I never took George Burns to be an especially religious man.  I was surprised, then, to hear this bit of religious wisdom from none other than George Burns, who said, “The secret of a good sermon is to have a good beginning and a good ending; and to have the two as close together as possible.”  That said, I guess I should just sit down now, but I suppose you know me better than that.

We’re here, Sunday after Sunday, through seasons and years, hoping eventually to hear those priceless words: “Well done, good and trustworthy servant [. . .] enter into the joy of your master” (Mt 25:21).  The joy of God.  God did not create in anger.  God did not save in anger.  John tells us God is love, and true love is joy, as Paul beautifully paints it in what he tells the Corinthians.  Yes, the Bible speaks of wrath and judgment: those are two ways of talking about the same thing.  As Scripture records it, God’s wrath and judgment seem to fall on His own people every so often.  I hope that doesn’t disturb you.  Discipline is part of love, too.  Love urges us to reach for the best.  Love desires the best for the beloved.  Love refuses to let the beloved destroy himself, ruin herself.  Love seeks the joy of the beloved, true joy, full joy: no false substitutes for godly joy.

God gives us the way of joy; He spells it out for us in this book.  If you were here last Sunday, you might recall me saying something about the importance of reading this book.  You can come to church year after year, Sunday upon Sunday, and never crack open this book.  That would be like having a little bite to eat once a week.  No one can survive eating once a week.  No one can thrive and grow eating once a week.  No one can know godly joy, that way.  The path of life is described and mapped out for us in these pages.  The psalms sing it this way: “You show me the path of life.  In your presence there is fullness of joy; in your right hand are pleasures forevermore” (Ps 16:11).  When we open this book, read it, pray over it, try to understand and to shape our lives into the form we discover here, we find ourselves in the presence of God, in whose presence is “fullness of joy.”

We love to pursue pleasure.  The world encourages it.  We want to have fun, relax, enjoy.  The godly way to do that is to rest in God’s Word.  We also know all about the worldly way to pursue pleasure.  We’re a little guilty about the cost of that.  Beloved, the best way to spend yourself is in the service of God.  Find your joy in God, and lasting, durable joy shall never be far from you.

The world has a version of joy.  It’s shallow.  It’s not strong or resilient.  It lasts as long as the money lasts, as the prodigal son found out, too late.  The money always runs out.  The debts remain.  Money isn’t everything.  Let’s put it more specifically: money isn’t strength, isn’t love, isn’t joy.  You do not need money to have those.  Strength, love, and joy are in God and from God.  In 1 Chronicles, we read: “Honor and majesty are before him; strength and joy are in his place” (1 Chr 16:27).  There’s the clue.  Strength and joy.  Not strength or joy, as if it must be one or the other.  We often pray for strength as a substitute for joy: oh Lord, my joy is gone, give me strength!  We sense that there is a true strength in true joy.  Strength and joy.  Joy and strength.  Joy that makes strong.  Strong joy.  That’s the love of God.  Strong joy.  That’s God’s Word and the love of God’s Word.

Sometimes that Word chastises us, judges us.  The judgment is not meant for our destruction but for upbuilding.  If God’s Word judges us, it is to bless us.  If God did not love us, He would not bother to correct us or call us to a better way, the true way, the way to true life.  He would not have given His law or sent the prophets.  He certainly would not have come to us in Jesus.  He certainly would not have gone to the cross, to die for us, to kill our sin there, so that, in the risen Christ, He could raise us, too.

If God loves us, it is with God’s love: strong, joyful love, the sort of love He means to give us, to put in us, to fill us so full of that it begins to pour out of us—strong, joyful love pouring out of our hearts, out of our mouths, our hands, pouring into the lives of those around us.

This is the point of those words the Levites spoke that day, when Ezra read God’s Word to the assembled people.  They wept because they heard God’s Word and knew that they had failed to keep it, failed to do it.  They had been pursuing earthly pleasures, making God an afterthought, worshiping Him in whatever way seemed good to them, when they thought about it.  Ezra read the Word to them not to condemn but to bless.  We cannot go the right way if we are not told the way, shown the way.  We will not go the right way if we believe we are already on it, if we prefer the way we are on, thank you very much.  It takes the Word, proclamation of the Word, and conviction in the heart and mind of the one hearing.  That’s the Spirit, beloved, and the Spirit of God is the Spirit of God’s love, and God’s love is strong, and joyful.

Remember, then, that “[t]his day is holy to the Lord your God; do not mourn or weep” (8:9).  “Go your way, eat the fat and drink sweet wine and send portions of them to those for whom nothing is prepared, for this day is holy to our Lord; and do not be grieved, for the joy of the Lord is your strength” (8:10).  The joy of the Lord is your strength.  Your strength is the joy of the Lord, and the Lord is joyful, a joyful God because a loving God.  The love of God is your strength.  Out there, we hear and see too often that if love isn’t making us miserable, it just isn’t love.  We have a whole entertainment industry that operates upon that premise.

Paul prays this blessing upon the faithful in Rome: “May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that you may abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit” (Rom 15:13).  Another clue.  Hope.  Joy springs from hope.  Strong joy springs from strong hope.  And at the heart of hope is love.  Joy brings peace.  Do you search for peace in your life?  Does it seem so far?  Rest in your faith.  Contemplate God’s promises and you will rediscover hope, you will rediscover joy and find peace.

The people who had been weeping and distraught, reflecting upon their failure to keep or do God’s Word, went away happy.  They feasted and remembered those who lacked and sent gifts and made “great rejoicing, because they had understood the words that were declared to them” (8:12).  They had understood.  God was telling them His plan to bring them into His joy.  They had forgotten.  They had gone after things that could not help them.  God spoke; God acted.  Now, He is drawing you into joys beyond your imagination, beyond anything this world can offer.  Have faith, dwell in hope, and you will know peace.

Here, we gather to listen together to what God is saying.  Our response is worship.  Evangelist, theologian, and pastor J. I. Packer wrote, “We need to discover all over again that worship is natural to the Christian, as it was to the godly Israelites who wrote the psalms, and that the habit of celebrating the greatness and graciousness of God yields an endless flow of thankfulness, joy, and zeal.”  Worship itself—our response to the Word, to whatever God may have to say to us on one Sunday or another—worship itself yields joy.  We won’t always be clapping our hands—we almost never clap our hands: we’re Presbyterians, for heaven’s sake!  We can always be worshiping, lifting up our hearts: worship is the way to joy; God’s Word is the way to joy, hearing and doing the Word.

John Calvin, with whom we do not typically associate joy, says, “Joy and thanksgiving expressed in prayer and praise according to the Word of God are the heart of the Church's worship.”  In the Word, praying, praising, thanking, rejoicing.  Joy is never far from us.  Love is never far from us.  Peace is never far from us.  God is near, and never so near as when we worship, beloved.  Come, let us worship.

To the God of all grace, who calls you to share God’s eternal joy in union with Christ, be the power and the glory forever!