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In recent years, my physical conditioning has gone "down the tubes" so to speak. I have "expanded my horizons" lately and it is because that I do not exercise and perform the "cardiovascular" fitness like I once did. I own weights and a very nice weight bench which holds up quite a bit of weight from the boxes that are stacked on top of it in the storage shed. I have a very nice "Schwin Airdyne" exercise bike that works out your arms and legs and blows air in your face as you go. I have a jump rope and a stop watch and my wife has a stair climber. And we have made a few attempts at getting into shape using those things, but eventually we always quit. It's not because I am injured, am not athletic, or don't enjoy athletic pursuits, but simply because sitting in a room pedaling like crazy and "going nowhere" is not a lot fun. Climbing for thirty minutes on a "simulated stairs" and then getting off and still being on the ground floor is very demoralizing. Nothing against exercise machines, but they take the joy out of moving around. If I'm going to run, then I want to feel the wind in my face and see the leaves and the trees all around me and at least have a few dogs come after me to make things interesting!

In college and the years shortly after it, I was in excellent shape. But that was because in college I played three hours of sandlot volleyball everyday. Give me a football or a tennis racquet and I'll forget about how much I've exercised and run all day. There's something about it that even though you are doing something grueling and exhausting, if it's fun, then you'll stick with longer. Put me in the middle of a lineup and give me a baseball glove and I'll exercise for six hours straight! But put me on a treadmill, and after ten minutes I'm ready to quit. It's a mental thing: take the joy out of what you are doing and take the fun out of it and suddenly your mind doesn't have near the stamina that it should have.

Don't think that the devil doesn't know this particular trait of the human will. The devil is no respecter of what he attacks and he'll use anything or anybody to get you distracted from serving God. But one area that he always includes in his plan of attack is to try to remove a Christian's joy. The devil desires most of all for living for God to stop being fun. Because if it ceases being fun, then you will cease to dive into it with reckless abandon. If it ceases to be a joy to you, then you will be less likely to completely sacrifice yourself and your will for the kingdom of God. That's why the devil doesn't like for us to have services of the sort that we have been having recently. Because such services makes you anxious to come back to the house of God. It makes you be able to say with the psalmist, "I was glad when they said unto me, let us go unto the house of the Lord." And when you are glad to go to church and glad to worship Him -- when your "spiritual exercise" is driven by joy -- then your spiritual muscles and spiritual stamina will be much greater! Therefore the devils wants to try to steal the joy of serving God.

In 1 Peter chapter 2, the Apostle Peter was writing to the church at large and he began to compare the spiritual building of the church with a natural building. His point was that God no longer dwells in temples made with hands, but rather within the bodies of the people of God. And Peter said that Jesus Christ is the chief cornerstone, the main rock on which we are built, but then he began to compare each of us to a stone in the wall of the temple of God. And that together, we make up a "spiritual house" where we can offer up "spiritual sacrifices." As he is writing all of this, the King James Version reads in an interesting way:

We are stones but we are "lively stones." I like that. The Message, a paraphrase translation puts it this way:

Be building stones "vibrant with life." The idea in the Greek is that we are "living stones" but not just that we are breathing and flesh and blood, but that we "are alive!" You can be alive but not alive! And so God's kingdom is built through people, but God's people are to be "lively" and "vibrant with life." Jesus said this:

Jesus came not just so that we could live, but that we could live abundantly! He didn't just come and save us to live for forever, but we will live for forever! Heaven will be anything but boring! It will be anything but mundane! I have quoted often the preacher who in my youth I heard say:

We will not just live with Jesus for eternity, but we will "really live" with Him for eternity! And you don't have to wait until you get to the other side to start enjoying the work of God in your life, because Jesus came so that you could have life and that much more abundantly! You really haven't started living until Jesus is the center and the focus of your life! We should be "lively stones!" We should be "vibrant with life!"

But as I look out over the religious landscape of today's society, it becomes obvious that when man begins to shape a religion according to his opinion, that most often, the most forgotten element is "joy." The Muslim walks toward Mecca shaking at the knees in hopes that the merciless Allah receives his pitiful sacrifice. The Jehovah's Witness takes away the promise of heaven and flying away with the Lord at His second coming from the millions mentioned in Revelation and relegates it to just 144,000. The Hindu lives his life hoping that he will do better this time than he did in some previous life that he cannot remember and that he doesn't have to be reincarnated as a slug in his next life. The Buddhist denies himself from any pleasure and twists himself into knots and tries to half sleep through life to try to take away the need for joy. The atheist has only hope for this life and so the ups and downs of life is the sole meaning to his existence (and as Paul said, "we are most miserable if we have hope for this life only!). The Jew of Judaism of today has lost the shout and the dance of David and has had it replaced by the wailing wall and the Rabbi's dull traditions. When man makes a religion, it would seem that often the first element to go out the window is "joy!"

Unfortunately, that is also true with many Christian churches. The simple reason why so many Christians don't attend church regularly is not because of any religious reason, but rather because their church is extremely boring and dull and dry. I remember once in High School visiting another type of church with a friend in exchange of them visiting my church. And I was shocked at how boring the service was. They sang songs that they had probably been singing for sixty years and you could tell. The worship leader -- no joke -- checked his watch at least three times per song. They stood up during the singing and that was the extent of movement in the church service -- except when someone rushed to the bathroom. The preacher got up and droned on for about twenty minutes and I would tell you what he said but I was trying to stay awake. And then we all went home. The most movement in the entire service was the smoke break between the song service and the sermon where all of the men went out on the front porch and smoked a cigarette while the ladies gossiped with each other. When my friend asked me what I thought of the service, I said, "no wonder you are not excited about God, if I had had to grow up in this church, I wouldn't be either!" There were some stones in that church, but you couldn't call any of them "lively!"

My friend didn't understand what I was saying until she came to my church. When she walked in before church, the first thing she said was "you have drums in your church?!" And I just smiled and said, "you are about to have a religious cultural experience!" She had come on a Sunday night and everything was wound up. Sis. so-and-so was doing the spinning top across the front and Bro. sound man was doing the rabbit hop down the middle aisle and the organ was extra loud and the songs were extra fast and somebody was getting the Holy Spirit and talking in tongues and the drum player was heavy on the cymbals for whatever reason and every once in a while Bro. zippity doo dah would make a lap around the church swinging his jacket around his head like so. And her eyes were as big as monster truck tires and the Spirit of God was moving -- it was one of those kind of services! She had walked into a spiritual building with some stones that were apart of the kingdom of God but they were lively stones! They were people who were glad to be there and who had looked forward all day to getting to the house of the Lord! And it blew her away! Especially when I was able to show her scripture for everything that was happening! All she could or would say was "whooah!"

And so I am preaching to you today: the Bible commands "clap your hands all ye people." The Bible decrees that we should shout with a voice of triumph. Let me read you the last two Psalms, Psalms 149 and 150:

The Bible commands those things, but listen very carefully: the Lord loves a cheerful giver. If you do those things begrudgingly, then you miss the point. True praise springs from true experience. True praise springs from true blessing. The reason that we had a church of lively stones growing up was because they were a bunch of people who had experienced the great mercy and saving power of God. They had had their sins washed away in the name of Jesus, they had received the gift of the Holy Spirit! They had had God take their empty and broken lives and mend them and give them purpose and give them joy! Therefore the songs about God's goodness were not just a traditional ritual but something clicked with their soul and their mindset of thankfulness and their movement was a natural overflow of what they were truly excited about!

"Preacher, I'm not emotional," Win the lottery and have someone drive up and hand you a check for several million dollars and tell me that you are not emotional! Have someone give you a raise that doubles your salary and tell me that you are not emotional! We are emotional about the things that make us excited! And I'm just of the opinion that when God has truly done a work in your life, then you will get excited about it! At least enough to clap your hands to the Lord! We should be stones of this spiritual building of God, but never forget that we must be lively stones! Jesus came so that we could live more abundantly! Don't let the devil steal your praise and worship, because that is the first step to his being able to steal your joy!

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But let me also preach to some of you "lively stones" for a little while. Some of you are live wires for Jesus and I have no problem for that. It's easier to control a wild fire spiritually than it is to get a wet blanket to burn! But even among you lively stones, it is easy sometimes to allow the joy of serving God to become forgotten.

The reason is that when you begin to yield to God's presence and study and apply His Word -- all of it -- then you invariably get to a place where you have to deny yourself from what your flesh wants to do. There is a side to true Christianity that is "heavy" for lack of a better word. Or should I say "somber." Or maybe "serious minded" would be a better phrase. Eventually we come to the scripture where Jesus said that if we are to follow Him, we must daily take up our cross, deny ourselves, and follow! Eventually we come to something difficult that we must change. Eventually we come face to face to generational traits that God is trying to squeeze out of us and eventually we come to find ourselves on the Potter's wheel, being molded and shaped according to what He wants and -- when you are the clay -- which is not always perfectly pleasant!

We have shout downs where Sis. so-and-so does the funky chicken across the front and where the evangelist smashes things and those are fun, but then comes the nights where God moves upon the preacher to preach against sin that is harbored in our heart and the Word of God and the Spirit calls for repentance and a breaking of our wills and a somber move of the Spirit and even tears. Or those services where the revelation of truth breaks through our prejudiced traditions and we have to admit that something needs to change. Or we have those services where the weight of the Great Commission is realized and placed upon our shoulders and we realize the eternal destiny of many in our community if we do not somehow reach them. Those are "heavy times." Somber moves of God. And in those times it is easy for us to forget the joy of living for God. And some Christian never get the revelation -- hear this preacher -- some people never get the revelation that the heavy times and the somber moves of God are so that we might have a greater joy! Let me say that again: When we have a "serious minded" move of God, God's intention is to bring greater joy about in your life through those services.

In our text in Isaiah, we find the preacher is preaching against sin and calling for the nation of Israel to repent and get things right with God. It was a somber message but one that was needed. He even said that the ways of God were beyond our ability to understand completely and the prophet even gave a warning to "seek God while He may be found" and reminded them that they had but a brief window of opportunity into which they could find mercy and forgiveness. It was a somber message and a very serious one. A heavy word from God.

But look at the ending of the message:

If they received the Word of God and repented and sought Him and turned back to Him, then he said "for you shall go out in joy and be led forth in peace!" The mountains would celebrate and the trees would clap for joy! The thorns would disappear and they would be fruitful and their life would "make a name for the Lord!" The purpose for the somber moment; the purpose for the strong Word from God was so that they would be able to once again live in true joy!

We tend to forget that there is no joy like the genuine joy that comes from knowing that you are right with God. There is no joy like the genuine joy that comes with repentance. After his mistake with Bathsheba, David prayed this prayer that we always quote, but that we forget the next part:

We quote the repentant part about "create in me a clean heart" but we forget that David also prayed "restore to me the joy of your salvation!" The purpose of Nathan, the man of God, coming and calling out David's sin was so that he could repent and have the "joy of God's salvation restored to him!" In similar manner, Paul after having to write and "clean house" in the Corinth church with his first letter, he then wrote in the second:

When 1 Corinthians was read in the local church, it was heavy and Paul corrected them and bluntly revealed their wrongdoing and even called names. It was heavy correction, but it was to bring them to a place where they were right with God! And therefore the correction was to lead them to a place of joy!

And so I'm here to remind someone: true joy is laying your head down at night, knowing that if for some reason you had lived your last day on earth, that a great and glorious future lay ahead of you in eternity! True joy is having read the Bible for yourself and knowing that you have obeyed it exactly as it reads! True joy is having had an experience with God where you have been changed and where His Spirit works continually within you to make of you what He wants you to be! True joy is knowing that the generational curses and the areas that life has told you can never change, can be changed and is being changed through the power of God and His Word! True joy is knowing even if the doctors shake their heads, that you serve a healer who is faithful and can do exceedingly abundantly above all that can ask or think, and that if He chooses not to heal, then you can face death knowing that it is not the end and that you don't have to be afraid to face the judgment because your sin has already been judged at an altar of repentance and washed away in the waters of baptism, covered with the precious blood of Jesus Christ! True joy is being used of God in His perfect will and feeling His presence yet another day!

And so there will be heavy services, and serious moments in living for God. There will be times where the Word of God and the Spirit of God deals with issues within your life and urges for you to change. There will times where like Paul you must "die daily" at an altar of repentance. To be saved we truly will have to be "crucified with Christ" but never forget that next part, "yet I live." The dealing with sins and the blunt word from God and the solemn moment and the call to an altar of repentance is for one purpose: that the joy of God might be restored to you! That the joy of your salvation might be restored! That you might live for God with the same happiness and zeal as you did when you first believed and received! Don't forget that the correction and the chastening is to bring joy in the future, and even a greater joy that you have never experienced! God desires for His children to be happy!

In recent weeks, I have had the awesome experience of looking up and realize that my little girl is looking at me waiting for me to notice her. When she realizes that I am looking at her, then her face breaks out in a huge smile and she squeals. I am learning that such experiences are things that money cannot purchase, but only come through a parent/child relationship where trust and love is present. So it is with God. He is our heavenly father, and you are His children. He knows what is best for you and so even when He corrects you and disciplines you, it is from the point of love and so that your life will be better and more fruitful. What He calls sin are things that will bring hurt to you and destroy you and will cause you pain in the long run. What He commands us to stay away from are things that will destroy us and make us unhappy for eternity. Everything in the Word of God is motivated by His loving to see us smile. He desires for us to be happy. He has come and done everything so that we could live life more fully and with greater joy. The joy of this world is very temporary and fades quickly, but His joy is everlasting! And yet it is easy to forget that even in the "hard messages" the point is that God wants us to be blessed and blessed abundantly! We will be corrected and challenged and the tears will flow, but the Bible promises:

The tears and sorrow of having to confront things in our lives and cleanse ourselves are only the sowing part, but the reaping is that of joy and of blessing! Never forget that when God's Word speaks strongly, that it is trying to sow the seeds of abundance and joy in your life. We must repent, but after the repentance and after the tears, we must like David pray that God would "restore to us the joy of His salvation!" The commands of God are not a "have to proposition," but rather a "get to" because in obeying them, we will be greater blessed and happier than we ever have! God, restore us our joy! Don't forget the importance of serving God with great joy!

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And so as we steer this message toward a close, I believe that God still wants to work in our lives, here tonight. And we come back to our short text in the book of Acts, chapter 13. If you study this short verse in context, you might be amazed to find that the enemies of God had just stirred up a riot against Paul and Barnabas and kicked them out of the city where they were preaching. But the scriptures say that the disciples and their newly-won believers simply dusted themselves off and continued serving God and then we find the verse:

This scripture is powerful for several reasons. First, they were filled with both joy and the Holy Spirit! We need both. I've known some people who had received the Holy Spirit but needed to be baptized again with joy! I've known some people who hadn't smiled in so long that if they had to rub lotion on their cheeks before they tried, lest something would break. Restore to us our joy! Living for God is fun! Living for God is exciting, that is if you are living for Him with all of your might!

The second powerful point from this short verse is that the verb "were filled" has a meaning in the Greek tense that is difficult to convey in English with just one word. Perhaps the New American Standard Update better conveys the Greek meaning here because it puts this verse as:

The idea in the Greek is not that it was a one time occurrence, but that no matter what they faced, Paul and Barnabas were continually allowing themselves to be filled both with joy and with the Holy Spirit! When they had a down day and got kicked out of a city by a crowd trying to stone them, they allowed themselves to be refilled with joy and with the Holy Spirit and it gave them the courage and the stamina to keep doing what God had commanded even if the enemy was fighting them tooth and toenail.

Many of you were filled again with the Holy Spirit this past Sunday, but what about be filled again with joy!? The moving of the Holy Spirit is important but so is getting your joy back! The reason that some believers quit when they face a trial or hardship is most often not because they stopped feeling the Spirit of God operate in their life, but rather because they allowed the joy of serving God to be taken away and to be forgotten!

The Bible says that:

There is three elements to the Spirit of God moving in your life: righteousness, peace, and joy. Righteousness is doing right and living apart from sin and a repented lifestyle -- we are used to responding to that in the kingdom of God. Peace is learning to live according to the principles of God so that our relationships are better and we are able to be blessed. We get that. But what is often forgotten is the "joy." Just as important as repentance and following peace with all men, is not losing the joy of the Holy Spirit!

And so I'm asking some of you to take stock. If you have been happier in your life serving God before, then what has changed? Could it be that you simply allowed the devil to steal your joy? If so, then let's pray with David to God: "restore to me the joy of my salvation!" Like the disciples of old, we have a continual need to be filled with the Holy Spirit, but also with joy! Don't forget the joy of serving God with everything within you!