 So, we have been in our small groups going through Spurgeon and the Christian life. Everyone has been reading along with us, we hope. And in our group on the west side, we spent three weeks in Chapter 9 on prayer. And we're going to spend one week on chapters 10, 11, and 12. So, a little bit out of balance, but what's the rush? I've been listening to the last two Sunday school classes on prayer and reading and thinking a lot about prayer, and I'm just glad that we're focusing on this topic. I'm going to get to it eventually. I'm going to start in another place, though. In Chapter 9, when Michael Reeves is writing about Spurgeon's passion for prayer, he quoted Spurgeon at the beginning of this chapter. Well, Spurgeon would often get especially passionate when pleading with his people to pray, quote, oh, for God's sake, for his name and glory's sake, if you would honor the Father, if you would let Jesus see the travail of his soul, wrestle together with us in your prayers for the divine working. And that phrase there, if you would let Jesus see the travail of his soul, is a reference to Isaiah 53, verse 11. Let's look at that. I think that's the King James Version 5311. It says, he shall see the travail of his soul and shall be satisfied by his knowledge, shall my righteous servant justify many, for he shall bear their iniquities. I was just struck by this description of God being satisfied. And so I looked for and found a sermon that Spurgeon preached on Isaiah 5311. The suffering Christ satisfied. And I want to read you just an excerpt from what Spurgeon said about this. He says, the Eternal Father says, he shall see the fruit of the travail of his soul. Now that quote isn't exactly, he puts the word fruit in there, it's how we're to understand the verse, the fruit of the travail of his soul. That is, he will see the fruit of it. Jesus is not dead. The travail was enough to kill him, but he remembers no more his travail for the joy of the blessed fruit which is brought into the world thereby. He looks down from heaven tonight as he has been looking down ever since he ascended there and beholds the sweet results of all his pains and griefs. And then he goes on to say, Christ sees the travail of his soul whenever a sinner touches the hem of his garment and receives the virtue that comes out of him. He is satisfied as saints advance in grace as they make progress in the divine life. He is most of all satisfied as one by one. They go up the glittering pathway to the gates of pearl and enter into rest. He will be completely satisfied when all the chosen company shall be on the streets of gold like unto transparent glass and shall without the lack of a single voice in the divine choir sing unto him that loved us and washed us from our sins in his blood unto him be glory forever and ever. So thinking about prayer and about motivations for prayer, my mindset when I pray is even a certain shame in this I guess, but it's mostly my concern is staying connected to God and being able through prayer and just quiet time with the Lord to be able to walk in the spirit, to fill my mind with heavenly things so that I will be less likely to be caught up in the world. And so I have a, more often than not, that's the reason that I'm going to the Lord in prayer. It's to, in a sense, it's for my good. And there's nothing particularly wrong with that, but what I don't often think about when I'm praying is that the Lord delights in my prayer. And that's actually what Proverbs 15.8 says. The sacrifice of the wicked is an abomination to the Lord, but the prayer of the upright, the ESB says is acceptable to him. The NASB says is his delight. And so he delights in our prayers. And so this is connected to the way that Spurgeon describes this joy of God in seeing the fruit of his travails. There's a communion that we have with God. And just in that communion, there's joy for us, but it also, there's an aspect of the joy of the Lord there. Some other commentators spoke of this Isaiah 53.11 passage. John Gill said, the travail of his soul is the toil and labor he endured in working out the salvation of his people, his obedience and death, his sorrows and sufferings, particularly those birth throes of his soul under a sense of divine wrath, for the illusion is to women and travail, and all the agonies and pains of death which he went through. Now the fruit of all this he sees with inexpressible pleasure, and which gives him an infinite satisfaction, namely the complete redemption of all the chosen ones and the glory of the divine perfections displayed therein, as well as in his own glory, which follows upon it. He goes on to say, let's see, well, so that word travail is connected with the birth pains of a woman in labor. And he, so Gill says, as a woman after her travail and sharp pains are over, having brought forth a son looks upon it with joy and pleasure and is satisfied and forgets her former pain and anguish. So Christ, after all his sorrows and sufferings, sees a large number of souls regenerated, sanctified, justified and brought to heaven and to heaven in consequence of them, which is a most pleasing and satisfactory sight unto him. So the joy of the Lord in saving us, in seeing the fruits of the travails of his travails. Ortland, R.C. Ortland in writing about Isaiah 53 said, out of the anguish of his soul, he shall see light. Anguish was not his final emotional experience. His anguish led to a dawning light of victorious joy. Looking on what he accomplished by his passion, Christ is satisfied. Why? Because he's the kind of person who enjoys clearing sinners of their guilt and accounting them righteous, though it demands that he bear their iniquities upon himself. And right now today, all over the world, he's enjoying the satisfaction, the sheer pleasure of making many ungodly people to be accounted righteous. The one who descended to unimaginable depths is now enjoying the spoils of complete victory. So when you pray, think about the reality that your prayer is worship. Your prayer is, actually John MacArthur said in a sermon I listened to, he said it was the purest form of worship. So can we bring joy to God? As Psalm 16 says, in his presence is fullness of joy. So one of his attributes is joy. There's, so I don't think you can say that we bring joy to him in prayer, but he takes joy in us and he takes joy in us. So his joy is in our salvation as we've been reading in these passages. And that's connected with our worship. So he saves us for his glory. So it's not like we get to salvation and that's the end of what's being accomplished. We enter into a relationship where our whole being is focused on glorifying him. And he delights in that. I want to share with you some other things that I've, so we're talking about joy of the Lord. We're going to ultimately bring this back into a connection with prayer. But there was an essay that I found written by Bob Defendaw in which he talks about the joy of the Lord. And he speaks of the joy of God, the Father of God, the Son and of God, the Spirit. And in speaking of the joy of God, the Father, he said, God, the Father took pleasure and in his creation in Genesis one and several verses, we read that God saw that it was good. And so in implied in this good, God saw that it was good is that there is, it's pleasing. There's pleasure in it. So God takes joy in his creation. Defendaw goes on to say, he quotes Genesis six, five to seven. Then the Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth and every, and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. And the Lord was sorry that he had made man on the earth and he was grieved in his heart. So the Lord said, I will destroy man whom I have created from the face of the earth, both man and beast, creeping things and birds of the air for I am sorry that I have made them. So there's a sense in which God's joy turns to sorrow at our sin. This is going to be something we look at more carefully when we get to this book. And we speak of the immutability and impassability of God. But the language that's used here is not expressing changing attributes of God. He is unchanging. But it's language that helps us to understand because we're simple humans helps us understand God. This subject of immutability, I'll just briefly, in Sproul's commentary on this verse, he, Sproul says, here's a reference to a change of attitudes and actions. There is no contradiction between this verse and passages teaching the changelessness of God. Remembering that this description is anthropopathetic, God being depicted in terms of human experience of knowledge and emotion. We must also recognize that the immutable and sovereign God deals appropriately with changes in human behavior. So, I mean, the language is that God was sorry and God was grieved. We'll leave the whole discussion of immutability for when we get to this book, but it just helps us to understand our relationship to God. But so you see that, you know, there's the joy of God, the Father is at least in part we're understood by his creation and it was good. And so we see that that is an attribute of God, the Father. Joy of God, the Son. If we look at Psalm 45, 6 to 7, which reminds us of Hebrews one says, your throne, oh God is forever endeavor, a scepter of uprightness is the scepter of your kingdom. You have loved righteousness and hated wickedness. Therefore, God, your God has anointed you with the oil of joy above your fellows. So the joy of Jesus is one that surpasses the joy of all his brethren. That's what that Psalm is saying. Matthew Henry said of this verse, he said, his anointing him with the oil of gladness denotes the joy that was set before him, both in the light of his father's countenance and in the success of his undertaking, which he shall see and be satisfied. And there's a reference to Isaiah 5311. This he is anointed with above all his fellows, above all believers who are his brethren and who partake of the anointing, they by measure, he without measure. So we see the joy of God, the Son there in Psalm 45 that's connected with Isaiah 53 and with Hebrews 12. Hebrews 12, one to two, speaks of the same joy. If you look at that, Hebrews 12, one to two. Therefore, since we have so great a cloud of witnesses surrounding us, let us also lay aside every encumbrance and the sin which so easily entangles us. And let us run with endurance, the race that is set before us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, despising the shame and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. So the joy set before him, his redeemed people, you, the Christian, are the joy set before him. So there's the joy of obeying and glorifying his father and the joy of the people who are redeemed to him by doing that. So again, where I started was in this chapter on prayer and considering trying to think about how God receives our prayer and that being a motivation for you to pray so that your prayer isn't only like I described mine often, a most often being about me clinging on, trying to overcome the world, but thinking of your prayer as worship and as delighting God in that, in Spurgeon's book he talks about, let's see, it's on page 148, he quotes Psalm 141 in Revelation 5.8, an image Spurgeon frequently returned to when teaching on prayer was that was that of prayer as incense, the sweet smell rising before the Lord, for the fragrance to rise from the golden bowl of incense, there must be an inner fire to ignite it, there must be in other words some heartfelt warmth of sincerity and prayer for God to receive it. So our prayers are described as a sweet smelling aroma, so there's delight, God delights in our prayer. I hope that that will motivate you to pray more and when you're praying not to, so like I've for years because my mind wonders and I even, yes, sometimes fall asleep praying, there are things that I do not have to prevent that, I've found that there are certain ways, postures that you can get in to keep you from falling asleep, but I follow an outline in my mind and so it's described in Matthew Henry's method of prayer, adoration, confession, thanksgiving, intercession, and petition. I'm going through these one at a time as I'm praying and trying to remember and sometimes working from a list, but even as I express my praise to him, I don't often think about the reality that he delights in that. So there are other ways that we understand the joy of the Lord. Let's see, Matthew 25, 14 to 13, these parables tell us, so we're going to look at a few of them, Matthew 25, 14, for it is just like a man about to go on a journey who called his own slaves and entrusted his possessions to them and to when he gave five talents to another two and to another one each according to his own ability and he went on his journey immediately the one who had received the five talents went and traded with them and gained five more talents in the same manner the one who had received the two talents gained two more but he who received the one talent went away and dug in the ground and hid his master's money. Now after a long time the master of those slaves came and settled accounts with them and the one who had received the five talents came and brought five more saying master you have entrusted five talents to me see I have gained five more talents as master said to him well done good and faithful slave you were faithful with a few things I will put you in charge of many things enter into the joy of your master the one who also had received two talents came up and said master you entrusted me with two talents I have gained two more talents his master said to him well done good and faithful slave you were faithful with a few things I will put you in charge of many things enter into the joy of your master and the one who had received the one talent came back and said master I knew you to be a hard man reaping where you did not sow and gathering where you scattered no seed and I was afraid and went away and hid your talent in the ground see you have what is yours but his master answered and said to him you wicked lazy slave you knew that I reap where I do not where I did not sow and gather where I scattered no seed then you ought to have put my money in the bank and on my arrival I would have received my money back with interest therefore take away the talent from him and give it to the one who has ten talents but everyone who has shall more be given and he shall have an abundance but from the one who does not have even what he does have shall be taken away and cast out the worthless slave into the outer darkness in that place where there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth so enter into the joy of the master so Dovenvot says the first two slaves were faithful and their reward was to enter into the joy of their master do these words not indicate that their master was joyful and that these slaves were blessed by entering into his joy with him the master was or would be joyful and his faithful slaves would enter into this joy as well the master in this story most truly represents our lord and the faithful servants his followers the blessings of the master and his slaves are summed up by the word joy the master was joyful the faithful slaves were to enter into this joy and the wicked man had no grasp of god's joy at all how many of us have the same distorted view of god as a grouchy demanding slave master rather than a joyful master into whose joy we may enter when we were doing the study on the law and gospel john calhoun's book which i'm tempted to rewrite in plain english um one of the things that we we used and that i found helpful and that we used from time to time and our study on the west side was a series of lectures by fred malone who's with he teaches with covenant baptist theological seminary and he said he did a series on the law and gospel and one of the and i and one of the lectures he addresses this issue people having a distorted view of god and he really it struck me and um it was very helpful um he said that when when bad things happen to us we tend to think that it's because god is angry at us we've done something to deserve his wrath but if you're a christian that is not what's happening uh whatever is happening to you is happening because god loves you um and you know his ways are above our ways and you don't know why he's doing what he's doing but to respond that way to say well this bad thing is happening to me is really uh because god is angry or wrathful god has no wrath for his people he loves his people um we are his joy and so i get in a way that's that's an aside but you've got to you know have a right view of god as as loving you uh you know if you are a christian yes god loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life if you're not then there's another plan altogether but having a right view of god's love and and of god's joy um is is really uh one of the points that um Daphne ball makes in here is and i won't get into it but you know at one point he talks about the sin of israel was uh uh not um seeing and understanding the joy of the lord um so the next uh parable that helps us understand the joy of the lord um look at uh luke 15 so in luke 15 the first couple of verses um scribes and Pharisees are grumbling over the lord's association with tax gatherers and sinners and in response jesus tells two parables starting in verse three and he told them this parable saying what man among you if he has a hundred sheep and has lost one of them does not leave 99 in the open pasture and go after the one which is lost until he finds it and when he has found it he lays it on his shoulders rejoicing and when he comes home he calls together his friends and neighbors saying to them rejoice with me for i have found my sheep which was lost i tell you that in the same way there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over 99 righteous persons who need no repentance or what woman if she has 10 silver coins and loses one coin does not light a lamp and sweep the house and search carefully until she finds it and when she has found it she calls together her friends and neighbors saying rejoice with me for i have found the coin which i had lost in the same way i tell you there is joy in the presence of the angels of god over one sinner who repents joy in the presence of the angels of god is the joy of god um so uh deafenbaugh's commentary on this he says jesus makes it clear that these two stories are understood as illustrative of his seeking after lost sinners and then rejoicing over their salvation one of the joys set before him was the salvation of lost sinners others were expected to rejoice with our lord over the fact that lost sinners were coming to faith in him and were found in him the scribes and Pharisees could not enter into this joy because they were still lost and did not wish to be found they were angry that jesus was manifesting grace toward these unworthy sinners they did not want such folks in their kingdom so the joy of the lord in our salvation and then the end of luke 15 is the prodigal son and oh we won't read that whole thing but the father of the prodigal son once again portrays the joy of the heavenly father at the repentance and conversion of lost sinners so deafenbaugh goes on to um speak of the joy of god the spirit and he quoted he pointed to several passages i'll read a couple of them acts 1352 and the disciples were continually filled with joy and with the holy spirit romans 14 17 for the kingdom of god is not eating and drinking but righteousness and peace and joy in the holy spirit uh romans 15 13 now may the god of hope fill you with all joy and peace and believing that you may abound in hope by the power of the holy spirit so deafenbaugh says the holy spirit is the means by which the joy of our lord the joy of our master is conveyed to the believer the presence and ministry of the holy spirit produces joy in the life of the christian we must imply from these verses that those who are not christians in whom the holy spirit does not dwell do not and cannot experience god's joy he um lists a few things that i thought were helpful um says the bible leaves no doubt about what pleases and displeases god god delights in his people Psalm 149 for he finds joy and uprightness first chronicles 29 17 and loyalty and undying love he is pleased with loving kindness justice and righteousness Jeremiah nine he delights in the sons whom he disciplines proverbs 312 he loves um just waits and the blameless he has pleasure and those who deal faithfully god does not delight in mere religious rituals divorced from godly living those things which impress us god takes no pleasure in such as the strength of a horse or the legs of a man Psalm 147 he finds no joy in fools please he asked these five or in the death of the wicked Ezekiel 18 um so he he concludes with this there is no joy like that of knowing god and serving him no joy like that of knowing that our sins are forgiven and that we are right with god through the shed blood of jesus christ let us seek joy in god and in serving and worshiping him so i i i believe that um if we are to to know god if we are to um um enter into his joy um we will do that um well by being disciplined in prayer um the last thing that i wanted to um share with you is an aw pink commentary on on the hebrew's um 12 passage and next week we're going to um go from from this discussion to some practical things that you can do um um in terms of prayer uh and it so uh next week i'm going to talk with you about this the hidden life of prayer by david mackentire is how many of you have read this one two okay so you can google this it's about 40 pages um free free pdf um uh just the first time i read this i was so encouraged and um so david mackentire this is written in 1913 um it's like he quotes every wise bible student on the subject of prayer who had lived up up till uh his time um but chapter one is the life of prayer and it has just really practical suggestions about finding a quiet place and how to have a quiet heart when you're praying um chapter two is the equipment chapter three the direction of the mind let's see chapter four the engagement worship is the first part of the engagement confession the second request is the third and chapter six and um chapter seven the hidden riches of the secret place and chapter eight the open recompense um and then after that uh pastor michael is going to continue with um oh you're going to start glory oh i thought you were okay so um so so next week we're going to look at this in detail and um i'm going to try to put together an outline so you'll have a handout but um pink um um on on he bruise on he bruise 12 said this genuine christianity is a life lived in communion with christ a life lived by faith as his was for to me to live as christ philippians 121 and then galatians 220 christ liveth in me and the life which i now live in the flesh i live by the faith of the son of god um the motive or reason which prompted jesus to do and suffer wherein he is presented as our example and encouragement is for the joy that was set before him here is made known to us what was the final moving cause in his mind which sustained the savior to a preserving performance of duty and of the endurance of all the sufferings that that duty entailed various definitions have been given of that joy and probably all of them are included within its scope the glory of god was what the redeemer preferred above all things but that glory was inseparately inseparably bound up with the personal exaltation of the redeemer and the salvation of his church following the accomplishment of the work given him to do this was set before him in the everlasting covenant thus the joy that was set before jesus was the doing of god's will and his anticipation of the glorious reward which should be given him in return he had in steady prospect that satisfaction with which the travail of his soul would be fully compensated by faith abraham looked forward to a city by faith isaac anticipated things to come by faith moses had respect unto the recompense of the reward and by faith jesus lived and died in the enjoyment of that which was set before him so the jesus the satisfaction that he has and the accomplishment of god's will and the redemption of your soul involves your continuing relationship and communion with him and so that should inform and motivate your prayer life that you are delighting god in worship when you pray let's pray father in heaven it is a um just amazing privilege that we have to come directly to you and know that you hear us that you love us that you delight in our communion with you it's it's the greatest blessing and privilege that we could have and we praise you and thank you for it and just thank you for for being here um to set our minds on worshiping you in jesus name amen