The Anatomy of the Church: The Internal Systems, Part 2

Selected Scriptures

     This morning it's on my heart to continue to share from my heart with you...Several weeks ago, I felt the need to just talk about things that I believe are important for our church; and I confess to you that...this is something which the Spirit of God has impressed upon my mind, not so much as a sermon, but as a passion; and as I said when we began, I...I'm not always certain how I'm gonna say it.  How it's gonna come out.  How the Spirit of God may direct my thinking to frame it, but I really believe it's needful that we talk about the essential ingredients, the essential elements in a church that honors the Lord Jesus Christ.

     God has blessed this church.  There are reasons why He has.  His sovereignty is one reason, but another is because Grace Community Church has been committed, I believe, through the years of its existence, to the right things; and, by that, I mean to the things of the Word of God...and we're taking a few weeks to just reaffirm those things; so for those of us who may have forgotten or for those of us who are new, we can kind of reestablish where we have found our strength and our blessing.

     And I've entitled this brief series "The Anatomy of a Church."  "The Anatomy of a Church."  We've borrowed the Biblical analogy of a body; and we've said that, basically, we could reduce the body to four elements.  This is not clinical.  This is just for the sake of analogy.  A body is skeleton, internal systems, muscles, and flesh; and so is a church that is the body of Christ.  There must be the skeleton, and we talked about that in our first study together, and we said that there are some things that frame and form the church without which it would be a shapeless blob...There are some bottom line things, some non-negotiable, some irreducible minimums, some foundations, some framework things, some form and substance realities that must be at the very center of our life as a church; and I suggested five of them.

     First is a high view of God.  A church, to be what God wants it to be, must have as its focus God Himself; and there are a lot of other possible foci, if you will; but there's only one proper focus, and that's on God.  In other words, as we focus on God, everything finds its proper place.  There can be no compromise when God is all in all, and all we do is for His consummate glory...

     Now that is essentially the meaning of whatever you do, whether you eat or drink, do it all to the glory of God.  That's the focus of everything; and then we suggested, secondly, the absolute priority of Scripture; because we cannot focus on God unless we know who He is; and we do not know who He is unless we understand His revelation, which is the Word of God.  So we begin with a high view of God, and we affirm the absolute priority of Scripture, which reveals God. 

     Thirdly, we are committed to doctrinal clarity.  Looking at God through His Word, drawing truth out of His Word.  And then, fourthly, to personal holiness, applying that truth to life; and then fifthly, spiritual authority, holding people accountable for the living out of that truth.  Now, these are framework things:  high view of God, which means we are absolutely committed to the revelation which He's given of Himself, which means that we must clarify that and give it to folks in a practical, understandable way, so that they can apply it in the matter of personal holiness and then bring that all under spiritual authority.

     Those are framework truths.  Therefore, they must be preached.  They must be taught.  They must be modeled and patterned; and they are continually needing to be reaffirmed; and that's why we go back to those things.  You know, when we meet on the Lord's Day, and when we have classes and Bible studies and fellowship groups and so forth, one of the very essential features of that is a continual reaffirmation of our basic values.

     We meet together to reaffirm the things to which we are committed; and when we come together on the Lord's Day, what do we do?  Well, first of all, we worship in song and prayer and in the Scripture that offers praise to God; and that's why I always read the Psalms, or most always.  And then the choir sings great truths about our glorious God; and the instruments play to His praise, as it says in Psalm 150; and all of that is to cultivate in our hearts and reaffirm a high view of a holy God.  And then behind that comes the Word of God, because we prioritize the Word, and so we teach the Scripture; and as we teach the Scripture, we draw out of it truth or doctrinal clarity; and then in the message as it comes to a conclusion, we apply that to the heart where personal holiness can be the response; and, as you go from this place, we hope that you take that fourth step, personal holiness, with you and you go out to live it; and then we come behind that with shepherding, which is the spiritual authority that gives oversight to the flock.  So what we do is not just grab bag.  It is to step into consistent line with these irreducible realities...that we've affirmed. 

     Now, secondly, and in our last message, we began to look at these; and we will for several messages, because there are several of them that I want to emphasis.  We talked about internal systems.  A body has to have internal systems.  You can't just have a skeleton and muscles, flesh.  You wouldn't have life.  There has to be a flowing through of all the systems of the body, and I believe that's true in the church.  You can't just affirm solid doctrinal foundations.  There has to be a life flow...and I believe that life flow is proper attitudes...proper attitudes.  It's a battle for the mind, folks.  It really is.  It's a battle for the mind, because as a man what?  Thinks in his heart...so is he.  It's a battle for the mind.

     And so what we are trying to do in the ministry is to get you to have proper spiritual attitudes, to cultivate in you right kind of thinking, that you may be, to put in Pauline terms, renewed in the spirit of your mind, that you may, as Paul said to the Philippians, "Think on these things."  That you may have a renewed mind.  That you may put on the mind of Christ.  That you may be spiritually-minded.  All those are Biblical phrases.  In other words, we want get you thinking right.

     To be honest with you, it isn't a question of...of trying to control your behavior.  It's a question of trying to get a handle on your thinking, which will produce right behavior.  You may be forced to do right things with wrong thoughts and motives and reasons and attitudes; and all your right things are nothing more than hypocrisy.  That's all.  Just hypocrisy.

     And so we don't major on forcing you to conform outwardly, but on the endeavor to create within your thinking, right spiritual attitudes; and when you think right, you act right...So we're not just interested in programs.  We're not just interested in activities.  We're not just interested in conformity to some kind of external code, but rather in cultivating internal attitudes that honor God.  So the flowing through in the body of the systems is what it ought to be, and the body is whole and healthy and productive and dynamic and rightly representative of its head, the Lord Jesus Christ.

     Now, lemme just review what we said in our last study together.  The first and foremost attitude that needs to be cultivated is the attitude of obedience...of obedience.  That is the sine quo non of all attitudes.  It is the all pervasive attitude.  It is the attitude that says, "I will obey God at any cost."  It is the attitude of no compromise.  It is the attitude that says, "If God says it, that settles it.  I'll do it."  It is the attitude that doesn't negotiate with God, that doesn't justify sin; but it seeks always and only to do the will of the Lord.  It is better than sacrifice.  That is, it is better than any external act of worship.  It is internal obedience; and all right spiritual attitudes start there.  If you're not willing to obey God to start with, there's nothing going to come beyond that but difficulty, trial, negative circumstance. 

     The second attitude we talked about was humility.  Humility.  Obedience and humility; and that basically is the attitude that thinks other people are more important than I am.  You're more important than I am.  Your needs are more important than my needs.  Your wants are more important than my wants.  Your happiness is more important than my happiness.  Your joy is more important than my joy.  Your place is more important than my place.  Your reputation is more important than mine.  All of those things.  It's the selflessness of the Lord Jesus Christ who humbled Himself, Philippians chapter 2.  That is an essential attitude, because pride is such a devastating thing.

     Thirdly, we talked about the attitude of love, and love is humility in action.  Love is simply humility doing things.  Humility and love are inseparable, you see, because only humble people can love.  I can't give myself to you unless I care more about you than I do me.  I can't abandon myself to your needs unless I really am humble, and so humility gives a launching pad for love.  If humility is selflessness, then love is selfless service.  Selfless giving...

     And then, fourthly, we talked about unity.  When you have people committed to obedience, and you have people committed to love, because they have hearts that are humble, you will see the result, which will be unity.  Humility leads to love, and love leads to unity; because where people are all giving themselves away to others, there's marvelous unity.  You meet my needs.  I'll meet your needs, and it goes on and on; and that kind of interchange is what builds the true one heart, one mind, one soul unity of which the Bible speaks.  But it springs out of humility.  That's such a critical matter.

     So we talked about those first elements, and I wanna read you a letter that someone sent in response to those first ones, and I think it's just very heartwarming and...and encouraging to all of us.  Listen to it.  "Your last two sermons on 'The Anatomy of a Church' have been convicting.  I am praying that God will use this series to do a great work in the hearts of the flock at Grace.  This morning you spoke about humility.  I would like to share with you how the Lord is working in my life regarding this issue.

     "In the early summer, I read a book by Andrew Murray on humility; and I began to pray that God would teach me to be humble.  Well, you know what happens when we pray according to His will.  A few weeks ago, He gave me the opportunity to exercise all the Scripture knowledge that I had been learning here at Grace.  I volunteered to go with four others from Grace to the trash dumps in Mexico to minister to the people who live there.  It was an experience I will never forget.  Aside from the poor living conditions, the filth was enough to make you sick.  My job, once we got there, was to wash the heads of the children, which had lice...This was something I had never done before.  Can you imagine 25 children in a line before you, all with various degrees of lice?  Not to mention, we had no running water, just tubs of water that were used over and over and over for all the children. 

     "We stood outside in the sun, and it was over 100 degrees.  As I stood there washing head after head, my thoughts went from disgust to joy.  One little boy had lice so bad that he had sores on his head.  Well, I must admit that, at first, I wasn't too wild about touching those sores.  However, I started to think about how Jesus had washed the disciples' feet; and I was humbled right then before God, realizing that this child's need was much greater than my comfort. 

     "I learned some great lessons that day about sacrifice and considering others more important than myself, and I pray that God'll continue to work in my life to teach me the things that will bring Him glory."

     Well, that's a wonderful letter; and that's the expression of a humble heart.  That's the expression of a loving heart.  It makes sacrifices to meet the needs of others.  Those are attitudes for which there is no substitute; and if there's to be life flowing through the church, there must be obedience, humility, love, sense of unity. 

     Now, lemme go on to talk about a few more of these attitudes.  Let's call the fifth one willingness to serve.  Willingness to serve, because it flows right out of what we've just said about love and humility and so forth and really is another way to say the same thing.  Willingness to serve.  Someone said to me the other day, "You know, we don't go to your church anymore.  We've gone to a small church where they need us."  People say that to me often, and I don't quite...that's okay.  Maybe the Spirit of God led them.  God bless 'em.  They're dear people, and I...I...I'm sure the Lord led them there.

     But it isn't that we don't need you...I mean look at all of these people.  You think they don't have needs?  It isn't that the more people you have, the less need you have...What people seem to mean is that...they got programs over there, and they don't have anybody to run 'em; and they need folks to help 'em with the program; and that might be right.  But ministry is not necessarily related to church-designed programs.  You got that one?  It isn't.  

     I mean you could come here and say, "Well, we go to the church; but we don't do, I mean we don't do anything.  We don't sing in the choir or teach a class or sweep the floor or do whatever.  We...we...we don't do anything.  We...we go there, and we just don't know whether there's a need."  Take a look around you...all kinds of people with need all over the place.  It's all depending...it all depends on your perspective, see...

     Go to 1 Corinthians for a minute, chapter 4, and I wanna show some Scriptures with ya...to you...and then make a conclusion; 1 Corinthians 4...and Paul says this..."Let a man so account of us..."  In other words, when it comes to rendering a judgment about me and the ones with me, when it comes to saying, "Well, who was this guy?"  When it comes to writing my epitaph, if you will, when it comes to saying my eulogy, when it comes to reciting what contribution I made, when it comes to my time to be praised, would you please say this?  "He was a servant of Christ."  I like that.  I can think of at least a half a dozen words in the Greek language for servant, of which he uses the... the lowest one.  The word hoopairaytase, hoopair means under.  Raytase from the word to row.  And under rower.  They had great hulking wooden ships.  They had in the hull of those ships three tiers.  They were called triremes, three tiers of slaves chained to their oars, and they pulled those hulking masses through the seas.  The guys on the bottom were the under rowers. 

     Paul says, "Look, when it comes time to evaluate the Apostle Paul, don't name cathedrals after him.  Don't even name a city in Minnesota after me...he says...Don't name school after me.  Don't give me an honorary doctorate.  Just say, 'He was a third-level galley slave; and bless his heart, he pulled his oar.'"...Servant.  Lotta...lotta people wanna be a hotshot.  God wants people who pull the oar. 

     In verse 2, he says, "The key to this whole thing is that a man be found...what?...faithful."  Faithful.  You don't want a clever rower who's got a new way to do it and, meanwhile, shears off everybody else's oars in the process...You want a faithful rower.  That's it.  Who sees himself as a servant.  In verse 3, he says, "With me it's a very small thing that I should be judged by you, or man's judgment."  What are you saying?  "I'm not in this deal for your opinion.  I'm not doing this to get accolades.  I'm not serving the Lord Jesus Christ to be judged by you.  I can't accept your judgment," and I understand what he's saying.  I really do.  You see, people don't always know what's going on inside.  They may praise you, and you may have corrupt motives.  They may curse you, and you may have the purest motives in the world, and you're struggling to get through your own humanness.

     I mean you don't really...sometimes you preach your heart out...and you know it was terrible.  You missed it.  You blew it.  And I've had those times and gone away with tears, because I just...I didn't do what I thought should honor God; and you go away, and some dear soul will say, "Marvelous, the greatest sermon you've ever preached."...And you smile and shake their hand and say, "Thank you."  And you know, they don't know.

     And other times, man, you've just been flying like an eagle; and you go down, and someone says, "You're not feeling well today, are you?"...And you say, "Whaaaat?  Man, I never pr...I never felt better."  "No, you didn't seem like yourself.  Kinda fumbled around."...Then people criticize you and evaluate you, praise you, blame you, bless you, curse you.  Paul says, "I...I'm not getting into that game.  I just wanna pull my oar.  That's all, and I'm really not interested in what people say."  He says, "They don't know the facts."  And I like this at the end of verse 3.  "And I'm not even judging my own self.  You know that?  I can't even trust my own judgment.  I'm so biased in my own favor."...

     He says in verse 4, "Even when I don't know anything against myself, that doesn't justify me.  I may not be uncovering all the rocks in my life.  I may think I'm doing good.  That doesn't justify me.  He that judges me is...what?...the Lord.  The Lord, and so I'm gonna judge nothing before that day when He comes and manifests the attitudes of the heart, the motives of the heart... and when He sees there a servant's heart...that's what I want."

     So he's called us to be third-level galley slaves, pull our oar, be faithful, not try to make a reputation.  Not even evaluate our own selves favorably.  Just pull our oar and let the Lord judge.  That's why in Acts 20, he says, "Serving the Lord with all humility of mind."  We're right back to that humility.  You...these things are inextricably woven together.  In fact, you could just about take any one of these attitudes; and if you cultivated that one attitude in your life, the spin off would be every one of these other attitudes would have to occur.  You couldn't have love without humility.  You couldn't have humility without love.  You couldn't have true unity in the fellowship without love and humility.  You can't truly serve with a servant's heart without love, and you can't be a servant with a servant's heart without humility.  It...it's all interwoven.  It's as if the Lord is coming at the same issue from all different angles; and if He could just get us to grab onto one, lock into it, and concentrate of that, everything else would take its...find its proper place.

     You say, "Well, what do you mean by a willingness to serve?"  I...I simply mean this.  I'm not talking about church program.  Go with to Romans chapter 12 for a moment.  We talked about motive.  Now let's talk about function.  In Romans chapter 12... verse 4, we pick up this body analogy again, and it says, "As we have many members in one body and all members have not the same function, so we, being many, are one body in Christ, and every one members one of another.  Having then gifts differing according to the grace that is given to us."  You can stop there.

     So we have this body, right; and the body has all different members, like a human body; and the church is the same way; and every one of us has different gifts.  And then he...he demands of us, "If you have gifts of prophesying, then prophesy; of ministry, then let us minister; teaching, then teach; exhorting, then exhort; giving, then give; ruling, do with diligence; showing mercy, do it with cheerfulness."  In other words, he says, "Get on with it, man.  You don't need a program."  If you're a believer, you have a God-given ability to minister, and it needs to flow out of your life. 

     It may be within a structure.  Bless God, that's a wonderful way.  It may be very, very personally; but a believer who's not ministering is a contradiction in terms, because believer is one indwelt by the Spirit of God, empowered by the Spirit of God, for service; and not to serve is to somewhere create a bottleneck.  And to come to a church and say, "Well, I...I came there, but they got all these people, and I don't really know where I could serve."  Listen, man, if you're spill...filled with the Spirit of God, He wants to cultivate through you a ministry that is absolutely essential. 

     Now, it says here the word prophesy, and then it talks about ministry.  Those are very broad terms.  Teaching, very broad.  Exhorting, giving, ruling, showing mercy.  Very broad.  Those are really not just narrow, little, tiny, isolated things; but those are categories.  Within the category of giving, there's all kinds of ways to give.  Within the category of showing mercy, multitude of ways to show mercy.  In the category of preaching and teaching, myriad ways to preach and teach and styles and so forth and so on.  The point is this:  these are categories of giftedness; and in your life and mine, the Lord has blended from those various categories a perfect blend and given us a gift that is ours alone, that is the perfect blending together of those categories of giftedness.  There are others listed in 1 Corinthians 12 also.  So I see them as categories; and out of them, the Lord picks a dimension and mixes it with another and another and another.  I look at my own life, and I says, "Obviously, God has called me to preach and to teach and to lead and to exhort and to demonstrate the gift of knowledge, perhaps."

     So He's picked this and that and this, and He blends it so that every one of us becomes a spiritual snowflake - no two alike; and if you don't function, if you don't serve in whatever simple way you can...it's not the attitude that God would have.  And we...it's so easy to generate a spectator sort of thing...

     That's not it.  This church has never been content with it.  I remember years ago when Moody Monthly came out and wanted to do an article on our church.  We were still over in the chapel, but we had people busting out all over the place, and they wanted to do a thing on us, and I didn't really know them in those days.  It was long before I'd written books for Moody Press and things.  They came out and Lowell Saunders did an article on our church; and after studying it, surveying it, and interviewing folks, the title he gave to the article was "The Church With 900 Ministers," because we had 900 people in those days; and he said, "Everybody's serving."  We had less program then than we do now in terms of formal programming, but everybody was after it.  They were doing it.  They were just doing it.  Ministering their gifts.

     People were calling up and say, "Is there anybody in the hospital I could go see?  Can I help in the nursery?  Can I go over there and help those dear ladies who are chasing those little guys all over the carpet?...Can I move chairs?  Can I clean restrooms?  Can I wash windows?  I just wanna use the gift that helps.  Is there a place you could use somebody who...who wants to teach?  I...I'd love to learn if you train me.  Is there a place you could put somebody who...who wants to reach people with the Gospel?  We'd like to help."

     Or else we'd hear, "Hey, we got a ministry going over here, and it's marvelous, and God's blessing it.  We're using our gifts.  Glory to His name and all this."  That's the way it ought be in the church.  Maybe when it gets big, everybody thinks somebody else is gonna do it; but the bigger it gets, the greater the need is; and we just need more folks being involved.  But it isn't just that.  It isn't that we need to do something to build the church, you know, quote unquote, or to accomplish some program goal.  If you're a Christian, and you're in the body of Christ, you gotta be doing your part...if you wanna know joy, if you wanna know blessing, if you wanna be obedient...So many needs.  Just start using your gifts.  Doesn't matter.  You don't have to analyze your gift.  You may never know what it...I don't know what my gift is other than I know I preach, I teach, I do a few things.  I can't...I don't need to catalogue the thing.  You don't need a computer deal.  You could send away.  Get a deal, send, they'll send a computer printout on what your gift is...

     Yeah, but that's ridiculous.  Computer doesn't know.  I've...I've been watching myself for a long time, and I'm not... I'm not sure that I know the...the way God's blended it all together.  I...I basically know what I don't do well probably better than I knew...know what I do.  But the way I understand my gift is when I start to minister, and I just turn around and look back and says, "So that's what I do."  And when you get into flow of ministry and the power of the Spirit of God, you'll see what God'll do through you...

     You know, there's no end to the need.  I just heard the other day that 70 percent of the people over 18 in the San Fernando Valley are single.  Is that incredible?  A lotta homes are just flying apart, aren't they?  70 percent.  This is the swinger's age, divorcees, single parents.  Talk about needs.  People, we have needs.  Needs everywhere.  Needs all around our fellowship. 

     I'll say another thing about single people while I'm talking about it.  I think sometimes single people think the only thing in life for them is to get married.  Lemme tell you.  You have an alternative.  A better thing than that.  Read 1 Corinthians 7.  Paul says, "Only get married if you have to.  I mean if you can't get out of it."  And if you don't have the gift of singleness, and you just burn, and you just gotta get married, get married.  But, man, if you can stay single, stay single.  I believe in our church single people provide probably the greatest resource for spiritual ministry, because they're not encumbered. 

     It says in 1 Corinthians 7:35-36, that whole thing from 32 on, "Single people care for the things of the Lord.  Married people care for the family, their wives, their spouse, and all the needful things to care for."  That's not wrong.  It's just that if you can be single, enjoy it; and think about all the single people we need to reach.  Listen, there are myriad of things...just cultivate whatever ministry God has put in your heart, God has gifted you for.

     Oh, I wanna just introduce you to two favorite people of mine that are a little bit obscure.  Colossians 4:12...Colossians 4:12.  This man's name is Epaphras.  Epaphras.  Listen to this.  I...I like this so much.  It says, "Epaphras who is one of you."  Isn't that good?  Who is he?  Ph.D., D.D., L.L.D, M.D., seminary grad, Phi Beta Kappa.  No, no, no, no.  Ordained.  No, no.

     "Epaphras, who is one of you...folks, just folks.  Bless him.  He's a servant of...whom?...Christ."  Isn't that beautiful?  I mean I...I thought of that years back.  I thought that would be a wonderful...thing to put on somebody's tombstone who was just a...a beloved, wonderful Christian.  Just say his name, one of us, a servant of Christ, just one of us.  It's a very high calling.  He greets you.  What was his ministry?  Great preacher, great orator.  No, no, no.  What was his ministry? 

     Oh, "He's always laboring to the point of exhaustion fervently for you in prayer."  Isn't that good?  God, give us some Epaphras.  "He's just one of you," he says to the Philippian, the Colossians.  "Just one of your guys; and he always fervently prays."  So what's he praying for?  "He's praying that you...you may stand perfect and complete in all the will of God."  Here is a guy who carries on his heart the burden of everybody's spiritual development.  I believe this is the gift of faith.  The...the gift of faith is linked to prayer.  Here is a guy with the gift of faith, and I don't what other gifts were mingled in; but, man, he just exercised it to the hilt.  He didn't need an organized program.  He just got on his knees and stayed there.  Prayed.  Prayed. 

     There's another fella in Philippians chapter 2...verse 25... Name's even close.  "Epaphroditus, my brother and companion in labor and fellow soldier, but your messenger."  In other words, "You sent him to me," and what is his thing?  What does he do?  Oh, "He ministered to my need."  What was he?  He was a companion.  You know how valuable it is to have a companion?  You know what it means just to have somebody along when you're in the battle?  Just to be a loved friend?  Somebody to take up the sword and fight with ya?  Lots of folks need that...

     "And he ministered to my need.  He longed after you all.  He was full of heaviness, because you heard that he was sick."  I mean this is unbelievable.  The guy is upset.  He's full of a heavy heart.  Why?  Because he knows that his church found out he's sick.  He thinks they'll be sad about it, and he's so sad that they're sad about him being sick.  He's not sad that he's sick.  He's sad that they're sad that he's sick...What a guy.  He's not riding back from the field saying, "Pray for me.  I have a hangnail."  You know?...He's sad because they're sad that he's sick.  What a loving relationship those folks must've had, huh?  And he was sick.  Verse 27.  He was so sick he nearly died.  He got sick and nearly died. 

     You say, "Well, how'd he get sick?"  Oh, verse 30, humph, "For the work of Christ he...he nearly died.  He was so busy trying to supply your service to me."  I don't know, I think when we get to heaven, people like this are gonna stick out.  We're gonna have to look hard to find some of the ones we knew better.  Bless his heart...

     So in verse 29, he says, "Receive him.  I'm sending him to you.  Just receive him and hold him in high reputation."  Oh, what...what has he done?  Oh, he was a companion.  He was a helper.  You see, folks, it's a matter of spontaneity.  It's... it's a matter of what's inside.  If you just have a willingness to serve, it just is gonna come out.  I mean if you're always standing back saying, "Well, I don't wanna get involved in that deal.  I don't know if they'll accept me."  Or, "I don't know if I like working with those."  I mean you could play those games all you want.  Or you could just serve.  Just serve.

     Lemme give you another one.  Joy.  Joy.  That's the sixth internal spiritual attitude.  In our tent meetings the last couple nights, Ken Poor was talking about this matter of joy.  We had a wonderful time thinking about it, talking about it, and we enjoyed a lot of it, I think, too.  What do we mean by joy?  Well, joy is sort of an outward exuberance.  It's sort of a... it's the response of the heart, the soul, the mind, the body, the whole person to the relationship to Jesus Christ; and one of the things we've endeavored to cultivate in this church is joy.

     There's a seriousness in the Word of God.  Oh, yes.  There's a seriousness in dealing with the infinitely holy and all-wise God, sovereign God with whom we have to do.  There's a great seriousness in struggling through the terrible pressures and anxieties of live and death and all that humanness brings to bear upon us.  There are lots of things that pain us; but, at the same time, we are filled with joy; and that is a deep soul enthusiasm that all is well and ultimately all will be glorious...

     I believe that joy comes out of the Word of God.  I believe as we study the Word of God, as we obey the Word of God, joy is ours.  "These things write unto you...1 John 1:4 says...that your joy may be...what?...full."  "And the Kingdom of God...it says in Romans...is righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit."  Jesus said that He came to give us joy.  Paul says, "Rejoice always, again, I say rejoice," and I...I...I'm convinced that joy is linked to this whole matter of a willingness to serve.  I see people getting involved in the things of the Lord and doing things and using their gifts; and there is joy.  Why?  Because the joy comes in giving yourself away.  People who are introspective, well, they're trying to collect it all and meet their own needs and solve their own problems and satisfy all their own wants, become inwardly ingrown, self-contemplating, miserable human beings. 

     It's the people who throw their lives away that are filled with joy...and we want a church that's filled with joy.  I mean I...I get excited about things; and I...I don't let things steal my joy.  I...I...I fight to maintain my joy.  Some people try to take my joy...they do.  They come and say, "John, we got a real problem over here, very serious, very serious."  I say, "Well, what is it?"  And they tell me some little thing, you know, a little nothing thing...and I...I just say, "Well, we'll just see if the Lord won't solve that problem.  We'll do what we can."  And sometimes they'll come and have a problem that's a problem.  It's a big problem; and I've just cultivated in my own heart, just a cultivating thing, that whenever I have a real big problem, I instantly react by saying, "That is really exciting.  Boy, that's terrific.  Thank you so much.  I'm so excited about that problem."

     Some of you who've been around me know that's what I've been saying.  "Boy, I'm so glad to know that.  What a terrific problem."  They look at me, you know, like my elevator doesn't go to the top floor...But, you see, if I know what the problem is, I...I'm ahead of the game, right?  'Cause I know the problem solver.  But if I don't know