WEBVTT
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Look after your soul first.
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….’Blessed are those who hunger and thirst after righteousness, long to be more like
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Jesus Christ, for they’re the ones who are going to be satisfied.’
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See, when you know that your soul needs restoring, you will ask God to restore your soul, and
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that is why sorrow is often God’s backdoor to joy.
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Welcome to Open The Bible with pastor Colin Smith.
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And, Colin, I love that idea that sorrow can be God’s backdoor to joy.
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It’s a wonderful truth, isn’t it?
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And really does give hope.
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I want to speak in the message today to every person listening who feels, I can never be
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happy again.
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Something has happened in your life, and the sorrow that has come to you is so great, and
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it seems to be with you so long and so deep.
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And you say to yourself, I can never really be happy again.
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And in the book of Isaiah that we’re looking at today, God speaks to people who feel they
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could never be happy again and shows how sorrow could become the back door, the surprising
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backdoor into a new experience of joy, in which you encounter God in a whole new way,
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maybe wonderful for that to happen in the lives of folks who are listening to the program
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today.
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One of the ways God meets us in times of sorrow is when we spend time with Him in His Word
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so we want to do that and I’d like to encourage you to open your Bible with us to Isaiah chapter
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54 and 5 as we continue the message Restore Joy.
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Here’s Colin.
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Folks who have experienced great sorrow in life may hope to enter into an even greater
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joyóthose who have experienced this sorrow are finding joy in God’s people, joy in God’s
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love and joy in God’s city.
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And the fullness of this joy, of course, awaits the day when Lord Jesus Christ will come and
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back in power and in glory.
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But in Jesus Christ, the beginning of that joy is ours already.
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So that when Jesus Christ comes again, you see the little family, nuclear family, thing
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That’s why there’s no more marriage in heaven.
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There will be an extension of community so that the love of the one who is lonely will
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be as if this one was my own mother.
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And I was her son.
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And this experience of love and joy that is shared by all in the presence of God will
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be complete.
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But it is begun even now.
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So that by the redeeming love of the Lord Jesus Christ, we are brought together into
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a community where what really matters is not so much that we’re married, or that
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we’re single, or we’re rich, or were poor, but we come to find joy in one another in
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Jesus Christ, and to build one another up in the body of Christ.
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That’s what the church is all about.
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And we, on that day, we will know God’s love as we have never known it in this life.
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Yet already we taste the joy of the love of God.
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And although we’ve not yet seen the city that lies ahead of us already, we have come
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to know the one who is building this, and He says to us, I will build my church and
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the gates of hell will not prevail against it.
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Now, I want you to remember that you don’t need to wait until you have an experience
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of disaster before you pursue this joy.
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This joy is not just for the barren woman, the deserted wife and the person who is in
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the afflicted city and has lost their home.
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Joy in Jesus Christ will free you to savor all other joys in your life, and will strengthen
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you to face all other sorrows in your life.
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And I hope that you will be saying whatever your circumstances of life right now, whatever
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current experience, how can I cultivate this kind of joy that will be the joy of all God’s
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people for eternity?
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Joy in God’s people.
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Joy in God’s love.
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And joy in God’s city.
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Well, that’s what Isaiah 55 is all about.
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It’s about how you cultivate this joy.
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And I want you to notice that it begins with a deep thirst.
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Come all you who are thirsty, chapter 55, verse 1.
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Come to the waters.
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Come, those of you who have no money, come by and eat.
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The people who find this joy, and in whom it grows, are the folks who have a deep thirst
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within their own lives for it.
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Folks who know their own need of it, and are very well aware that they do not have what
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it takes to get it.
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The real distinction among us in this congregation this morning is not whether we’re married
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single, not whether we’re rich or poor, not whether we have children and grandchildren
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or whatever it is.
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The real distinction is some of us have a great thirst within our souls for this kind
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of joy, and others really don’t.
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We’re just very contented.
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We’re contented with where we are.
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We’re very happy.
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We’re glad to be here in the church.
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Then we go on and we do something else.
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But there isn’t really a thirst, which is why not much ever changes or grows in your
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Christian life.
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Why you don’t really have a sense of receiving from God.
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Knowing more of this joy in God’s people, joy in His love, joy in His city begins with
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a great thirst in your own soul.
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You won’t ask God to restore your soul until you feel that your soul needs restored.
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God has many different ways of bringing us to that place.
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Remember, Jesus spoke about this in the Beatitudes.
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He said, Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
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Remember the word blessed means happy, it means joyful.
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So you want to know more of this joy, here’s where it begins, poor in spirit.
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Blessed are those who mourn said Jesus, for they shall be comforted.
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They’re the ones who are going to discover the real joy.
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Blessed are those who hunger and thirst after righteousness, long to be more like Jesus
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Christ, for they’re the ones who are going to be satisfied.
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See, when you know that your soul needs restoring, you feel that, you will ask God to restore
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your soul and that is why sorrow is often God’s backdoor to joy.
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And that is why, you see, it is the barren woman and the deserted wife and the folks
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in the ruined city who are the first to find it, because others who are very contented
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and just happy and comfortable in their own lives never stopped to seek it.
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Why was it that there were many more prostitutes and tax collectors who came to Jesus and relatively
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few Pharisees who did?
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Thirst.
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Thirst.
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And sorrow can create a thirst for joy that you didn’t have before.
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I think the truth in our lives when they are at their most comfortable is that it is very
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easy and even natural for us to just sail on through without ever really asking the
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question, you know, well what is my marriage for?
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What are my children for?
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What is the city for?
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Here is the greatest question for a young couple.
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Is the end for which God created the world that you and your wife or your husband should
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snuggle up in your condo together for the next 50 years and just be happy?
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Or is there some greater happiness purpose for your marriage that you should be pursuing
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together?
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And is the purpose for which God gave children into the world that they should play soccer
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and ride horses in the suburbs or, however good and happy that is, is there something
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more that our family should be pursuing together that’s greater?
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Is the purpose of this great city in which we live simply that thousands of people should
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make millions of dollars or is there some greater purpose that God has for this city
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in which we want to be engaged?
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See, the default mode of the human heart is to seek our joy in children, in marriage and
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in money, and the Bible has a name for that, it’s called, idolatry.
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That’s what it’s called, and idolatry always fails which is why there are millions of people
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around the world who are quietly disappointed in marriage.
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Many have found that their children brought them more grief than joy.
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Millions, millions live in poverty carving out an existence in cities devastated by war
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or by flood.
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But in every generation and in every continent of the world there are thousands who find
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that sorrow is God’s back door to joy.
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Because in your sorrow you become aware of a thirst you never had before.
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There must be something more than this.
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You’re listening to Open The Bible with Pastor Colin Smith.
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Today looking at how sorrow can be God’s back door to receiving joy.
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The message is called Restore Joy, and it’s part of a larger series based on Isaiah Chapter
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54 called Restore My Soul.
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If you’ve missed any of the series or you want to go back and listen again, come to
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our Web site at openthebible.org.uk.
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There you can stream any of the messages which have already gone out on-air.
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Back to the message now.
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Here’s Colin.
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One man who knew about God creating thrist in his own soul through sorrow.
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His name, you know, John Newton.
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You know John Newton’s story.
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He was the master of a slave ship.
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He lived a wretched, wicked life, which was perhaps one reason why he could never quite
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get over God’s grace to save him.
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And he wrote that hymn that most of us know very well, Amazing Grace How Sweet the Sound
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That Saved a Wretch Like Me.
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That’s John Newton’s great song about conversion.
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But he wrote some other hymns.
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And there’s one in particular that I want to read to you that is not at all well known,
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but it is profound and very helpful.
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I have gone back to this many times at key moments in my own life and walk with the Lord.
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I think you’ll find it helpful.
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It talks about the reality of Christian experience as Newton knew it, and I think many of us
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here know it.
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Let me just read these words to you.
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They’ve helped me so much.
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Newton’s … here’s his experience.
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He said, I ask the Lord that I might grow in faith and love and every grace, might more
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of his salvation know and seek more earnestly his face.’
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So here’s Newton.
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He’s a Christian now and he really wants to grow in Christ, and he asks the Lord to do
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it.
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Then he says I hoped that in some favored hour, at once he’d answer my request, and
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by his love’s constraining power subdue my sins and give me rest.
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I’d love God to work in my life like that and you would too.
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Then says Newton, instead of this, he made me feel the hidden evils of my heart and let
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the angry powers of hell assault my soul in every part.
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Yet more, with his own hand he seemed intent to aggravate my woe.
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It seemed like God was making it worse.
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He crossed all the fair designs I’d schemed, blasted my gourds, and laid me low.
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You know what the gourd is?
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Remember the story of Jonah, and it was a hot day and a gourd grew up, it’s a big plant
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like a vine, and the gourd grew up and remember, God sent a worm that ate the gourd, and it
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faded away and so when the gourd was gone, Jonah was left exposed to the height of the
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sun.
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Well that’s what Newton’s talking about when he says blasted my gourds, he’s saying
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taking away my comforts, like God took away the comfort from Jonah that was shading him
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from the sun.
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I love that phrase by the way, blasted my gourds, you’ll love that, there’s feeling
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from this in Newton, you know, I’m wanting to grow as a Christian and what’s God doing?
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He’s taken away every comfort in my life.
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Some of you know what that’s like.
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Now you’ll understand where Newton goes next, Lord why is this I trembling cried, are you
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going to pursue this worm to death?
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This is what God said, in this way, the Lord replied that I answer prayer for grace and
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faith.
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These in word trials I employ from self and pride to set you free and break your schemes
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of earthly joy, that you may seek your all in me.
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Now you see, Newton discovered in painful places in his life that sorrow was God’s back
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door to much greater joy.
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He found a thirst within him that you may seek your all in me.
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If you have this thirst within your own soul and you’re wanting to know a greater joy in
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God’s people, a greater joy in God’s love, and a greater joy in God’s city, you will
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be saying in your mind right now, yeah, now how can I get more of this?
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Because I do thirst for it.
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God’s brought me to the place where I long intensely to seek my all in Him.
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I really do.
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I’m no longer sitting back comfortably tasting a sermon.
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I need this joy to be restored within my soul.
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How can I know more of it?
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Well, look at what Isaiah says in the part of the passage that most of us, I think, know
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well.
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There are just four key words, come, listen, seek, and turn.
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I’ll just take them in two pairs just very briefly.
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Let’s put come and seek together because they go naturally together, verse one and verse
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six of chapter 55.
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Here’s how you cultivate the joy that leads to verse 12 going out in joy and being led
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forth with peace.
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Whatever sorrows you’ve known, you come, all you who are thirsty, you come to the waters,
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you come and buy and eat, you come buy wine and milk without money.
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That’s verse one, you seek the Lord while he may be found.
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And you remember that our Lord Jesus in John chapter 7, verse 37, He quotes this very passage
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from Isaiah, and says, if anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink.
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So this is Jesus speaking, we are to come to him and we are to seek him.
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Now, I just want to emphasize this is something for you to do.
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You want your joy to be restored?
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You want your soul to be restored?
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You must come to him.
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We saw last week that restoring your soul begins with believing, but it doesn’t end
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with believing.
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You must come, and those who do believe will come, if there is a great hunger and thirst
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in your soul.
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Some of us will just listen to a sermon and go home.
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Some of us will listen to nine sermons in this series and be utterly unchanged, but
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others of us will embrace these cries and you will make it your cry to God.
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And you’ll be saying from last week, make me a person who really believes this, and
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not just someone who says, I believe it.
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Now, make me someone, God, who really has joy in your people.
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Do that for me.
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And if you start praying that, this week, you come to Jesus Christ and you seek him
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in this regard, you may want to ask him to forgive you for moaning and complaining and
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fault finding and criticizing your brothers and sisters in Christ.
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You may ask him to forgive you for loving the politics of church more than the people
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of church.
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You may want to ask him to give you eyes, Lord, give me eyes to see where you’re doing
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a redeeming wonderful work in my brothers and sisters, so that I could have a heart
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to rejoice in that.
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And then you want to say, Lord Jesus give me new joy in your love.
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Restore to me the joy of your salvation.
00:18:31.699 –> 00:18:37.319
And Lord give me a clearer grasp of the hope that is mine in Jesus Christ, the city whose
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builder and maker is God.
00:18:39.300 –> 00:18:44.900
I don’t know my future in this city, but I do know my future in that city, and the more
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joy I have in that city, the more joy I will have in this city.
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These are prayers, these hearts’ cries for revival.
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And I want you to imagine the impact and the life change of 2,000 people in this church
00:19:07.479 –> 00:19:12.900
hammering the gates of heaven, because these are passionate prayers, and saying, Lord Jesus
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Christ restore joy.
00:19:15.400 –> 00:19:27.939
There are too many unhappy Christians, and the reason is not circumstances, not when
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you look at Isaiah 54 and discover who it is that has found this joy.
00:19:36.699 –> 00:19:38.819
they can find this joy.
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Why shouldn’t you?
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Come and seek, and then listen and turn.
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Verse 2 and 3, listen, listen to me God says.
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Give ear, come to me, hear me.
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And then, verse 6 and 7, let the wicked forsake his way and turn to the Lord.
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In other words, the people who go out with joy and are led forth with peace.
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They’re the folks who have developed not only the habit of coming to Christ and seeking
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him, but they have developed the pattern of life in which they hear the word and they
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receive it with faith and with repentance.
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And so, what Isaiah speaks about becomes true of them in verse 10 and 11, the purpose for
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which God sent his word into the world is accomplished in their lives.
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The change, the healing, the growth, the joy that comes by the Spirit of God through the
00:20:35.719 –> 00:20:42.280
word of God is cultivated in their lives because they come and seek and because they listen
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and because they turn from what is wrong.
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That’s one reason, by the way, why it’s such a wonderful thing to be in a church where
00:20:48.699 –> 00:20:51.319
we receive the word of God into our lives.
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Get into a life group so that that can happen for you in the week.
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It’s such a pattern that the word of God is keeping coming freshly into your life because
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God says His word will accomplish the purpose for which He sends it.
00:21:06.459 –> 00:21:12.060
You can accomplish your purposes without the word of God, but God’s purposes are always
00:21:12.060 –> 00:21:16.459
accomplished through the word of God, which is why we want to build our lives and our
00:21:16.459 –> 00:21:20.719
ministry around the word of God.
00:21:20.719 –> 00:21:21.780
And do not merely listen.
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It’s a wonderful privilege to hear the word of God, but don’t merely listen.
00:21:25.699 –> 00:21:28.119
James says in the New Testament, do what it says.
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That’s why Isaiah here says, turn.
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Listen and turn, because the person who just hears is like someone who looks in a mirror
00:21:34.640 –> 00:21:37.719
and then just goes away and nothing’s ever different.
00:21:37.719 –> 00:21:42.880
But says James in the New Testament, the one who looks into the word of God and continues
00:21:42.880 –> 00:21:49.000
doing this, not forgetting what he’s heard but doing it, well, this person will be blessed
00:21:49.000 –> 00:21:53.180
— that word again — happy, joyful in all that he does.
00:21:54.140 –> 00:21:55.439
So come and seek.
00:21:55.439 –> 00:22:01.359
This is how the joy in God’s people and in God’s love and in God’s city grows.
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Listen and turn.
00:22:03.959 –> 00:22:08.160
And, you know, this is not so much a decision to be made at the end of a service.
00:22:08.160 –> 00:22:11.300
It’s a way of life to be followed.
00:22:11.300 –> 00:22:16.699
But it is a way of life that can begin for you today.
00:22:16.760 –> 00:22:18.439
I’m feeling that thirst.
00:22:18.439 –> 00:22:20.719
Lord restore faith.
00:22:20.739 –> 00:22:24.219
Lord restore joy.
00:22:25.420 –> 00:22:29.119
You’ve been listening to Open The Bible with Pastor Colin Smith and that was the title
00:22:29.119 –> 00:22:31.819
of our message, Restore Joy.
00:22:31.819 –> 00:22:36.800
It’s part of a series called Restore My Soul, and if you’ve missed any of the series or
00:22:36.800 –> 00:22:41.199
you want to go back and listen again, you can do that by coming online to our website
00:22:41.199 –> 00:22:44.239
openthebible.org.uk.
00:22:44.599 –> 00:22:50.000
Find us as a podcast, go to your favorite podcast site, search for Open The Bible UK
00:22:50.000 –> 00:22:52.119
and subscribe to receive regular updates.
00:22:52.119 –> 00:22:59.560
There’s also a link to the podcast on our website and that’s at openthebible.org.uk.
00:22:59.560 –> 00:23:04.439
Open The Bible is supported entirely by our listeners and if that’s something you’ve
00:23:04.439 –> 00:23:09.160
been considering doing, then this month we have a great offer for you.
00:23:09.160 –> 00:23:13.680
If you’re able to set up a new donation to the work of Open The Bible in the amount of
00:23:13.739 –> 00:23:20.359
£5 per month or more, we’d love to say thank you by sending you a copy of C. H. Spurgeon’s
00:23:20.359 –> 00:23:22.979
book, Encouragement for the Depressed.
00:23:22.979 –> 00:23:25.380
Colin, who is this book for?
00:23:25.380 –> 00:23:30.040
Well this book is really for anyone who is discouraged or going through a dark time,
00:23:30.060 –> 00:23:34.599
and I can’t imagine that there’s any Christian who doesn’t experience that at some point
00:23:34.599 –> 00:23:35.599
in life.
00:23:35.599 –> 00:23:41.380
What’s so striking to me about this book is that it’s written by a man who was known
00:23:41.380 –> 00:23:43.599
for his extraordinary faith.
00:23:43.800 –> 00:23:49.619
I mean, the spirit of God rested on the life and ministry of C. H. Spurgeon, and yet, he
00:23:49.640 –> 00:23:56.140
knew what it was to go through times of extraordinary darkness and even a sense of despair at some
00:23:56.140 –> 00:24:03.079
points, you know, he suffered from smallpox, gout, rheumatism, inflammation of the kidneys
00:24:03.079 –> 00:24:04.920
and his wife was bedridden for decades.
00:24:04.920 –> 00:24:10.760
I mean, this man really knew what it was to suffer, and yet he found in all of this, that
00:24:11.020 –> 00:24:14.060
more he was forced closer to the Lord Jesus Christ.
00:24:14.060 –> 00:24:22.760
I love what he says, he says I’ve learned to kiss the waves that throw me up against
00:24:22.760 –> 00:24:24.180
the rock of ages.
00:24:24.180 –> 00:24:25.660
I love that!
00:24:25.660 –> 00:24:29.099
Kiss the waves that throw me up against the rock of ages.
00:24:29.099 –> 00:24:34.859
Here’s biblical wisdom from a man of faith who knew what it was to really struggle in
00:24:34.859 –> 00:24:41.060
dark times, and I have found his writing to be wonderfully encouraging, refreshing and
00:24:41.060 –> 00:24:46.140
uplifting and that is why I am really grateful that we have the opportunity of getting this
00:24:46.140 –> 00:24:47.339
book out this month.
00:24:47.339 –> 00:24:52.459
C.H. Spurgeon’s book Encouragement for the Depressed is our gift to you if you are able
00:24:52.459 –> 00:24:58.219
to set up a new donation to the work of Open the Bible this month in the amount of £5
00:24:58.219 –> 00:24:59.939
per month or more.
00:25:00.819 –> 00:25:06.619
and to give online go to our website, www.openthebible.org.uk
00:25:06.619 –> 00:25:10.699
For Open the Bible and Pastor Colin Smith, I am David Pick and I hope you will join us
00:25:10.699 –> 00:25:11.719
again next time.
00:25:17.719 –> 00:25:21.619
God is everywhere but there are only two places
00:25:21.619 –> 00:25:26.359
where He can be found. Find out where they are next time, on Open the Bible