Party, Like It’s The Kingdom of God
The Life – part 5
The Practice of Celebration
[We decorated the church for a party balloons etc)
PICTURE – the following scenes in your mind….
· The Angels when they won the world series
· Mark Mcquire when he broke Roger Maris home run record
· Emmitt Smith after he broke the all time rushing record 2 weeks ago
· The political gatherings of those who won elections last Tuesday night
· The hallways of school when that last bell rings and schools out for summer
· The end of a high school commencement
· The parents and family at the hospital at the birth of a baby
· The reaction when the doctor walks in and says there is absolutely no sign of the cancer
· The pier when a naval ship pulls in after being gone from home for 6 months
· New Years Eve at Times Square
· Central during our first service in our new building
· When we finally get a parking lot
QUESTION – what one word describes those scenes? Celebration!
Today – is week 5 in our message series called, “The Life,” - a message series that is beginning to change – that is beginning to transform the lives of some people in this very room. (is your life one of them?)
LISTEN – what we do with our life matters; none of us (not you – not me – not the person sitting next to you) are where we need to be spiritually (there is so much more that we can: be, do & experience in Christ) TELL the person sitting next to you, “your not there yet.” LISTEN - change, real change, authentic transformation is possible – it’s the heart of the Gospel – it is God’s plan for your life.
QUESTION – do you want to change? To grow spiritually? to get unstuck? Do you want to live your life in Christ to the max? IF – you answered yes to those questions, (and I can see no sane reason why everyone here wouldn’t) THEN – what you have to do is learn how to tap into the transforming power of God by practicing spiritual disciplines…
AND – like we said last week we are not trying to earn anything from God by being disciplined. God does not love us more if we practice spiritual disciplines or love us less if we don’t. BUT NEVERTHELESS – spiritual disciplines are essential to our spiritual growth because by practicing them we put ourselves in a place where God can change, mold, shape and transform us… Spiritual disciplines - as I like to say help us to hoist the sails of our spiritual life so that we can catch the fresh wind of God to change… THE ULTIMATE GOAL – of S.D. is to love God more & more and to love people more & more… In effect to be more like who? Like Jesus..
The first spiritual discipline that we looked at last week was the practice of solitude… The practice of slowing down, the practice of unplugging from the world and hanging out with God. QUESTION – did you have any periods of solitude during the last 7 days? Have you scheduled your ½ day for this month; 3-4 hours just you & God? [if yes awesome – if no why?]
Today we are going to talk about the practice of Celebration….
2 Samuel 6:12-16, 20-22
Prayer. . .
In his book, The Life You’ve Always Wanted, John Orteberg writes;
Sometime ago I was giving a bath to our 3 children. I had a custom of bathing together, more to save time than anything else. I knew that eventually I would have to stop group bathing, but for the time being it seemed efficient.
Johnny was still in the tub, Laura was out and safely in her pajamas, and I was trying to get Mallory tried off. Mallory was out of the water, but was doing what has come to be known in our family as the Dee Dah Day dance. This consists of running around and around in circles, singing over and over again, “Dee dah day, dee dah day.” It was a relatively simple dance expressing great joy. When she is too happy to hold it in any longer, when words are inadequate to give voice to her euphoria, she has to dance to releases her joy. So she does the Dee Dah Day.
On this particular occasion I was irritated. Mallory Hurry!” I prodded. So she did – she began running in circles faster and faster and chanting “Dee Dah Day” more rapidly. “No Mallory that is not what I mean! Stop with the dee dah day stuff and get over here so I can dry you off. Hurry!
Then she asked a profound question; “Why?”
I had no answer. I had nowhere to go, nothing to do, no meetings to attend, no sermons to write. I was just so used to hurrying, so preoccupied with my own little agenda, so trapped in this rut of moving from one task to another, that here was life, here was joy here was an invitation to the dance right in front of me – and I was missing it.
So I got up and Mallory and I did the Dee dah day Dance together. She said I was pretty good at it too, for a man my age.
DO – you know what? I don’t dance nearly enough…
I find sometimes more of Michael in me than I do David…(Leila & Jackie)
I don’t Celebrate the way I ought to celebrate each and every day
I find that I take myself too seriously and that I don’t take God seriously enough…
LOOK UP - one thing we really need to understand – one thing we really need to get – is that our God takes joy seriously. IN FACT – joy is at the heart of God himself. LISTEN – we will never understand the significance of joy in the human life until we understand joy’s importance to God.
I suspect that most of us seriously underestimate God’s capacity for joy. He is full to overflowing with joy… CS Lewis says it like this; “joy is the serious business of heaven..”
QUESTION – have you ever thrown a little kid up in the air? When you do that, what do they say? “Do it again” Push a kid on a swing; “Do it again..” Read a story; “read it again..” LET ME TELL YOU - little kids just know how to celebrate – On Wednesday I watched the 2 & 3 year olds; jumping, hollering, falling on each other, singing and laughing… smiles & grins from ear to ear.
G.K. Chesterton says that the joy we see in the happiest child (picture that) is only a fraction of the joy that resides in the heart of God. CHECKOUT what he wrote;
Because children have abounding vitality, because they are in spirit fierce and free, therefore they want things repeated and unchanged. They always say, “Do it again,” and the grown up person does it again until he is nearly dead. For grown-up people are not strong enough to exult in monotony. But perhaps God is strong enough to exult in monotony. It is possible that God says every morning, “Do it again” to the sun; and every evening, “Do it again,” to the moon. It may not be automatic necessity that makes all daises like; it may be that God makes every daisy separately, but has never gotten tired of making them. It may be that He has the eternal appetite of infancy; for we have sinned and grown old and Father is younger than we.”
To illustrate see the difference between our Father and us IMAGINE for a moment how the opening sentences of the Bible might read if God were not a supremely joyful being. IMAGINE Genesis if God approached work as we often do…
In the beginning it was about 9 or 9:30 in the morning, so God had to go to work. He filled out a requisition to separate light from darkness. He considered making stars to beautify the night and planets to fill the skies, but thought it sounded like too much work; and besides thought God, “That’s not my job,” So he decided to knock off early and call it a day. And he looked at what he had done and he said, “It’ll have to do.”
On the second day God separated the waters from the dry land. And he made the dry land flat, plain, and functional, so that behold the whole earth looked like Kansas. He thought about making mountains and valleys and glaciers and jungles and forests, but decided it wouldn’t be worth the effort. And God looked at what he had done that day and said, “It’ll have to do…”
And God made a pigeon to fly in the air, and a carp to swim in the waters, and a cat to creep upon dry ground. And God thought about making millions of other species of all sizes and shapes and colors, but he couldn’t drum up any enthusiasm for any other animals – in fact, he was too crazy about the cat he had made. Besides it was almost time for the late show. So God looked at all he had done and God said, “It’ll have to do.”
And by the end of the week God was seriously burned out. So he breathed a big sigh of relief and said, “Thank me, it’s Friday…”
NOW – of course Genesis looks nothing like that – INSTEAD each verse pulses with the refrain, “And God said – and it was so – and it was very good…” On the first day, “God said let there be light and there was light… And God saw that the light was good…” And God did a little dance…. And the next day God said to the light “Do it again…” And the light did it again, and God did his little dance one more time…. AND so it has been every day since; down to this very morning as woke up and came here… “do it again”
NOW – that is how it is with God, but not us, “For we have sinned and grown old, and our father is younger than we…” LISTEN – we will never understand God until we understand this about him…..”God is the happiest being in the universe…”
AND THEREFORE – it only stands to reason that God intends that his creation would mirror that joy. CHECKOUT – how the psalmist talks about the sun… “the sun lives in the heavens where God placed it and moves across the skies as a radiant as a bridegroom going to his wedding, or as joyous as an athlete looking forward to a race!” Psalm 19:4,5
AND LISTEN – the psalmist is not merely using picturesque language here, NO – This is creation expressing God’s won unwavering joy at simply being, at existing and knowing existence to be good. AND UNDERSTAND – that as products of God’s creation, as creatures made in His image we are to reflect this joy as well, and even more so. God is serious about joy.
There are more than 60 references in Scripture to celebration and all but one or two of them are positive. Most of them are divine commands to go party. Exodus, Deuteronomy and Numbers read like a string of invitations to a non stop party.
CELEBRATE - The Feast of Unleavened bread;
The feast of harvest;
The feast of weeks;
The Passover;
The feast of Tabernacles
The day of atonement;
CELEBRATE!
AND PLEASE UNDERSTAND THIS – these were not quiet, well mannered, sedate little tea parties. NO - they were loud, crazy, shout at the top of your lungs, dance in the streets week long blow outs.
LISTEN – that’s our God; AND as you read His word you get the impression that He is looking for just about any excuse to fire up the barbecue and invite the neighbors over…
In Nehemiah, the priest Ezra reads and explains, the law – the word of God, to the people in Jerusalem, and as they listen they weep. Nehemiah gets up;
Read Nehemiah 8:9-12
9 – “This day is sacred to the Lord, your God…” QUESTION – and what do you do on a
day that is scared to the Lord? ANSWER – you party!
10 – [We would expect a prophet to tell us to eat locusts and brussel sprouts, or maybe
nothing at all but here we see Nehemiah handing out the equivalent of Twinkies and Doritos.] God is serious about joy – and His joy is our strength…
11,12 – They celebrated with great joy BECAUSE now they understood, “I get it, “it’s time to party!”
JESUS – was also full of joy…. SOME of His final words to the 12 were about joy; “I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete.” (Jn 15:11)
QUESTION – why did Jesus come? One reason is so that our (yours and mine) joy might be complete…
LISTEN – the problem with people, according to Jesus, is not that we are too happy for God’s taste, but that we are not happy enough. Lewis Smedes puts it this way: “To miss out on joy is to miss out on the reason for your existence.” (repeat)
The apostle Paul who was most definitely a Dee Dah Day Dancing Dude” wrote; “Rejoice in the Lord always; I will say it gain, rejoice.” Ph 4:4
UNDERSTAND – the bible puts joy in the non-optional category. Joy is a command. THEREFORE - joylessness is a serious sin, and it is a sin that religious people are particularly prone to indulge in. AND – not only that but joylessness may be as one writer says, “The sin most readily tolerated by the church. It is rarely the object of church discipline.”
THINK – about that statement for a moment… Joy is the sin most readily tolerated by the church. It is rarely the object of church discipline.”
QUESTION – How often do we; indulge, pamper, coddle, tolerate, humor, accept, tolerate and cater to someone’s lack of joy rather then confront it lovingly but firmly as a sin against God.
CONSIDER - how much damage joyless Christians have done to the cause of Christ? CONSIDER - How often have people misunderstood Christ & his church, because they have attributed to Him the grim, judgmental, negative, critical, frowning, finger waving, soul-wearying, sour-spirit of many who claim to be his followers.. “If that is what Jesus & His church did for you, I don’t want any. I’d rather have the flu, at least that will go away…”
Mark Buchanan writes the following in, Your God Is Too Safe,
The Lord is deeply and passionately committed to our joy. Where did we get the idea that religion is a stiff, dull, flat business, all pursed lips and knitted brows and gloomy outlooks? Where did we get that portrait of the religious type as sour, harsh, brooding, scolding? How ever did we forget to dance and laugh and play and live?
We see religion, of course as gloominess in the Pharisees and religious rulers of Jesus’ day. The people came into town along side Jesus, singing and skipping and clapping their hands. “Shut these people up,” the chief priest ordered. Jesus said, “If they remain silent, the rocks themselves will sing.” The Pharisees accused Jesus of hanging out with the wrong people, going to all the wrong parties. He eats with sinners, they said, aghast. They called him a drunkard and a glutton.
He kept comparing himself to the groom at a wedding feast, said that now was the time to party. He always seemed to be eating and then sleeping. He kept describing heaven like a huge party: loud music, lots of fattening food, drinks, dancing, singing.
The religious leaders of the day hated it, as they do today. They found Jesus irreverent, frivolous, irresponsible, a threat to public order and decency. Stop that dancing! Stop that laughing! Stop that singing! Stop that eating! Stop the playing! Stop having fun! Stop it! Stop It!
Buchanan concludes; Do we want to imitate them?
An article about the Russian leader Joseph Stalin notes that the one thing above that Stalin couldn’t bear was laughter – especially the idea that someone, anyone would laugh at him. You see it in the empire he create around his ego. It was such a gray, grim place. Even the so called celebrations he staged were dark and gloomy and joyless affairs.
UNDERSTAND – laughter – just good bone shaking, belly jiggling laughter, light in the head laughter is a sure sign of health. AND – the only one who hates it is satan and his wanna-bes.
SO – what do we have? God is full of joy. Jesus is full of joy. His desire is to have His joy in you and for that joy to be complete. God commands you to rejoice and to be always joyful. Those who don’t know how to rejoice and resent everyone else doing it are the Pharisees and their gang. LISTEN – the one person dead set against your joy is the devil. SO what are we going to do about it? I say let’s party…
LOOK UP - I think the time has come as strange as it sounds, for us to take joy seriously. LISTEN - you can become a joyful person. With God’s help, it really is possible. The biblical writers would not have commanded it if it were not so. It is part of the fruit of the Spirit. BUT joyfulness is a learned skill. YOU must take responsibility for your joy. NOT your friend, not your parent, not your spouse, not your kids, not your boss – your joy is your responsibility. NOW - for some this may not come easily. YOU – may be joy-challenged. YOU will have to fight for it. BUT it can be done…
SO – how do we do it? How do we pursue joy? How do we practice the discipline of Celebration…? AND – listen joy is a discipline – because true celebration is both making the decision to rejoice and then making every effort to do so…
Begin Now
OKAY - the first step in developing Joy IS to begin now. The Psalmist says; “This is the day the Lord has made let us be glad and rejoice in it....” (Ps 118:24) NOTICE - He doesn’t say, “Yesterday was the day - how happy I was then” Nor does he say; “Tomorrow will be the great day - I’ll just endure till then.” NO! THIS DAY with all it’s shortcomings is the day to rejoice.
LISTEN - too many believers live with the illusion that joy will come someday when conditions change. We go to School and think we will be happy when we get married. We get married and think we’ll be happy when we have children. We have children and decide we will be happy when they grow and leave home - then they do - AND we think, ‘Man, life sure was better and I was much happier when the kids were still at home.”
“This is God’s day,” The psalmist says. TODAY – November 10th; is a day God has made, and it is a day that Christ’s death has redeemed. LISTEN - IF you are going to know joy - it must be this day - today! UNDERSTAND - IF you don’t rejoice today you won’t rejoice at all.. If you wait till conditions are perfect, you will still be waiting when you die. IF you are going to rejoice - IT MUST BE TODAY.....
The first step in practicing celebration is to begin now!!!
The next 5 things you can do to pursue and practice joy come from a passage in Philippians chapter 4 (they are kind of essential preliminaries that you have to do in order for joy to really take root in your life… UNDERSTAND – if you don’t these things, your joy will just be superficial, synthetic, hollow and won’t last very long… …
Read Philippians 4:4-9
“Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again, Rejoice!”
If you are like me, when you read that verse, you think, “Yeah right Paul, ‘always’ like that’s really going to happen….” BUT UNDRSTAND – Paul not only tells to rejoice and also tells us 5 things we can do that will help…
Don’t Be A Grouch
“let your gentleness be evident to all”
The word fro gentleness refers to a gracious and reasonable spirit. Is that how others would describe your spirit? It refers to someone who does not demand that things always go the way they want… UNDERSTAND – if you want joy to have a chance in your life you just have to say no – to being ugly, being a grouch, a grump and a wet blanket…
Remember That The Lord Is Near
PICTURE – Your father in heaven; all mighty God, PICTURE – the happiest being the universe, the ultimate party animal near you at all times (and he is) – YOU SEE – it is hard to frown when standing next to the KING of kings and LORD of lords….
Give You Worries To God
LISTEN – the practice of joy will never even have a chance in your life if you do not give your worries to God…
The word “worry” in the Greek actually is made up of 2 words that mean, “to divide the mind.” Worry divides the mind between positive thoughts and damaging thoughts. Interestingly our English word “worry” has much the same meaning, it comes from an old Anglo-Saxon word that means to “choke” or to “strangle.” This is exactly what worry does, it chokes your joy, it strangles it.
God says;
“Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.” Phil 4:4-7
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If you are a Christian (if you have come to Christ through faith, repentance and baptism) you are one of God’s children. Now that is an awesome fact, and incredible concept that we must not overlook or minimize (1 Jn 3:1);
My children and I’m sure your’s as well; do not worry about whether or not they will have a home to live in, food to eat, clothes to wear, they don’t worry about if there will be heat in the winter, AC in the summer, water for a shower or soap to bathe. They don’t worry about money for school lunches, school supplies, instrument rentals or field trips...
Why? Because they know that we are aware of their needs and they trust us to take care of that stuff. How much more will God take care of your needs. “If that is how God clothes the grass of the fields, which is here today, and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, how much more will he cloth you...O you of little faith”
To practice celebration - give your worries to your Father in heaven
Think About The Right Kind Of Stuff
QUESTION – does thinking about the wrong stuff ever cause you to loss your joy…? Does allowing thoughts of; anger, bitterness, envy, jealousy, unforgiveness, hatred – ever choke out your joy? (think – feel – act)
UNDERSTAND - God is telling us in His word that if you don’t watch what you think – you will not be able to rejoice in the Lord always! SO - what is the right stuff to think about it?
“Whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable – if anything is excellent or praiseworthy think about such things…”
NOW – I don’t think anger, bitterness etc meet those qualifications.. do you? AND THEREFORE when your thought start to take you down the wrong track the joyless track – you need to starting thinking right…
Put The Word Into Practice
There was a time during his ministry where Jesus was casting out demons and preaching the word. It was a such a powerful scene to those who were watching, that a woman in the crowd cried out; “happy is the mother who gave birth to you and nursed you.” QUESTION – do you remember how Jesus replied? “No, happy are those who hear the teaching of God and obey it…”
LISTEN – obedience to God’s word is essential for Christ’s joy to be made complete in you… Like a branch taken off a tree – your joy with wither and die as your continual acts of sin cut you off from God. UNDERSTAND – “the consequences of sin is not a bad day or a bad mood but a dead soul..”
SO – Paul writes; “Whatever you have heard learned or received or heard from me – put into practice. And the God of peace will be with you.”
OKAY – let’s see what we have so far… LET – me give you a picture of what this looks like… Tomorrow morning you wake up… AND BEFORE – your feet hit the floor…
This is the day the Lord has made I will rejoice today
I will not be a grouch
I will picture God near me
I will give my ‘near’ God my worries for this day
I will think right stuff this day
And I will put your word into practice…
Find A Joy Mentor
Each of us knows a few people who are just full of joy – the real stuff… AND when we are around them they breathe life into us. The set the temperature of a room the moment they walk in… Prize people like that. Thank God for them. Thank them. Above all be around them as much as you can…
AND LISTEN – this is extremely important – because there are other people in our lives as well – people who reject joy, people who have decided to always play the victim. People who don’t want us to be joyful either. They are like the black holes of outer space: If we allow them they will suck the joy right out of us. John Orteberg writes;
“We all know people like that. We all have to endure a few joy destroying people in life. We need to love them as best as we can, but we also have to be very careful not to let them shape us. We may need to limit the time we spend with them. We certainly need to restrain their ability to sway our hearts.”
LISTEN - perhaps the least surprising statements in Scripture is found in Proverbs 15:30; “Smiling faces make you happy…” FIND a way to be around those smiling faces and learn how to be joyful… IF you are particularly joy challenged – ask someone to your mentor to pray with you about your problem of joy…
Schedule Fun Stuff & Celebrations
QUESTION – why do you think God scheduled so many parties in the OT? Because God knew His people needed times of Celebration and he also if he didn’t put it in their day timer it would happen…
FRIENDS – we need to do the same thing… IF – we don’t schedule times of Celebration they may not happen… NOW – to be honest a lot of this ‘joy’ stuff is new to me. In – some ways I am joy challenged - and I realize that I am going to have to be more intention about celebration in my life.
SO – I’m not talking about something here from experience BUT something that I think makes sense to do… WE – need to schedule times; where we do stuff we like – where we eat food we like, where wear clothes we like; go to places that refresh us; do things that are fun…. Sing songs that we like… AND when we do those things really celebrate them…
(This is good… Heath & Carly lollipop)
Consider Your Future
Max Lucado writes; No man had more reason to be miserable than this one – yet no man was more joyful.
His first home was a palace. Servants were at his fingertips. The snap of his fingers changed the course of history. His name was known and loved. He had everything – wealth, power, respect. And then he had nothing.
Students of the event still ponder it. Historians stumble as they attempt to explain it. How could a king lose everything in one instant? One moment he was royalty; the next he was in poverty.
His bed became, at best, a borrowed pallet – and usually the hard earth. He never owned even the most basic mode of transportation and was dependent upon handouts for his income. He was sometimes so hungry he would eat raw grain or pick fruit off a tree. He knew what it was like to be rained on, to be cold. He knew what it meant to have no home.
His palace grounds had been spotless; now he was exposed to filth. He had never known disease, but was now surrounded by illness.
In his kingdom he had been revered; now he was ridiculed. His neighbors tried to lynch him. Some called him a lunatic. His family tried to confine him to their house.
Those who didn’t ridicule him tried to use him. They wanted favors. They wanted tricks. He was a novelty. They wanted to be seen with him – that is, until being with him was out of fashion. THEN they wanted to kill him.
He was accused of a crime he never committed. Witnesses were hired to lie. The jury was rigged. No lawyer was assigned to his defense. A Judge swayed by politics handed down the death penalty.
They killed him.
He left as he came – penniless. He was buried in a borrowed grave, his funeral financed by compassionate friends. Though he once had everything, he died with nothing.
He should have been miserable. He should have been bitter. He had every right to be a pot of boiling anger. But he wasn’t.
He was joyful…He was joyful when he was poor. He was joyful when he was abandoned. He was joyful when he was betrayed. He was even joyful as he hung on a tool of torture, his hands pierced with 6 inch Roman spikes…
Jesus embodied a stubborn joy. A joy that refused to bend in the wind of hard times. A Joy that held it’s ground against pain….
QUESTION – How as Jesus able to maintain his joy? The Hebrew writer in his 12th chapter gives us at least part of the answer…
“Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a huge cloud of witnesses to the life of faith, let us strip off every weight that slows us down, especially the sin that so easily hinders our progress. And let us run with endurance the race that God has set before us. We do this by keeping our eyes on Jesus, on whom our faith depends from start to finish. He was willingly to die a shameful death on the cross BECAUSE of the JOY he knew would be his afterwards..” Now he is seated in the place of highest honor beside God’s throne in heaven.” (1,2 N:T)
LISTEN – One of the reasons, that Jesus was able to live of joy because of the future joy that he knew was going to be His.. AND Jesus set that joy before Him…
QUESTION – is there any future joy planned for you? O’ man you better believe it…
CHURCH – it’s is time to party like it’s the kingdom of God….
IT’S TIME TO:
Celebrate – like we are on the winning team – because we are
Celebrate - like we are sins have been forgiven because that have been removed as far…
Celebrate – like God will keep His promises because he will and he has
Celebrate – like you are a child of the king because you are
Celebrate – like you are headed home to a place of no more; pain, sin, tears, death
Because Jesus is coming back to take us there
CHURCH – we need to continually set the joys of our blood bought future, before us if want to have real joy here, now, today! BECAUSE life down here gets hard sometimes…
Yesterday morning I was on the playground thinking about my future… AND I wrote these words down; “The place is now ready, moving day is on it’s way!! And I won’t need to pack one box – because everything will be NEW!”
