Lesser Things

I always laugh a little bit when uh when a group applauds before the message.

Because there's a presumption there that uh okay.

Uh yeah, it's really a privilege to be uh here.

Uh if you don't know my story, um Anglican priest uh retired, uh been in non-denominational ministry for 20 years.

Uh when Jill and I retired seven years ago, this became our church home.

We sit over on the back right side.

My wife is out there somewhere.

There I see her hand.

There you are.

Hi, Anna.

Um it's always it is a privilege to be here when when Justin asked me to fill in.

And uh for those of you who have been around for the last couple weeks, you know we're in this little mini series called the full life.

That's what the Lord has for us is a full life.

And sometimes it's very hard to put that into words.

But we're using over these just these three weeks the reality that we leak that.

That's what Justin was uh attending to two weeks ago, and challenged us as we so often leak what God wants in life because we get preoccupied with everything else.

Uh then he and Megan last week spoke about lids.

Uh his point is that we often put a lid on our own life because of pride, and we're consumed with our own stuff rather than God's, and it prevents him from giving us the kind of life he wants, the full life.

Uh Megan uh took it from the perspective of the lid that the Lord Jesus puts over us and covers us.

Do you remember that?

Anyone here last week?

You remember that?

Yeah, okay.

Yeah, that he covers so much of our past, our brokenness, our shame, our sin, so that we can enter into a much fuller life.

Uh I've been asked to share the sad reality that we so often choose lesser things.

I am sure all of us are preoccupied with a whole lot of lesser things right now.

But in order to illustrate the power of it, let me uh tell a story that happened many years ago when I was I I put it when I was working as a baby priest, I was just getting started out of seminary, had a great senior pastor that I was working for.

He came in one day and said, I've got to tell you a story, what happened at the house.

I said, Sure, what's that?

His daughter, I think she was eight or nine at the time, uh, came in from uh after school and was playing with friends for a while, and came in about four o'clock, four fifteen and said, Hey Daddy, can I have an apple?

And he knew the dinner was gonna be late, and he said, Sure, honey that's fine, let me get it for you.

So he prepared and cleaned up an apple and gave it to her, and she was delighted.

The next day, she got preoccupied with her friends and came in quite a bit later.

It was much closer to five o'clock or five or five thirty.

And uh he knew that he and his wife had been preparing a huge meal, including a big baked pie.

And she came in and said, Daddy, can I have an apple?

And he said, Um, no, honey, not today.

She burst into tears and screamed, You don't love me anymore, and ran from the room.

I was, of course, shocked, having raised just three boys.

Uh no, I won't say, I won't go there.

But, anyways, we we we laughed about that, and then he dropped the one-liner.

He said, I wonder how many times we do that with God.

We don't get what we want.

So we get angry and decide he doesn't love us anymore, or we don't love him.

That's the story I want us to consider this morning as we consider lesser things.

How many times do we want that apple, like Eve?

And in some translations, she it even comments in Genesis that she saw that it was good.

And what we get satisfied with or preoccupied with is a whole lot of stuff that gets in the way in our walk with God and gets in the way of the fuller life that God wants for us.

So I want you to think for a moment, what apples are you chasing after that are preventing you from the fuller banquet that the Lord has already prepared?

I know for many of us it ends up being money and wealth, getting preoccupied with our stock portfolio or our whatever uh retirement plan or the income we're making at work, and can we get a better job?

Can we get more money?

And how don't get me wrong, we have to be responsible stewards.

But as we all know, that if we're not careful, that becomes a driving force in our life.

How sad.

As scripture tells us, you can't serve God in money, it doesn't work.

Or how often do we decide that what really matters is if I get that promotion, and if I don't get it, my life is destroyed?

And we somehow wrap our value of life around what we do.

Sad.

Or how come sometimes we get so preoccupied with stuff or something to calm us down and comfort us that it ends up being an addiction?

Food, drink, sex, whatever.

Somehow that will make us happy.

That will take away the pain.

Or sometimes, and I know there's folks here in this room who you don't think you're worthy of the full life, you don't think you're good enough.

Wow, that gets in the way a lot.

And we try to just prove to ourselves that we have some values that maybe God will finally accept us and hear our prayers.

Another apple that I've had to deal with is I have a feeling that I know what God should be blessing, and therefore I'm praying for it.

And if he doesn't give it to me, I get frustrated with him.

The healing of a loved one, for example.

And getting so preoccupied with those unanswered prayers that we fail to understand that we're empty.

That God wants to bless us, wants to share with us a banquet.

Or we're too preoccupied with that apple.

And we've decided that's where we'll find our meaning and purpose in life.

So I want to share with you at least some aspect of what I believe is a secret to the kingdom.

I've been at this journey with Jesus about 50 years.

And as Jesus used that term with the disciples to help them to understand the parables, I'd like to share with you one of the gifts of that banqueting table, just one.

I want to invite you to consider joy.

Specifically, we'll get to the joy of the Lord.

So just consider for a moment the apples that you might be facing and chasing after.

Did you come here today to enter into the joy of the Lord?

Now, in fact, Scripture has hundreds of references to joy, hundreds.

And when the Scripture talks about joy, it's not talking about happiness.

Let me at me at least make that distinction.

Most of the time when I am happy or someone tells me they're happy or they want to be happy, we're talking about our feelings, aren't we?

We're talking about a circumstance or situation that's troubling us, and we just want to be happy.

But we're all smart enough to know that happiness is like the wind.

It's there for a moment, and then something happens: a phone call, a text, something, and all of a sudden we're not happy anymore.

No, Scripture is much clearer, and it has many, many words in the Hebrew, many, many words in the Greek that we translate into that one word joy.

And there's lots of ways we experience joy.

Let's just name that first.

There's lots of ways.

Um Proverbs tells us that uh parents are uh filled with great joy when our their children make wise decisions.

Of course we do.

Many of us, as young parents in this room, will be very happy when the kids go off to school tomorrow, and we don't have to worry about that apple.

And then they come back and they've had a great day, and we're filled with joy.

Yes, that's that is actually scriptural.

And we could say it about grandkids as well, of course.

Uh Paul writes to the Philippians, he says, When I when I think of you, there is great joy.

And we know what that's like, don't we?

Uh those few or many friends that we have that just being with them, it's hard to put into words.

Uh, it just blesses the soul.

Scripture's filled with those kinds of circumstances and situations.

Of course, we all have had experiences of joy.

Good news on a medical procedure, whatever it might be, joy.

But I want us to specifically talk about one that is just honed in and very specific.

It's the joy of the Lord.

That is first described in, of all things, Nehemiah, way back in the Old Testament, and he says, the joy of the Lord is our strength.

Then doesn't that sound like a contradiction or something?

Joy ends up strengthening us to face life.

So, in order to go deep in this, we need to have a quick history lesson.

So, we're not going to go back 250 years, we're going to go back 2,500 years.

Jerusalem has been destroyed by the Babylonians.

They were fed up with the Jews.

Their understanding of conquest was you conquer a land, you move all the people, so they'll be so preoccupied building new homes that they won't rise up against us.

Three exiles occurred in Jerusalem, and eventually they just leveled the city, and most all but the poorest of the poor were driven up to Babylon.

But as time progresses, Cyrus the Persian came with his army and destroyed and conquered Babylon.

His understanding is you let people go back to their homeland and then they'll honor you as their king.

So he decreed in the year 445 BC that, sorry, uh 538 BC, 100 years before that, 538 BC, Cyrus said, All the Jews can go home.

How's that for a vacation exodus?

They took with them their servants, their camels, their sheep, their goats, over 7,000 donkeys.

By the time it was all collected, over 50,000 people journeyed the thousand or so miles to Jerusalem.

Fast forward 100 years, the temple eventually gets rebuilt.

But our hero, Nehemiah, is serving as a cupbearer to the king, a Jew still living in the area of Babylon.

He's actually in the winter capital city of Susa.

And one of the trade groups from Jerusalem travels the thousand miles back to Susa, and he is delighted to discover his own brother has returned as part of that trade.

So he runs to his brother, Hanana, and says, What's Jerusalem like?

What's the holy city like?

Isn't it must be wonderful?

And his brother turns to him and says, It's not wonderful at all.

It's all in ruins.

Nehemiah says, What are you talking about?

He said, Everything is in ruins.

Everything is rubble.

Nothing's been rebuilt other than the temple.

There's nothing there.

Nehemiah is overwhelmed in grief, weeps and fasts and prays.

Forgive your people.

Eventually the king, who he's the cupbearer for, notices his sadness and said, Why are you sad so sad?

And Nehemiah says, Well, sir, I my home city, my holy land that I come from, it's in ruins.

And the king says, What can I what can I do for you?

And he says, Well, would you send me back as governor?

How's that for a promotion?

Cupbearer governor.

Yeah, pretty good.

Happened that quick.

So sure enough, he journeys the thousand miles and goes to Jerusalem to tell everybody that he's the new governor.

There were a whole lot of people, you can probably imagine, that didn't like that news.

And there were a whole lot of people living in that area that didn't want the Jews to rebuild the city.

We actually know their names.

Sanbalat, Tobiah, Gersham the Arab, and many others.

And they made that arrival in Jerusalem and his subsequent work for the many months to come a living hell.

They sought to spread lies about him.

They thought to take his life.

They actually planned to do that.

They had secret meetings to plot against him.

They actually used social media of the day, letter writing to anyone they could find, complaining about what Nehemiah wanted to do, because Nehemiah decided the first thing we have to do is rebuild the walls of the city.

Now, when I mention walls of the city, don't think of a little uh six-foot or five-foot wall of uh of stones to go around the city.

Picture instead a medieval castle kind of wall.

A big wall.

A wall that you go up the stairs on the wall and walk along the top.

Jill and I had the privilege with our dear friends of uh being in Portugal earlier this year, and uh there was one city I I counted fifty stones laid on top of one another, not counting the little stones that were the concrete kind of thing.

Fifty stones high.

And you walked up and could walk around the entire city.

It's a massive undertaking.

Nehemiah's brilliance as he prayed about it was that, well, let's just have everybody build the wall wherever they live.

And you can probably imagine that's a really, really important thing to do, because if you don't build the wall right where your house is, guess where the enemy is going to come in?

So everybody got building the walls.

And when I say everybody, you can read the account in Nehemiah, everybody.

The jewelers, the daughters, the craftsmen, the farmers, the businessmen, all of them are rebuilding the walls.

And what are they using?

The rubble of the destroyed wall, the rubble of the streets, the rubble of many of the homes that weren't even built yet.

They're picking up the rubble in the midst of enemy forces that are trying to stop them.

Nehemiah actually has to position soldiers ready to fight next to the builders.

And at some time that we're told some of the builders were using a brick in one or a stone in one hand and their sword was in the other, ready to fight.

How'd you like to live in that environment?

But see, Nehemiah saw that the first step of understanding how we can worship God is we have to have a safe place.

We have to build the walls.

I am not saying that as a political statement today.

I am saying that as a recognition that Nehemiah needed to create a safe place for the Jews.

That was step one, and he did it in the midst of horrific hostility.

Well, the day finally comes.

The wall is rebuilt, the seventh month has arrived, and people begin to gather for worship.

I want to pick up now, and you're going to see on the screens, I'm going to read out of the book of Nehemiah, chapter eight.

Listen to what happens next.

In October, when the Israelites had settled in their towns, all the people assembled with a unified purpose at the square just inside the water gate.

They asked Ezra the scribe to bring out the book of the law of Moses, which the Lord had given for Israel to obey.

So on October 8th, Ezra the priest brought the book of the law before the assembly, which included the men and women and all the children old enough to understand.

He faced the square just inside the water gate from early morning until noon, and read aloud to everyone who could understand.

All the people listened closely to the book of the law.

I jumped down to verse six.

Then Ezra praised the Lord, the great God, and all the people chanted, Amen, Amen, as they lifted their hands.

They bowed down and worshiped the Lord with their faces to the ground.

The Levites then instructed the people in the law, while everyone remained in their places.

They read from the book of the law of God and clearly explained the meaning of what was being read, helping the people to understand each passage.

And Nehemiah continued, Go and celebrate with a feast.

Don't mourn or weep on such a day as this, for today is a sacred day before the Lord.

This is a sacred day, for the joy of the Lord is your strength.

Now consider the steps of what he put in place.

First, a safe place to worship.

I'm grateful we have that, aren't you?

A beautiful church.

And this is, by the way, a very safe place to worship.

There's security all over here today, along with the police who are here.

This is a safe place.

You can be free to know.

You don't have to worry about anything when you're here.

Safe place.

But the second step is he gathered the entire community to worship.

They had to come together.

The men, the women, the children, everybody had to come together.

And while I'm grateful we have online access to our messages, I want to suggest it's a great, it's great if you're away, and it's great if you're ill.

That's how we caught we were away last week and caught the message online.

But it's not a way to live life.

If you can want to experience the real joy of the Lord, you've got to come and be part of the community.

Why is that?

Well, let's be honest.

If we're watching or listening in the car, we're thinking about a zillion other things.

We may even be doing dishes, having breakfast, helping with the kids, whatever, while we're trying to listen to the message.

It's not the same.

The community has to gather.

That's step two.

Step three.

Scripture is read.

Always scripture.

When Jill and I retired from our full-time ministries, we knew probably 30 or 40 pastors in the county.

Why did we pick here?

Scripture.

All the time.

It's not a pastor trying to be clever, it's the word of God.

Step four there's Levites, that is, teachers, who are going around in the crowds teaching what Ezra is reading.

That is, I guess, for those of you who seen the chosen, it's like that with the feeding of the 5,000.

Jesus proclaims the word, and the disciples are out making sure the crowds understand what he's saying.

That's the job that the Levites had.

There has to be someone to help us to understand the word, because the word is mysterious.

We don't presume that we understand it all the time.

So let's consider.

Safe place to worship, entire community gathers.

Scripture is read.

Someone is teaching us so we understand.

And then in the midst of it, Nehemiah hears weeping.

He hears weeping.

And he realizes people are so being convicted of what isn't right in their lives, and so convicted of the sadness and struggles of their lives, they begin to weep.

Nehemiah the governor stands up and says, No, folks, uh-uh.

The joy of the Lord is your strength.

The joy of the Lord is your strength.

Now, what's interesting, and I'll just divert for a moment, the word he uses for Lord, you can find it in every English Bible.

In in the Old Testament, you'll see Lord either written as capital L, capital O, capital R, capital D, or capital L, little O, little R, little D.

If it's all caps, As it is with Nehemiah, that's God Almighty.

That's Yahweh.

That's the one who spoke to Moses in the burning bush.

We might say the Godhead, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, or sometimes just the Father.

When it's capital L, little O, little R, little D, that's the word we use to describe Jesus.

That's Adonai.

Our Lord Jesus.

What does he use?

He uses the capitals.

That's at that point what he knows.

That when a community gathers to worship and is hearing the word of God and it's taught to them, and yes, choirs are singing as well, and there's great celebration, he said, the joy of the Lord is your strength to face your life.

You don't have to be overwhelmed by anything.

Not your opinion of yourself, which may not be the best, or your opinion of everybody, anybody else.

That that will strengthen you to face your life unafraid.

He then challenges them that this is a time of celebration.

And indeed, there's great singing.

He has two choirs going up on the walls singing praises to the Lord.

There's food that's shared.

There's wine that's shared.

He said, Let's keep celebrating.

And for the first time in many, many decades, they celebrate the feast of booths.

That is, they cut down branches, make tents, and if they had a home, they'd go up on the roof with their children.

Otherwise, they'd be just in front of the rubble or in the market, and they make a little tent, and it's a big party, folks.

It's celebrating the joy of the Lord because you're in community and you're facing life together.

And there's nothing that's more powerful than the joy of the Lord.

The joy of the Lord is how we get strengthened to face life unafraid.

Now, what's very interesting is Jesus picks up this same reality with the disciples.

Some of you who know me well know that one of my favorite places in Scripture is the upper room with Jesus.

Think about that.

It's the last night of Jesus' life with the disciples.

And he's instructing them how they are to live without him there, how they're going to live through the Holy Spirit.

It's where he says to them, for example, I am the vine, you are the branches.

It's where he says, I am the way, the truth, and the life.

No one comes to the Father but by me.

He's teaching disciples.

He's teaching those who have already sold out to follow him, who have already at least boasted, but one day they will, have said, We'll die for you, Lord.

These are the ones that he's instructing in the last days of his life, last hours of his life.

We find it in John 13 and following, and yes, of course, it's where he talks about giving us a peace that passes all understanding.

He talks about a love that we're to share with one another, that we are to love one another as he loves us.

That's the new standard for the law.

It's not love as we want to be loved, not that's for the crowds.

For us, we're called to a deeper love, agape love.

We're supposed to love one another as Jesus loves us.

But what's remarkable in these few chapters of the Gospel of John, Jesus talks at length about joy.

And the word he uses is very, very unique.

It's the word Kara.

Just a little bit of Greek word.

That word right there.

But it's an extraordinarily significant word.

Because if you with Greek letter, and I'm not a Greek scholar, I've studied Greek, but I understand there's base words that then get added and become other words.

If you take away the A and add an IS, it's karas.

It's a word that translates in the English grace.

The base of grace is joy.

My brothers and sisters, do you get it?

I'm sharing with you the secret of the kingdom.

If you want to really enter into a grace-filled life, you've got to accept the joy that the Lord has for you, even in the midst of struggles.

But in fact, you just take a couple more letters and add to it.

We get the word charisma, which is translated gift.

The very gifts that we are given start with receiving the joy that the Lord has for us.

Or he had a couple more letters, and it's charismatic, which we use even in our English language to talk about someone who's clearly filled with the Spirit, really alive.

All of that is based on that word, Kara.

Joy.

That's what Jesus uses as he's teaching the disciples the last night what he wants to give to all of us.

I read first out of the Gospel of John chapter 15, beginning at verse 10.

John 15 · chapter mention

When you obey my commandments, you remain in my love, just as I obey my father's commandments and remain in his love.

I have told you these things so that you will be filled with my joy.

Jesus wants each of us filled with his joy.

Jesus' joy.

One of my favorite anachronyms is J-O-Y.

Jesus offers you joy.

How are you going to receive it?

Give up the lesser things.

Give up the lesser things.

In my life, I could assure you I could keep you here all afternoon if you stay sharing stories of my life where I had to give up the lesser things.

Because God has something far more for each of us.

He says, if you'll just do what I teach you to do, if you'll just listen to my word and seek to obey, you're going to be filled with grace.

You're going to know my love.

And my joy will be in you.

Now what's remarkable is he he goes even further than that in the same night.

Reading now from John 16.

He says, I tell you the truth.

You will grieve, but your grief will suddenly turn to wonderful joy.

It will be like a woman suffering the pains of labor.

When her child is born, her anguish gives way to joy because she has brought a new baby into the world.

So you have sorrow now, but I will see you again, then you will rejoice, and no one can rob you of that joy.

So the first thing he says is, Yes, you're going to grieve.

In fact, before this, he talked about the suffering that we will all have as we journey through this life.

There is no suggestion in Scripture that life is ever easy or comfortable.

It's hard, isn't it?

It's hard.

It's hard raising kids.

It's hard preparing for the future.

It's hard dealing with the health crises we face.

It's all of that stuff.

Hard dealing with the politics of the day.

It's very hard.

And he says, yes, you're going to grieve.

But it's like a woman giving birth.

That grief is going to turn to joy.

He's speaking to them specifically because he's about to go to the cross.

And they do not understand at all what he's talking about with being raised from the dead.

But they'll experience it real soon.

One day all of our suffering will be completely gone because we will know the joy that is the Lord's.

There is nothing that can rob us of that.

Jesus said so.

No one can rob you of that joy.

Now you may leak, you may put a lid on it.

And you may choose lesser things, but no one will be able to take away that joy of the Lord that he places inside.

That's the strength he gives us.

And now it's not just the joy of the L capital L, capital O, capital R, capital D.

God, this is Jesus' joy.

And no one can rob you of this.

You've got to decide that's how you want to live.

And how to teach your children and your grandchildren how to live this way as well.

But he goes on.

He says, Ask using my name, and you will receive.

You will have abundant joy.

Abundant joy is joy tripping over joy.

You can't contain it.

You just have to give it away.

You are blessed to be a blessing.

And one of your big blessings that you receive is not only love and peace, but it's joy.

So that when you enter into a difficult situation, you're bringing joy with you.

Because it's in your soul.

The joy of Jesus.

Abundant joy.

And what I tripped over just two nights ago, I didn't even have it in the notes that I sent to the team.

In the next chapter, chapter 17, Jesus is praying to the Father.

The final prayer of Jesus before he goes to the garden and is betrayed.

Listen to one line that he prays.

John chapter 17, verse 2.

John 17:2

Father, he says, I am coming to you.

I told them many things while I was with them in this world, so that they would be filled with my joy.

That's what he's praying to the Father.

That each of us would be filled with Jesus' joy.

Now, are you living in the joy of the Lord?

So that you have strength to face whatever you're facing unafraid?

Whether you're getting into traffic tomorrow, or letting the kids go to school, or trying to figure out how to pay for something, or facing a medical challenge, or facing the loss of a loved one, or on and on and on.

How are you gonna deal with it?

Are you gonna choose an apple?

Lesser thing?

Or the joy of the Lord Jesus?

I can promise you, as many of us in this room know, it will transform your life.

Jesus says, don't store up treasures in heaven.

Sorry, don't store up treasures on earth where moth can can uh, you know, instead store up treasures in heaven.

This is a heavenly treasure that the Lord has for us.

I find it understanding the when when Paul is writing to the Galatians and telling them about um the Holy Spirit and how the Holy Spirit works in our lives.

Yes, as he talks about the fruit of the Spirit, that is what will be present in our lives, what we will be giving away.

The first word he uses is of course love, agape love, surrendering love, serving love.

We don't live for ourselves anymore, we live for everyone else.

Blessed to be a blessing.

But the second word he uses, the companion, is Jesus joy.

And he uses the same word in the Greek.

And as I said earlier, there's many words in scripture that's translated joy.

He uses the same word: this gift, this grace, this wonderful gift from the Lord Jesus that is not dependent on the circumstances we face, but instead overcomes them.

The joy that Jesus seeks to give to each one of us every single day is greater than anything you're facing now, any choices you're making, good or bad, and greater than anything you will face until you're home with him.

The joy of the Lord is your strength.

What a precious gift! Hallelujah.

I think it's time to remember, as we do each Sunday, that we're reminded of this precious gift of his life for us.

That as Jesus gathered with the disciples so long ago, he said, This is my body.

He said, This is my blood.

Do this in remembrance of me.

And as I reminded you other times, this word he uses for remembrance is even a different word than what we would normally think about.

Because he's not just asking us to go, oh ha, yeah, that's right.

A couple thousand years ago had dinner with the disciples.

That's not the word he's using at all.

He's using a word that says, make it real to you now.

You're sitting at the table with me, and I'm here with you, and I'm giving you my body and my blood, so that you know that I want to fill you with my joy.

So let's take the bread.

Father, we do ask your blessing upon this bread that it would be for us life, your life, lived within, in the holy name of Jesus.

And now the cup.

Blessed and holy savior.

It's hard for us to even appreciate that your grace is sufficient, that you cover everything in our lives so that it no longer defines us, but that we are defined by your grace, your spirit, your forgiveness, your joy.

Bless this cup, O Lord, that we be washed in anything that prevents us from knowing you.

Let's drink the cup.

One more closing thought before the baptism.

I want you to consider what I was led to share with you today.

First, there is an environment that helps this joy to grow.

That environment is going to a safe place to worship with friends and family and children.

It includes singing and great celebration.

It includes reading of scripture and people teaching us what it means.

It includes celebration and therefore includes a whole lot of thanksgiving.

Lord, thank you that I am not who I was yesterday.

Thank you that I'm part of your new creation.

Second, Jesus wants you to have this.

You can get in his way or you can surrender and say, Lord, I want what you want for me.

Please forgive me and let your joy fill every part of my being that I might walk in your strength and not my own.

And finally, as Paul reminds us, the fruit of our lives needs to give this away.

When we walk into any situation, whatever crisis we're in, whatever challenge, whatever situation, we come already with joy because it comes with us.

So we give it away.

Parents, may you have a blessed year with the kids.

And each day, may you bless them and pray that the joy of the Lord would be your strength and your children's strength as well.

Amen.