Senior Pastor, Robert Dennison, preached this message on April 6, 2025. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Audio Transcript
Chapter 10. If you want to use one of the Pew Bibles, it’s on page 921. We’re looking today at Jesus sharing things that he is extremely joyful about. I’ll begin reading in Luke 10, 21:24.
At that time, he rejoiced in the Holy Spirit and said, I praise you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and intelligent and revealed them to infants. Yes, Father, because this was your good pleasure. All things have been entrusted to me by my Father. No one knows who the Son is except the Father, and who the Father is except the Son, and anyone to whom the Son desires to reveal him. Then, turning to his disciples, he said, privately, blessed are the eyes that have seen the things that you see.
For I tell you that many prophets and kings wanted to see the things you see, but didn’t see them. To hear the things you hear, but didn’t hear them. May we pray? Heavenly Father, as we look at your Word today, we come with thanksgiving in our hearts that you have shown us the way to salvation, but also how to live our lives in such a way that we express our appreciation appropriately to you, and we demonstrate you to the world around us in our actions and in our words. In your Son’s name we pray.
Amen.
We’re looking at four things today. What does Jesus rejoicing look like? And then what does Jesus rejoice about here in this text? What are we supposed to rejoice about? And what is the key to proper rejoicing?
We’ll start out with what does Jesus rejoicing look like? It says that at that time he rejoiced in the Holy Spirit. Spirit, There’s a special word for rejoice here. There are several words in the New Testament that talk about being happy about something and expressing that happiness. But this particular word means to leap, to exult, to leap for joy, to show one’s joy by leaping and skipping, denoting excessive or extinct ecstatic joy and delight, and is often mentioned in connection with song and dance.
Did you see any rejoicing like that yet this morning? Was anybody skipping in the auditorium or jumping? Do you see anybody, Kelly Jo? Or when you saw one of your friends that you haven’t seen in a while, maybe one of our snowbirds that’s come back? Did you jump up and down because you were so excited to see them?
I mean, this is extreme joy that Jesus is expressing here. Some of the other times it’s used in scripture, it’s like when Mary rejoiced that the Savior was coming, that she was going to bear the Son of God. John, chapter 8, verse 56 says that in Abraham’s day he was skipping and jumping and rejoicing because he saw that the Savior was coming. And in Psalm 16, verse 8 through 11, there’s a prophecy about the coming Messiah. And David wrote that the Messiah will do this.
He will rejoice in this way. So we’re hearing here a fulfillment of Scripture, that Jesus was having this ecstatic, I’ve got to jump and I’ve got to leap for joy because I’m so excited about this. The Philippian jailer, he rejoiced in this way when he was saved. And in Revelation 19:7, I think we’ll understand this. It says we are going to rejoice and jump and dance in this way at the marriage of the Lamb.
Because we all understand that at a wedding there is extreme rejoicing and happiness. The opposite of this would be to grieve, to groan, to be vexed, or to be really troubled in your heart and burdened to the point that you just feel like you are pained. So what we want to see here is it’s just regular joy. These are things that Jesus is extremely excited about. Let’s go back and read more.
Says I praise you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth. And he praises him because you have hidden these things from the wise and the intelligent and you have revealed them to infants. Yes, Father, because this was your good pleasure. There were many intelligent people in Jesus day. There were many classes of people that were well educated that saw themselves as being above the rest.
But Jesus is excited because the message that he came to bring wasn’t just for the super intelligent. It wasn’t just for those who were worldly wise. But. But he says that he gave this knowledge to infants because the Gospel is something that isn’t difficult to understand. It is something that is very simple to get.
Now that doesn’t mean it’s easy because it’s simple to place our faith in Christ. But he says that we will have troubles and difficulties and problems in this life. But Jesus is excited that everybody has access to the Gospel. And it’s supernatural revelation that we have here. We have revelation that God’s Word tells us about God.
We have revelation now that God is in the flesh demonstrating himself to us. And then after that we have the rest of the New Testament and now we have the Holy Spirit living in us. All of these things are God’s way of letting us know how we can really know him, but it comes, comes through him by his special revelation for us. Now, some of the ancient groups that Jesus was speaking against here, one group would have been the Sadducees. They were the priests in the temple.
And they thought that they were superior above everyone else in their knowledge and their wisdom. Jesus is saying, the Gospel isn’t just for you. And actually, it was hard for them to comprehend because it was too simple in their minds. They had already rejected most of the Old Testament. They only went by the first five books.
They didn’t believe in life after death. They didn’t believe in angels. In essence, they had rejected most of what God had already told them. So they didn’t get the gospel. Some of them did, but as a class of people, they didn’t.
Then you had the scribes. They were the legal attorneys of the day. They were highly educated. But their problem was they were so interested in the letter of the law, the intellectual aspect of it, that they neglected to understand the spirit of the law and how the law was meant to help us to show love to God and to show love to other people, not just to be rules to follow. The Pharisees overthought.
They had added many, many traditions to the law because they were so intelligent. They figured that they could add more to God’s word that people needed to follow. And Jesus said that no, God’s word, his message to us is supposed to be simple. So here we have it. Jesus is rejoicing that the Gospel is for everyone and we all.
If we are smart, if we’re intelligent, we still have to become as little children and accept him by faith to accept it. The simplicity of the Gospel. Let’s look at some other scripture passages that talk about the wisdom of man versus the wisdom of God. We’ll turn to First Corinthians, chapter one, where I’ll be reading verses 18 through 21. What I want you to see here is that God’s wisdom is available not just for the brilliant, but it’s available for all.
For the word of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but it is the power of God to us who are being saved. For it is written, I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and I will set aside the intelligence of the intelligent. Wisdom and intelligence are not necessary to bring us to faith in Jesus Christ. Where is the one who is wise? Where is the teacher of the law?
Where is the debater of this age, people that we would normally think as being intellectual and understanding these things? Well, don’t necessarily get what the gospel says. Hasn’t God made the world’s wisdom foolishness? For since in God’s wisdom the world did not know God through wisdom, God was pleased to save those who believe through the foolishness of what is preached. In other words, he’s saying it’s not worldly wisdom that brings you to a right relationship with God.
You don’t have to have worldly wisdom. It’s really going to turn you away from the Lord. Instead, what people say is foolishness. That’s really God’s wisdom that sharing the gospel with us. The gospel was not meant for only the wise, the intelligent, the teacher and the debater.
The gospel is so simple that to those people it can seem foolish. Now, the wise and the intelligent, they could be saved, but they had to set aside their intellectualism and accept Jesus Christ by faith as a little child would. So look now at First Corinthians 2, verses 6 through 9 more verses about the simplicity of the gospel that Jesus is so excited about. We do, however, speak a wisdom among the mature. But it’s not a wisdom of this age.
It doesn’t have to do with the intelligence of the world. It’s not of the rulers of this age who are coming to nothing. On contrary, Paul says we speak God’s hidden wisdom in a mystery. It’s God’s wisdom that he’s revealed to us. It’s a wisdom God predestined before the ages for our glory.
Verse 8 says that none of the rulers of this age knew this wisdom. It isn’t through intelligence or understanding that people could come to know God. You can look at creation and say there must be a God. But in order to know him, we have to have his revelation where he tells us about Himself. Verse 8 says none of the rulers of this age knew this wisdom because if they had known it, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory.
But as it is written, what no eye has seen, what we can’t see for ourselves and what no ear has heard, what we can’t gather for ourself and what no human heart has conceived, what we can’t come up with ourselves, God prepared all these things for those who love Him. It isn’t through intelligence that we come to a right relationship with God. It isn’t through intelligence that we come to understand Him. It’s through having what for him, through having love for Him. Just like with our children and with our spouses and our family, we come to understand them more, not just by having an intellectual understanding of them.
But by choosing to love them, we get to know them better. Jesus was praising the Father because the Gospel is simple. It’s available to everyone. But Jesus is also praising the Father, and he’s excited about the sovereignty that the Father has given to him. And what we’re going to see in the text here is how much Jesus is presenting himself, that he is God in the flesh.
God the Father, God the Holy Spirit, God the Son. They are all one. And because God is sovereign over all things, and because Jesus is God, he also is sovereign over all things, that means he’s the supreme power. There is nothing or no one over him that’s telling him what to do or keeping him from doing anything that he wants. And we see this in verse 22, when Jesus was praising through the Spirit, he said, all things have been entrusted to me by my Father.
All things, they’ve all been given to Jesus. Hebrews 1:2 says, God has appointed him, speaking of Jesus, to be the heir of all things, and he even made the universe through him. Just as we know and understand that God the Father is creator of heaven and earth, because Jesus is God in the flesh, Jesus is also the creator. And what we’re seeing in Scripture is all of these evidence that they are. 1 Colossians, chapter 1, verse 15 through 17, we read, he is the image of the invisible God, the God that could not be seen, the God that was loving and almighty and powerful, and a judge in Jesus Christ in the flesh.
Of all of a sudden, what was invisible became visible. The firstborn over all creation. And again it’s emphasized because everything was created by Him. Everything in heaven, everything on earth, everything that can be seen, the visible, and all the things that are invisible, whether it’s a throne or dominion or a ruler or authority, all of these are under Jesus Christ because He is sovereign. All things have been created through him, but all things were created for Him.
And he’s before all things. And by him all things hold together. Jesus is the creator. Jesus is the owner of all things. And praise the Lord.
He is the sustainer of all things. Without his work in our lives today, we would not be sustained. Jesus Christ is sovereign. Colossians 1, 18, 20, we read, he’s also the head of the body, the church. He’s the beginning.
He’s the firstborn from the dead, so that he might come to have first place in everything. For God was pleased to have all of his fullness dwell in him and through him, to reconcile everything to Himself, whether things on earth or things in heaven by making peace through his blood shed on the cross. The emphasis here is that Jesus is first place in everything. He never comes in second. He’s the head of the church.
He is above all things, and he is beyond all things because he is sovereign with God the Father. The next thing that Jesus praises the Lord about is singularity. It’s talking about the oneness of the Trinity. Singularity is the fact or quality or the condition of being one person or one thing. We can’t fully understand the Trinity.
There’s nothing in this world that is like it. We have to continually emphasize that we have Father, Son, and so Spirit. But they are completely one. They are a singularity tells us in Luke chapter 10, verse 22, that no one knows who the Son is except the Father, and who the Father is except the Son and anyone to whom the Son desires to reveal Him. We have to stop and think, who knows you best?
And the right answer is, God knows you better than anybody. But you have to think, who knows you completely and understands everything about you. It’s not your children. It’s not your spouse. The only person that really completely knows you is who.
It’s you, yourself. But when we talk about the Son and the Father, what Jesus is saying here, it’s not like I’m looking at the Father and I understand what I see. And the Father looks at the Son and says, I understand what I see and hear. They are so united together that they completely understand every single aspect of one another. Their relationship is far closer than any relationship that we can understand in this world.
John, chapter 14, we read, don’t you believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me? He’s trying to explain this concept that there’s no true explanation for it. It’s hard to explain and it’s hard to understand. He says the words, I speak to you. I do not speak on my own.
Jesus never said anything that the Father wouldn’t say. They were so in sync with one another at all times. The Father who lives in Me does his works, meaning that the Father works in Jesus. They are so intertwined, they are so singular in their nature, that exactly what the Father wants done is exactly what Jesus is doing in this world. He said, believe me that I am in the Father and the Father is in me.
Otherwise at least believe of the works themselves what I’m doing, that what I’m saying is true. Jesus rejoicing in this close oneness that he had with the Father. We come to mark chapter 15. When Jesus is hanging on the cross says when it was noon, darkness came over the whole land until three in the afternoon. And at three Jesus cried out with a loud voice, eloi, eloi lama sabachthani.
And if you know Hebrew, I probably didn’t pronounce that right, but the translation isn’t, my God, my God, why have you abandoned me? And we have to go back to the singularity. And the best way to understand it, and it’s still very limited, is when someone that we are close to, whether it’s a parent, a spouse or a child, dies. It just makes us completely grieved inside. And our relationship is only like this and it tears us apart.
But Jesus and the Father were so much one. Throughout all eternity they had been together, they had never been a part that Jesus was just completely traumatized when he was separated from his Father on the cross. And he had to be separated there because the Father could not experience sin. But Jesus was bearing all of our sins on the cross and there had to be that 10 time of separation. That’s how much Jesus appreciated his relationship with the Father.
When we see how much it hurt him when that oneness was taken apart.
Jesus rejoiced about all these things. Jesus was skipping about. Jesus was jumping because he was excited about it. But Scripture also tells us there are some things that we in like manner need to be excited about and we want to look at those things shortly here. The first one is the blessings that God has given us.
We’re not supposed to just be happy about them. We are supposed to be ecstatic. Let’s go to first Peter, chapter one, verses three through nine, where we’re going to read about some of these things that we are to be skipping and excited about and rejoicing. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Because of his great mercy, he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead and into an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled and unfading, kept in heaven for you who are being guarded by God’s power through faith for a salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last time, you rejoice in this. This is again the word that Jesus showed his rejoicing. What does Peter say we’re supposed to rejoice about? We’re supposed to be happy that we’ve been born again. Not just a little happy, but extremely happy.
We’re supposed to be happy also, not that we’re born again in this world, but we had this hope that we’re going to spend eternity in heaven. And we’re supposed to be skipping and laughing and joyful, looking forward to that. But not only are we going to have an eternal hope with the Heavenly Father, but he’s going to pour out on us this inheritance that he’s preparing for us. And it’s not an inheritance like the stock market that goes up and down. It’s imperishable, it’s undefiled, it’s unfading, it’s going to be wonderful.
And in the meantime, we don’t have to be fearful because God is guarding us by his power to keep us saved. And it’s in this salvation that we’re not supposed to have a little bit of joy about or a little thankfulness. We are supposed to be rejoicing, as Jesus Christ did in his prayer. We are to have a similar joy. And once again, the rare word here for rejoice is the same that we found in, in Jesus rejoicing in the list of things that we’ve looked over.
What’s another thing we’re supposed to rejoice about? Peter goes on to talk about that. It’s this salvation that we have. In this you rejoice, even though now for a short time, if necessary, you suffer grief in various trials. Like I said, it’s simple to follow Christ, but it’s not easy.
There will be trials, and these happen so that our character can be proven.
We have a faith that’s more valuable than gold, even the most precious gold that’s been refined by fire. And this is going to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ. In other words, the difficulties that we go through somehow are going to be worthwhile to the praise and glory of God someday. And it says, though you have not seen him talking about Jesus, you still love Him. And though not seeing him now, you believe in Him.
And here the Word is again, you rejoice. And it describes the word here that the rejoicing, it is inexpressible. It’s glorious joy because you are receiving the goal of your faith, the salvation of your souls. So the question is, do you rejoice daily? Do you skip and jump because you’re so excited that God has done all of these things for you, that he has given you salvation?
What else are we to rejoice about? Scripture says we are to rejoice about revelation. And what we’re talking about here is that God has gone to the extent of revealing his nature, his character, his desires for us. And if he had not revealed these things to us, we would not understand who he is. We wouldn’t understand what he has done for us.
Yes, we can look out at the world and say there must be a God, because something or someone created all of this. But it’s through his special revelation that we understand his nature and his character, how to live and how to have a right relationship with Him. This revelation comes to the written word of God, but it also came in the flesh in Jesus Christ when he revealed himself to us. Turning to his disciples, Jesus said privately, blessed are the eyes that see the things you see. Who were they seeing?
For three years, day by day, they were seeing God in the flesh. And they were blessed because of that. No one else in history had experienced that up to that time. He said, I tell you that there were many prophets and kings who wanted to see the things you see. There were all these people in the Old Testament that were looking forward to the Messiah coming, but they didn’t see them.
And they were also looking forward to hearing the Messiah, but they didn’t hear him. But the disciples and those that were in Jesus presence at that time, they heard the things that Jesus spoke, spoke to them. We have the scriptures today. We have the recorded words of Jesus Christ. We have the testimony of those that were around him so that we can understand the revelation of who God is that came to us in the flesh.
John 14, 9, 11. We read, have I been among you all this time and you do not know me? Philip? Because Philip, it says, show us the Father. Jesus said that the one who has seen me has seen the Father.
I am here revealing the Father to you. How can you say, show us the Father? Don’t you believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me? The words that I speak to you, I do not speak on my own. The Father, Father who lives in Me, does His works.
Again, he’s emphasizing that everything he said, everything he did was a demonstration of exactly what God wanted people to hear and what God wanted them to see happen. Believe me that I am in the Father and the Father is in me. Otherwise, believe because of the works themselves. Jesus works Jesus words, Jesus life revealed. The Father and the disciples were supposed to be excited about that.
We are supposed to be excited about that same revelation. First Peter 1, 10, 12 concerning this salvation. The prophets who prophesied about the grace that would come to you, they searched and carefully investigated. The prophets in the Old Testament were like God. You’ve shown us a little bit here, but we want to See more.
We want to understand more. So they. They studied and they studied and they searched and they were continually trying to figure out from the written word of God that they had what was going to come about. They even inquired into what time or what circumstances the Spirit of Christ within them was indicating when he testified in advance to the sufferings of Christ and the glories that would follow. They had this glimpse that the Messiah was going to be a suffering servant, but they were trying to figure it out.
How could he be a glorious king and a suffering servant at the same time? They were excited about what God had revealed and they appreciated it and they were continually studying it. Verse 12 says it was revealed to them that they were not serving themselves but you. They understood what they were writing down was for a future time. But now these things have been announced to you.
Now there is understanding, there’s a fuller revelation of who the Messiah is and what he would come to do. These things have now been announced to you through those who preach the gospel to you by the Holy Spirit sent from heaven. So now there are preachers that are sharing more and he talks about that the angels long to catch a glimpse of these things. Things even more so we should be desirous to jump about and be excited that God has revealed Himself to us through His Son, Jesus Christ.
Last question to answer. What is the key to proper rejoicing? How do we really rejoice to the extent about all these things that God wants us to rejoice? That. How do we rejoice to the extent that God deserves us to rejoice in them?
Well, the answer is that the Holy Spirit is the key to empowering us, to help us to understand how to fully appreciate God and what he has done for us. Because at that time, Jesus was rejoicing in the Holy Spirit. So is it possible to praise like Jesus did? Absolutely. Because where does the Spirit reside?
In believers inside of us. And he helps us to know how to praise the Father. When we come in on Sunday morning, we may not feel like singing and praising the Lord, but we can ask the Holy Spirit, help me to sing and praise the way I’m supposed to today. The ability to praise comes from the Holy Spirit. And the reason why he’s able to do that is because he knows how to praise God the Father.
Because in the Trinity between the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, there is deep, deep love. We understand love a little bit, but God is love. And the fact that he is love is indicative of the fact that that there had to be someone else there with him. So there are the three of them within the Trinity so that they could love one another eternally. Because love doesn’t exist unless there’s something to love.
Love doesn’t exist unless there is someone to love in our lives. And so the Father and the Son and the Spirit all love one another. And because the Holy Spirit understands how to love the Father living in us, he wants to help us to understand how to love the Father more. Just on a side note, this is kind of a thing for apologetics, which means explaining to people why we believe that God exists. And the question is, where did love come from?
If it didn’t come from God, how could it exist in our world? When people talk about the theory of evolution, you know the term, it’s about the survival of the what? The fittest. And the survival of the fittest says, if an animal is hungry and they see another animal, they don’t love that animal. What do they do?
They eat it. And if there is a weak and there’s an injured animal, what animal are they going to kill first? The weak and the injured. And if there’s an older animal that’s about to die and they’re wasting resources, they’re not going to take food to that animal, they’re going to let that animal die. According to evolutionary theory, if there is no God, there would be no love in the world.
It would be, kill whoever you need to kill, eat whatever you never eat. Everything is just about yourself. But we’re created in the image of God. And when there’s someone that’s weak and hungry, what do we do? We give of our own food to them.
All of our children. We sacrifice for them. The people that are older that we love, we take care of them. That doesn’t fit within a theory of evolution. It fits because God has placed love in us.
Jesus set the example for proper praise. He praises the Father for his decisions. He praises the Father for his purposes. And we likewise, according to Scripture, are to have this same type of rejoicing and praise in our lives. First Corinthians 2, 10, 16, we read, God has revealed these things to us by the Spirit.
His Word reveals it. Jesus Christ revealed it. But now the Spirit is inside of us and he’s continually giving us revelation to help us understand the Father more and more so that we can appreciate him and praise him and be more excited for what he has done. Because the Spirit searches everything, even the depths of God. For who knows a person’s thought except His Spirit?
Within Him. Again, it’s back to the person that knows you best is you yourself. And in the same way, no one knows the thoughts of God except the world, one that is one with Him. That would be Jesus and the Spirit. We have not received the Spirit of the world, but instead we have the Spirit who comes from God, and we have him in us.
It says so that we may understand what has been freely given to us by God. Part of the purpose of the Spirit is to help us to understand and appreciate what God has done done for us. We also speak these things not in words taught by human. Wisdom doesn’t come from intelligence. You don’t have to have a doctor’s degree in theology to know how to appreciate God and express that back to him, because we have His Spirit living in us in those taught by the Spirit.
Explaining spiritual things to spiritual people. Then verse 14 says, but the person without the Spirit does not receive what comes from God’s Spirit. If you’re not a believer, the Spirit doesn’t live in you and you don’t know how to appreciate God. To that person, all of this is foolishness. He is not able to understand it since it is evaluated not intellectually but spiritually.
Goes on to say, but the spiritual person, however, they can evaluate everything because they have the Spirit in them. And yet He Himself cannot be evaluated by anyone. For who has known the Lord’s mind that he may instruct him? No one knows God’s mind, but he’s saying, but we have a different mind in us, not the mind of the world. We have the mind of Christ so that we can praise the Lord and appreciate him in the way that we should.
So we come to the end. Do you truly rejoice like Jesus about anything in your life? Scripture tells us that we are supposed to be rejoicing in that way. It’s ecstatic joy, it’s jumping joy, it’s skipping joy.
Does the Holy Spirit reside in you to help you to do that? If he’s not, then maybe you’ve never placed your faith in Jesus Christ. That requires that you do have an intellectual understanding that he lived a sinless life. He died on the cross, he was buried, and he rose from the dead. And he did all those things to be a sacrifice for our sin.
But there has to be a heart commitment to him that we say, now I want you to be the Lord and master of my life. And at that point, then the Holy Spirit does reside in you. Question is, are you rejoicing in your salvation? When was the last time that you skipped around or you were so ecstatic that God brought salvation to you? If you’re not doing that, you need to ask the Spirit to help you to do that more.
Are you rejoicing in the revelation that we have of God’s Word? Do you skip about? Are you really happy about how having a Bible that you can read, we need to study it, we need to read it, we need to thank God for it. We’re supposed to have that type of joy for the revelation that he’s giving us. Do you skip about?
Do you jump? Do you rejoice because of all the blessings that God has given us? Do you likewise rejoice because of your relationship with Jesus? Getting to know him better, spending time with him, learning more about him and His Word, is going to help you appreciate him more and more? Every year I’m married, I appreciate my wife more and more because I know her better.
And we’re supposed to get to know Jesus Christ better and better so that we can appreciate him more. And lastly, if you’re not experiencing this joy, you need to ask the Spirit, say, fill me, Holy Spirit, every day be in control of my life, so I live it a life of rejoicing for you in the way that God the Father wants me to rejoice about him. May we pray? Heavenly Father, we thank you for your word. We thank you for the example of Jesus that he not only gave up his life for us, but he gave us all these things to rejoice about.
Help us to appreciate you appropriately, Father, and to see your great value of who you are and what you’ve done for us, and let us learn to better express that back to you. In Jesus name we pray. Amen.