DO YOU SEE WHAT I SEE
DO YOU SEE JOY?
DR. JIM DIXON
LUKE 2:8
DECEMBER 6, 2009
On July 17, 1674, Isaac Watts was born. Isaac was a rebel and he was the son of rebels. He was a radical and he was the son of radicals. The parents of Isaac Watts were “decenters.” The decenter movement involved people who stood against the Church of England. The”decenters were people who stood against the Anglican Church, which was controlled by the British government and in fact the Anglican Church, the Church of England, had really been established by King Henry VIII who wanted to cast off the shackles of Rome and separated the Church of England from the Roman Catholic Church. Now Isaac Watts was a bit of a rebel himself as his parents were, and he was a savant. I mean he was truly a savant. He mastered Latin by the age of four. Most of you were five or six when you did that. He mastered Latin by the age of four and thereafter in the next few years he mastered Greek and Hebrew so that by our standards he was just beginning elementary school when he mastered Latin, Greek and Hebrew, and yet this was a savant with scope. He had broad range of intellect and the truth is languages were not his greatest strength. His greatest strength was music. Isaac Watts was a musical genius. Now we can look back on 2,000 years of church history, 2,000 years of Christian history, and we would say the two greatest writers of Christian music were surely Charles Wesley and Isaac Watts, this man who was a rebel and a radical.
Now because of his brilliance, wealthy families offered to pay his way to Oxford University, but Isaac Watts refused. He said, “Oxford University bends the knee to the Church of England and I will not bend the knee to the Church of England. I will only bend the knee to Jesus Christ.” Isaac Watts went to other institutions and received his degrees. They were prestigious. He became the pastor of Park Lane Church in London, England, and he began to write. He began to write and his music was so radical it divided the Christian world. It divided all the churches in Colonial America. It divided all the churches in Scotland, England and Ireland, and then it divided all the churches across the European continent. That is how radical his music was. Of course, to understand this you need to understand in the Church of Jesus Christ music has always been controversial. Did you know that? It’s controversial today. We have some people who are in The Chapel service because they want different kinds of music. Some of you will never go to The Chapel service because you don’t want that kind of music.
We’ve got different tastes in the church of Jesus Christ and it’s always been that way. So, understand, in the Middle Ages there were two kinds of churches musically. There were chanting churches and there were singing churches. The chanting churches were all those churches that used the Gregorian style of chants from St. Gregory. So, the chanting churches used Gregorian chants and that was about half of the churches. Now there were these other churches that were singing churches and the singing churches had a broader concept of melody and they branched out from the chanting churches and they were considered rebels. They were considered radicals and they were called sacrilegious because the chanters believed that God only loved chanting. He did not love singing.
Now both the chanting churches and the singing churches used the same lyrics because in the Middle Ages all music was based on the Psalms, the Davidic Psalms. The singing churches won. I think that’s evident. You don’t hear a whole lot of chanting around here, do you? How many songs did we chant this morning? None. And that would be true pretty much anywhere you would go because the singing churches won.
Now you come to the Reformation and the years following the Reformation and again the churches split. There were two types of churches and those two types were Psalms churches and hymns churches. The Psalms churches were churches that sang only the David Psalms and they considered this the will of God, but then there were these hymn churches and these hymn churches said,” No, we can sing words that come from parts of the Bible other than the Psalms. We can sing words that come from the Gospels, from the writings of Paul. Words that come from the prophets, words that come from the Pentateuch. We can sing words that come from our heart and describe our love of Jesus Christ. We can create hymns and they don’t have to be based on the Psalms of David.” That was considered rebellious. That was considered radical. They were called sacrilegious and it split the Church of Jesus Christ. And who led the hymn movement that created all these hymn churches? Isaac Watts. It was Isaac Watts. And so, in the Americas and across the European continent, Isaac Watts’ name was known everywhere and he was, some said, the divider of the church. But look at his hymns, and they are glorious. So, when you sing, “When I survey the wondrous cross upon which the Prince of Glory died,” that’s Isaac Watts. The words are glorious and he was anointed of God and a savant.
When Winston Churchill died, he scripted his own funeral. I don’t know if you knew that. He lived to 90. He shouldn’t have lived so long. He did everything wrong. He lived to 90 and then he scripted his own funeral and he demanded that one hymn be featured at the beginning and the end and that hymn was O God Our Help In Ages Past Our Hope In Years To Come. Who wrote that hymn O God Our Help In Ages Past? Isaac Watts. In fact, that hymn was already renowned across Europe and in England when they declared war and entered WWII. The announcement was made on the BBC to the whole nation and immediately after the announcement of war was made, they played O God Our Help In Ages Past Our Hope In Years To Come on the BBC to all the British people, this hymn by Isaac Watts. His hymns have influenced lives and his hymns have influenced nations. If you think of Eric Liddell who was an Olympic champion, a missionary to China, whose story of course was told by Hollywood in the movie Chariots of Fire, the award-winning movie Chariots of Fire. How did Eric Liddell get his call to the mission field? He got his call to the mission field by listening to a hymn by Isaac Watts. Jesus Shall Reign Where E’re The Sun. He was so moved and so, flooded with the presence with the Spirit of God when he heard that hymn that he declared that he would go to the nations with the message of Jesus and his reign. Isaac Watts.
This morning you sang the music of Isaac Watts. When you sang Joy to the World, the Lord has come. Let earth receive her King that was Isaac Watts. And understand this about Isaac Watts: joy to the world was what it was all about for him. The only thing he was trying to bring to the churches in the American colonies, in England, in Ireland, in Scotland and across the European continent and around the world, all he was trying to do was bring the joy of heaven, the joy of Christ. That’s why he crafted his hymns. He felt like the churches were becoming staid and cold and excessively traditional and that their liturgy had become rote and, for many people, had lost heart and he wanted to bring joy to the church. Joy to the world, the Lord is come.
So, here we are and our subject is joy and do we, have it? Does this church have it? Do you have joy in your heart? Do I have joy in my heart? I don’t know what you’re facing. I don’t know what your financial condition is. I don’t know what relational wounds and hurts you might be experiencing. Don’t know what medical problems you might be facing. I don’t know your hopes and dreams, but I asked, “Do you have joy?” Do you have joy because this is the will of Christ for his people? First, I want to look at the joy of the angels. This is going to be a little different, but I want to look at the joy of the angels. For it was the angel of the Lord that announced to the shepherds on the Judean hillside, “Do not fear. I bring you good news of great joy.” This was the angel of the Lord come to earth saying to the shepherds, “Great joy.” Charan megalen, quite literally in the Greek, mega joy. “I bring you good news of mega joy.” We live in a world with megaplexes. We live in a world with megachurches, but you see here’s the will of God, that you have megajoy. This is what God’s about. He wants us to have megajoy.
Now I think the concept of angels is a difficult one. It is difficult for many of you. Some of you have spent a little time thinking about it. You’ve not studied the Scriptures. You’ve not done research. It just maybe hasn’t interested you. Or maybe it does, but you just embrace it as mystery. Now I think Hollywood has struggled with angels. Who are these guys? What are they? Our movie today that we’re taking a look at is It’s A Wonderful Life, the Frank Capra classic produced just after WWII in 1946 and starring Jimmy Stewart: this movie beloved by so many and watched at Christmastime all over the world. Jimmy Steward plays the part of George Bailey. George Bailey lives in the fictitious, the non-existent town of Bedford Falls. George Bailey on Christmas Eve is about to commit suicide. George Bailey on Christmas Eve desires to take his life. He is financially bankrupt. He feels all is lost and his life has had no meaning, and so, George Bailey is about to commit suicide. but his guardian angel comes to him: Clarence Oddbody.
In the movie there are three angels. There is Clarence, then Franklin, and Joseph, who are not seen, but they are heard. Now, Hollywood is trying to portray an angel, so they send this loveable, old guy and he’s Clarence. Clarence Oddbody. He’s AS2, he’s an angel second class. He doesn’t have wings because he hasn’t earned his wings yet. And while that’s all really cute, none of that is biblical. The Bible never describes angels as loveable, old people. The Bible never talks about AS2. The Bible never talks about second class angels or angels who are working hard to get their wings. In fact, the Bible really doesn’t tell us that angels have wings although I know that’s a matter of some controversy. But you see this is the beautiful thing, this guardian angel is sent from heaven to George, and he’s sent to bring George joy. George has no joy. George has lost his joy and the whole idea of the movie is to show George it’s a wonderful life. And so, this is really what the movie is about: Clarence has come to show George joy. Now in the Bible, angels are called the Angeloi, in the Greek, and in the Hebrew, Malakim. Both of these words are the same. Angeloi means messenger. Malakim means messenger – Greek and Hebrew equivalents. Angels are God’s messengers. But they’re not just messengers, angels are sometimes in the Bible called guardians. Angels are sometimes in the Bible called watchers. There are warring angels. There are angels that are territorial: given dominion over certain territories, and indeed, angels appear to be throughout, in some sense, the creation.
Now you can look in parabiblical literature, you can look at the book of Enoch, in old times; you can look at the apocrypha; you can look at the pseudepigrapha; you can look at the Gnostic gospels, and you see that in all these ancient writings there was a fascination with angels. Even angelolatry, the worship of angels, which of course grieves the One True God, but there’s this fascination with angels. In the apocrypha is a group of books that has some merit. The apocrypha is included in the Catholic Bible, written in the intertestamental period and it includes books of significant historical significance, but the pseudepigrapha consists of just spurious books that really have no credibility. And the Gnostic gospels are even worse because they are spurious and cultic as well, and they were written 100-300 years after the biblical Gospels.
But you see, from all of these parabiblical works this fascination with angels and it still exists today. There’re people out there on the fringes that have a huge fascination with angels. You can go to Borders or you can go to Barnes and Noble and you can find an angel section. You can find books that relate to all kinds of guessing about angels. Lots of speculation. Now traditionally, angelic hierarchy looks like this: at the top you have Seraphim; just under the Seraphim, Cherubim; just under the Cherubim, Thrones; under Thrones, Dominions; under Dominions, Virtues; under Virtues, Powers; under Powers, Principalities; under Principalities, Archangels; under Archangels, Angels.
Now this hierarchy within the angelic realm is not fully biblical. The Bible mentions all of these categories with the exception of Virtues, but the Bible doesn’t put them in this order, and the truth is that’s guesswork. The Bible does mention Seraphim and you can go to Isaiah 6, you can go to Revelation 4, you can read about the Seraphim that surround the throne of God and they have six wings and they are majestic and they fly and they are glorious. You can go and read about the Cherubim in the Bible: Genesis 3, the Cherubim guard the Tree of Life, and in Exodus 25 the Cherubim are described and they were placed on the Ark of the Covenant: two of them, two winged Cherubim, for the Cherubim were also winged. The Cherubim were carved into the Mercy Seat of the Ark of the Covenant, the Holy of Holies in the Jerusalem Temple and prior to that in the tabernacle.
But we really don’t know that Seraphim are angels; the Bible never says that. We don’t really know that Cherubim are angels. The Bible doesn’t say that. We know that they’re winged and we know that they are supernatural and we know that they are heavenly beings, the Seraphim and the Cherubim, but nowhere are we told that Seraphim or Cherubim are angels. We don’t know that. The Bible mentions Thrones and Dominions and Principalities and Powers, and you can see that in Colossians 1, in Ephesians 1 and 6, and Romans 8. These are categories of heavenly beings, but again we don’t know whether they’re angels. We just know that they are categories of heavenly beings and the Bible tells us there are Thrones and Dominions and Principalities and Powers of Light. There are Thrones and Dominions and Principalities and Powers of Darkness, that there are Thrones and Dominions and Principalities and Powers faithful to God, in the service of God, and there are Thrones and Dominions and Principalities and Powers that serve darkness and are faithful to the Evil One, the Lord of Darkness.
And so, spiritual warfare, the Bible tells us, is real. It exists in the cosmos and it influences the earth and has indeed influenced the history of the earth. Even angels and archangels are involved in this spiritual warfare the Bible tells us. You do not need to fear. We do not battle against flesh and blood, the Bible tells us, but against the Principalities, the Powers, the spiritual hosts of wickedness in heavenly places, but you don’t need to fear. Put on the full armor of God and know Jesus Christ is King of King, Lord of Lords, with all authority in heaven and on earth. Trust him. You can trust him. You can live your life with great joy trusting Jesus even in the midst of Principalities and Powers.
I hope you understand the greatness of God. I mean science is just beginning to understand his greatness as they look at the creation and they understand that the universe is not as simple as once we thought it was. We always knew the universe was vast, spanning billions of light years, perhaps 15 billion light years. We always knew it was diverse with black holes and quasars and pulsars and stars, and stars going super nova and all kinds of mysteries. We always knew all of that, but now in the world of cosmology and science and astronomy and astrophysics, there’re these new understandings that the universe is actually a multiverse and there’s evidence of other dimensions and it may be that this universe and heaven are just a dimension away, I mean mysteries, and they all reflect the power and the greatness and beauty and diversity of God.
I hope you understand that’s also true with regard to his creation of life. Don’t think that as human beings the crown of creation with regard to life forms on this earth that we are the sum and total of intelligent life. God has created heavenly beings, super natural beings, angelic beings. I promise you, when you get to heaven it’s going to blow your mind. When you get to the New Jerusalem, it’ll blow your mind. When ultimately some day you are able to see all the works of God’s hands in the new heavens and the new earth, when you see Seraphim, when you see Cherubim, when you see Thrones and Dominions and Principalities and Powers and Archangels and Angels, it’ll blow your mind. But understand this: all of those angels that are holy have joy. All of God’s holy angels have joy and Psalms 16 says this, “In God’s presence is, what? In God’s presence is fullness of joy.” Where do you want to find fullness of joy? In God’s presence and that fullness of joy that belongs to God alone: Father, Son and Holy Spirit, has manifested itself, and to some degree radiated outward into and unto the angels so they have joy.
But they are not the source of our joy. I hope you understand that. The joy of Christmas, the joy that you can have every day, the joy that can fill and flood your life, that joy doesn’t come from angels. That joy comes from Jesus. So, this is our second and great teaching this morning. Joy comes from Jesus. He is the Son of God. He is anointed with joy beyond anyone else. That’s what the Bible tells us and indeed the angelic announcement regarding this megajoy, this Charan megalen, that angelic announcement is about Jesus. “I bring you good news of a great joy which will come to all the people for unto you is born this day in the city of David a savior who is Christ the Lord.” The great joy is Jesus. He is the megajoy and throughout church history, theologians, pastors, the great musical artists and indeed the great sculptors and painters, they all understood that joy centers on Christ, Son of God.
This is reflected in music. Felix Mendelssohn was the great 19th century musician who was a composer and a great pianist, even a painter. Before he died, he wrote that great melody of joy. He never gave it lyrics; it was his melody of joy. His only request as he died was “put words to this that are words of joy.” And you know what happened, they took Mendelssohn’s melody of joy and combined it Charles Wesley’s words and what did it create? Hark the Herald Angels Sing, glory to the newborn king. Those are words of joy. Mendelssohn would have been pleased because Jesus is indeed the melody of joy and the source of joy. “Jesu, joy,” the words of Johann Sebastian Bach. How great was he? He wrote over 500 cantatas and we have over 200 of them still printed out. We have over 200 of his cantatas, brilliant, the greatest master of Baroque music in the history of the world. In the tenth movement of one of his cantatas is a three-minute eight-second section called “Jesu Joy” and it describes everything Bach was about. At the beginning of every composition Bach wrote, he wrote, “In the name of Jesus.” At the top of every page, he scripted he put “JJ” “Jesu Juva, Jesus help me!” And then he would write at the bottom “SDG, Solo Deo Gloria” To God alone be the glory. It was all about Jesus. “Jesu Joy.”
And when you read the words, the lyrics, to Jesu Joy, and you hear the tune at every wedding, when you read the words, “Jesus is the fountain of joy and that fountain never runs dry. It cannot be extinguished. It’s eternal. It’s never ending. Jesus. And so, throughout church history this has been understood and the Bible affirms it and the Bible says in Hebrews 1:9, “Jesus has been anointed with the oil of joy”—Agalliasis—”beyond all others in Heaven or on earth.” “Agalliasis” means extreme joy. More joy than anyone in heaven or on earth.
And why should that matter to you? Well, I think he can help us. He can help you. He can help me. If I want to find joy, if I want to have joy, I’ve got to look to Jesus. And even the angels cannot understand the joy that Jesus offers. Have you ever read in 1 Peter 1 that strange statement by the Apostle Peter that the Gospel is a mystery into which angels long to look Have you ever read those words? Ever wondered what is he talking about? How is the Gospel a mystery into which angels long to look? I think the answer is probably this: that angels cannot fully understand the Gospel never having needed it. Those righteous and holy angels have not sinned, so they don’t really understand forgiveness. They’ve not sinned and they are holy and they don’t really understand mercy and grace.
But you see in the Gospel there are these things precious to us that are really only experienced only by us and there’s this joy that Jesus gives us through forgiveness and mercy and grace and it’s a joy even the angels, the Bible says, cannot fully understand. You might be thinking, well, l don’t think I’m doing so well. Maybe you’re sitting there thinking well, l know Christmas is coming and I know we’re in the season of Christmas, but the truth is it doesn’t matter what time of year we’re in, l don’t have a lot of joy. Maybe you believe in Jesus. Maybe you go to church. Maybe you’ve been baptized. Maybe you come here and you sing the songs. Maybe you read your Bible from time to time, but you know in your heart, and if you’re honest today, you just don’t have joy. Maybe it has to do with pain or brokenness or woundedness or just boring life day after day, but you know you don’t have joy. How can you get that?
I would say a couple of things as we wind this up today. One is: you’ve got to ask Jesus. He’s the source of joy. I think it is very proper to come to him and say, “Jesus, fill me with your joy.” There is something mystical about this; I tell you there is. It’s right to come to Jesus and ask for the fullness of the Holy Spirit, a deeper and greater anointing, to be flooded and filled with joy. Have you ever asked him for that? You might begin today. And then I think too, we sometimes don’t have the joy of Jesus because we just don’t live how Jesus has told us to live. His joy comes through the life he’s called us to. He’s called us to live our lives in such a way that we give ourselves away. “Save his life or lose it,” Jesus said, “but he would lose his life for my sake and the sake of the Gospel, will find life. “I come that you might have joy and that your joy might be full,” Jesus said. And it’s only as we give ourselves away that we find joy. This is the great, central mystery of the Gospel not understood by the world. And I would say not understood by the Church. We might be able to parrot these concepts; we don’t live them out. It’s only as we give ourselves away, we find joy.
So, as we’re approaching Christmas you might think, well, how can I give myself away? Maybe you might want to go try working in a soup kitchen this Christmas season. Maybe you’ll want to think about volunteering in ministry here at the church or through one of our inner-city ministries. Maybe you want to start to giving faithfully to the cause of Christ on earth, despite your financial stresses. Maybe you need to learn to give yourself away, to find the joy of that.
I love the story of Sam Houston. I assume many of you have been to Houston, Texas. Perhaps when you’ve gone to Houston, Texas all you see is a big city. It’s the fourth or fifth largest city in America, depending which statistics you consult. It’s a huge city and of course named after Sam Houston. Sam Houston died in 1863. Sam Houston led the fight for the independence of Texas from Mexico. Sam Houston defeated Santa Ana. Sam Houston became the first president of the Republic of Texas and he fought to bring Texas into the union, into the United States. When Texas came into the United States and into the union, Sam Houston became governor of Texas and he became a United States senator.
The amazing thing about Sam Houston was that earlier in his life he had been governor of Tennessee. I think most people are not aware of that. Sam Houston is the only man in American history to be the governor of two different states. There were others who governed various territories, but he was the only man in US history to become governor of two different states. And he was a complex man. He went for three years and just lived among the Indians. He was adopted by the Cherokee Nation, entered their tribe. At other times in his life, he went and joined other Indian nations and lived amongst them.
He was not a Christian early in his life and really didn’t take Christ seriously until 1840 when he married a woman named Margaret. Sam Houston was 47 years old and Margaret was 21. Kind of robbing the cradle: 47 and 21. But Margaret was a woman wise beyond her years and very much in love with Jesus Christ. Sam Houston was then famous, but his Christianity was fake. He told Margaret that he was a Christian, but when she married him, she discovered he wasn’t a Christian at all. She’d go to church alone. She’d pray alone. She’d read the Bible alone. She served people, the needy and the poor alone. Sam never went with her, but she prayed every day of her life, morning, noon and night, that Sam Houston, her husband, would accept Jesus Christ. Maybe you’re going through that. Maybe you’re praying for your spouse like that right now. Well, she prayed every day and finally the day came when Sam Houston’s heart broke and he, with tears in his eyes, asked Jesus to be his Lord and Savior.
He requested, he demanded, that he be baptized in a river like the first century church, so they took Sam Houston down to the river and there Rufus Burleson, who was Sam Houston’s pastor, a Baptist minister who would later become president of Baylor University, baptized Sam Houston. They stood in the river and Pastor Burleson said, “Sam, I see you have your gold watch on there with a chain, you’d better take that off. This water is not going to do your watch any good.” Sam Houston said, “Well, you’re right. Thank you.” He took the watch and gave it to a friend. Then Pastor Burleson said, “You know, Sam, I see you have your wallet, your billfold, there, that big lump in your pocket. I think you don’t want to take that into the water. You better give that to a friend.” And Sam said, “You know, Rufus, I think I’ll keep the wallet. If anything needs to be baptized, it’s my wallet.”
Sam Houston that day went under the water and his body was baptized and so, was his wallet and everybody who knew him said he was never the same. From that day forth he gave his life away. He gave his talent and time to the poor. He gave his money to the church and to the causes of Christ. And his joy, by testimony of all who knew him, just grew and grew and grew until he went home to heaven. You only find joy as you learn to give your life away.
The joy the Jesus has taught us comes from giving. As you approach Christmas you might think about some way you can give, some special thing you can do with your time and your abilities and the gifts God has given you. Maybe you’d make a special gift to the church of Jesus Christ at this Christmastime. See if he doesn’t, by his power, bless you and give you joy. I think, too, that sometimes we don’t have joy because we don’t really trust him. I think our joy is less than it should be today because we don’t really trust Jesus and his promises.
I want to conclude with this: the Broncos play today. The Broncos play today and I don’t know if some of you are going to catch the second half or not. There are three times this month that the Broncos play at 11 o’clock and I wish that wasn’t so because it does affect church attendance. I will acknowledge that I’m a sports fan and I actually love the Broncos and I’m a Bronco fan. They play Kansas City today. I noticed in the Denver Post that the four prognosticators split right down the middle, two picked Kansas City, two picked the Broncos and it’s tough to play in Kansas City.
But I remember 17 years ago, 1992, the Broncos were playing Kansas City and I was at my brother’s house, my brother Greg, and his wife Barb. Barb and I, we just lived down the street from my brother at that point seventeen years ago. And so, I was up watching the Bronco/Kansas City game at my brother’s house and the Broncos were just making mistake after mistake and we were getting frustrated. And they were fumbling and throwing interceptions and seemed like the officials were making a lot of bad calls. And then as we came to the end of the game the Broncos fell behind 21 to 7 with just a few minutes left and I said to my brother Greg, “I can’t take it anymore. I’ve had enough. I’m going home.”
I left the house and started walking down the street. I’m walking down the street and I run into Bo Mitchell. Bo and his wife Gerry lived right across from us in those days, and Bo is one of the founders of this church. And Bo came out of the house and kind of hot and upset and started about talking about the Broncos and how they’ve ruined the whole season. We stood there and we talked and commiserated as we just talked about how they’d blown it. Minutes went by and I went into the house and on a lark, I thought, Well, I’m going to turn on the TV and see what happened. I turned it on and the Broncos had won. And in just the last couple of minutes they’ve come back with miraculous touchdown after touchdown and they won the game as one of the most incredible games in Bronco history, 17 years ago, 1992.
Well, I had taped the game because I wasn’t sure if I would be able to see it all. Later in the week I re-watched the game and it was an amazing thing. It didn’t bother me anymore. I wasn’t frustrated any more, I mean, the fumbles didn’t bother me, the interceptions didn’t bother me, the bad calls by the officials, no big deal. Didn’t bother me. Joy! Joy! Joy! And as I came to the end of the game and I saw the great comeback and the Broncos win, it was all just fun. Joy, joy, joy, because I knew what was going to happen. I viewed everything differently.
Now you understand if you are a follower of Jesus Christ, and you belong to him, it’s the same for you. You know, we’ve read the end of the book. We know what is going to happen. His promises are secure. You don’t need to worry, you don’t need to be upset, you don’t need to be frustrated. I mean, you already know what is going to happen when you arrive at the Bema Seat and at the judgment day. I mean, you are going to be, by the sacrifice of Christ, declared innocent. The words are going to be spoken that you are forgiven; that your sin is forgiven you and that you are righteous by the blood of Jesus Christ. It’s already happened. It’s already sealed. It’s a done deal. You already know that you’re bound for glory. You already know that Christ has prepared a place for you, eternal in the heavens. You already know that you are promised the heavenly city, the New Jerusalem. You already know that you are part of the assembly of the first-born. You already know that your whole future is glorious. And you also know, in this life, as you live out your days, Christ is with you. You know that he loves you. You know that he promises that there will be no meaningless pain in your life. But in the midst of everything that you go through, he will work for good. You know that these things are real, and boy, we should have joy. I mean we should have joy every single day if we really believe. If we really believe, joy every day. It is the will of Christ for his people. That we would have megajoy. Great joy. Let’s look to the Lord with a word of prayer.