because he says here, and this is how
he says it, if you keep my commandments, you shall abide in my love. That's
not love that we earn from God by keeping his commandments.
That's love that we have from God in Christ, which we don't
deserve and cannot earn, which inspires us to follow him and
obey him from a motive of grace, from a motive of gratitude and
love. And He said, even as I've kept
my Father's commandments and abide in His love. You see, Christ
did not earn... God the Son, incarnate, the Lord
Jesus Christ, did not keep the commandments in order to earn
the Father's love. Did He? No. He has the Father's
love from eternity. He didn't have to earn His Father's
love. He is God. Very God of very God, co-equal
with the Father and the Spirit in every attribute of deity.
But He did all of this. What He did in the redemption
of His people, in becoming incarnate, God sent forth His Son in the
fullness of the time, made of a woman, made to obey the law
for the redemption. You know why He did it? Because
He loved the Father. He didn't do it to earn the Father.
He did it because He loved Him. He did it because of the glory
of the Father. And that's the kind of obedience
that he wants from his people, he commands from his people.
So he says, you shall abide in his love. That separates us from
the world now, that kind of obedience, but you can't see that, you see.
When I obey, or if you see me doing some act of kindness, or
if I see, you can't see that now with the physical eye. These
are spiritual matters. This is of the heart. This takes
a change of heart, you see. This is not outward reformation.
This is not wearing your religion on your sleeve. This is not bumper
sticker religion. This is heart religion. This is the work of the Holy
Spirit in you that drives you to Christ. But look at what he says in verse
11. He says, these things have I
spoken unto you, that my joy might remain in you, and that
your joy might be full. Now what I want to deal with
in just a few minutes is this, our joy separates us from the
world. The world has a joy, but we have
a greater joy. The title of this message is
Christ's Joy is Our Joy. Do you see what he said there?
Don't let that pass you by. Listen to what it said again.
These things have I spoken unto you, that my joy, his joy, might
remain in you. See, if the joy we have isn't
his joy, then it doesn't separate you from the world's joy. He
says, and that your joy might be for our joy is his joy. Christ's
joy is our joy. Well, what's he talking about?
Well, this is joy. You know, Galatians chapter 5 and verse
22 talks about the fruit of the Spirit. Joy is part of the fruit
of the Spirit. And our joy there is by the grace
of God. It's a grace of the Spirit. It's
fruit of the Spirit. It's not what we have naturally.
It's not the kind of joy we have naturally. What kind of joy do
we have naturally? Well, we get hungry. It's our
joy to feed that hunger. Babies do that, you know. Little
old Neil, a couple weeks ago, he wanted to be fed. And usually,
he kind of builds up to it, you know. But boy, he hit me with
an atom bomb. And wham, you know. Now, you
could hear him all through the house. He wanted to be fed. He
wasn't happy. But boy, when I gave him that
bottle, joy came. But that's not going to last,
is it? Because he's going to get hungry again. And you have
to keep doing it. Keep doing it. Keep doing it.
I remember after I had heart surgery, I did, you know, the
thought of food made me sick to my stomach. And I lost a lot
of weight. But boy, I've come back with
a vengeance. And I've been joyful ever since. But it's not going
to last. It's not going to last. That's
the kind of joy that the world has. It's feeding the hunger,
whatever hunger, feeding the lust. That's the joy that the
world has. Whether it's hunger or sexual
lust or whether it's materialism, whether it's pride, whatever
it is, getting what you want, but it's not going to last. And
you all know as well as I do, as we get older, it just seems
like times of joy get fewer and fewer, don't they? They get fewer
and fewer. Joy here, you know, we think
of happiness. And that's not a bad thing to
think about. Happiness, I mean, as far as
what this joy is. But it's not happiness for feeding
the lust. It's not happiness for the situation. You know, Karl Marx said that
religion was the opiate of the people. Just something you believe
because it makes you feel better. Helps you get through life. But
this joy is not a drug. It's not a drug that you take
just to feel good in the moment. It's not the power of positive
thinking. It's not just the smiley face
that you wear on your shirt. That's not the joy that he's
talking about here. You know, the same one who said
this in verse 11, he says that my joy, Christ said my joy. You remember reading about him
in Isaiah 53 what it says about him? He was a man of what? Sorrows. He was acquainted with
what? Now the same one who's described
as a man of sorrows, acquainted with grief, says, I want my joy
to be in you, that your joy may be full. How do you reconcile
that kind of thing in the Bible? You know, because it's just,
you know, I used to look at things like that and it'd just boggle
my mind, and I'd just say, well, the Bible's crazy, you know,
just, you can't figure it, you know. But you've got to look
at it Scripturally, you've got to interpret Scripture with...
Christ was a man of sorrows. He was acquainted with grief.
He went through hell on earth. You think you're going through
hell on earth? You haven't even begun to get started to think
about going through hell on earth. I don't care what you're going
through. Me too. But Christ went through hell on earth. That's
what he suffered on Calvary's cross. A living hell. Isn't that right? Think about
it. Not the equivalent of hell just for one person, but the
equivalent hell for a multitude of God's people. Sin laid upon
Him, charged to Him. All the sins of all His sheep
made to meet upon Him. And He suffered and bled and
He died like no other person. And it's not just the cutting
of the flesh, and the anguish of the body, that's the hell
that he goes through. Think about the soul suffering
that Christ went through, and I'll be honest with you, I cannot
really describe it, wouldn't attempt to, I can't theologize
it, doctrinalize it, I can't state it in words and be dogmatic
today and say if you don't buy into my description of it, we
can't worship together, that's foolish, that's man's pride.
You see, the soul suffering that he went through brought him to
this point, It's recorded in Matthew 27 where he said, Eli,
Eli, lama sabachthani. Meaning what? Quoting from the
scripture, quoting from Psalm 22 in the Hebrew. It means, my God, my God, why
hast thou forsaken me? Wow. You can't describe that
in theological terms. Don't even try. And it was all
based on sins that became his because God accounted them to
him, charged them to him. And yet this same person, and
right here, you know where he is? Right here in John 15, historically? You know where they are geographically? They're on their way to the Garden
of Gethsemane. That's where they are. They just left the upper
ring. And they're on their way to the Garden of Gethsemane.
And some of the old commentators said that they were passing the
temple. And on the temple there was like an embossment. I don't know what it was made
of, but it was a vine. Of course, you know Israel was
called God's vine or vineyard back in the Old Testament. And
if you look it up in the Old Testament about Israel being
called God's vine, it's always a disobedient vine. But Christ
said, I'm the true vine and so he began to teach them these
lessons and he's going to prepare them for what's coming. You're
going to be persecuted. You're going to be hated. And
yet he says, these things have I spoken in you that my joy might
remain in you, and that your joy might be full. Now what's
he talking about? Well, what is his joy? What exactly is his joy? Well,
turn to Hebrews chapter 12 with me. Hebrews chapter 12. Now that's the first thing we've
got to understand about if we're going to see what separates us
from the world, in this thing of joy. I remember back a few years ago,
there was a popular song out that said, don't worry, be happy.
Y'all remember that? Is that what he's talking about
here? Well, I hope not. Because if it is, I'm not separated
from the world in that way. And you know, there's so much
taught in the Bible about joy. I mean, we could spend weeks
just going through the Psalms on this thing of joy. You know,
I think about Psalm 30 there, where it talks about weeping
endures for a night, but joy cometh in the morning. You know
what that's talking about? That's talking about the coming of Christ.
The joy that comes in the morning. The morning, the eastern sky,
all of that, the sunrise, that's all typical language, symbolic
language, talking about the bursting of Christ upon the scene. David,
you remember after he committed that great sin, and it's probably
a good year when Nathan the prophet confronted him and he wrote Psalm
51 under inspiration of the Holy Spirit, and one of the things
he said in it was, restore unto me the joy of thy salvation. Think about that. Bill read in
Psalm 61, I mean Isaiah 61, how many times you talk about rejoicing
and joy there? Well, I'm gonna look at that
in just a moment, but look here at Hebrews chapter 12. Christ
said, I want my joy, talking of himself, to be your joy, and
I want your joy to be full. Well, what is his joy? Now look
at verse one of Hebrews 12. He says, wherefore, and he's
talking about people suffering in Hebrews 11. People suffered
in Hebrews 11. The hall of faith, they call
it. And he's just talking about how
they suffered mocking and scourging, imprisonment, they were stoned,
they were sawn in half. Look here at verse 37 of chapter
11. They were stoned, they were sawn asunder. That doesn't sound
like a whole lot of joy to me, does it to you? A whole lot of
happiness. He talks about how all these
had gone through these hard trials. In verse 12, verse one of chapter
12, he says, wherefore seen, we also are compassed about with
so great a cloud of witnesses. These that he mentioned in Hebrews
11. Let us lay aside every weight. Now what's a weight do? He's
gonna talk about running a race. Well, if you're gonna run a race
and run it fast and endure it to the end, you don't want much
weight, because weight hinders you. So he's saying, he's saying,
lay aside everything that would hinder you. Set it aside. He said, and the sin which does
so easily beset us. Now you know what that sin is
that so easily besets me and you? I believe you'll agree with
me. It's doubt and unbelief. It's
wanting to quit. How many times you want to quit?
Somebody asked me, he said, have you ever wanted to quit the ministry? And I'm just joking. Well, that's
not really a joke. A thousand times. Because you
just want to quit. You just want to give up. If
I went out there and started running in the street, like running
a marathon, I'd guarantee I'd be thinking about quitting every
minute. Because that's the sin that so easily besets us. We
just want to give up. We just want to quit. And that's
what he's talking about. These, in Hebrews 11, they didn't
quit. Now, it wasn't because of their
goodness and their power, it was because of the power of God.
We know that we'd all quit were it not for the power of God's
grace. Isn't that right? Grace saves
us, grace keeps us, and grace will bring us home. That's amazing
grace. And he says, and let us run with
patience. Patience means endurance, means
faith. The race that is set before us.
Now, how do we run that race? He says, and here's how you do
it. Verse two, looking unto Jesus, Jehovah our Savior, Christ Jesus,
the author and the finisher of our faith. He started it, he's
gonna finish it. And that means everything in
between. In other words, what he's saying there is you don't
run this race in your own power, in your own goodness, thinking
that it's conditioned on you. You look to Christ who met all
the conditions. He fulfilled it. He completed
it. I'm not running this race to make myself righteous before
God. Christ is my righteousness. He completed that. He's the author
of it and the finisher of it. I stand before God, washed in
His blood, clothed in His righteousness. I have no other plea. I glory
in the cross. And I'm running that race looking
unto Him. That's a gift from God. Did you
know that? I'm not running this race to
have my sins forgiven. I'm running this race because
my sins are already forgiven by the blood of Christ. I have
an advocate with the Father. There's one God and one mediator
between God and me and the man Christ Jesus. He's my advocate. And he says, now look here, he
says, looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of everything,
who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross. He was a man of sorrows acquainted
with grief, that's the cross, but there was a joy that was
set before him, that was his goal. That's what he's saying.
And he says, despising the shame, it doesn't mean that he enjoyed
going through those sufferings, he said, and is set down at the
right hand of the throne of God. Now there was a joy set before
him. Now what is that joy? Turn back
to John 17. Now here he is on his way to the Garden of Gethsemane. And you know what happened in
the Garden of Gethsemane. The disciples fell asleep Christ
was left alone in His what? His anguish and His sorrow. Having the sins of all of His
elect imputed to Him, He was made sin. Christ was made sin
and He was feeling the effects of that in the Garden of Gethsemane. He sweat great drops of blood,
the Scripture says. And out of the anguish of his
humanity, listen, put it this way, out of the anguish of his
sinless human nature, he cried, Lord, if it be possible, let
this cup pass from me. He was experiencing things that
he had never experienced before. That's what the book of Hebrews
chapter 2 means when it talks about the captain of our salvation
was made perfect through sufferings. In other words, he completed
the work. That's what that means. He was going through that anguish
and that agony. Not much joy there was there.
But he said, even so, Lord, thy will be done. He knew what he
was going to do. And that was a joy set before
him. Well, what was that joy? Well, look at John 17, verse
1. Here's the high priestly prayer. He identifies it right here.
He says, verse 1, these things spake Jesus and lifted up his
eyes to heaven and said, Father, the hour has come. Glorify thy
son that thy son also may glorify thee. His joy that was set before
him was the glory of the Father and the glory of himself. He
did all of that in the salvation of His people, not because He
felt sorry for us. Now let me say this, I believe
He did feel sorry for us, but that's not why He did it. He did all of it because of the
glory of His Father. and the glory of himself. How
is the Father glorified in my salvation? Listen, everything
that he is... You know, when we talk about
the glory of men, we talk about their good traits. He's an honest
man. He's a hard-working man. He's
a faithful man, faithful to his wife. He's a good father, good
husband, good friend. That's the glory of men, isn't
it? That's what we talk about. We wouldn't talk about how he's
a liar and a cheat and thief, you know, and all that. Because
that wouldn't be his glory, that'd be his shame, all right? Well,
how does God get glory? Well, everything that God is
is perfect and good and holy and righteous and just, isn't
it? So, it's the manifestation, it's the communication, it's
the revelation of everything that God is. Now, where am I
going to find that? Well, I'll go out here and meditate
under a tree. No, you're not going to find
it there. I'll go out and look at the Grand
Canyon, big hole in the ground, and then I'll see the glory and
majesty of God. No, you're not gonna find it
there. Now granted, you can find some good things about God's
glory by looking at nature. Psalm 19 deals with that. The
heavens declare the glory of God. Think about the vast expanse
of space and the stars and all of that, the sun by day, the
moon by night, everything. Those are all, they're all witnesses,
testimonies. But where are you going to find
the revelation of everything that God is as a just God and
a Savior? On the cross of Calvary. That's where every attribute
of God, His holiness as well as His mercy. His justice as
well as His grace, His righteousness as well as His love. God must
be both a righteous judge as well as a loving Father. He must
punish sin and yet in doing so, He can have mercy on sinners.
How? Through the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. And in that,
He's glorified in every attribute. We could do a study on that,
take every attribute of God and show how it is fully manifested
at the cross. The Bible says in Colossians
2, verse 9, for in Christ dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead
bodily. You want to see the glory of
God in its effulgence? Look to Christ in his face. 2 Corinthians 4, 6 says. And
we're complete in Him. Our completeness in Christ is
the glory of God. That's what was set before Christ
as He was walking on His way to the Garden of Gethsemane,
as He anguished in that garden, as He was put on trial, as He
was beaten and whipped and spat upon, as the crown of thorns
was placed on His head, as He was nailed to that cross. That's
what was set before, that man of sorrows acquainted with grief
who suffered the agony of sin like no other person has ever
done. That's what was set before him.
He said, glorify thou me, thy son that thy son also may glorify
thee. Now look at verse two of John
17. This was set before him. Here's another thing that was
set before him. As thou hast given him power over all flesh,
that he should give eternal life to as many as thou hast given
him." That was set before him. You know what that is? That's
the redemption of his people. That's set before him. He's going
to have all for whom he died. And my friend, any message that
says he's not going to have all for whom he died denies the glory
of God. I'm telling you. His blood and
righteousness demands and secures the entire eternal salvation
of all his sheep, his church, the salvation of his people.
And then look at verse three, he says, and this is life eternal,
that they might know thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ,
whom thou hast sent. You know what that's talking
about? The new birth. God is glorified. The church
is redeemed and they're called to faith in Christ by the power
of the Holy Spirit. They're given life. That's His
glory. That's the three things that
were set before Him. That's His joy. Now think about it. Our joy is connected with Christ
and the salvation that we have in Him. You see that? That is
His joy. The scripture says in Isaiah
53 11, he shall see of the travail of his soul and shall be satisfied.
That's his joy. That means he's going to have
all for whom he went through that travail for. Jeremiah 33
8 and 9, listen to this, I'll just read it to you. He says,
the Lord thy God in the midst of thee is mighty, he will save,
he will rejoice over thee with joy. He will rest in his love,
he will joy over thee with singing. That's the glory of God. the
redemption of his people and by the power of the Spirit bringing
them to him. Our joy. Our joy. What's it connected with? Turn
over there to Isaiah 61 that Brother Bill read. It's not in fulfilling my lust. And let me tell you something
now. We have desires that are just natural to us. And it's
not sinful to fulfill them. Like I said, when you get hungry,
that's not a sinful desire. And you fulfill that by eating.
Now we sometimes sin when we fulfill it because we're gluttonous. No man can turn anything that
way. But that's not the joy he's talking
about. That's not going to last. The
body gets sick and you don't even get hungry at all. In fact,
like I said, the thought of food makes you sick. And I've seen
elderly people, you have to almost force them to eat. Isn't that
right? So that joy is gone. Where is it now? It's gone. And
then there are sinful us that we seek to fulfill sinfully. That's certainly not what he's
talking about. You see, it's not in the fleeting moments,
the fleeting desires, the fleeting fulfillments of this life. If
your joy is to have a big portfolio, now you know as well as I do
how that joy can be gone tomorrow. Is that right? The whole stock
market, boom, crashes. Everybody's complaining about
it today. So that's not going to last. If your joy is having
a new car, it's not going to stay new, is it? I heard on the
radio about a fella up in, I think, somewhere in New England that
put a million miles on his car, and I thought, good night. I guarantee you this, he loved
that car more than anything else in his life. So maybe the car will outlive
him, but that joy's gonna be gone, I don't know. You see, those things aren't
going to last. But this joy here, it's going
to last forever and ever and ever and ever and ever. This
is the happiness that I have not in a day's moment. Because
tomorrow morning I may wake up and just feel lousy. Might not
be too joyous at all. Might be in a mood, as Debbie
says. You're in a mood. But that joy is still there because
I'm still a product of the glory of God in Christ to save me from
my sin. And that joy never breaks. I
may not realize it at the moment, I may not feel it at the moment,
but it's there because I'm a sinner saved by the grace of God. At my best moments, at my worst
moments, I stand washed in the blood of Christ from all my sins.
God does not charge me with my sin. at any given moment, because
I stand in Christ. I rest in Him. You see what I'm
saying? In Isaiah 61 there, he started out there. You know,
Christ, He spoke this when He preached His sermon in His hometown
of Nazareth. Now, they almost took Him outside
and wanted to throw Him over a cliff. He was speaking words
of joy, but it wasn't joy they wanted to hear, they wanted the
world's joy. You know what they wanted to hear? Oh, you Jews,
you're the chosen people of God, you've been so faithful, and
all these Gentiles, they've just knocked you all around so much,
and God's gonna come here, we're gonna pat you on the back and
say, well done, thou good and faithful servant. That's what
they wanted to hear. That would have been their joy.
Problem is, it was a lie. And when he got down to, over
there, when he preached that to them, he talked about God
saving a Gentile back in the Old Testament. Now, you want
to talk about killing their joy, that did it. What? A Gentile? You mean salvation is by grace
and it didn't have anything to do with who I am or where I've
been or where I come from? Well, he talked about proclaiming
liberty here, binding up the brokenhearted. He says in verse
3 of Isaiah 61, to appoint to them that mourn in Zion. We mourn,
to give them beauty for ashes. There's our joy. We have the
beauty of Christ for the ashes of our flesh and our sin. The
oil of joy for mourning. What is that? That's the Holy
Spirit's work that drives us to Christ for peace. The garment of praise for the
spirit of heaviness. Praise God. Oh, Job. The Lord giveth, the Lord taketh
away, blessed be the name of the Lord. That they might be
called trees of righteousness. Who planted those trees? God
did, through Christ. The planting of the Lord, that
they might be glorified. Look over at verse 10, he says,
I will greatly rejoice in the Lord. My soul shall be joyful
in my God, for he hath clothed me with the garments of salvation.
You see that? That's our joy. I'm clothed in
the righteousness of Christ. And that's a garment that'll
never wear out. He says, with the garments of
salvation, he hath covered me with the robe of righteousness,
as a bride grimdecketh himself with ornaments, and as a bride
adorneth herself with her jewels. When a man and a woman are married,
that's a joyous occasion for them. We hope that that joy remains
through the rest of their life. But this marriage here will never
be broken. 1 John 1 talked about our assurance
of salvation, of forgiveness in Christ. That's our joy. Listen
to this, Romans 15, 13. Now the God of hope fill you
with all joy and peace in Christ. Believing. Believing what? Believing
in Christ. That joy and peace comes from
believing in Him, looking unto Him, resting in Him, that you
may abound in hope through the power of the Holy Ghost. Romans
14, 17, You see, it's not in fulfilling
those natural lusts of drinking when you get thirsty or eating
when you get hungry, but righteousness in Christ, peace by Christ, joy
in Christ in the Holy Ghost who drives us to Christ. For he that
is in these things serveth Christ is acceptable to God and approved
of men, that is, believing men. This joy is our liberty in Christ.
Paul wrote in Galatians 5 once, stand fast in the liberty wherewith
Christ has made us free. be not entangled again with the
yoke of bondage. That's our joy. That's the joy
that separates us from the world, you see. It's not in these religious petty offerings that people get
in their feel-good religion. It's not it at all. It's not
in just what makes me feel good at the moment. But it's what
lasts for me to the glory of God in Christ that secures me
in the grace of God forever and ever and ever. Now that joy will
never be taken away. All right.