THE CHARACTER OF A DISCIPLE: JOY
Scripture: 1st Peter 1:3-9
We are all familiar with the horrors that Jesus went through during His arrest and crucifixion:
The betrayal.
Being abandoned by His Disciples and followers.
Dragged before angry and determined religious authorities.
The beatings.
The nails.
The agony of the cross itself.
I think it’s pretty safe to say that Jesus wasn’t too “happy” when all this was going on. Yet … in all His pain … all His suffering … is it possible that He had joy? The kind of joy that Peter is trying to describe in his letter to encourage the pilgrims and churches in Asia Minor who were experiencing increasing persecution at home, in their communities, and from the government.
Jesus’ joy was unspeakable and inexpressible given what He was going through. But His joy wasn’t based upon what He was going through but on WHY He was going through it and what would result from it. His joy was not for Himself but for you and me.
I’ve been watching Ken Burn’s documentary on World War II entitled “The War.” Burns does a really great job of showing us what the men and women in the armed forces and their families went through. These men and women went through unimaginable hardships. Many of them didn’t survive. Many of those who survived were either physically or emotionally scarred … or both. Why would they do through that? Where did they find the strength and determination?
They did it for their families. They did it for their buddies in the foxholes and trenches beside them. They did it for their country. They did it to protect a way of life that they loved. They did it to stop the spread of evil.
Was there joy in it? Well, they certainly weren’t “happy” about it, I’m sure. They weren’t whistling a happy tune. You see, “happy,” “happiness,” and “happen” are all very similar sounding words for a reason. “Happiness” depends upon what’s “happening.” Author and pastor Adrian Rogers explained the difference between “happiness” and “joy” in this way: “Happiness is like a thermometer … it only registers your conditions. Joy is a thermostat that controls your conditions.”
Was there joy in fighting a war? In their hearts … beyond the terror … was a peace, a surety that they were doing the right thing … that what they were fighting to protect was worth dying for. And when it was all over … be it on the battlefield or from old age … to stand before a righteous God and hear Him say in the presence of all Heaven, “Well done, good and faithful servant” … to hear that ... to receive such praise from our heavenly Father … is worth more than all the gold and commendation medals they could earn. And their joy at that moment would eclipse and erases all the pain and suffering that went on before.
It is a joy, as Peter says, that is beyond words. There is a kind of joy that Peter is trying to describe that be present in the hearts of Christians even in the midst of hardship and suffering. It is not fun to be persecuted. Nobody wants to go to jail … to have deadly threats hanging over your heard day and night. But … there is something about doing the right thing that brings a “joy” … a sense of peace, assurance, righteousness … that comes from doing the right thing for the right reason … whatever may befall us as we do the right thing for right reason. As hard and as difficult as it may be, we would not, could not have it any other way. “My Father, Jesus prayed in the garden, “if it is not possible for this cup to be taken away unless I drink it, may Your will be done.” (Matthew 26:42)
And because He drank the cup of God’s wrath, because He hung on the cross for our sins, look at the benefits that we … you and I sitting here today … receive. In verse 1, Peter says that we are God’s elect, chosen out of all the world to be His people. That alone should be a source of great joy, amen? In verse 2, Peter says we have been “sanctified by the Spirit” … set apart from the world. We have been saved by the blood of Jesus Christ. We have been born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Christ (v. 3). We have an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in Heaven for us (v. 4).
In their song “Shake,” the Christian band MercyMe says that we’ve got so much going for us that it should make us want to stand up and “shake like we’re changed.” “Maybe He came for you when everything seemed fine,” they sing, “or maybe your world was upside down and hit you right between the eyes. No matter what happened at 7 or 95, move your feet ‘cause you are free and you’ve never been more alive.” And the chorus says: “You gotta shake, shake, shake like you’ve changed, changed, changed/brand new looks so good on you/so shake like you’ve ben changed.”
That’s what Peter is saying to the Christians of his day. He’s telling them to shake like they’ve been changed, to walk and run and dance because they’ve been given something the rest of the world doesn’t have. He’s telling them to put a spring in their step because they’ve been got grace and hope and peace and mercy … and joy.
And the best reason to shake and dance and put a spring in your step is because we don’t belong here! This earth is not our home! We were re-born to live somewhere else. Our citizenship is not here but in Heaven. And if we forget that, we can oh so easily and so very quickly get overwhelmed and frustrated.
Jesus told us that we will have trouble in this world (John 16:33). And Peter is trying to tell us the same thing in his letter. “… for a little while you may have to suffer grief in all kinds of trials” (v. 6). Peter acknowledges their suffering and pain … but then he explains WHY we should rejoice in the midst of it all.
“In this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. These have come so that your faith … of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire … may be proved genuine and may result in praise, glory, and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed” (v. 6-7)
How may of you have lived in or traveled to a Communist country or a formerly Communist country? The next time you meet someone who is advocating that America become a Communist country, kindly suggest that they go live in China or Russia or Cuba or North Korea for a few years. What do you think their answer’s gonna be when we ask if they want to come back to the Good Ol’ U.S. of A, hum? Let me assure you, they’ll kiss the ground the second their feet touch American soil. And that’s nothing compared to the joy we’re gonna feel when we get home to Heaven, amen?
You and I are Christians. We are a free people. We are citizens of the most powerful nation on the face of the earth … or in the whole universe, for that matter, amen? And nothing … absolutely nothing … can threaten us or robe us of the blessing of that freedom.
So … Peter’s telling us to shake like we’ve been changed because we’re a free people … and because we’re a free people, we’re to walk like it, to talk like it … to act and live like those who have been chosen and sanctified and saved … born again to a living hope. Don’t let the trials of this world …. Don’t let the forces of sin … cow you into silence and conformity. You’ve got something the rest of the world doesn’t have and so dearly longs for. You have something to offer the world that many of your friends don’t have and wish they did.
Just as living in America has many advantages you won’t find anywhere else in the world, we Christians have many advantages you won’t find anywhere ese in the world … not even in America.
For one thing, we’ve been reborn. We have been given the ability, the power to start our lives all over again … to begin anew. “… for you are receiving the outcome of your faith, the salvation of your souls,” says Peter in verse 9. The world has the power to shape your outside, to transform you … but it lacks the ability to give you new birth … a completely new life from the inside out. The world doesn’t have the means to remake and renew a person’s life from the inside out and neither do we. The change in our lives, says Peter, doesn’t depend upon YOUR will power. No. Look at verse 3. You and I receive a “new birth into a living hope” … how? “… through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.” The ability, the process that changes us from the inside out comes from God.
Another advantage that we have that the world doesn’t have is found in verse 4. We have an “inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading … kept in Heaven for you.” I wonder where Peter might have heard that before? “Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth where moth and rust consume and where thieves break in and steal … but store up for yourselves treasures in Heaven where neither moth nor rust consume and where thieves do not break in and steal” (Matthew 6:19-20).
And inheritance is wealth that is passed down from one person to another at the time of their death. As Christians, our names are written in Christ’s last will and testament. He has left us an inheritance … but not like any inheritance you might receive here on earth. It is an heavenly inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading.
Imperishable … not subject to destruction … it can’t be lost or stolen, broken, or ruined
Undefiled … unstained … unpolluted … flawless … and perfect
Unfading … in the Greek it literally describes a flower that does not wither or die.
In this context, it means that our heavenly inheritance will never lose its beauty or magnificence. Because it is eternal, it will never grow old, never ear out, and never disappoint us in any way. And that, my brothers and sisters, is a cause for rejoicing, don’t you think?
We find another advantage in verse 5. We are being “protected by the power of God through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.” The word “protected” is a military term that means “guarded,” “shielded,” or “protected” – hence the various different translations. The tense of the verb suggests that we are continually being “protected” or “shielded” by God’s power t5hrough our faith. As long as faith remains true, then God’s protection will keep us until the end of our lives or until Christ comes … whichever happens first.
C.S. Lewis abandoned his Christian upbringing and for many years remained a sophisticated skeptic. Yet, every so often … an intense longing would grip him … a nostalgic desire for something he couldn’t explain. As he thought and studied, he came to realize that his yearning was really a soul-need. Finally he surrendered to God and he was … as the title of his autobiography says … “surprised by joy.” Until that crucial point in his life, he had chosen to exclude himself from the Kingdom of God and had he died while still outside of that Kingdom, he would have been deprived of the presence of Christ and the eternal joy of Heaven.
And the greatest advantage we have over the world is that we don’t fear death! We don’t fear death because we have an inheritance that can never perish, spoil, or fade … one that is being kept in Heaven for us.
In his book, “The Triumph of Christianity: How the Jesus Movement Became the World’s Largest Religion,” historian Rodney Stark explained that the pagans in ancient Rome had two philosophies that were diametrically different from Christianity. First … the Romans feared death. They believed that death led to non-existence or, at best, to a drab existence in a shadowy underworld. So they literally ran from death and clung to life for all their worth. Second … the Romans viewed mercy and pity as thing to be scoffed at and looked down upon. The philosophers of the day taught that mercy was “unreasonable.” Why waste any time or any emotion on someone who was undeserving of such a generous emotion as mercy. “The cry of the underserving for mercy must be unanswered.”
And then something happened in 165 a.d. that changed all that. A plague struck the Roman Empire. Now, when a plague comes to town, guess what? Everyone leaves … at least the ones who can. And those who can’t let do everything they can to avoid the sick. “When their symptoms first appeared,” says Stark, “victims often were thrown into the streets, where the dead and dying lay in piles.” That was the extent of their mercy. Even physicians like the famous Roman doctor Galen simply ran away.
Everybody ran way except the … Christians! They not only cared for their own sick but took care of their sick neighbors as well. Why? Because Jesus taught them that mercy was the highest form of godliness. And second … can you guess? They didn’t fear death. They knew that they had an inheritance that was being kept for them in Heaven that would not perish, spoil, or fade. They believed that if they died while caring for the ill, it would result in “praise and glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed” (v. 7).
Because the Christians did not fear death and took care of the sick, they not only kept a vast number of fellow Christians and neighbors from dying but also caught the attention of the rest of the Roman Empire. They literally shook the Roman world because of their self-sacrifice. You see, Christianity isn’t just about “shaking like we’ve changed” … it’s about shaking up the world. It’s about displaying the love of Jesus in our lives in such a way that the world around us becomes jealous of your love for Him and become hungry and thirsty to have Him in their lives as well.
At the last supper, Jesus took the bread … gave thanks to His Father … broke the bread … and then commanded us to “take, eat … this is my body which is given for you. Do this in remembrance of me.” Remember Jesus. Remember what happened and what we got as a result.
When the supper was over, He took the cup … gave thanks … gave it to His Disciples and commanded us to “drink from this, all of you; this is my blood of the new covenant, poured out for you and for many for the forgiveness of sins. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.” Remember what He went through on our behalf, for our sake … and remember to do what He taught and commands us to do … to be broken and poured out for others … to take up our crosses as He did so that others might live and receive an eternal inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and will not fade … one that is protected by the power of God through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time … so that they, like us, can rejoice and honor God and sing God’s praises even in the midst of their trials and troubles.
If I brought a person here who needed help, who didn’t want a hand out but a hand up, who wanted to turn their life around … if I brought such a person her, would you welcome them, embrace them? Would you make a commitment to them and keep it? Would you like to experience what Peter is talking about? Joy unspeakable? A joy that can ‘t be expressed in words?
When I introduced Mrs. Grace Horace to you all, I told you that she was going to open doors for us … many doors … and that process has already begun. We have a chance to work with an organization called “Open Table.” Open Table brings people who are in need to a literal table along with churches such as ours, along with government agencies and services, so that all of us … the person in need, the church, and the government … can enter into a productive dialogue together. The goal is for us to listen to what the person needs or desires to accomplish in their life and then work alongside them to help them achieve their goal or goals … “their” goals … not what we think their goals should be.
Does that sound like something you all might want to experience as a church? Do you want to experience joy indescribable? Do we as a church want to help another person experience joy unspeakable? How many of you would be interested in learning more about this program? I plan to invite the local director, Mrs. Vera Jones, to come and describe the entire program to us so all your questions will be answered before we commit, amen?
This world is not our home. One day we will hear the voice of the angel and the trumpet call of the Lord and we will rise from the grave to meet Jesus in the sky. We’ll be going home. That’s the promise we’ve had ever since we became Christians. That’s the promise that was declared at our baptism. Remember when you were baptized? In that act, God declared to you that one day you will rise from the grave and be with Him forever.
This world is not our home. We’re just passing through. Our present life is a vacation in a sense. When we’re here, we’re away from home. And the time that we spend here is short compared to the time that we spend at our true home. And when people get home from their vacation they share their memories of the trip with others. They post them on their computers and on FaceBook.
When you get home, what memories will you be able to share? What lives have you touched for Jesus? Who will be in Heaven with you because you took them to church or introduced them to Jesus? Or showed them the love and mercy that God has shown you?
Let us pray…
