Built Different (Nehemiah 3) We Choose Joy

Because you spent a lot of time with the king, a lot of times the cupbearers became uh counselors for the kings themselves.

You talked all the time.

You knew what was going on already, and so the king came to Nehemiah for counsel a lot.

And people knew that.

People knew that Nehemiah had a voice with the king.

God put Nehemiah in this position to begin the start of restoration for Jerusalem.

And so as the book continues, Nehemiah hears the news then about the condition of Jerusalem, about his homeland.

And he hears that the walls are still destroyed decades later, and that the gates are in ruins.

And it says that Nehemiah then fasts and mourns for Jerusalem.

And he prays to great lengths to God for Jerusalem.

And then he decides to ask the king of Persia.

God puts it in his heart, and he decides to ask the king of Persia to return home.

Now, what I don't want you to overlook here is that this was just some easy decision.

This wasn't an easy decision.

If you study the book of Nehemiah and the history at this time, this was no small request.

I mean, it had to come from someone of great rapport with the king already.

Somebody who already had a voice with the king.

I mean, a lot of people could have just been killed for this same request by the king himself.

You know, the king is also taking a chance at letting him go.

Nehemiah is his protection at this time.

It's who he trusts.

And so letting him go would have been a risk as well.

Nehemiah had to know that this was for certain God's plan.

And so, you know, God was with Nehemiah and he asked the king, and the king allowed him to leave.

And not only, the Bible says, not only did he allow him to leave, he also offered him letters of safe passage back home.

And he offered him supplies to begin to rebuild the city of Jerusalem.

I want you to think about this too.

This would have been the journey that Nehemiah took to get back home.

He's in Susa over there, comes all the way back to Jerusalem over here.

This is an 850-mile journey.

This isn't like a weekend trip.

He's not just heading out for a little bit and coming back.

The Bible tells us that this route would have taken Nehemiah four months, one way.

Four months just to get back home to his city.

So Nehemiah makes it there and then he goes out one night and he begins to inspect these walls that are destroyed.

And he spends the whole night riding around the walls and looking at Jerusalem.

And he makes a plan.

He makes a vision for what he needs to do.

And then he comes back and he begins to rally the people for help.

He begins reminding the people of the covenant that they made with God and the way that Jerusalem used to be, the strong city that they used to be, and what a strong people they were, all when they were living by the laws of God.

And so this plan goes into effect, and in 52 days, these people band together, and against opposition from outside the city as well as inside the city, they rebuild Jerusalem, and they rebuild the walls around it.

And everybody says, well, it could be with nobody but with God that this happened, because it happened in 52 days.

And because of his great leadership, then the Bible goes on to tell us that Nehemiah became the governor of Judah.

And Jerusalem was a city at its center.

And so he begins to put into effect this new leadership and this new plan under God's direction.

Quickly, word of the newly built Jerusalem spreads to all the surrounding lands, and people hear of its condition now and its new leadership.

And so then they begin to return home.

And everybody comes back to Jerusalem.

And in return, they also return to God.

And so when you pick up in chapter 8, all of these people have now settled back in the town of Jerusalem or just outside of Jerusalem.

And then the Bible tells us Nehemiah and the prophet Ezra, they make an organized meeting for a very specific purpose.

It says that they all gathered in the square just inside the water gate, and Ezra then stood on this great wooden platform.

And to the people, from daylight to noon, he read the original laws of Moses, the original laws of God.

He reminded them of the covenant.

And they taught the people and they gathered together and he explained the passages to the people and the law of God again.

And the idea was that if they were supposed to return to this great city that they were, if they were supposed to return to being this great people, well, then they also needed to return to what they used to do, the way that they used to live, living by the laws of God again.

And that's where we pick up in chapter 8, verse 9 through 12.

I want us to read this together.

It says this, it says, Then Nehemiah the governor, Ezra the priest, and the scribe and the Levites, who were interpreting for the people, said to them, Don't mourn or weep on such a day as this, for today is a sacred day before the Lord your God.

For all the people had been weeping as they listen listened to the words of the law, and Nehemiah continued, Go and celebrate with a feast of rich food and sweet drinks, and share the gifts of food with people who have nothing prepared.

This is a sacred day before our Lord.

Don't be dejected and sad, for the joy of the Lord is your strength.

The joy of the Lord is your strength, the most prominent verse about joy in the Bible.

And then it goes on to say, And the Levites too quieted the people, telling them, Hush, don't weep, for this is a sacred day.

So the people went away to eat and drink a festive meal and to share gifts of food and to celebrate with great joy, for they had heard God's words, and they had understood them.

The Bible is pretty clear on what it means to be joyful.

Lots of passages about it.

And it's pretty clear when it says that we should be joyful.

Earlier, when I said I was going to put a little bit of joy by reminding you that you don't have to work tomorrow, that was a bit of a misrepresentation of joy.

That's not exactly what joy is.

That's more of a feeling.

That's a happiness, maybe an excitement that you felt, that little emotion rising up in you.

That's not joy.

Happiness and excitement, those are situational feelings.

Happiness is based on what is happening to you.

Joy is different.

Happiness is temporary, it fades away.

Joy is not.

Joy is more of a mindset.

It's there, it's permanent.

And it comes with not what is happening to you, it comes with what has already happened.

Past tense.

Joy is a new path.

It's a different view of looking at the world.

It's a it's a new angle.

Joy is earned, it's an achievement.

There is work in it.

Happiness is fleeting and joy is stable.

Happiness points to a what, and joy points to who.

It's the result of something much deeper than any circumstance or moment that you could have ever felt in your life.

There is no fleshly buzz or high that could touch the feeling of joy.

It is that good.

It is a deep, hidden security down inside of you from a renewing of faith over and over again.

And some of us have it, and it's become so buried or unrecognized to it that you have to retrain yourself to see it.

You have to be able to pick it out.

And you have to choose it.

You have to choose it for yourself.

That's why we say we choose joy.

And I want to give you three things that if you do them continually, I promise, will reveal the joy of the Lord in your life, real joy.

And it will produce a strength and endurance in your life and your walk with Christ that you've never felt before.

And the first of them is this choosing joy is choosing to renew your mind.

Choosing joy is choosing to renew your mind.

Now, I'm sure that you've read this passage before.

This is Paul in Romans chapter 12, when he's writing to the Christians in Rome, and Paul is explaining to the Christians there how to live life, how to live a joyful life.

Romans 12 · chapter mention

And he says this he says, Do not conform.

Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but instead be transformed by the renewing of your mind.

Do not conform.

Transform.

Now, a lot of people will tell you, and rightly I thought this at one point in time.

That means you need to think positive.

You need to be a positive thinker.

Get all those negative thoughts out of your head.

I thought that at one time.

That's not exactly what it is.

That's yes and no.

Fake it till you make it.

You heard that saying?

Fake it till you make it.

Positive thinking only lasts so long.

Fake it till you make it only works if you eventually make it.

That's what it means.

You gotta make it.

And that takes us to modern American meditation.

Meditation's great.

A lot of people do it.

What does it mean to meditate?

Most people will tell you it's to clear your mind.

It's to empty all of your thoughts.

It's to not think about anything.

Focus on your breathing.

And the idea of meditation is soothing to us because we live in an extremely loud culture.

There's things going on all around us.

It feels good.

It is soothing to clear the mind.

And that's true.

But meditation is not renewing.

There's nothing renewing about it.

To renew means to change.

To renew means to take something bad and then replace it.

Replace it with something that's good.

The renewing of the mind that Paul is talking about, it is renewing, but is because it's the replacement of a thought.

It's the replacement of your thought.

And reading God's word regularly is imperative to that process.

You have to do it.

Becoming familiar with God's word is to become familiar with and to be able to recognize the truth.

And we always hear the first part of that verse in Romans when Paul is talking.

We hear that all the time.

But the second part of that verse is just as equally as important.

The second part of that verse is the why portion, Paul tells us.

What for?

Why should we be transformed?

And it says, because then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is.

You'll be able to test and approve what God's will is, and it is good and pleasing and a perfect will.

In short, when you let God renew the way you think, you can hear him clear.

You can hear his voice.

That's what it's for.

Then you know what to do.

In Nehemiah chapter 8, once the people returned to Jerusalem and they made it home again after Nehemiah became governor, he had a plan.

Nehemiah 8 · chapter mention

He set forth a plan for the people to see the truth and to turn back to God.

And the very first thing that they did was read God's word to learn, relearn what the truth is.

Now these people had been living generations outside of Jerusalem at this point.

And though at that time God's word and God's truth was passed down from parents to children.

And now so many generations had passed that they weren't familiar with God's word anymore.

They couldn't remember the original covenant and the original laws.

And so the very first thing that Nehemiah did was to re-teach them the truth, to explain to them how they should be living.

So they read and they studied.

And then it was not a question of what to do, it was just a matter of choosing to do it.

The renewing of the mind is simply choosing.

Choosing to begin taking the thoughts of your mind that may not be true, they may be irrational, they may be worrisome or shameful.

And you take those thoughts and you hold them accountable to this, to the truth, to the word of God, what's in here.

And that's how you know.

That's what Paul says.

You'll be able to test and approve, to know for certain God's voice, to know for certain what God's prompting you to do.

You test them against what the truth is.

Now, that seems like kind of an overwhelming task a little bit, but a lot of thoughts don't even need testing.

I mean, a lot of thoughts that pop into our heads we know aren't biblical.

We know those aren't the truth.

But reading the Bible regularly is a way to put on the helmet of righteousness.

And eventually, with time and consistency in doing this, you will begin to see your thoughts and God's promptings for your life to begin to align.

Because you'll be thinking the truth.

Things will become less worrisome to you.

You'll begin to recognize and resist sin easier.

In turn, less worry in your life, less shame, less sin, more righteous thoughts.

That renews the mind and it brings in joy.

But you must choose it for yourself.

You must choose to do it for yourself.

And the second step is this choosing joy is choosing to reframe your responses.

Reframe your responses.

The world, for the most part, is controlled by emotion.

Emotion and feelings and reactions, patience and logical thinking, those have become a rarity these days.

Wars are fought over wrong words said to people.

Fist fights happen because of a wrong look or a gesture.

Families separate, walls are built between people over these rapid responses to these crazy emotional situations.

If you read the book of Proverbs, there are so many verses and warnings all about the power of your words, or the power of the spoken word, or the power of your tongue.

Death and life, it says, Death and life are in the power of the tongue.

And those who love it will eat its fruit.

That's Proverbs 1821.

Death and life are held in the tongue.

And in short, what that verse says is your words and your responses to situations will always produce fruit.

They will.

The eating of good fruit or bad fruit.

Now you can't choose to eat or not to eat.

That's not how it works.

We all eat.

But whether you're eating good fruit or bad fruit, that is your choice.

That is the choice you have.

And it's rare that we find ourselves in a situation where the outcome is completely controllable to us.

There is no way you are out of control of what anybody says about you.

You're out of control of what anybody says to you.

That's not your choice.

But what you can control is your response to those people.

You can choose to be bitter and angry.

You can choose to hold grudges.

You can choose to not talk to certain people.

You just be silent.

You can look for ways to avoid certain people or certain kinds of situations that you don't want to deal with, certain personalities.

And you can kind of just, you know, sour yourself up.

You can avoid those.

Because you're holding everything in.

Or you can choose to step above those situations.

You can accept what the Bible says about people and the world.

That they're broken.

Just as we are.

And you can let more roll off your shoulder because with this renewed mind, now you don't longer take any of those lies to heart.

And then you can begin to show people that the world is pretty clear.

People are pretty clear.

Because the truth is clear.

People are broken.

It's pretty cut and dry.

And then you begin to believe what God says about you instead of what other people are saying about you.

You begin to see your situations from that different angle.

And that angle is called the kingdom lens.

You begin to see other people in the world through God's eyes with grace and mercy and compassion and all of the characteristics of Jesus.

You see people for what they are.

Mean?

Mean sometimes, but broken.

And that is what good roots are.

And good roots make good fruit.

When Nehemiah got the news the city of Jerusalem was still in ruins, he could have had a different response.

He could have simply just ignored God.

That's what Jonah did for a bit.

He could have just looked the other way.

I mean, he had a pretty good position, pretty plush life being the cupbearer of the king, as long as no poison comes through.

He had it pretty good.

This was no easy decision.

He could have just said, somebody else will come along that's important too.

Somebody else will take that on.

They could do it.

But he didn't.

He said, if not me, then who?

He chose to believe what God had put in him was the truth.

Choosing joy comes from a clear, renewed mind.

And it stems from the truth.

And a renewed mind will begin to reframe your responses to the world and to other people.

And eventually, Nehemiah led his people back to the joy of the Lord.

Here's the last step.

I'm gonna break this down into two.

If you want to know why I said I'm not an expert in this, it's this one right here.

I need to work on all three.

We all do.

But this one's the hardest for me.

I uh I wrestle with God with this one, just like Jacob in the Bible.

I wrestle with this one.

Matter of fact, I I spent a good bit of time trying to figure out how to not put this in here.

I did, I didn't want to.

I did.

I've spent I've spent years of my life avoiding and looking for a different road than this to get to joy.

I have.

I want to save you a lot of time and a lot of heartache.

I'm just gonna tell you there is no way around this one.

There is no other road.

I promise you.

I promise you, I've tried them all.

And you gotta face this situation at some point or another, and you can't get to joy any other way.

I promise.

But what I found in the process is that if you are willing to swallow hard and you are willing to gut through this, this right here, this one thing is what's gonna release the most joy in your life.

Promise.

And that's this.

You gotta forgive.

You have to.

Choosing joy is choosing to forgive.

And there is no other way.

You can do the first two, and you leave out this one, and you won't get it.

You can know all the truth of God in your life, and all of that truth, trust me, will point you to one thing.

Step three.

Part A and part B.

Part A.

Forgiving others that have hurt you.

Forgiving others.

Scripture is very clear about forgiveness.

There's only one way to get the scripture out of the Bible about forgiveness, and that's if you cut it out with scissors.

There are so many of them.

Jesus talks about it non-stop.

We are to forgive others as Christ has forgiven us.

70 times seven, Jesus says, meaning unlimited.

Lydia and I hit that.

Lydia forgave me 70 times seven the first year.

I'm well past that number.

You must always continue to relentlessly forgive.

Here is the thing about unforgiveness that I want you to know in your life.

The truth is, is you can hide it pretty well for some time.

I did it.

I did it.

And you can push that all the way back to the back of your heart and stuff it in the very back corner and avoid it.

And you can try and forget about it.

I mean stuff it down deep.

And it'll work for a while.

But it's still there.

And it is festering in you.

And when you have unforgiveness in your heart, it is like locking your doors at night and asking Satan to hold the key.

It will tear you down.

And he will be in there and he will be after you.

There is no easier stronghold for the enemy to get to your heart than unforgiveness.

It's in every Christian at some point or another.

And he will pull it out of you and he will rip you apart with it.

It fuels anxiety in your life.

It fuels depression.

It fuels worry.

We battle addictions over it.

It will kill you if it's not dealt with.

And little by little it changes you.

And you may not want to hear this.

And this may be hard to swallow.

But if you don't deal with it, you can pass it to your children.

It's generational.

Because it hardens your heart.

Because it changes you little by little.

It affects your response to people.

It makes you less empathetic to people.

It numbs that empathy.

And we have a word for that.

Trauma.

That is what trauma is.

Nobody likes that word.

Trauma.

I hate that word.

I hate it.

It makes me cringe when I hear that word.

We have trauma.

Bad things happen to good people.

A lot, it seems like.

And we all have some level of trauma in our lives, some worse than others, undoubtedly.

And I would never want to downplay any of that.

It's serious.

And it stinks.

And it hurts.

And I get it.

It's horrible.

But as bad as it hurts, there is one thing worse than that.

And that's living your entire life trying to pretend like it didn't happen.

And that will eat you alive.

And before I go any further, I want to make something very clear to you.

Forgiveness is not the same thing as reconciliation.

Forgiveness and reconciliation are not the same thing.

Reconciliation is not a requirement to experience the freedom that Jesus gives you in forgiveness.

Sometimes reconciliation is not the best choice, is not the best outcome.

There is not a situation where forgiveness is not the best outcome.

It is always the best outcome to forgive, always.

Because forgiveness is for you.

It's not for them.

It's not for anybody else that hurt you.

Forgiveness is saying, you know what?

I'm no longer going to let this be a defining event in my life.

I'm no longer going to let this steal another day of joy in my life.

My God is greater than this.

He sees me.

He hears me.

He knows me.

He knows my hurt.

And he's bigger than that.

And then you begin the process of renewing those thoughts in your mind.

And you replace those with the truth.

All of those thoughts that have captured joy from you.

That's renewing the mind.

Second part.

Part B.

And uh for a lot of this, myself included.

This is the more difficult of the two.

Part B is you forgiving you.

You forgiving yourself.

We live life.

We mess up.

We make mistakes.

Just like everybody else in this world, there are broken things in our lives.

And if you don't face those things, they bring on this intense shame and guilt.

Not a single one of us will die without regrets.

Not a single one of us will die not wishing we'd done something better, done something a different way.

It just happens.

But here's the deal.

Jesus Himself said these words in John 3 17.

For the Son of Man did not come to condemn the world.

He came to save the world.

There are consequences for sin.

You mess up, you make a mistake, bad decision, it rocks the boat.

It ripples the water of your life.

And the Bible says that every single word will be held accountable.

Every single impure thought in your life will be held accountable.

Forgiveness is not an open invitation to sin.

But when we mess up, the Holy Spirit implores you to repent.

That's conviction.

Conviction is different than condemnation.

Conviction is like climbing the mountain and standing at the edge of the cliff and putting your foot up to it and looking over so you could see how bad it could have been.

What could have happened.

But then you turn around and then you come back to God.

And that's repentance.

But if you're not careful, you could stand at the edge of the cliff, and you could look over, and you could look too long.

And you could let those thoughts creep in and worry and shame.

And then the enemy will grab that chain and he will pull you past conviction, past the Holy Spirit into condemnation, into shame, into guilt, into worry.

And that is not God's plan for your life.

The enemy would love it, would love to keep you there as long as he can.

And a lot of us live in that.

Living in that kind of self-destruction is not God's plan for you.

And sometimes you don't really know how heavy something is until you're willing to set it down.

And there is only one way back from that to joy.

And you got to pick that back up.

You got to carry it back to the foot of the cross.

And you got to set it down.

And you got to let it go.

And you got to let God handle that.

And it says when the people of Jerusalem gathered and they read and they studied God's law together, they began to weep.

They were overwhelmed with emotion and they began to cry out.

They had guilt.

Because in hearing and understanding God's law, they realized how far they had fallen.

They realized the weight of their sin.

They realized how far they had strayed away from their original covenant with God.

And their spirits were convicted.

But if you keep reading, Nehemiah didn't let them sit there.

They didn't stay in that sorrow.

They didn't stay in that guilt.

Nehemiah said it's a sacred day, a day of celebration.

Why?

Because they repented and found their way back to the Lord.

Every day repentance is made, and we turn back to God is a sacred day in the eyes of God.

It's a day of celebration for Him.

Every day that we step up to that edge and we look over and we feel conviction and we turn away and we come back to God is a sacred day to him.

And that's a joy worth celebrating.

Nehemiah 12, 43 says this.

And the women and the children also rejoiced.

And the sound of rejoicing in Jerusalem could be heard from far, far away.

And that is the kind of joy that we want RLC to have.

That's the kind of joy that we want the people of RLG, RLC to have.

That's the kind that makes it better.

And if we love God and we see people and we make it better, then somewhere in there, people are gonna have to see the joy of the Lord in you.

They're gonna have to see that.

And you don't choose joy when every prayer is answered, and you don't choose joy when a diagnosis comes back the way that you want it to.

You don't choose joy when the bank account's full, when your marriage is stable, when you guys are getting along, when the kids have got it together for once.

That's not when you choose joy.

Joy is so much more, so much deeper than all of those things.

Those are happenings, situations.

We don't choose joy when life is good.

We choose joy because God is good.

Always.

God is always good, and the joy of the Lord is our strength.

So choosing God and choosing Him is choosing joy.

And I want it, and I want it for you.

Let's pray together this morning.