Fellowship in the Word

Jason Gebhardt: Today on Fellowship in the Word, Pastor Bil Gebhardt challenges you to become a fully functioning follower of Jesus Christ.

Bil Gebhardt: Call out to God for help. Just pray. I believe He loves it when we call out for Him or something like this. Help me, Lord. Help me to stay. Help me be anchored. Help me to be anchor for my faith to Christ the solid rock on which I stand. Help me stay anchored. Help me to abide.

You see, make me aware of my absence of joy and my need for joy. And I think if you try it, you'll be kind of amazed at how that works. Analyze your thought life, believe that joy is possible, and call out for the Lord and help.

Jason Gebhardt: Thank you for joining us today on this edition of Fellowship in the Word with Pastor Bil Gebhardt. Fellowship in the Word is the radio ministry of Fellowship Bible Church located in Metairie, Louisiana. Let's join Pastor Bil Gebhardt now as once again he shows us how God's word meets our world.

Bil Gebhardt: Trials are always come and go. Jesus said in this world you'll have tribulation. There's no exceptions. We all have difficult times. He said now notice, "So that the proof of your faith being more precious than gold which is perishable even though tested by fire may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revealing of Jesus Christ."

The trial part of our life, the difficult, is designed as a test to prove our faith that we have, that we endure, that we persevere. That's all part of it. But notice the next verse. He says, "And though you have not seen Him, you love Him, and though you do not see Him now, but you believe in Him, you greatly rejoice with joy inexpressible and full," he says, "of glory."

What an amazing thing. You've not seen Him. He says not only that, you've not seen Jesus, but you love Jesus. That's a pretty strong motive. And you know why? Because you've not seen Him and you love Him because you believe in Jesus. It's our faith. It's your faith. You see, and you're going to see what is tremendously connected to the joy in my life: the depth of my faith. It's what I believe. That's why it's such an important thing for this to happen in my life.

And so he says, look, you can really have this joy. And this applies to all of us. You see, I think so many of us have buried dreams in life, we never realized them. We've buried marriages, they never turned out the way we thought they would. We've buried loved ones who died in our presence. All kinds of ways, and that's part of life. But my question is, did you bury your joy? You see, but you should never have buried your joy. That becomes the whole idea.

And notice, he says this kind of joy is inexpressible. That word is *aneklalētos*. It's the only time used in the New Testament. It's an interesting word. What it means is your joy is too full for words. You see, it's too full. It means in a sense an inward completion. I can't even express my joy. You see, and that really is something that tells me it's not always how I express it whether it's my joy or not. You see, that's a completely different kind of thing.

Now, how does my belief end up on my joy? Go with me to Ephesians chapter two. Why should I be so joyful? The reason is pretty simple. God saved me. That's why. He saved me. A holy God saved a sinner just like me. He bestowed on me His grace, His unmerited favor, and His mercy. He gave it to me as a gift. He did this. And I believe Him. You see, that becomes such an important thing to understand my salvation.

Notice how he starts out Ephesians two, just the first verse. He says, "And you were dead in your trespasses and sins." By the way, that means that's every human that ever lived. Every single human that ever lived is dead in their transgressions and sins. Paul told the Romans, "All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. There's none righteous, not even one." You see, that's a very important thing. I was dead.

Notice when you get down to verse four, it says, "But God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us." It's hard for me to imagine that. Why would God do that for me? He loved me. Scripture says that He loved me so much when I was still a sinner. He decided to die for me as a sinner.

He said even when we were dead in our transgressions, He made us alive together with Christ. "By grace you have been saved." The word grace is *charis*. It means gift. "And He raised us up with Him and seated us with Him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus." Wow. When I got saved, and when you got saved, you weren't just saved and someday you're going to heaven. From God's point of view, you're in Christ in heaven at this very moment.

That's what He says. He seated us with Him in the heavenly places in Christ. So where Christ is, from God's point of view, I am, and where I am, Christ is. Talk about eternal security or assurance of my salvation, there it is. He said, "So that in the ages to come He might show the surpassing riches of His grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus."

If there's one topic that we will talk about forever once you see heaven and once you experience it, it's grace. God's riches at Christ's expense. This is all here by grace. I didn't earn it. I didn't deserve it. This is a gift from God. This is His grace. You don't want to ever get over that.

Now, notice he then says, "For by grace you've been saved through faith." He said, "That's not of yourselves, it's the gift of God." My salvation is a gift from God. He said it's not a result of works, so no one can boast. Now, what's so important about all this is it tells us the way these things connect to each other.

If you're going to experience the joy of a Christian, and even if you're going to experience what it means to be a Christian, you have to start in one place. The one place I have to start is my own guilt. We all have to. I have to understand that I'm a sinner, and I have to believe I'm lost. I have to believe all have sinned, including me. There's none righteous, no not one, including me. I need to know that I'm a sinner. And the only thing that can save me is a savior. There is nothing else. I can't do my own works. He said no one can do it by their works, otherwise you'd brag about it. So I have to have a sense of guilt. And I do. There's no doubt about that.

But that leads to the second thing: the guilt leads to God's grace. God's riches at Christ's expense. Sin is paid in full by His substitutionary death on the cross. Paid in full. The theological word is propitiation. Big word. It means God is satisfied with the sacrifice that He made. He is propitiated with that sacrifice. That's the way this works.

Christ is not a supplement to your salvation. There's enough of that nonsense been going on for a couple thousand years. He's not a supplement. We have too many supplements in America. Just go to the drugstore once and it's like, oh my gosh, what did people do before you had a thousand supplements? I think that question tells you maybe they're not quite as necessary as we think.

But He's not a supplement to it. He's the only means of it. And to me, that's an overwhelming thought. He's my only hope. There is not another hope. And Jesus didn't die on a cross so you can save yourself. That's a lie. He died on the cross to save you Himself.

What does that produce in us? Gratitude. What does the grace of God produce in you? You're saved by grace. Gratitude. All I can end up being is thankful. I didn't earn it. I don't deserve it. He gave it to me. And I have great gratitude about that. The Swiss theologian Karl Barth said that grace and gratitude go together like heaven and earth. You can't have grace without gratitude. Anytime you've received grace, there's gratitude involved.

There's something more important in it. It's the motive of how I live my life. I don't live my life because I have a set of rules God gave me and I need to abide by them the best I can. I'm not motivated that way. I'm not motivated to say I owe God a lot and I'm going to live my life to pay back what I owe. I'm not.

I live my life based on the amount of gratitude I have for what God's done for me. And the two terms that were used by Peter: you know you don't see Christ, you love Him, and you believe with gratitude. My motives are love and gratitude. That's why I live my life the way I live it. Not in order to just do right for Bil's sake. Not at all. That's gratitude. That's the way we live our lives.

And then what's the next step of gratitude? The final step. Your guilt, His grace, your gratitude, joy. That's what you have, this inward joy that Christ—that's when you're open to the joy of Christ. That's the way this works. And what bothers me is so many Christians just don't think this way. And they never experience this kind of joy.

C.S. Lewis in *Mere Christianity* many years ago wrote this. He said, "We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered to us. Like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he can't imagine what is meant by the offer of a vacation at the ocean. We are far too easily pleased."

What an imagery. Instead of being at the beach, we're making mud pies in the slum. You see, and it's easy for us to do that. You know why? Life's difficult. You see, life's difficult. So it's easy to become the victim of it. "Oh, if you knew my life, it's so horrible. It's just terrible." I know it's terrible. Christ said it would be terrible. That's not the point. Why do you let it steal your joy? That's the point.

In John 16, Jesus said this: even your grief will be turned into joy. What a neat thing. Even the grief that you feel will be turned into joy.

There's something else about joy. Go with me to Acts chapter two and verse 46. The beginning of the church in Acts two and verse 46. The church is beginning, and it says here, "Day by day, continuing with one mind in the temple, and breaking bread from house to house, they were taking their meals together with gladness and sincerity of heart."

I just wish it wouldn't say gladness. That is *agalliasis*, the Greek word, and it means exuberant joy, extreme joy, great joy. And see, when I say those words or gladness, they don't seem the same, do they? Gladness seems like, "Well, I kind of appreciate it." No, this is because of the great joy and sincerity of heart, they're praising God with favor with all the people. And the Lord was adding to their number day by day those who were being saved.

The point of this verse is this: joy is contagious. Do you understand that? If many of us were more joyful, it would have an effect on all of us. Joy is contagious. Now, please, don't get a wrong idea. Don't go out in the lobby today and laugh. That's not joy. Okay, that's not joy. That's creepy. But it's not joy.

Joy doesn't work like that. That's not how you're contagious. You see, that's what he's trying to say. This joy is contagious, one for all and all for one. It's kind of interesting that William Barclay said a gloomy Christian is a contradiction in terms. Over the centuries, few things have done more harm to the church than the long faces of the people of the congregations.

That's terrible for our testimony. Think about that. A whole group of people that look like they were baptized in dill pickle juice. What's to be happy about? See, this joy thing is important. That's why Jesus tells us on that night.

According to the sociological group Framingham Heart study, they said—now they're doing a secular study—joy can be spread just like the flu to friends and family. People pick up on joy. And I don't mean false joy, everyone sees through that. I mean real joy. You see, when is—and by the way, when will they pick up on it most? When you're going through a trial. When they know how hard this is. And they say, "Boy, you have joy. There's a joy about them." You see, that's the way this should be for all of us.

So, let me give you three steps as I close. A, B, C, that's it. They're easy. A: analyze your thought life. Analyze how you think. I just want to jump in on one verse as we go. Go with me to Matthew six and verse 25.

He says, "For this reason I say to you, do not be worried about your life, as to what you will eat or what you will drink; nor your body, as to what you will put on. Is not life more than food and the body more than clothing?" See, that's His point.

Down 31 He says, "Do not worry then, saying, 'What will we eat?' 'What will we drink?' or 'What will we wear for clothing?'" He said even unbelievers seek those things, for your heavenly Father knows what you need, these things. And so the point is, what do you think about?

And I find this interesting. Researchers have developed an app—they develop them for everything—that analyzes people's thinking minute by minute. Interesting. And it analyzes your thoughts, your feelings, and sometimes your actions. But here was their conclusion on this. Unhappy people focus almost all their thinking on bad things that have happened in their past and what's not yet happened in the future.

They're always thinking about what might happen, and they're always based on look how many terrible things did happen. And when you think only about the terrible things that did happen to you and the terrible things that might happen to you, guess what you don't have? You don't have joy. You see, you don't. You're victimized by your own thought life. That's exactly what happens.

In fact, they said happy people's thoughts and focuses are preoccupied simply with the moment at hand. That's all I think about. See, I'm asking you this: do you ever think about your joy? Do you think about it? Do I have it?

George Müller said this, a famous missionary, "I saw more clearly than ever that the first great and primary business to which I ought to attend every day was to have my soul joyful in the Lord. The first thing to be concerned about was not how I might serve the Lord today, but how I might get my soul in a joyful state and how my inner man might finally be nourished with the food that it needs." Could we do the same? Do you think about that? See, I don't know if we do.

A: analyze your thought life. B: believe that joy is possible in your life. Why? Jesus promised it. So if you say I don't believe it, you don't believe Him. "My joy I give to you, so that your joy will be made full." That's His words to you. Do you believe that? And if you do believe it, then it's possible. And notice, it's not about trials or setbacks or anything like that. Those are difficult times. Some things are hard. You see, I'm not saying that there aren't unhappy moments. There clearly are. But that's not to interfere with your joy.

And thirdly, the C: call out for God for help. Just pray. I believe He loves it when we call out for Him or something like this. Help me, Lord. Help me to stay. Help me be anchored. Help me to be anchor for my faith to Christ the solid rock on which I stand. Help me stay anchored. Help me to abide.

You see, make me aware of my absence of joy and my need for joy. And I think if you try it, you'll be kind of amazed at how that works. Analyze your thought life, believe that joy is possible, and call out for the Lord and help.

I'll close with the words of Blaise Pascal. And if you've never studied Blaise Pascal, you should. One of the greatest thinkers ever put on earth. There's no doubt. 16th century. And a believer, and a great, great scientific mind and all that. But when he died, they found that he had sewn into his shirt a little amulet right there, with words in it. And it turned out apparently that he put them in all his shirts. And they took it out and they wanted to see, "What did he sew in his shirt?"

Here's what the words are: "The grandeur of the human soul. O righteous Father, the world has not known You, but I have known You. Joy, joy, joy. Tears of joy." He sewed it into his shirt. I'm not asking you to do that, but wouldn't it be good to sew it into your heart? Joy, joy, joy. Tears of joy. Challenge yourself this week. Wake up and ask God to help you bring more joy into your life. Let's pray.

Father, we get sidetracked. Even our joy is affected by our circumstances. And whenever the trials are difficult enough and they cause enough pain and sorrow to us, we lose our enthusiasm for joy, and we believe that we have been designated by You to be the recipient of sadness and grief and difficulty.

But Father, that's not the truth. The truth of it is there will be trials, there will be difficulties, but we can prevail through those by taking the joy that Jesus Christ is giving us through the power of His Spirit to implement it in our lives, and that Father, we can experience joy each and every day of our lives. It would be for our good and obviously for Your glory. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.

Jason Gebhardt: You've been listening to Pastor Bil Gebhardt on the radio ministry of Fellowship in the Word. If you ever miss one of our broadcasts or maybe you'd just like to listen to the message one more time, remember that you can go to a great website called oneplace.com. That's oneplace.com, and you can listen to Fellowship in the Word online. At that website you will find not only today's broadcast, but also many of our previous audio programs as well.

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If you would be interested in hearing today's message in its original form, that is as a sermon that Pastor Bil delivered during a Sunday morning service at Fellowship Bible Church, then you should visit our website, fbcnola.org. That's fbcnola.org. At our website, you will find hundreds of Pastor Bil's sermons. You can browse through our sermon archives to find the sermon series you are looking for, or you can search by title.

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