Dennis Tuuri

Beginning at verse 38 and moving through the conclusion of chapter 20, John 19:38 and then following. Please stand for the reading of God’s word. John 19 beginning at verse 38.

And after this, Joseph of Arimathea, being a disciple of Jesus, but secretly for fear of the Jews, besought Pilate that he might take away the body of Jesus. And Pilate gave him leave. He came therefore and took the body of Jesus. And there came also Nicodemus, which at the first came to Jesus by night, and brought a mixture of myrrh and aloes about an hundred pound weight.

Then took they the body of Jesus, and wound it in linen clothes, with the spices, as the manner of the Jews is to bury. Now in the place where he was crucified, there was a garden, and in the garden a new sepulcher, wherein was never man yet laid. There laid they Jesus therefore because of the Jews’ preparation day, for the sepulcher was nigh at hand.

The first day of the week cometh Mary Magdalene early when it was yet dark unto the sepulcher and seeth the stone taken away from the sepulcher. Then she runneth and cometh to Simon Peter and to the other disciples whom Jesus loved and said unto them, “They have taken away the Lord out of the sepulcher and we know not where they have laid him.”

Peter therefore went forth and that other disciple and came to the sepulcher. So they ran both together and the other disciple did outrun Peter and came first to the sepulcher and stooping down and looking in, he saw the linen clothes lying yet went he not in. Then cometh Simon Peter following him and went into the sepulcher and seeth the linen clothes lie and the napkin that was about his head not lying with the linen clothes but wrapped together in a place by itself.

Then went in also that other disciple which came first to the sepulcher, and he saw and believed. For as yet they knew not the scripture that he must rise again from the dead. Then the disciples went away again unto their own home.

But Mary stood without at the sepulcher weeping. And as she wept, she stooped down, and looking into the sepulcher, and seeth two angels in white sitting, the one at the head, and the other at the feet, where the body of Jesus had lain. And they say unto her, “Woman, why weepest thou?” She sayeth unto them, “Because they have taken away my Lord, and I know not where they have laid him.”

And when she had thus said, she turned herself back, and saw Jesus standing, and knew not that it was Jesus. Jesus saith unto her, “Woman, why weepest thou? Whom seekest thou?” She, supposing him to be the gardener, saith unto him, “Sir, if thou hast borne him hence, tell me where thou hast laid him, and I will take him away.”

Jesus saith unto her, “Mary.” She turned herself, and saith unto him, “Rabboni,” which is to say, Master. Jesus said unto her, “Touch me not, for I am not yet ascended to my Father, but go to my brethren and say unto them, I ascend unto my Father and your Father, and to my God and your God.”

Mary Magdalene came and told the disciples that she had seen the Lord, and that he had spoken these things unto her.

Then the same day at evening, being the first day of the week, when the doors were shut, where the disciples were assembled for fear of the Jews, came Jesus, and stood in the midst, and saith unto them, “Peace be unto you.” And when he had said so, he showed unto them his hands and his side. Then were the disciples glad when they saw the Lord.

Then said Jesus to them again, “Peace be unto you, as my Father hath sent me, even so send I you.” And when he had said this, he breathed on them, and saith unto them, “Receive ye the Holy Ghost. Whosoever sins ye remit, they are remitted unto them. And whosoever sins ye retain, they are retained.”

But Thomas, one of the twelve, called Didymus, was not with them when Jesus came. The other disciples therefore said unto him, “We have seen the Lord.” But he said unto them, “Except I shall see in his hands the print of the nails, and put my finger into the print of the nails, and thrust my hand into his side, I will not believe.”

And after eight days again his disciples were within, and Thomas with them. Then came Jesus, the doors being shut, and stood in the midst, and said, “Peace be unto you.” And then saith to Thomas, “Reach hither thy finger, and behold my hands, and reach hither thy hand, and thrust it into my side, and be not faithless, but believing.”

And Thomas answered and said unto him, “My Lord and my God.” Jesus saith unto him, “Thomas, because thou hast seen me, thou hast believed. Blessed are they that have not seen and yet have believed.”

And many other signs truly did Jesus in the presence of his disciples, which are not written in this book, but these are written that ye might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing ye might have life through his name.

Let’s pray. Father, we thank you for your word. We thank you for the gift of your Spirit. We thank you for assuring us that your Spirit’s intent is to open this word to us, to illumine our understanding to the text and to its understanding relative to our lives, and to transform us through this word. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.

May be seated.

It may be to some, and it may be to some, but it probably seems to you that a text such as this one—an Easter text generally read—are relatively easy to give sermons on. It has not been my experience that’s the case. And the reason this is true of all texts but particularly these that we deal with relevant to the resurrection of our Savior is the centrality of that great historical event being so great that the text is so filled with power and strength from God it’s difficult to preach on such things. You perpetually have the sense that you cannot give justice to the simple reading of the text.

There are many ways to approach texts like this. Obviously, I’ve chosen today to sort of conclude a two-part thing. We began last Sunday, and last Sunday we talked on Palm Sunday on the triumphal entry of our Savior on the theme “How to Glorify God.” Remember the Westminster Catechism, both the larger and shorter versions of the first question. The question is, “What is the chief end of man?” and the answer is “to glorify God and fully enjoy him forever,” or the shorter catechism, “to enjoy him forever.”

So we talked last week on the triumphal entry as a picture of the people of God glorifying him and of the requirements that we have certainly on the Lord’s day as Christ comes to be with us—to sing forth his praises and to glorify him through the singing of praises. And then we talked about how that works its way out into our lives. It’s the great purpose that we have in our life: the glorification of our Savior.

Now the second purpose that the catechism tells us we have is to enjoy him forever. And indeed, we read in the text from Matthew, the resurrection text, that as the disciples left the tomb, they did so with fear and glorification, the great awe of God, but also with great gladness because of the resurrection of our Savior.

So it seems good today on a day when the phrase “Easter joy” is, you know, a truism that is commonly said, to talk about joy and talk about the fact that in our Christian life the Scriptures have an incredible number of texts that either directly or by implication tell us indeed that one of the great purposes we have in our life is to enjoy God.

We live in the context of a culture that enjoys lots of things. Yesterday there was a two-hour debate on C-SPAN which I captured on videotape between Steve Wilkins and Peter Marshall relative to the Civil War—not a real well-defined debate but a good discussion over two hours from these two men, these two Christian men. And I think you would find it quite profitable.

Steve Wilkins, I think, in his concluding remarks said, well, you know, if you like the way things have turned out, then I guess you like what happened at the Civil War to the audience. If you’re enjoying this, then you liked what happened, because you know the Civil War is this great movement from to a centralized federalism, a new sort of idea of covenant where the federal government becomes very prominent in the lives of people.

And I, as I heard Steve say that, I knew just what he meant. To those of us who wish to see a culture transformed by the preaching of Christ, the application of his word, it is a difficult culture to live in. But you know, I think that probably ninety percent of people hearing that would say, well, yeah, we are happy it happened. The Dow is nine thousand. And we can do whatever we want in our homes. What are you talking about? Yeah, this is a lot of fun.

So people enjoy things, and the Scriptures warn us about what not to enjoy. It’s not my purpose of talking about that today, but it is important to see. We stress the glorification of God as a proper corrective to ourselves as we’re influenced by our culture to enjoy things that are not biblical. To get us back on track, we need to stress repetitively, particularly in our day and age, that our goal is to glorify God.

However, we don’t want to go so far that way that we leave aside the balance or the secondary purpose, which is to enjoy him forever. It would be demeaning to the good, holy, loving, gracious character of God to somehow not stress that our task in life is to glorify God, but it is also to fully enjoy him forever.

So I want to move from last week—stressing glorifying God—by stressing enjoying him forever. It’s not wrong to take pleasure in things and to delight in things. But what we’ll see is that the Scriptures give us some very explicit directions directing what our joy is to be about.

So that’s the purpose today. Now what I’ve decided to do is sort of what I did last week: I’m going to use the text to talk first of all about the enjoyment of God in the context of this text from the chapters from John chapters 19 and 20, and specifically the resurrection of the Savior. And after that I want to look at kind of a biblical overview of how we enjoy God by using the same kind of three-point outline.

So what we’re going to say here at the beginning is that the Easter joy we have—how we are to enjoy God—is depicted for us in this Gospel account by: we’re supposed to enjoy Jesus; we’re supposed to enjoy our deliverance from death; and we’re supposed to enjoy our resurrection, new creation life. And then we’ll see that this comports well with a systematic study of the entire Scriptures in terms of what they tell us to joy or delight in and how they inform us then how we are to enjoy God.

So my purpose today is that at the end of the day you might be joyous. I wore the brightest tie I could find. It may not make you joyful, but in my picture today it was kind of that way. So it’s a reminder of what I’m trying to do with this text. And if I don’t do it, please forgive me. But hopefully the texts themselves will compel you to a renewed commitment—not just to glorify God, but to fully enjoy him—and a commitment to enjoy him in the way that his Scriptures tell us where to do that.

I’ve used this illustration before, but I’ve seen young people as they move into their teen years and they begin to get money, get a job, get some money. And I’ve experienced it myself in my life. Oh, you know, I’m going to go have some fun. I’m going to buy something that’ll make me happy. And you go to the mall and you might find something. And you get it and after you bought it, well, it doesn’t make you all that happy necessarily.

And I think that what I’m trying to say is that the way our culture seeks after joy, it never really fully attains it. And so you have songs such as “I Can’t Get No Satisfaction.” There’s no joy. And we have this eye to our vision of what joy is, and be vivified to what the Scriptures tell us of how we will enjoy God. We don’t know that. We don’t know how to glorify God. He has to instruct us. We don’t really know how to enjoy life.

So the word of God comes along as our instruction as to how to have great joy and delight in our lives. So that’s where we’re going.

And let me say first of all that by way of introduction, the Scriptures tell us we’re supposed to be a joyful people. Okay? And I’ve listed various texts. We’re not going to go through all these texts. Don’t worry, it won’t be that long. But I did want to—I did a lot of study this week on these topics. And I wanted at least to give you the outline. So if you decide now or at some point in the future to go over a study with yourself or your family on how to enjoy God, you have a lot of texts you can turn to for witness on this topic.

But I do want to mention these first by way of introduction—that indeed enjoying God is to be a characteristic of God’s people.

In Jeremiah 31:4, talking of the reformation that will come, the restoration of God’s people to blessing with God after their chastisements, he says in verse four: “Again I will build thee, and thou shalt be built, oh virgin of Israel. Thou shalt again be adorned with thy tabrets, and shall go forth in the dances of them that make merry.” That’s not a negative passage. He’s saying that should characterize your life upon restoration. You dance and you make merry and you enjoy things.

Proverbs 31:25. And whether you see this as specifically only related to wives or, as I do, to the church in general—recognize that it tells us that strength and honor are her clothing and she shall rejoice in time to come. It is a characteristic of the church of Jesus Christ to rejoice as she continues on into the future.

Deuteronomy 26:11 says, “Thou shalt rejoice in every good thing which the Lord thy God hath given unto thee and unto thine house, thou and the Levite of the stranger with thee.” You’re going to enjoy every good thing that God gives you. It’s a comprehensive joy that fulfills our lives.

And indeed in the New Testament in 1 Timothy 6:17, we read: “Charge them that are rich in the present age not to be haughty, nor to trust in uncertain riches, but in the living God who gives us richly all things to enjoy.” So the enjoyment of life is to be a characteristic of who we are. We’re supposed to be happy, joyous people.

Now this enjoyment is pictured for us by way of a picture illustration in John chapter 19 and 20. And first of all, I think that we have to say—and we’ll develop this more in the second half of the outline—but we have to say that our joy ultimately is in Christ and in God himself. And to abstract things away from the person of God, to try to enjoy food, drink, conjugal relations with one’s wife, friendships with people, associations, even worship, but apart from a recognition of the joy of God himself in his presence, is how we go wrong.

So at the very core of what we say is that we’re to rejoice. We are to enjoy God. We enjoy God by enjoying him first and foremost at the center of all our joy.

And we read in this text from John 19 and 20 that really the statement of the joy of the disciples is found in verse 20: “Then were the disciples glad when they saw the Lord.” Ultimately it is the presence of Christ with us that is the source of all true joy biblically defined. And remember, the biblical definition is reality. To think that somehow joy is found apart from what the Scriptures teach is insanity. It’s a denial of reality. Reality is that our joy is found, centered in the person of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Now the text obviously moves us from death to resurrection. So we would want to say secondly that the text indeed tells us that we enjoy God by enjoying our release from sin and death.

Now I stressed in my reading—and even if I didn’t, I think you would have noticed—the word “sepulcher” occurring time after time after time after time in this particular account. I think the literary device that God uses here—this constant repetition in the beginning half of this text—we read “sepulcher” is to focus us on death. It is our great enemy: sin and the results of sin, death. And Jesus now has produced an empty sepulcher for us. So we are to rejoice. We’re to enjoy the deliverance that we have from the tomb, from death.

Sepulcher, sepulcher, sepulcher—whether you’re thinking about it consciously or not, the older you get, the more death looms, and the more the thought of your own mortality becomes aware to you. And “sepulcher” becomes an important part of your vocabulary. Now that’s okay. Death in this body is part of God’s providence. But what we want to see is that God has delivered us from death. It’s very important in terms of our joy and service to Christ.

Turn, if you will, to Hebrews. And most of you hopefully know this text by now. But turn to Hebrews chapter 2, verse 14.

It is this joy and the release from death that is released from death that produces the ability to walk in service to God. It’s a removal of fear. And we read this in Hebrews chapter 2 talking about the incarnation of our Savior and him dying in the body.

Hebrews chapter 2:14 says: “For as much then as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, he also himself likewise, that is Jesus, took part of the same, that through death, his death, he might destroy him that had the power of death, that is the devil, and deliver them, that is us, who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage.”

If we do not enjoy deliverance from death, and if we do not appropriate that from the Scriptures to us, we’re going to continue to be driven by a spirit of bondage to sin. Christ has delivered us from fear of death, and as a result, he’s delivered us from bondage. That’s a neat deal. That is a transforming event in one’s life. And it’s a truth that should continually transform our lives as well as we meditate upon the atonement of the Lord Jesus Christ, his death in the body, so that we might be delivered from death.

Now, it may not seem that way to you as your children grow up. You may just see them as ethical rebels. But typically Christian children are not ethical rebels in that sense of the term. The children—and we ourselves as we move toward adulthood—frequently sin because of fear: an irrational fear, a sinful fear. Because God has delivered us from death, but a fear nonetheless.

It is very important in the counseling of individuals and certainly the counseling of our children to work from the basis of the atonement of the Lord Jesus Christ and the delivery from death that we are to enjoy, and that deliverance is a deliverance from bondage as well.

The text tells us that the text moves us away from that sepulcher. It moves us to a consideration of the open sepulcher. And third: we’re to enjoy the Gospel task we have been recreated and commissioned to accomplish.

Death is to an end. It is to the end of resurrection. Jesus puts death to death. He destroys death—not so that we can just be released. That’s it. We’re saved to something as well as away from something. And we’re to enjoy what we’ve been saved to.

Now, I’ve used—some again, looking at the way this particular account is written—your outline. I note the garden, the breath of new life, and the sight of Jesus Christ. And I’m convinced that one of the things God would have us consider as we look at John chapters 19 and 20 is that this event, the resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ, is placed in the context of the garden.

That’s told us at the end of chapter 19, that it was a garden there where the sepulcher was found. And Mary mistakes Jesus for the gardener. And in a sense he is the new gardener. He is the new Adam. Adam was given a garden to nurture and to guard. So our Lord Jesus Christ is really, properly speaking, the gardener. But he’s the greater gardener—not just the gardener of that garden but of his people. His bride, in the Song of Solomon, is compared to a garden enclosed. This church is a garden of God. And the church militant, the church universal on earth, is indeed the garden of Jesus Christ. And he is our gardener. He prunes us and causes us to grow.

We’re a new creation in the Lord Jesus Christ. The Scriptures tell us that in explicit doctrinal terms. And here they tell it to us in literary terms: that we’re in this garden. The Lord Jesus Christ, as he goes to his disciples in terms of this account, he tells them that indeed they are commissioned to the task. He breathes on them the breath of life.

Did you notice that in the reading of the text? He says, after their joy in his presence in verse 20 of chapter 20: “Then Jesus said to them again, Peace be unto you.” Peace is God’s presence, and the resulting order in the world around us is our application of God’s presence. “As my Father hath sent me, so send I you.”

The sepulcher is empty so that they could have a task that they’re going to be accomplishing. And what does he do? “When he had said this, he breathed on them, and saith unto them, Receive ye the Holy Ghost. Whosoever sins ye are, or ye retain, they are remitted, rather, they are remitted. And whosoever sins ye retain, they are retained.”

The Lord Jesus Christ, as God breathed the breath of life into Adam, the Lord Jesus breathed the breath of new creation life into his disciples to the end that they might do what Adam failed to do. That they might take God’s people—peace, his presence, and his order—into all the created cosmos with their works, preaching forth the Gospel and having this task of accomplishing the manifestation of the new creation.

God created in seven days, and Adam was to take that creation and extend the manifestation of it into all the world. The Lord Jesus Christ raises up on the eighth day, the first day of the week, and a new creation. And then he comes to his disciples and said, take this new creation—now as newly created beings—and go into all the world transforming it through the preaching of the Gospel, through the declaration bringing them to confessional repentance of sins or damnation for those sins.

We move in the context of a new creation. And the Lord Jesus Christ has a gaping wound in his side here. And the same picture is given to us of Adam. God calls a hole in his side, brings out the rib with meat attached to it. We’re going to talk about that next week: creation of Eve. And then he closes it up.

The Lord Jesus Christ has birthed a new Eve, the church—a new enclosed garden, a new people with a new breath of life that will go forward into all the world, transforming that world.

I’ve cried at two movies in the last two years, and both at the conclusion of the movies. The first one was “Beauty and the Beast,” and you cartoon. Well, what struck me so much—and I, you know, when I cite these things, I’m citing particular scenes. I’m not endorsing whole movies or anything—but what I am saying is that the transformation of the castle that occurs at the end of “Beauty and the Beast” brought me to tears because it’s such a picture of the transformation of life affected by the resurrection of our Savior.

Pastor Lou today, in the videotape, the last session of the tape, talked about the transformation of culture and said that all of culture was affected by the fall. And all of the castle of the beast, the king, the prince, is affected by the fall. And you know, the gargoyles and things are kind of dreary. And you know, the people—now the little boy is now a chipped pot and you know, everything’s different as a result of the fall, still reflecting life to some degree but different, fallen.

And then with the transformation through the beast—the transformation of the new creation of the church—works itself out over every bit of that castle. And the new creation that our Savior pictures for us in this account of his resurrection will transform the entire created order. Nothing less than that. It begins with you, begins with his elect people. But you go forward then transforming the order.

Now it doesn’t happen, you know, rapidly like that. It happens through the preaching of the Gospel. Happens over thousands of years. But by way of imagery, that’s what’s going on. And we’re to enjoy that.

We’re to enjoy the fact that we’ve been released from death and sin and bondage. We’re to enjoy the fact that we’ve been given a task to take the transformation of the world as our task through the simple acts of obedience and glorifying God and talking about him and speaking of his word. And we transform the cultures in which we live over many years and generations. And we’re to enjoy that. It’s what God has given us to do. It’s a great thing, a tremendous task, a beautification of the world. And we’re to enjoy that.

And we’re to enjoy all this because it reflects the presence of the Lord Jesus Christ in our life.

So, how do we enjoy God? We enjoy God by enjoying him. We enjoy God by enjoying our resurrection, our movement from death to life, and the task he has given us to do.

Now let’s go back and kind of take these same three topics basically and go through more of a systematic treatment of the entire Scriptures on this. As I said, we’ll just hit the high points. We’ll go through the outline quickly. But I want you to get this imagery down: that this is not just extrapolating out some odd lessons from the text of John. This is repeated from one end of the Bible to its conclusion.

First of all, how do we enjoy God? By going back and recapitulating this to a certain extent, we do it by enjoying God again. By enjoying Christ in the presence in the account from John chapter 20. And the text tells us we’re to enjoy God. And I’ve given you a number of texts there where this truth is told. I’ll read a couple.

Psalm 104:34: “My meditation of him shall be sweet. I will be glad in the Lord.”

There’s a meditation on the person of God. Now I say “directly” in quotes because we must be a little careful here. God does not reveal himself fully to us. God cannot be comprehended by us in full, but he manifests himself. He reveals himself in some ways, and in those ways we have an understanding of who he is. Not comprehensive by any stretch of the imagination. He is creator. We are creature. We have a creaturely knowledge, but it’s a true knowledge of who he is.

And we’re to meditate upon that. We’re to meditate not just upon the doctrines, the ideas of the Scriptures, or upon his picture of who he is in the created order or friendships or whatever. We’re to meditate upon him. And the Scriptures say that we’re to rejoice. We’re to enjoy. We’re to be glad in the Lord.

Zechariah 10:7: “They of Ephraim shall be like a mighty man, and their heart shall rejoice as through wine. Yay, their children shall see it and be glad. Their hearts shall rejoice in the Lord.”

So we enjoy God by enjoying him. And all the rest of the text that I’ve given you there emphasize that over and over and over.

You know, when I first read that first question and answer in the Westminster Catechism, I thought, well, you know, I wonder where they get that “enjoying God” stuff. You know, a simple study of the Scriptures says that this is so often repeated that it’s like a truism. It’s like the statement “Easter joy.” We’re to enjoy God.

Proverbs 40:16—Psalm 40:16—”Let all those that seek thee rejoice and be glad in thee. Let such as love thy salvation say continually, The Lord be magnified.”

So we first enjoy God by enjoying God.

Now we’re going to look at some of the ways that’s drawn out, but I want us to understand that ultimately what we’re talking about here is that all joy has at its center the enjoyment of God himself.

And the way this outline will work under this particular heading—the big picture—is this: We have God directly. The text causes us to meditate upon attributes of his, etc. And then we have the worship of God. We come together in the Lord’s day, and we’re supposed to enjoy this. And we’re supposed to enjoy it because it reflects that God who gives us this worship. And then as we move away from there—so worship can be sort of seen as picture, concentrate, you know, of representation, the revelation of who God is. And we enjoy it because of that.

And then we see also the imagebearers of God, people. And we enjoy God by enjoying these horizontal relationships we have because ultimately we’re enjoying God manifested through those imagebearers. And then we’ll move in the outline into consideration that we enjoy the fruit of our labor. We enjoy things like wine and drink and things that we have, possessions that we have, the land itself. Because again, there it’s not a primary imagebearer, but it does reflect, manifest God. It reveals him in some generalized sense.

So that’s the way it works: the center of the joy is rejoicing. We enjoy God. And we do that by consideration of him. But we also do it through worship, through relationships, and through enjoyment of the created order. So that’s kind of how it works out.

But first, staying then on this task of looking at the enjoyment of God directly.

We do this by enjoying God’s countenance. Psalm 21:6: “Thou made me exceeding glad with thy countenance.” Acts 2:27-28: “Thou make me full of joy in thy presence.” The countenance of God—every Lord’s day in a formalized sense—the benediction is placed upon you. God says it happens that his countenance is lifted up to you. And this isn’t just today at this moment. It goes on into the week. We enjoy a consideration and a meditation that God’s face, his countenance, is favorably disposed to us at all times.

You’re his beloved. You’re the apple of his eye. And when you think of Father, you should think of his countenance beaming upon you. Okay? And that causes us to have an enjoyment of God.

Secondly, we enjoy God by enjoying his word. An incredible number of Scriptures about this. But Romans 7:22: “I delight in the law of God.” Mark 12:37: “And Jesus taught them about David. And the common people heard him gladly.” They enjoyed the teaching of the Lord Jesus Christ, his word.

The Psalms are filled with declarations such as found in verse 16 of Psalm 119: “I will delight myself in thy statutes. I’ll enjoy your word.”

How do we enjoy God? Well, we know of God by means of special revelation in his word. And we should understand that we will have true joy as we read God’s word and attempt to understand who he is and who he manifests himself to be.

Psalm 119:92 says this: “Unless thy law had been my delights, I should have perished in mine affliction.” This is particularly true: this delight in God’s word—it gets us through tough times. And we know people. I know a close friend of mine who is going through very difficult times right now. But it’s a delight in God’s word that continues to minister joy and grace to him in the context of much affliction. We enjoy God by enjoying his word.

Psalm 19:8: “The statutes of the Lord are right, rejoicing the heart.”

I could go on and on, but we enjoy God by enjoying his word. And if you don’t read the word regularly, you’re not going to enjoy God as much, are you? I mean, if you go a week without reading the word of God, then I would suggest that has something to do with the lessening of your joy in him. If we’re going to enjoy God, we enjoy him by means of his word.

Third, we enjoy God’s attributes. And I’ve listed some here that are directly related. We could say by implication all of God’s attributes, but directly here, these attributes are told—we are told—they’re to be a source of our joy.

God is the creator and the king. “Let Israel rejoice in him that made him. Let the children of Zion be joyful in their king.” We enjoy God as our creator, and we enjoy God as the king of kings. We enjoy God in terms of his wisdom.

Proverbs 8—it’s his wisdom speaking: “His delight was daily, and that’s his wisdom speaking—his delight rejoicing in the habitable part of his earth. My delights were with the sons of men. Are the delights of wisdom with you?”

Do you enjoy the wisdom of God as well as the word of God and the law and the statutes of God? The Scriptures say a contemplation of this attribute of God, that he is all knowing and all wise, is to be part of our enjoyment of God.

Third, we enjoy God’s attribute of comfort. Psalm 94:19: “In the multitude of my thoughts within me, thy comfort comforts my soul. Delight, rejoice are what I enjoy in my soul.”

Now this particular verse—the context is one of again trouble and affliction. And in the context of trouble and affliction, to meditate upon the fact that God is the God of all comfort, the God who brings comfort to us in situations of difficulty and trials and tribulations. And a meditation on that attribute of God produces a joy in God.

We enjoy God by enjoying the manifestation of his attributes and specifically his comfort. That’s something that you meditate on, though. Notice that these Scriptures repeatedly tell us to meditate, to think about these things in terms of our joy.

We enjoy God through meditation on his attributes.

Psalm 90:14: “Satisfy us early with thy mercy that we may rejoice and be glad all the day.”

Psalm 31:7: “I will be glad and rejoice in thy mercy.” We enjoy God by enjoying his mercy to us and a consideration of it. A meditation on it. We enjoy God by enjoying his love.

Song of Solomon 1:4: “We remember thy love more than wine. The upright love thee.” We enjoy God because we remember his love for us. Not that we first loved him, but that he loved us and gave his life that we might live. And we meditate upon God’s love for us. And we enjoy him more as a result in that meditation.

We rejoice and enjoy God’s goodness. 2 Chronicles 6:41: “Let your priests be clothed with salvation. Let thy saints rejoice in thy goodness.”

We enjoy God’s goodness. We enjoy God’s holiness. And we enjoy God’s strength and salvation.

We enjoy God by enjoying his word and by enjoying what his word tells us about who he is, the manifestation of his attributes.

Fourth, we enjoy God’s judgments and governance. Psalm 67:4: “Let the nations be glad and sing for joy, for thou shalt judge the people righteously and govern the nations upon the earth.”

See Psalm 97: “The Lord reigns, let the earth rejoice.”

Now if you don’t believe that God is reigning today, you don’t have this source of joy. But if you submit yourself to the teaching of Scripture, that God reigns from heaven, that Jesus has been exalted to the right hand of the Father, from which he shall reign till all things be accomplished and all things be subdued unto him—then you have a joy in God’s present governance. You can enjoy the fact that your Father, who is loving, good, merciful, kind, holy, the creator and redeemer and your king, he’s reigning in all the world in all the affairs of life. That produces great joy—to know that loving Father is the one who is the subject of the governance of the world.

So we enjoy God. How do we enjoy God? We enjoy him directly through his word, through his attributes, through a consideration of his countenance, and through this enjoying of his governance and his judgments being in the earth.

And then we move to the second circle. As we move away from the directly the recognition of God’s person, we enjoy worship. And again, here there are tons of Scriptures.

Leviticus 23—we talked last week about this. The palm trees being waved at the Feast of Tabernacles, pictured by the triumphant procession of Christ into Jerusalem. We read there that you’re supposed to wave these things: “Ye shall rejoice before the Lord your God.” You’re to enjoy the worship of God. You’re to enjoy glorifying God in the praises of his people.

2 Samuel 6:5: “David and all the house of Israel played before the Lord.” In those next few verses there are this account of the ark coming up and the worship of God’s people in the presence of the ark. And David is sporting. He is playing. He is enjoying the presence of God in the context of worship. And our worship before God is to be a time of enjoyment.

Now it may not be the kind of thing you enjoy necessarily at first. We train ourselves in the enjoyments of God by looking at how his worship is to be established. And then as we become more and more conformed to what his Scriptures teach, we come to a fuller joy in the context of that worship.

Deuteronomy 12:12: “You shall rejoice before the Lord your God, you and your sons and your daughters and your manservants, your maidservants, and the Levites.”

Deuteronomy 14—we know about this. The commanded joy of the partial use of the tithe and the three festivals where they go up to Jerusalem every year. The point of it is they were commanded to use a portion of their tithe, and they were commanded to rejoice in the context of the worship of God. So the worship of God is to be a source of joy for us.

We enjoy God by enjoying the worship of the church. We enjoy his worshiping host. In 1 Chronicles 29:17: “I have seen with joy thy people which are present here to offer willingly unto thee.”

Looking around on the Lord’s day is to be a source of joy to us. We enjoy God fully by enjoying the manifestation of his people coming together to worship him. And we look at each other and we say, “Look at there’s that guy worshiping. That’s great. I enjoy the fact that God’s people come together in the Lord’s day.” We take great joy—or are to, at least—and gladness in that.

We enjoy God by enjoying worship. And we enjoy God by worship by enjoying his worshiping host.

Psalm 69:32: In the context of worship, “The humble shall see this and be glad. Be glad for the worship of God’s people.”

We also enjoy his house in the context of worship. Isaiah 56:7: “I will make them joyful in my house of prayer. My house shall be called a house of prayer for all peoples.”

We talked about that last week—when God’s house, when his worship service, is a house of prayer for all peoples, for the nations—we’re to enjoy that. We’re to enjoy the house of God.

Psalm 102:14: “Thy servants take pleasure in her stones and favor the dust thereof”—even of Jerusalem, stones and dust. The temple’s stones and dust were a source of delight and joy to God’s people.

Now we don’t have centralized tabernacles anymore or a centralized temple. But we still, I think, should think about this in terms of the joy that we’re to have. We enjoy God by enjoying the worship structures that he provides for us. Decentralized though they are now, still we are commanded to come together every Lord’s day in holy convocation. And we’re to come together in the context of a structure, and we’re to enjoy that structure.

Our joy in our structure will be made more full as we become more and more matured as a congregation and become more able to at some point in time erect a permanent structure which will reflect more what we think in terms of the worship environment. And that should be a goal of ours. It should be part of our enjoyment to enjoy giving to the Bethel fund so that we might indeed rejoice in the particular place of worship that God establishes for us here in the context of our geography.

This is what God’s people did. They enjoyed God by enjoying giving for God’s house.

Outline point number three here under worship: “All the princes and the people rejoiced and brought in.”

I didn’t select these texts because I wanted to talk about the building fund today. I’m talking about the building fund because as I did a systematic study of enjoying God, this is what I found. And all I did was organize the text. I didn’t delete any. So this is what I found, and this is what I’m delivering today from the word of God.

In Ezra chapter 6:22: “They kept the feast of unleavened bread seven days with joy, for the Lord had made them joyful and turned the heart of the king of Syria unto them to strengthen their hands in the work of the house of God.”

The reformation of the times in Ezra and Nehemiah are told of times of great joy. Indeed, in chapter 12:43 of Nehemiah: “That day they offered great sacrifices and rejoiced for God had made them rejoice with great joy. The wives also and the children rejoiced so that the joy of Jerusalem was heard even afar off.”

Joy, joy, joy, joy, joy—source of joy. How do you enjoy God? You enjoy the reformation of worship, the construction of worship facilities. And you enjoy the worship of God with the convocated host.

We enjoy worship that we might enter into our week. There’s a connection between the worship of God and the week. Now we know this, but so you’ll know.

Deuteronomy 12:7: “You shall eat before the Lord your God and you shall rejoice in all that you put your hand unto.”

The worship service—and the joy that occurs there—produces a joy in the productive labor we then enter into in the rest of the week.

Again in verse 18: “You shall eat before the Lord your God and you’re going to rejoice. It says and then you’re going to—thou shalt rejoice before the Lord thy God in all that thou puttest thy hand unto.”

Worship prepares for the joy of God in the rest of the week. Remember, we said that the glorification of God in worship is the pattern by which we then move in terms of that as an aim and desire and put our hearts and hands to it through the rest of the week. Last week we talked about that: glorification worship produces glorification life.

Rejoicing, enjoying God in the worship of the saints in the Lord’s day connects—Deuteronomy tells us—to the enjoyment of all the things that we put our hand unto in the rest of the week. It spills over. It’s a great river that flows out of here, this worship model, into the rest of our week. Or it should be.

We enjoy worship’s depictions of judgment. Psalm 68:3 and 4: “Let the righteous be glad; let them rejoice before God: yea, let them exceedingly rejoice. Sing unto God, sing praises to his name: extol him that rideth in the heavens by his name, Yah. Rejoice before him.”

He’s going to have judgments in the world. And the worship of God’s people is a demonstration of that. We say that those whose sins are remitted are remitted, and those that are retained are retained. We say that God comes, judges his people. He chastises us. He—the two-edged sword cuts us asunder and then heals us. And that’s what he’s going to do to the world.

Worship is a depiction of the judgment of God. And we’re to enjoy that fact because it’s the presence of God.

Jesus said, “Peace be unto you. Peace is God’s order.” And it’s accomplished through his presence and through his judgments in the context of the world. And we’re to enjoy God by enjoying worship’s depictions of judgment.

Now let’s move one cycle up. We’ve got: we enjoy God by enjoying him. We enjoy God through the worship that reflects him. And we enjoy God in the relationships that we have that also reflect him.

We enjoy our spouses. “Let thy fountains be blessed and rejoice with the wife of thy youth.”

And when a man takes a new wife, in Deuteronomy 24:5, he doesn’t take a year off just so we can sit around and be lazy. He has a task to do that first year. What is his task? He shall cheer up his wife.

And then the Scriptures tell us over and over again in the Proverbs that our children—righteous children—are to be a joy to their parents. So the whole Christian family is a picture of enjoying God. The wife enjoying the husband because he’s taught her how to do it. The husband enjoying the wife of his youth, and the parents enjoying their children in the context of the family.

We enjoy God by having godly marriages, by training up godly children and enjoying them, and enjoying our spouses. It’s a good thing. It’s a reflection of God. We’re imagebearers of God, and the relationships we have are imagebearers of the relationship, the communion and fellowship in the Trinity. And our homes are this wonderful picture of how to enjoy God by enjoying one another.

We also enjoy God in our horizontal relationships by enjoying friendships, you know, our families. We also enjoy friendships with one another.

In Proverbs 27:9: “Ointment and perfume rejoice the heart: so doth the sweetness of a man’s friend by hearty counsel.” We enjoy God by developing faithfulness, being brother-loyal—Philadelphia—that city of Revelation, being brother-loyal, developing friendships and enjoying the sweet counsel we take together in the context of Christian fellowship.

David said in Psalm 55:14: “We took sweet counsel together.”

Now it was dashed. You know, you don’t put your trust in men, but the point is we’re supposed to take sweet counsel together in worship and then in the rest of our lives. We’re to enjoy God by enjoying the relationships we have with his imagebearers in the context of our friends.

Paul, in Romans 15:24, talks about: “If I take my journey into Spain, I will come to you for I trust to see you in my journey and to be brought on my way by you. If first I be somewhat filled with your company.” Old language. If first I can come to an enjoyment of our relationship—is what?