J. Douglas Dortch, Jr., Ph.D.
First Baptist Church, Tallahassee, FL
“Strength in His Joy”
From the Series "How Great Our Joy"
Scripture: Nehemiah 8:10-12
December 9, 2007
Every now and then a flyer comes to me in the mail, promoting some group of Christian power lifters who would be willing to come to our church and put on an exhibition of physical strength, with accompanying testimonies. I’m grateful for the willingness of such groups to share Jesus, but I’ve never really been taken by their approach. The more impressive types of witness to me have always been more the quiet and consistent ones that match word and deed in the places where such a witness is too often lacking.
And yet, having said that, given how believers in this day and age often have to take a figurative, if not a literal beating for their allegiance to Jesus, I am at least coming to appreciate the manner in which strength is becoming more and more a topic of concern for all who would experience the abundant life that Jesus came to make possible. I am coming to understand how the key to negotiating the ups and the downs of our everyday experience requires a power that not everybody possesses. But not a power that you develop through hours of strenuous weight training, the strength about which I’m speaking is a strength that comes from spending hours and hours in pursuing God’s joy.
“The joy of the LORD is your strength,” the book of Nehemiah exclaims.
Nehemiah is a fascinating book, especially for a church like ours that is contemplating how bricks and mortar might facilitate more faithful ministry. In Nehemiah’s case, it involved the rebuilding of Jerusalem and the Temple, both of which the exiles returned from Babylon to find in ruins. Most of us will never know the despair that sight left on God’s people. At least I hope we won’t.
I remember when I was in seminary; one of the larger churches in the area was set on fire by an arsonist and burned to the ground. Because of the church’s prominence in the community, TV reporters were all over the story. One day the church was a symbol of God’s Presence in that community, only on the next day to be brought down by the flames to be little more than a heap of smoldering ruins. Church members were, as you would understand, on the scene, comforting one another and doing their best to encourage one another. But even as they put on their best face for the cameras, they couldn’t mask the pain. Their church had senselessly and callously been destroyed, and now they were facing the tough and daunting task of putting everything back together.
You and I may not understand that despair, but these exiles that had come home to find their city and Temple in ruins surely would.
At this point in the story, the walls of the city have been put back together and the people have gathered in the public square. They are physically and emotionally spent. The work has drained them and sapped them of their strength. But there is obviously more work to be done, as the Temple has yet to be rebuilt. But where will they find the strength to do it? They will find it in the presence of God and in the power that presence provides and the joy that presence creates.
“This day is sacred to our LORD,” Nehemiah tells the people. “Do not grieve, for the joy of the LORD is your strength.” In other words, don’t keep wallowing in sadness over how this city is not what it once was. Don’t get down in the doldrums because these ruins remind you of all that we lost. Today we’re moving forward into God’s future, and because God is on our side, we can celebrate that which only He can make possible.
Do you believe that promise as far as your life goes? Have you come to a place where you celebrate the good future God has for you, not because of who you are but because of who God is? Have you learned to live each day through the strength of God’s joy?
Everybody has a past that too often keeps them from living a strong and joyful life. Everybody’s past is filled with some failures and disappointments. Everybody’s past is characterized by some embarrassment and defeat. We can all look back and be paralyzed by all the things that may not have worked out as we might have wished.
But God’s charge is for us to look ahead and to believe that with His help we can find the strength to create a future that is more grand and more glorious than anything we have ever known or anything we could ever imagine.
“The greatest honor we can give Almighty God,” wrote the English mystic, Julian of Norwich, “is to live gladly because of the knowledge of His love.” No matter how bleak the circumstances of our lives, regardless of how challenging a situation may become, to live joyfully in the face of those hard times can be the highest form of praise to God.
I think that’s what the Apostle Paul was trying to say in his letter to the Philippians. As you remember, Paul wrote that letter from prison, not a pleasant place to be no matter how you cut it. But there is one note that is sounded time and again in Paul’s letter to the Philippians. It is the note of joy. How does Paul say it in the fourth chapter of the letter? “Rejoice in the Lord always; and again I say rejoice” (Phil. 4:4). “Always” doesn’t mean when it’s convenient or when things are pleasant. “Always” means exactly what it says – in the good times and the bad. And the reason Paul could make that statement is because of what he says just a little later in the letter: “I can do all things through Christ who gives me strength” (Phil. 4:13). Paul in prison had discovered what all of would do well to discover – that the joy of the Lord is our strength.
Have you discovered that joy? Have you found your strength in the abiding presence of Jesus?
Most of you know the name, Joni Eareckson Tada. Joni is a radiant Christian who brightens every corner she occupies. And it’s not because she’s been spared trial and tribulation. At 17 years of age, Joni suffered a broken neck in a diving accident, and has been in a wheelchair ever since. At one point she wanted to die, but that despair left her when she discovered two things – Jesus and the world of art. A quadriplegic, Joni learned to paint with by holding the brush in her mouth. And as the years have gone by, in the strength that her faith in Jesus has given her, she has been able to do so much more than she ever dreamed would be possible.
A while back she did an interview for Decision magazine. In that interview, she explained how people often misunderstand her strength and, more importantly, the source from which she derives it. At a break during a conference at which she was speaking, Joni explained that she was approached by a woman who exclaimed, “Oh, Joni, you always look so together, so happy in your wheelchair. Oh, Joni, I wish I had your joy!” Several women around her looked at each other and nodded, “How do you do it?”
Joni took a deep breath. “I don’t do it,” which I’m sure caused the women to gasp. “In fact,” she went on, “may I tell you how I woke up this morning?” What could the women say?
“This is an average day,” she began. “After my husband Ken leaves for work at six o’clock in the morning, I’m alone until I hear the front door open at 7. That’s when a friend arrives to help me get up. While I listen to her make the coffee, I pray, ‘Oh Lord, my friend will soon give me a bath, get me dressed, sit me up in my chair, brush my hair and teeth, and send me out the door. I don’t have the strength to face this routine, not another day. I have no resources. I have no smile to take into the day. But you do. So, may I have yours today, God?”
One of the ladies then asked, “So what happens when your friend comes through the bedroom door?” And Joni answered, “I turn my head toward her and give her a smile that is sent straight from heaven. But it’s not mine; it’s God.” “And so,” she said, gesturing to her legs, “whatever joy you see today was hard won this morning.”
When the ladies started to apologize, Joni shrugged it off, explaining, “I have learned over the course of my life that the weaker we are, the more we need to lean on God, and the more we lean on God, the stronger we discover him to be.” And to that Nehemiah would add, “And the stronger we discover God to be, the more joyful our days will become.”
What Nehemiah and Paul and Joni Tada are trying to get us to see is that joy is a choice. While you can’t choose to be happy because of how happiness is so often dependent upon our circumstances, joy is always an option because of how it rises above the circumstances by reminding us of God’s presence and His grace which will see us through.
You may be here this morning and for you life is going well. Congratulations. I mean that sincerely. No human being should wish any other human being anything but the best. But understand that whatever you have has come to you by God’s grace in God’s strength. Life is a gift, and in this season when we turn our attention to getting one another gifts that will put smiles on one another’s faces, is there any better gift than just the opportunity to embrace that love which gives us more than we deserve? I think not, and I doubt you do either.
But on the other hand, life may not be going well. And without minimizing your struggle, I’d simply say, on the authority of God’s Word and the certainty of God’s Promise, don’t wallow in it. Desire always finds its fulfillment in celebration, and hope comes to fruition when we lift our hearts in joyful praise.
We live in such a weak world that people will pretty much pay attention to anyone who can perform impressive feats of strength. While it’s one thing to lift lots of iron and steel, it’s something even more impressive to lift burdens and afflictions.
How would you like to be able to lift those things that weigh so many people down? Then choose God’s joy in Jesus and your burdens will seem lighter than a feather, but only because you find your help in Jesus, and only because of how the joy of the Lord is your real source of strength.