What am I Missing Here?
Steps to Recovering Your Joy
5/15/2011 Calvary Baptist Church
Psalm 85:8
SERMON 6: Devotion, Dedication, Duty, Defilement
Series based upon the sermon by F.B. Meyer, “Where Am I Wrong?”
What am I missing here? What is wrong with me? Why am I not finding joy in the Lord?
• First, may I say to you, that it is good that you have noticed this.
• It is only by the Holy Spirit’s work in your life that you even care.
• Furthermore, it is a good sign of genuine conversion.
• For the lost man or woman, there is no thought of this.
• To them, they are just fine and see no need of the question.
• But to you, whose spirits resonate with this preacher’s question, you know that something is missing.
• You see in the faces, in the lives of others, a light, a joy, a power.
• And as you honestly evaluate yourself, you must admit that you do not have this light, this joy, this power!
REVIEW
1) Dispositions differ
2) Emotions are not the test of our spiritual state.
• #1: FAILURE TO DISTINGUISH BETWEEN HIS STANDING (OR POSITION IN CHRIST) AND HIS CIRCUMSTANCES.
• #2: PERHAPS YOU LIVE TOO MUCH IN YOUR FEELINGS, TOO LITTLE IN YOUR WILL.
• #3: PERHAPS YOU HAVE DISOBEYED SOME CLEAR COMMAND
• #4: PERHAPS YOU LOOK TOO MUCH INWARD ON SELF, INSTEAD OF OUTWARD ON THE LORD JESUS
• #5: IN SECTION 5 OF THE OVERALL SERIES, WE PREACHED A PORTION CALLED “STINKING THINKING.” WRONG … THOUGHTS é FEELINGS é ACTIONS
What is “Stinkin’ Thinkin’?
Any thought that …
1) Turns my mind toward ingratitude
2) Turns my mind against God, creates resentful thoughts against God.
3) Expects that, though Jesus, the prophets, the Apostles suffered, I am exempt.
4) Begins the trek toward resentment, bitterness or hostility toward my fellow believer, spouse, etc.
5) Elevates my selfish expectations to demands.
6) Ruins my testimony by creating a foul spirit.
We must bring these thoughts in subjection to Christ if we are to ever find our joy again!
• TODAY: WE CONCLUDE OUR SERIES “WHAT AM I MISSING HERE” BY LOOKING AT FOUR FINAL SOURCES OF LOST JOY.
I. DEVOTION (Ps. 85:8; Mt. 14:23; Genesis 19:27)
PERHAPS YOU SPEND TOO LITTLE TIME IN COMMUNION WITH GOD THROUGH HIS WORD
QUOTE: [Language Updated] It is not necessary to make long prayer, but it is essential to be [often] alone with God; waiting at His door; hearkening for His voice: lingering in the garden of Scripture for the coming of the Lord God in the dawn or cool of the day.
[HANDOUT QUOTE BEGINS] No number of meetings, no fellowship with Christian friends, no amount of Christian activity can compensate for the neglect of the still hour. [HANDOUT QUOTE ENDS]
When you feel least inclined for it, there is most need to make for your closet with the shut door. Do for duty’s sake what you cannot do as a pleasure, and you will find it becomes delightful. You can better thrive without nourishment than become happy or strong in Christian life without fellowship with God.
When you cannot pray for yourself, begin to pray for others. When your desires [falter], take the Bible in hand, and begin to turn each text into [request to God]; or [begin to recount God’s] mercies, and begin to [turn] each of them into praise. When the Bible itself becomes [boring to you], [check to see if] you have not been spoiling your appetite by [junk food] and renounce [it]; and believe that the Word is the wire along which the voice of God will certainly come to you if the heart is hushed and the attention fixed.
"I will hear what God the Lord will speak" (Ps. 85:8).
[HANDOUT QUOTE BEGINS] More Christians than we can count are suffering from a lack of prayer and Bible study, and no revival is more to be desired than that of systematic private Bible study. There is no short and easy method of godliness which can dispense with this. F.B. Meyer [HANDOUT QUOTE ENDS]
Matthew 14:23 And when he had sent the multitudes away, he went up into a mountain apart to pray: and when the evening was come, he was there alone.
• Jesus told us to enter our prayer closet.
• Jesus set the example for us.
Genesis 19:27 And Abraham gat up early in the morning to the place where he stood before the LORD:
• This was at the time that God was destroying Sodom.
• Abraham is up early, interceding for Lot.
• Is there no one for whom you should be interceding?
• Are there no troubles in your heart that you need to take to the Lord?
Take Time to Be Holy Words: William D. Longstaff, 1882. (Celebration Hymnal #656)
Take time to be holy, speak oft with thy Lord;
Abide in Him always, and feed on His Word.
Make friends of God’s children, help those who are weak,
Forgetting in nothing His blessing to seek.
Take time to be holy, the world rushes on;
Spend much time in secret, with Jesus alone.
By looking to Jesus, like Him thou shalt be;
Thy friends in thy conduct His likeness shall see.
Take time to be holy, let Him be thy Guide;
And run not before Him, whatever betide.
In joy or in sorrow, still follow the Lord,
And, looking to Jesus, still trust in His Word.
Take time to be holy, be calm in thy soul,
Each thought and each motive beneath His control.
Thus led by His Spirit to fountains of love,
Thou soon shalt be fitted for service above.
II. DEDICATION (Rom. 12:1; 1 Cor. 6:19-20)
PERHAPS YOU HAVE NEVER GIVEN YOURSELF ENTIRELY OVER TO THE MASTERSHIP OF THE LORD JESUS
We are His by many ties and rights, but too few of us recognize His lordship. We are willing enough to take Him as Saviour; we hesitate to make Him King. We forget that God has exalted Him to be Prince, as well as Saviour. And the Divine order is irreversible.
[HANDOUT QUOTE BEGINS] Those who ignore the lordship of Jesus cannot build up a strong or happy life. Put the sun in its central throne, and all the motions of the planets assume a beautiful order. Put Jesus on the throne of the life, and all things fall into harmony and peace. Seek first the kingdom of God, and all things are yours. Consecration is the indispensable condition of blessedness. F.B. Meyer [HANDOUT QUOTE ENDS]
Romans 12:1 I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service.
1 Corinthians 6:19-20 What? know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own? 20 For ye are bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God’s.
Take my Life and Let it Be, Francis Havergal (Celebration Hymnal #597)
QUOTE: I went for a little visit of five days (to Areley House). There were ten persons in the house, some unconverted and long prayed for, some converted, but not rejoicing Christians. He gave me the prayer, “Lord, give me all in this house!” And He just did. Before I left the house everyone had got a blessing. The last night of my visit after I had retired, the governess asked me to go to the two daughters. They were crying, etc.; then and there both of them trusted and rejoiced; it was nearly midnight. I was too happy to sleep, and passed most of the night in praise and renewal of my own consecration; and these little couplets formed themselves, and chimed in my heart one after another till they finished with “Ever, Only, ALL for Thee!” [The Original Name of
“Take My Life and Let it Be”] Havergal Manuscripts
Take my life, and let it be consecrated, Lord, to Thee.
Take my moments and my days; let them flow in ceaseless praise.
Take my hands, and let them move at the impulse of Thy love.
Take my feet, and let them be swift and beautiful for Thee.
III. DUTY (1 Cor. 15:58; Titus 2:14)
PERHAPS YOU HAVE BEEN NEGLIGENT IN YOUR SERVICE
NOTE: This is developed lightly here because it was touched upon in the “Sins of Omission” (sermon 3).
1 Corinthians 15:58 Therefore, my beloved brethren, be ye stedfast, unmoveable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, forasmuch as ye know that your labour is not in vain in the Lord.
Titus 2:14 [Christ] gave himself for us, that he might redeem us from all iniquity, and purify unto himself a peculiar people, zealous of good works.
ILLUS: Hospital Volunteers work for no money. Why? Their work gets them out of the house, resets their thinking, gives exercise, gives social connections and gives a sense of real fulfillment because at the end of the day, someone has been helped. How we need some volunteers here at Calvary!
For I was born to serve the Lord! By Evangelist Bud Chambers
From the dust of the earth
My God created man
His breath gave man a living soul
For God so loved this world
That He gave His only Son
And that is why I love Him so
Chorus
For I was made in His likeness
Created in His image
For I was born to serve the Lord
And I can’t deny Him
And I will always walk beside Him
For I was born to serve the Lord
Tag
Yes I was born to serve the Lord!
Yes, my hands were made
to help my neighbor
My eyes were made
To read God’s word
My feet were made
to walk in His footsteps
My body is the temple of the Lord
IV. DEFILEMENT (Heb. 12:1; Ps. 119:1; Mt. 5:8; Philip. 2:14-15; 1 John 3:3)
PERHAPS YOU ARE PERMITTING SOME KNOWN EVIL.
Hebrews 12:1 Wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us,
QUOTE: When water is left to stand, the particles of silt betray themselves as they fall one by one to the bottom. So if you are quiet, you may become aware of the presence in your soul of permitted evil. Dare to consider it. Do not avoid the sight as the bankrupt avoids his telltale ledgers, or as the tubercular patient the stethoscope.
[HANDOUT QUOTE BEGINS] Compel yourself quietly to consider whatever evil the Spirit of God discovers to your soul. It may have lurked in the closets and cloisters of your being for years, suspected but unjudged. But whatever it be, and whatever its history, be sure that it has brought the shadow over your life which is your daily sorrow.
• Does your will refuse to relinquish a practice or habit which is alien to the will of God’?
• Do you permit some secret sin to have its unhindered way in the house of your life’?
• Do your affections roam unrestrained after forbidden objects?
• Do you cherish any resentment or hatred toward another, to whom you refuse to be reconciled?
• Is there some injustice which you refuse to forgive, some charge which you refuse to pay, some wrong which you refuse to confess?
• Are you allowing something yourself which you would be the first to condemn in others, but which you argue may be permitted in your own case because [you think you have found some way to justify it]? [HANDOUT QUOTE ENDS]
In some cases the hindrance to conscious blessedness lies not in sins, but in weights which hang around the soul. Sin is that which is always and everywhere wrong; but a weight is anything which may hinder or impede the Christian life, without being positively sin And thus a thing may be a weight to one which is not so to another. Each must be fully persuaded in his own mind.
[HANDOUT QUOTE BEGINS] And wherever the soul is aware of its life being hindered by the presence of any one thing, then, however harmless in itself, and however innocently permitted by others, there can be no alternative, but it must be cast aside as the garments of athletes who compete for the prize in wrestling or racing. F.B. Meyer [HANDOUT QUOTE ENDS]
Psalm 119:1 ALEPH. Blessed are the undefiled in the way, Who walk in the law of the Lord.
Matthew 5:8 Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God.
Philippians 2:14–15 Do all things without murmurings and disputings: That ye may be blameless and harmless, the sons of God, without rebuke, in the midst of a crooked and perverse nation, among whom ye shine as lights in the world;
1 John 3:3 And every man that hath this hope in him purifieth himself, even as he is pure.
CONCLUSION:
Draw Me Nearer, Fanny Crosby (Celebration Hymnal #552)
I am Thine, O Lord, I have heard Thy voice, And it told Thy love to me;
But I long to rise in the arms of faith, And be closer drawn to Thee.
Refrain
Draw me nearer, nearer blessèd Lord, To the cross where Thou hast died.
Draw me nearer, nearer, nearer blessèd Lord, To Thy precious, bleeding side.
Consecrate me now to Thy service, Lord, By the power of grace divine;
Let my soul look up with a steadfast hope, And my will be lost in Thine.
Refrain
O the pure delight of a single hour, That before Thy throne I spend,
When I kneel in prayer, and with Thee, my God, I commune as friend with friend!
