When You've Done All You Can Do, God Is Not Done!

A substitute Sunday School teachers was upstairs struggling to open a combination lock on the supply cabinet for some supplies for her students. She had been told the combination but couldn’t remember it. She went and found her pastor to see if he could help. He went upstairs and began to turn the dial. After the first two numbers, he paused and then looked heavenward while his lips moved silently. Then he looked back to the lock, quickly turned to the final number, and opened the cabinet. The teacher was amazed and said, “Wow. I’m amazed at your faith, Pastor.” To which he responded, “It’s really nothing. The combination is on a piece of tape on the ceiling.”

Of course, the analogy is, when all else fails, look up. Christmas is a season of hope. And hope is a predominant theme in the Scriptures. Time after time, God shows up and works in miraculous, though sometimes mysterious ways.  To people whose situations seem hopeless, God moved on the scene and transforms their hopeless situation. It was in the midst of one of these hopeless situation that David declares in Psalm 42:5 “Why are you downcast, O my soul? Why so disturbed within me? Put your hope in God....”

However, out of all the hopeless situations in the Bible where God moved into a downcast, disturbing situation, none appear more hopeless that the one Ezekiel finds himself in in Ezekiel 37. In chapter 37, Ezekiel is transported by the Spirit of the Lord to the middle of a valley. God wants to show him, and us,  how to have hope in a hopeless situation. In Verse 11, the words from this valley are: “Our bones are dried up and our hope is gone…” Their spirits were shriveled up inside them. Have you ever felt that way? Do you feel that way today? While this chapter is dealing specifically with God bringing the nation of Israel out of Babylon and putting them back in the land of Israel, there are at least four things that we learn from Ezekiel's experience that we should emulate when we feel hopeless. But before we explore anything we should do, let's emphasize the main point of Scripture...When you’ve done all you can do, God is not done! That is why we can "put our hope in God...."

Joy To The Word...And You Too!

This week I have been talking about the gift of joy. I began the week talking about the difference between happiness and joy. Happiness depends on what happens to us. Joy is a Divine dimension of living that is not influenced to by our circumstances but by the Spirit of God within us.

Happiness is a reaction to events. Rejoicing is a choice. Actually, it’s more than a choice, it is a command repeated twice in Philippians 4:4: “Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice!”

Let me share a few choices we can make to help us rejoice. First of all, recognize God as joyful. Our joy will increase if we view God as a Creator with a smile on His face rather than a taskmaster. Listen to how God feels about you according to Zephaniah 3:17: “The LORD your God is with you, he is mighty to save. He will take great delight in you, he will quiet you with his love, he will rejoice over you with singing.” God delights in you and breaks out into song when He thinks about you! That’s hard to believe, isn’t it? I love how the Living Bible paraphrases this verse: “Is that a joyous choir I hear? No, it is the Lord himself exulting over you in happy song.” 


Another choice you can make is to become actively involved in sharing your faith.  Philemon 6 says: “I pray that you may be active in sharing your faith, so that you will have a full understanding of every good thing we have in Christ.”  Luke 15 reminds us that heavenly rejoicing takes place when people who are spiritually lost discover Christ. When the lost sheep is recovered, verse 5 says that the owner “joyfully puts it on his shoulders” and then goes home and calls his friends and neighbors together and declares in verse 6, “Rejoice with me; I have found my lost sheep. I tell you in the same way there will be more rejoicing in heaven over one sinner who repents…” Jesus reminds us in John 4:36 that we can be filled with delight when we participate in the process of evangelism: “Even now the reaper draws his wages, even now he harvests for eternal life, so that the sower and the reaper may be glad together.” 


So as we wrap up our look at the gift of joy this week, let me just remind you of the words the angels proclaimed to the shepherds in Luke 2:10:" I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people." This is a message of great joy for the entire world. But the angel also adds in verse 11: "Today...a Savior has been born to YOU...." This is also a personal message. Corrie Ten Boom once said, "If Jesus were born one thousand times in Bethlehem and not in me, then I would still be lost." While it is the season we proclaim joy to the world, it is also a season that we ultimately need to be reminded that a Savior is born to YOU!

Glad Tidings of Great Joy

Luke 2:10 says that the angels told the frightened shepherds, “Do not be afraid. I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people". This was news “of great joy.” The word great here is the word megas in the original language. It has the idea of mega joy or super-sized cheerfulness. This good news is exceedingly exciting because God is bringing about the solution to the sin problem. They went from total terror to mega joy.

In Galatians 4:15, Paul asked a very penetrating question: “What has happened to all your joy…” That question needs to be asked many churches today. Do we as a people of God demonstrate super-sized joy? What has happened to all our joy? Perhaps the great evangelist from the last century, Billy Sunday, helps us answer that question. He once said, “The trouble with many men is that they have got just enough religion to make them miserable. If there is not joy in religion, you’ve got a leak in your religion.” A pastor once said to Groucho Marx: “Mr. Marx, I want to thank you for bringing so much joy into the world.” To which Groucho replied, “I want to thank you for taking so much out.”

We tend to equate “happiness” with joy but they are two totally different ideas because they each spring from a different source. Happiness comes from external sources and events. Joy originates directly from the Holy Spirit. Happiness is dependent upon what is happening to me. If people treat me nicely, if things are going well in my life, then I’m happy. If my circumstances aren’t favorable, then I’m unhappy.

Joy, on the other hand, is a divine dimension of living that is not influenced by circumstances. The Hebrew word means, “To leap or spin around with pleasure.” In the New Testament the word refers to “gladness, bliss, and celebration.” 


The message of Christmas is one of gladness, a season of bliss, and a source of celebration. Could it be possible to have more leaping and spinning with pleasure in our services?

Fear Not!

“And there were shepherds living out in the fields nearby, keeping watch over their flocks at night. An angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified. But the angel said to them, ‘Do not be afraid. I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is Christ the Lord.” (Luke 2:8-11). 


The darkness of the Jewish hillside was reflective of the darkness that fills our world today. Spiritual darkness and spiritual deafness had covered the earth for centuries. But the long night was about to end. The glory of the Lord was about the light up the sky.

As the angel of the Lord appears, the glory of the Lord fills the darkness with a blinding light. And according to verse 9, the shepherds were terrified! In the original language of the New Testament, the word terrified literally means alarmed or agitated. Any one who has ever been frightened can identify with those terms. And the thing about being terrified? It is impossible to experience joy while you are terrified.

So the angel tells the shepherds, "Do not be afraid". For the shepherds to experience "good tidings of great joy", they first had to have their fears calmed.

The same is true for us today. If we are going to experience the joy of the Christmas story, we must cast our cares and fears on Him. Someone has said that the words "fear not" appear 365 times in the Bible, one for each day of the year. The message of Christmas is we do not have to be afraid, we can experience good tidings of great joy!

The Gift of Joy

This past week, I ran across two letters written by children to Santa. The first said, “Dear Santa, there are three little boys who live at our house. There is Jeffrey; he is two. There is David; he is four. And there is Norman; he is seven. Jeffrey is good some of the time. David is good some of the time. But Norman is good all of the time. I am Norman.”


The second one read, “Dear Santa, you did not bring me anything good last year. You did not bring me anything good the year before that. This is your last chance. Signed, Alfred.”


Patience is not an easy virtue when we are expecting something really exciting, is it? At Christmas, most of us are longing for something that we feel we don't have. And most of would secretly say, "If I only had...I would be happy." We are in search of the elusive quality of joy. Far to many of us have misplaced the merry in our Christmas.

Our focus this week is the gift of joy. In Isaiah 61:1-3, Isaiah looks prophetically to a time when glad tidings of great joy will be shared with the sad, broken-hearted, and discouraged. “The Spirit of the Sovereign LORD is on me, because the LORD has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted,  to proclaim freedom for the captives and release from darkness for the prisoners, to proclaim the year of the LORD’s favor and the day of vengeance of our God, to comfort all who mourn, and provide for those who grieve in Zion -- to bestow on them a crown of beauty instead of ashes, the oil of gladness instead of mourning, and a garment of praise instead of a spirit of despair….”


This is a prophetic promise of joy. The year of the Lord was the celebration of jubilee. The garment of praise will replace the spirit of despair, the oil of gladness with replace mourning. The Israelites are about to be overcome, led into captivity, and spend years in oppression by the invading armies of Babylon. Yet God gives them a powerful promise of something good to come. It reminds me of a story about a woman who, at the last moment, frantically bought a box of 50 identical Christmas cards so she could get them in the mail on time. She hastily opened each card and signed her name without bothering to read what was printed inside. Several days after they had been mailed, she came across one leftover card and discovered to her dismay that the inside had these words: “This card is just to say, a special gift is on the way.”


This passage from Isaiah is fulfilled in the Christmas story. Jesus Himself says that this passage refers to Him (Luke 4:18). Isaiah prophecy was a Christmas card to all people, to us that a special gift is on the way...the oil of gladness, the garment of praise, comfort for those who mourn.

The Impact of Sin on the Absence of Peace

As we continue our study about the gift of peace, we come to a really ironic twist in Isaiah's discussion of Christmas peace. Isaiah 11:3, 4 says, “and he will delight in the fear of the LORD. He will not judge by what he sees with his eyes, or decide by what he hears with his ears; but with righteousness he will judge the needy, with justice he will give decisions for the poor of the earth. He will strike the earth with the rod of his mouth; with the breath of his lips he will slay the wicked.”

The irony is that before we get to the predator and prey lying down together, we actually see a little bit of violence. Verse 4 says, “He will strike the earth with the rod of his mouth; with the breath of his lips he will slay the wicked.” Before peace prevails, there is some pretty strong actions against sin. Because the truth is, peace can only prevail with the eradication of sin.

It reminds me of the words of Paul in Colossians 3. "Since, then, you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things. For you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God. When Christ, who is your life, appears, then you also will appear with him in glory. Put to death, therefore, whatever belongs to your earthly nature: sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires and greed, which is idolatry. Because of these, the wrath of God is coming.  You used to walk in these ways, in the life you once lived. But now you must rid yourselves of all such things as these: anger, rage, malice, slander, and filthy language from your lips. Do not lie to each other, since you have taken off your old self with its practices and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge in the image of its Creator."


Because we identify ourselves with Christ, we should "put to death" whatever belongs to our earthly nature. Is this a test of our salvation or acceptance with Christ? No. However, we can never experience the full peace of God until sin is eradicated in our lives. Paul challenges us to "rid yourselves of all such things...." Again, this is not the means to acceptance with Christ. So how do we rid ourselves of these things. The next verses provide the answer: "Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. Bear with each other and forgive whatever grievances you may have against one another. Forgive as the Lord forgave you. And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity.  Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts...." (verses 12-15). We rid ourselves of the former characteristics, by putting on the latter qualities.


The removal of the earthly nature and the putting on of the godly nature results in what? "The peace of Christ" ruling your hearts! There is a direct correlation between our willingness to put to death whatever belongs to our earthly nature and the peace of God in our lives.

Celebrating The Character of Christ

Isaiah 11:1-2, reads: “A shoot will come up from the stump of Jesse; from his roots a Branch will bear fruit.” The Spirit of the LORD will rest on him—the Spirit of wisdom and of understanding, the Spirit of counsel and of might, the Spirit of the knowledge and fear of the LORD—"

Isaiah give us tremendous insight into the secret of peace in spite of our circumstances or the affairs of our lives. In these two verses, Isaiah gives us several characteristics of the coming "shoot...from the stump of Jesse". Obviously, the prophecy begins with a prophetic promise of the coming Messiah. And he gives a really interesting description of the coming Messiah.

The Holy Spirt's role in the Christmas story is the anointing that He brings to the Messiah. According to Isaiah, the Spirit will anoint the Messiah with the Spirit of wisdom and understanding, the Spirit of counsel and might, and the Spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord. What is he saying?

I believe that when we understand the attributes and character of Jesus, we begin to think  differently, which in turn, causes us to live differently. When we reflect and meditate on the character of Christ, our thought processes are transformed. And when we begin to think differently, our own character and behavior changes as well.

For most of us, when we experience difficult or trying circumstances, our thoughts focuses on the difficulties, the pain, and the struggles. We wonder why we are experiencing the event or maybe if the unfairness of the experiences.

But when we trust the wisdom and understanding of the Messiah, we are confident that His wisdom is greater that ours and He knows what He is doing. When we trust that He is able to counsel us during those events, we can also trust that He has the might to accomplish good, even in the midst of our pain (Romans 8:28).


So the first secret that Isaiah shares with us concerning our experiencing peace in spite of our difficulties is to focus on, elevate, and celebrate the character of Christ.

The Gift of Peace

As we begin our new series on Christmas Gifts, we started by looking at The Gift of Peace. In the book of Isaiah, we discover that Holy Spirit moves into the Christmas story with a sense of peace. Isaiah 11:6-9 refers to the predator lying down with the prey. "The wolf will live with the lamb, the leopard will lie down with the goat, the calf and the lion and the yearling together; and a little child will lead them. The cow will feed with the bear, their young will lie down together, and the lion will eat straw like the ox. The infant will play near the hole of the cobra, and the young child put his hand into the viper’s nest. It is a picture of supernatural, Divine peace.

It is important to remember that Isaiah did not live in a peaceful time. He was preparing the people for the invasion of the Babylonians which would eventually lead to the exile of the Hebrews. Yet, peace is a major theme in Isaiah, and specifically in the Christmas prophecies. The word peace that Isaiah uses means more than just our English word peace. It carries the idea of the coming of wholeness and fullness. The prophecies of the coming Messiah is one that will bring wholeness and fullness to mankind. And as I said earlier, it is theme that is closely related to Christmas.

 In Isaiah 9, we are told that one of His names will be the Prince of Peace. In Isaiah 2:5, we find Micah (a contemporary of Isaiah) prophesying that the Christ child will be born in the town of Bethlehem. And he goes on to say that He will be the source of peace. We flip over to Luke and read about Zachariah's prophesying about his son John the Baptist, how his son John will point to Christ, and how their ministry together will lead to a path of peace. Then Luke 2 describes the angels coming to the shepherds, and proclaiming "Peace on earth, goodwill to men." 

However, the Christmas story is actually anything but peaceful. Angels show up and scare the shepherds to death. A teenage girl is told she is going to be the mother of God and conceive a child even though she is a virgin. Mary and Joseph live with the stigma of raising a child born out of wedlock. They are living under a period of Roman occupation and brutality. The king is a paranoid egomaniac, who has all the boys in Bethlehem under the age of two killed to prevent this newborn king from living. Nothing about this story is peaceful.

And for many of us, the Christmas season is not peaceful. We go home are places of conflict. Our shopping centers make the news daily of brutality and attacks during the holiday shopping. Conflicts and war continue to ravage our planet. Hunger and poverty continually plague many of the children of our planet. Peaceful? Hardly.

So how do we have peace when the events and circumstances of our lives do not lend themselves to peace? How do we experience peace when the lamb is being stalked by the lion? Mark Batterson says it this way, "Peace has less to do with the state of affairs we live in than the state of being we rest in."  The events and circumstances of our lives (our state of affairs) might be filled with chaos and conflict, tension, and strife; however, our spirits (our state of being) can be at rest. Peace is not so much about the state of affairs that we live in, but the state of being that we rest in.

This week, we are going to look at two really important concepts that will enable us to experience the supernatural peace of God in spite of our circumstances. The first is the character of God? Secondly, we are going to look at some practical things we can do to experience peace in spite of our circumstances. I hope you will read all these post. In a world filled with stress, anxiety, and pain...God promises us a supernatural peace that passes all understanding (Philippians 4:7).