The Journey To Joy
Isaiah 55:6-13,
“Seek the Lord while he may be found; call on him while he is near. Let the wicked man forsake his way and the evil man his thoughts. Let him turn to the Lord, and he will have mercy on him, and to our God, for he will freely pardon.
For My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways.” Declares the Lord. As the Heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts higher than your thoughts.
As the rain and the snow come down from heaven, and do not return without watering the earth and making it bud and flourish, so that it yields seed for the sower and bread for the eater, so is my word that goes out from My Mouth: It will not return to me empty, but will accomplish what I desire and achieve the purpose for which I sent it.
You will go out in joy and be led forth in peace; the mountains and hlls will burst into song before you, and all the trees of the field will clap their hands. Instead of the thornbush will grow the pine tree, and instead of the briers the myrtle will grow. This will be for the Lord’s renown, for an everlasting sign, which will not be destroyed.”
Today I want to Talk about The “Road to Joy.”
Websters describes Joy as, “exhilaration of spirits.” I’m not talking about happiness which is described as contentment, or fortunate.” I’m talking about something on the inside that you can’t help but be joyful at all times. And God wants that for you. He wants you joyful in times of stress and times of peace. I believe that there are 5 things that need to happen in our lives if we are going to be traveling on along the road to Joy. The trouble with too many of the people of our society and even the Church of Jesus Christ is that we aren’t full of the Joy of the Lord. Nehemiah says, the “joy of the Lord is our strength.” (8:10). Joy is an important aspect of belonging to Jesus. God eagerly desires for His people to have joy. The only problem that we have with Joy is that we want Joy on our terms instead of God’s terms. God wants us to be joyful in our tribulations for James says, “Brothers, count it pure joy when you experience trial and persecutions of many kinds.” James 1:2. In order for us to realize the Joy of the Lord, we must do 5 fundamental actions according to the verses here in Isaiah 55:6-13.
First, God wants us to seek Him: (Conduits of His Person)
I believe that deep in the heart of every man and woman on the face of the Earth is what I like to call and some others have called it, “a GOD-SHAPED HOLE” inside of us. I mean that there is a missing link to our lives that is the center of our being that can only be filled with the missing piece that is a relationship with God.
We look around the world today and we see immorality at an all time high. And we ask ourselves, Why? Why do people act so immorally. I’m talking about the fact that we see sexual immorality, greed and hunger for money to the point that white collar men are willing to do unjust book keeping to make the extra dollar in the corporate world. I’m talking about Lust of the flesh that we need more things in life, more wealth in the bank, nicer cars in our driveway, and better, faster ways of doing things. We live in an instant gratification society. Our love for the immediate has grown into infatuation with our own selfish desires. And do you know why??? Simple.
We have something in each and every one of us that is desirous of God Almighty and true and living relationship with Him. The problem with Mankind is that he can’t see God, and doesn’t want to find God because he lives according to what he sees and doesn’t realize that those that Come to God must come by faith for “faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things unseen.” Hebrews 11:1, and that if you want to please God, you must first come to God with faith and believe that He “rewards those that diligently seek Him.”
What is that reward???? - A real and dynamic relationship with Him through Jesus Christ, God’s Son.
The promise of seeking God is that we will surely find Him. Jeremiah 29:13, “You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart. I will be found by you.” Declares the Lord,”
I’m not referring to giving God an hour of service a week.
God is not only around for Sunday morning Service between 10am and 12pm. Nor are His ears more attentive toward our prayers on those hours. Nor does He stop what He is doing to take care of creation for two hours a week for us to do our religious thing. I believe that the Bible says, “the eyes of the Lord are ranging to and fro the earth to strengthen those whose hearts are fully committed to Him.” 2 Chronicles 16:9. God is not restricted to Eastern Standard Time along the Atlantic seaboard of America. He is not a Central Standard Time God. He is not a Mountain Time God, and He’s not a Pacific Standard Time God. Our God is a timeless God. He is the ancient of Days, and so when we think that God is to be sought on a Sunday Morning Service we aren’t even close to understanding what that really means.
So when should we seek God?
· God says “call upon me in the day of trouble and I will deliver you.” Psalm 50:15. He wants us to seek Him when we are in trouble.
· The Psalmist says, “I will lift up the cup of salvation and call on the name of the Lord.” Psalm 116:13. God wants us to call upon Him in the day of our salvation.
· God says, “Give thanks to the Lord, call upon His Name.” Psalm 105:1. God wants us to call to Him when we’ve been blessed and He has made us thankful.
And in verse 6 of our text, we must call upon Him while He is near. This is the day to call upon God. Don’t think about tomorrow, don’t worry about the past, the Bible says, “Today, if you hear His voice,” Hebrews 3:7. 2 Corinthians 6:2, “I tell you, now is the time of God’s favor, now is the day of salvation.”
Don’t worry about tomorrow, Jesus says, let’s deal with today, and if you need me, Seek ME – I’m waiting to be found by you.
God wants us to seek Him!
FOREST GUMP???? – Not that God is lost.
THE STORY OF THE BAD LITTLE BOY (JOHNNY) AND THE PREACHER.
What did God want from Israel? Really, what was His yearning desire for that Nation to be? Was it not a people for Himself. God was looking for a Covenant people, a people of relationship with Him through which He could bless the entirety of creation and all Nations would be blessed through this nation.
“All day long I have held out my hands to an obstinate people, who walk in ways not good, pursuing their own imaginations . . .” Isaiah 65:2.
From the Beginning of man’s dealing with God we find that God is looking for man’s attention. Even after the fall of Adam and Eve, we see that it is God walking through the garden in the cool of the day calling after His human creation.
We see in the Prophets the repeated theme of God’s desire to call His people to repentance and back to Him. God asked Isaiah to prophecy naked for three years, He asked Abraham to leave his family and the place of his habitation and set out for a land that He would give to him, He asked Hosea to take for himself a wife of Prostitution, He asked Amos to leave behind his occupation as a shepherd and to preach the Word all for one reason – to Get the ATTENTION OF HIS CREATION – HIS PEOPLE.
Second, in order to realize true Joy, God wants us to Repent: (Conduits of His Righteousness)
Here in Isaiah, the situation has not been very good. Their constant rebellion from God brought the judgment of God and their nation had been taken away. Their sin had caused their demise because the “wages of sin is death,” “sin is a disgrace to any people.” And because a HOLY and Sinless God cannot stand sin, and Because He hates it, He cannot allow His people to continue in it. Yet even in the midst of their rebellion God is asking His people,
“Let the wicked forsake his way and the evil man His thoughts. Let Him turn to the Lord, and He will have mercy on Him, and to our God, for He will freely pardon.” Isaiah 55:7
Now we must understand that God has good intentions for His people at all times. I’m not talking about some of the time, God wants you to be blessed abundantly. He has come to give of Himself so that we can enjoy Him in true righteousness and holiness. God wants us to be blessed.
But God cannot bless us if we cannot forsake wickedness and unrighteousness. God commands us to repent if we are to seek Him.
Repentance is more than being sorry for what we do in our sins.
Repentance is more than asking forgiveness for our sins.
Repentance is more than our feeling guilty.
True Repentance is an action verb.
The Bible tells us in these verses:
“Let the wicked forsake his way.”
In other words, the scripture is admonishing a complete change. A forsaking. A shedding of an old lifestyle. The word, “way” or “darak” in Hebrew in this verse is a reference to one’s complete lifestyle. It’s talking about a “Path worn by constant walking. It refers to the actions and behavior of a man.
Godly repentance is threefold. The First part is that the wicked must forsake His way. The wicked man must abandon his lifestyle. Get away from the life you used to lead and get close to God through seeking Him.
But unfortunately, repentance for most people stops right there. We try the cold turkey approach to sin. Just not gonna do it no more.
But here in Isaiah, the wicked must not only abandon his lifestyle, but the wicked man must forsake or abandon his thoughts.
You can’t really repent and change your lifestyle if you don’t start changing your thought life. The Bible tells us that sin first is desire. Desire comes from what we see. We think about what we see, we want it bad enough, if that thing is denied us by law or by God Himself, we sin in order to get it.
All You have to do is take a three year old through the aisle of “Toys R Us” to know that we first desire by seeing what we want then we sin to get it and sometimes we sin if we don’t get it in Anger!
But Thirdly, not only must we abandon our old lifestyle, abandon our old thoughts, but we must also turn to the Lord. The word, “return” is more than just a turn around in your actions, but an acknowledgement of the Covenant Relationship once again. You see, Godly repentance is an acknowledgment of the Relationship with God we are to have in order to keep from sinning once again and going astray in the future. But rather, we must keep on the forefront of our minds and attitudes that we are in Communion with God through the Covenant of the Blood of Jesus and that Blood is what keeps us close to God.
God wants us to repent. Repent is not a bad word, Repent is a good word, it’s the same word for restoration. When we repent, God restores us to a right relationship with Him. That relationship that Adam and Eve shared physically with the Lord is restored to us spiritually and ultimately physically as well when we REPENT!!! God wants us to repent in order to have relationship with Him.
Thirdly, in order to realize Biblical Joy, we must realize Godly forgiveness.
The end of verse 7 says, “for He will freely pardon.” The King James writes, “for He will abundantly Pardon.”
Our God is a forgiving God and we must realize the depths of His forgiveness for ourselves.
Now Isaiah writes further after this verse, “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are you ways my ways, saith the Lord. As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.”
What is God talking about. I’m sure you have heard this scripture interpreted to mean that God sees our circumstances from a different perspective and so we should trust His ways though we don’t understand them. While that may be true in other passages of Scripture, I think God is referring to something different.
For He says these words right after He tells His people that He’s going to “freely pardon their sins.”
So what the scripture is talking about Here is God’s way of forgiving and pardoning the sinner. God is saying that basically, when it comes to forgiving someone of their sin, you have no clue how its done. I’m the author of forgiveness, I’ve been forgiving you since Genesis Chapter 3 even though you never deserved it and most of you never asked for it, I’ve been doing it.
So reading it again, “God’s ways of forgiveness are not our ways of forgiveness and God’s thoughts of forgiveness are not our thoughts of forgiveness.”
You know we can forgive sometimes really well, but we seldom really forget. In fact, most of us right now are harboring a thought of ill will toward someone right now that hurt us in years past and though we have forgiven them, we just can’t seem to forget.
If we want joy in our lives, we must be Forgivers LIKE God is a Forgiver! (Conduits of His Grace)
Unforgiveness is a horrible thing to carry around. It can destroy families, break up companies, claim 50 year old relationships in a heart beat and brutalize your mind. God doesn’t want that for you. He wants you to forgive and forget. And some of us really have to forgive someone right now in order to really receive the Joy of the Lord this morning.
When we don’t forgive we are like the wicked servant that Jesus describes in Matthew 18. He says there was a servant who owed his master a whole lot of money that he didn’t have a prayer of paying back, so the master frees him of the debt. Then that same servant goes and finds some scrub off the street that owed him some small sum and demands payment by beating him up and throwing him in jail to pay off the debt. The master of the man hears about this and says, “You wicked servant, I canceled all that debt of yours because you begged me to. Shouldn’t you have had mercy on your fellow servant just as I had on you?” And the end he was thrown in prison as well.
You see, one of the common excuses for unforgiveness is this:
“You don’t understand what that person did to me.”
And you know what? I completely agree. I don’t have the first clue what that person did to you. I don’t know what your Daddy did to you 25 years ago. I will never know what your ex wife did to you 10 years ago. I will not know what some drunk driver did to you 5 years ago. I don’t understand how your child has hurt you and turn their back on you. I will never and can never understand what “that person” did to you. But the story of Matthew 18 gives us clear evidence of this one fact.
GOD UNDERSTANDS ENTIRELY, BECAUSE YOU DID THE SAME THING TO HIM AND HE STILL FORGAVE YOU EVEN THOUGH IT CAUSED HIM PAIN AND CLAIMED THE LIFE OF HIS ONLY BEGOTTEN SON.
God knows what you felt, He felt it on the cross. God knows rejection, he was despised and rejected of men. God knows the pain of loss, the torment of being beaten up by some He would have called friends before. Jesus went to the cross with the weight of the sin of the world on His back and proved that IF I CAN FORGIVE THE ENTIRE WORLD, YOU CAN FORGIVE THAT PERSON THAT HURT YOU!!!
Don’t carry the burden of unforgiveness. God wants you to experience the joy of being free from that burden. He never meant for you to carry it. Release forgiveness today and be free from it forever.
My ways of forgiveness – Not your ways – in other words, develop a habit of forgiving others. The Bible says, “Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. Bear with each other and forgive whatever grievances you may have against one another. Forgive as the Lord forgave you.” Colossians 3:12-13.
Learn the joy in forgiveness. Jesus went to the cross for the Joy set before Him – what was that Joy? Forgiveness of our sins.
Fourthly, If you want Biblical Joy, be a receptor of the Word of God.
(Conduits of His Truth)
“As the rain and the snow come down from heaven, and do not return to it without watering the Earth and making it bud and flourish, so that it yields seed for the sower and bread for the eater, so is my word that goes out from My Mouth: It will not return to me empty, but will accomplish what I desire and achieve the purpose for which I sent it.”
God says receive my Word as the ground receives the water and the snow.
But more than that, realize that the Word, when received produces a seed and produces a product.
God wants us to be people of seed and people of product.
What is the difference between a “seed” and “bread”???
Simple. The Bread is for today’s need. The Seed is for tomorrows NEED!
God’s word accomplishes in us a product of Bread. That means we never go hungry again. The word is the sustenance of our daily life. Jesus prayed, “give us this day our daily bread.” We have a daily need in our lives – Bread. God wants to give us that bread. When we receive His Word, it produces Bread in our lives.
Just as Jesus commanded the disciples to give the five thousand something to eat, so too He wants us to be able to give something to the world that is worth having. What is that? The Bread of Life.
Listen – God is enough for Today, through His Word, Man does not live on bread alone, but on every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.
It is the Word that sustains us. And it is the word that empowers us. God’s Word is living and active. The Bible says Jeremiah 23:29, “Is not my word like as a fire? saith the LORD; and like a hammer that breaketh the rock in pieces?”
Jeremiah also said, Jeremiah 20:9, “Then I said, I will not make mention of him, nor speak any more in his name. But his word was in mine heart as a burning fire shut up in my bones, and I was weary with forbearing, and I could not stay.”
We must be receptors and doers of the Word.
I believe in the Power of the Word of God. The day I stop believing in it’s awesome power is the day I stop preaching it for a living. But I know that day will never come because The Bible says, “Heaven and Earth shall pass away, but the Word of the Lord will remain forever.”
God’s Word never disappoints us. We can take pleasure in leaning upon His Word.
Four things that lead to a life of Joy.
1. Seeking God. Conduits of His Personhood.
2. True Biblical Repentance Conduits of His Righteousness.
3. Receiving and Releasing Forgiveness Conduits of His Mercy.
4. Receiving The Word Conduits of His Truth.
And Verse 12 tells the people of Israel, and the people here today in Isaiah 55, “You will go out in joy and be led forth in peace; the mountains and hlls will burst into song before you, and all the trees of the field will clap their hands. Instead of the thornbush will grow the pine tree, and instead of the briers the myrtle will grow. This will be for the Lord’s renown, for an everlasting sign, which will not be destroyed.”
Here we have a marvelous picture of what the Road to Joy leads to. A picture of the whole of creation rejoicing around us because ordinary people just like you and me, sought after God, Repented of our ways, became a conduit of forgiveness, and received the Word.
God’s Word is eternal. Never underestimate its power. Would you get on the road to Joy, and God will make your life a celebration of His goodness and His mercy.
The myrtle and the pine are trees than never go brown. They are a picture of a life that never lacks what God has supplied. God wants you to have joy.
God wants you to get on the road to Joy in Him!!!
