Welcome to the Monday Night Bible Study. I am glad to be here with you.
Our format is Welcome, Song, Prayer, Lesson and Closing. Comments or questions are always welcome.
Song: Give Thanks by Don Moen https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KMTmZKotTYw
Prayer: Father God here we are. We invite you to move among us during this time. To touch heal and restore us both physically and in our hearts. Forgive us Lord for seeking to meet our needs apart from you. Thank you for your faithfulness to us. We choose afresh right now to set aside all expectations and simply be with you. In Jesus name we pray. Amen
This week is Thanksgiving in the USA. I am not sure of the date in other places. But soon after Thanksgiving comes Christmas. Holidays can be difficult for many people. Perhaps, if people are in touch with their hearts, holidays has some aspects of “difficult” for all of us.
We may be missing people we love who have either died or simply can’t be with us for whatever reason. It could also be presence of “them”.
We may feel or literally be alone.
We see commercials showing these perfect Hallmark families and holidays and we have no doubt that everyone else has that sort. When in fact, probably no one does in truth.
So we set impossible standards, and I think a sort of false hope, on ourselves and others during holiday seasons.
They are supposed to be joyful. Joy filled. We are supposed to be joyful and filled with joy.
But what is true JOY? What does God teach us about JOY?
The first thought that comes to mind is the verse in Nehemiah 8:10. I know we just talked about this verse but it keeps coming up. The verse says: “Nehemiah said, ‘Go and enjoy choice food and sweet drinks, and send some to those who have nothing prepared. This day is holy to our Lord. Do not grieve, for the joy of the Lord is your strength.”
Sounds like a feast day, doesn’t it? That is because it was. It sounds a bit like Thanksgiving too, doesn’t it? Enjoying choice food and sweet drinks? That is because in a sense it was a time of Thanksgiving.
The people had been through a time of discipline and correction. This was a corporate time of repentance. They had suffered severe consequence for their continual rejection of Him and His covenant. Ezra read from God’s Word and recited His Law to the people (recorded in Nehemiah 8), and they were shattered by the vast disobedience and rebellion.
“Their exile was severe, both in its brutality and how it burned into the minds and identity of the people. Who were they without the land, without the temple? How do they relate to God now? Was their special relationship also lost,” asks Rachel Gilson in her article on desiringGod.org.
Even still, God was willing to rebuild and restore His people. Gilson writes, “The day God reaffirmed to them that they were still his chosen people, and he was still their God. That is a joy that could impart strength.” His love leveled them then as it humbles us now, to consider the New Testament sacrifice of God’s only Son for our own personal restoration through salvation.
When we do that, there is a JOY like no other, isn’t there?
Tonight remember that.
So even though they were in dire circumstances, the JOY of the LORD was to be their strength. I liked the different way another article explained it:
What Is the Joy of the Lord?
“Nehemiah said, ‘Go and enjoy choice food and sweet drinks, and send some to those who have nothing prepared. This day is holy to our Lord. Do not grieve, for the joy of the Lord is your strength” (Nehemiah 8:10).
Dodi Note: Notice that part of the joy celebration was to share with those who had nothing prepared. Could that be, for us, people on the street in need? Salvation army kettles? Donating excess clothing etc to Goodwill? Smiling or being friendly to a clerk?
The joy of the Lord is found on the road to restoration. God convicts us of sin, and often our first reaction is guilt and shame. But those feelings never come from God.
Ezra the scribe gathered all the people. He read to them from God’s book and skilled ministers explained the words and their meaning to the people. Nehemiah 8:8 says, “They read from the book, from the Law of God, clearly, and they gave the sense, so that the people understood the reading.”
Once the people understood — really understood — they wept. God's Word was opening their eyes to the way they had failed Him, but Nehemiah was quick to remind them of who the Lord is. “They could delight in the joy of the Lord because he is a forgiving God, gracious and compassionate,” explains the NIV Quest Study Bible Notes.
The original Hebrew for "joy" in Nehemiah 8:10 is "chedvah," meaning joy or gladness. The root word for joy in this context means to rejoice or to make glad.
"Strength" in the same verse is a Hebrew word meaning “a place or means of safety, protection refuge, or stronghold.” The root word of strength means “to be strong, prevail; to make firm, strengthen.”
The joy of the Lord is a constant gladness and cause to rejoice. It stems from an inner strengthening from our relationship with Him. When Jesus died for us, He restored us to a peace with God that cannot be undone. “Your joy rests on God’s joy,” Tony Reinke explains.
What Is Biblical Joy?
“But now I am coming to you, and these things I speak in the world, that they may have my joy fulfilled in themselves” (John 17:13).
The above verse is part of Jesus’ prayer to the Father (NIV Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible) and possibly Jesus’ longest prayer (NIV Study Bible Notes).
Jesus experienced the fulfilling joy that stemmed from His Father’s strength, and wanted us to be filled and overflowing with it (John 15:11).
Dodi Note: Jesus’ joy came from, arose from total obeidence to God. Remember? Hebrews 12:2 …fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith. For the joy set before him he endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.
For you and for me, Jesus chose to obey and go to the cross. With JOY…goodness. I wonder if our Joy arises as a result of obeidence? At least in part.
John 15:11 actually says: 11 I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete.
The living Word of God wastes no words. Jesus wasted no words on earth. For this to be His longest recorded prayer carries significant weight attached to the message He was delivering.
‘Fulfill’ in John 17:13 implies more than just filling to brim. Jesus’ strength perfects our joy. The VOICE paraphrase of John 17:13 reads, “Now I am returning to You. I am speaking this prayer here in the created cosmos alongside friends and foes so that in hearing it they might be consumed with joy.” Biblical joy is the result of a Christ-prioritized life.
The First 15 devotional explains that “we have a great High Priest who constantly intercedes on our behalf. The Son of God and Man loves you more deeply than you can fathom. He prays for you, that you might walk in the abundant life his death affords you.”
Let’s just pause and read Jesus prayer from John 17. I am using GNT just because it is more simple but later you can go reread it in your favorite translation.
After Jesus finished saying this, he looked up to heaven and said, “Father, the hour has come. Give glory to your Son, so that the Son may give glory to you. For you gave him authority over all people, so that he might give eternal life to all those you gave him.
Dodi Note: Notice, “the hour has come”. That is the hour of the Cross.
And eternal life means to know you, the only true God, and to know Jesus Christ, whom you sent. I have shown your glory on earth; I have finished the work you gave me to do. Father! Give me glory in your presence now, the same glory I had with you before the world was made.
“I have made you known to those you gave me out of the world. They belonged to you, and you gave them to me. They have obeyed your word, and now they know that everything you gave me comes from you.
Dodi Note: See the tiny implied if…then? “Obeyed your word”?
I gave them the message that you gave me, and they received it; they know that it is true that I came from you, and they believe that you sent me.
“I pray for them. I do not pray for the world but for those you gave me, for they belong to you.
Dodi Note: Notice, we BELONG to Him. We all have a place of absolute belonging.
All I have is yours, and all you have is mine; and my glory is shown through them. And now I am coming to you; I am no longer in the world, but they are in the world. Holy Father! Keep them safe by the power of your name, the name you gave me, so that they may be one just as you and I are one.
Dodi Note: Notice, “keep them safe”. We are safely held in and by His love.
While I was with them, I kept them safe by the power of your name, the name you gave me. I protected them, and not one of them was lost, except the man who was bound to be lost—so that the scripture might come true.
And now I am coming to you, and I say these things in the world so that they might have my joy in their hearts in all its fullness.
Dodi Note: see? Joy in all its fullness?
I gave them your message, and the world hated them, because they do not belong to the world, just as I do not belong to the world. I do not ask you to take them out of the world, but I do ask you to keep them safe from the Evil One.
Dodi Note: The world indeed hates us, but we are kept safe from the Evil One.
Just as I do not belong to the world, they do not belong to the world. Dedicate them to yourself by means of the truth; your word is truth.
I sent them into the world, just as you sent me into the world. And for their sake I dedicate myself to you, in order that they, too, may be truly dedicated to you.
Dodi Note: Sold out, dedicated to and by God. We all live in the “world”. Our worlds include family and friends but also strangers. Sometimes little random acts of kindness to a total stranger can mean the world to that one and point them to Jesus.
“I pray not only for them, but also for those who believe in me because of their message.
Dodi Note: YOU and Me…wow even back then Jesus was thinking of us.
I pray that they may all be one. Father! May they be in us, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they be one, so that the world will believe that you sent me. I gave them the same glory you gave me, so that they may be one, just as you and I are one: I in them and you in me, so that they may be completely one, in order that the world may know that you sent me and that you love them as you love me.
“Father! You have given them to me, and I want them to be with me where I am, so that they may see my glory, the glory you gave me; for you loved me before the world was made.
Righteous Father! The world does not know you, but I know you, and these know that you sent me. I made you known to them, and I will continue to do so, in order that the love you have for me may be in them, and so that I also may be in them.”
Dodi Note: Notice “contiue to do so” I think meaning the promised Holy Spirit and also the Bible.
Dodi Note: That prayer always touches my heart when I read it or hear it. Does it also bring JOY to your heart? To think that just before his death, Jesus prayed for not just his disciples but for us blows my mind.
When we consider the GIFT Jesus gave us in not just Salvation but of being in intimate relationship with Him and the price He paid for that, how can we not be thankful? How can we not decide, like the people of Nehemiah’s time did, to walk with Jesus?
He is our comfort and our hope. Being a Child of God is an interactive, relational lifestyle. It does not cause all of our problems to cease, but it does offer us someone who is “glad to be us” all the time. That is part of hope, I think.
Jesus will be WITH US in every single difficult moment. He has been and he will be.
We can pray and ask Him to show us where he was during past trauma and we can invite him to be “present” to us now and forever.
In fact let’s pause and do that.
Father God your Word tells us that you ARE Emmanuel, God with us. You are also “I AM” all we need, past-present-future.
So right now we come to you and we choose to live a life of awareness of your Living Presence with us. Help us to choose to enter your gates with thanksgiving and your courts with praise, not just on hard days, but every single day.
Lord we are inviting you to show each of us in ways our minds and hearts can recognize that you really ARE present with us and available to us.
We don’t know how you will do that, but becoming people of gratitude is the first step. So Father, would you help us to notice little simple gifts you scatter all through our days and nights?
And help us listen for, tune into those songs of love you continually sing over us. Help us hear that voice of the Holy Spirit telling us, “this is the way walk in it”. Then help us do just that. We ask in Jesus name.
There is a verse which says: Whether you turn to the right or to the left, your ears will hear a voice behind you, saying, "This is the way; walk in it." Isaiah 30:21
It follows yet again a time when the Hebrew people had turned to “self” ways for having their needs met. They had turned from God. This time to Egypt I think.
In verse 15 Isaiah, speaking for God had reminded them : For thus said the Lord GOD, the Holy One of Israel, “In returning and rest you shall be saved; in quietness and in trust shall be your strength.” But you were unwilling,.
Oh my. Aren’t we the same way? God invites us into intimate fellowship with Him. He has even given us the Holy Spirit to “guide us into all truth” (but we often forget to even consult God).
In returning TO GOD and RESTING in God’s love and provision…in Quietness and Trust…but we forget. We get distracted. Our focus gets on all the things which are hard and we neglect to focus on all the good things. I know I do this quite often before I remember. All we need to do is be like that little weaned baby Psalms speaks of.
John 16:13 When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth, for he will not speak on his own authority, but whatever he hears he will speak, and he will declare to you the things that are to come.
Psalm 131:2 But I have calmed and quieted my soul, like a weaned child with its mother; like a weaned child is my soul within me.
Remember? A weaned baby is one who has just been fed and is totally calm, relaxed and at peace in his mother’s arms. We are held secure in the arms of Jesus.
Deuteronomy 33:27
"The eternal God is a dwelling place, And underneath are the everlasting arms; And He drove out the enemy from before you, And said, 'Destroy!'
Isaiah 41:10,13 Fear not, for I am with you; be not dismayed, for I am your God; I will strengthen you, I will help you, I will uphold you with my righteous right hand. For I, the Lord your God, hold your right hand; it is I who say to you, “Fear not, I am the one who helps you.”
Isaiah 49:16 Behold, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands; your walls are continually before me.
Psalm 16:11 You make known to me the path of life; in your presence there is fullness of joy; at your right hand are pleasures forevermore.
Verse 18 says: Therefore the LORD waits to be gracious to you, and therefore he exalts himself to show mercy to you. For the LORD is a God of justice; blessed are all those who wait for him.
Then he tells us how in verse 21 And your ears shall hear a word behind you, saying, “This is the way, walk in it,” when you turn to the right or when you turn to the left.
I know I left a lot out, it is a great story which you can read in chapter 30 of Isaiah, but the bottom line for us tonight is God, who is Emmanuel, desires to lead us into a deeper awareness of his presence with us….yes on every holiday…yes during every difficult moment…but ALSO every good moment too.
We can learn to live a lifestyle of thanksgiving. And as we do so, we will be more and more aware of His loving presence with us, to us, and for us and then the JOY of the LORD will indeed become our strength.