This afternoon, when the saints come marching in, there will be several grades and degrees of happiness.
Those ladies who remain football widows, who have not yet learned that if you can’t beat ’em, you have to join ’em – those who are football widows may be unhappy about the temporary loss of companionship for three plus hours during the game. But they will at least be grateful for a few moments of peace and quiet, for an afternoon when he is so preoccupied with the game that he will not ask you to broil a steak or to find his socks. So there is a little happiness, a little joy, for football widows on Sunday afternoon.
Another group of folks get more joy, however. These are the TV spectators. These are the folks who become couch potatoes at 1:00 pm and do not budge except to lunge toward the refrigerator door during commercial breaks. They watch the game from the comfort, the safety, and the convenience of their own homes, and feel a pretty good degree of satisfaction. They – I should say "we" – we get a pretty good degree of happiness out of watching from the comfort zone.
But I would suggest to you that there is another crowd who derive more joy, that there are others who reap more pleasure than the couch potatoes. These would be the fans who actually go to the game, the folks who plunk down good money, lots of it, and, in the case of Redskins fans, who may have been waiting for the chance to plunk it down for years and years (unless your last name is Cooke) – those who actually go to the game, actually feel the wind in their faces, get poked in the ribs by other fans, walk for 45 minutes to their vandalized cars … these folks get a high degree of joy out of the game. Those who get right out there in the bleachers, who see things the camera doesn’t see, who may even stand up and do the wave, they get a tremendous amount of joy from the game.
By the way, did you hear about the time a charismatic church and a, shall we say, straight church, orderly church merged? The charismatic folks, you know, like to do things spontaneously, like to just jump up and lift their hands whenever they feel like it. The straight folks, the orderly church, of course, won’t do anything that’s not already planned. And so when they merged and went to worship, they put it all together and did the "wave"!
But, I’m saying, those who attend the game, sit on the sidelines, feel the crowd’s roar, smell the sweat and all the rest of it – they seem to get lots more joy out of the whole event than either the couch potatoes or the football widows.
But there is still one more group, and these folks get the most joy of all out of the game. These folks enjoy the whole bruising business with all the glee of small children in the sandpile. These folks, when kickoff time arrives, are happier than a lion in a den full of Daniels. These folks get the most joy. Who are they? Who am I talking about?
The players. The football players themselves. Now you just watch. This afternoon, while you join me on the couch, you watch for Dexter Manley. That guy will take a beating that would destroy most of us ordinary mortals, but what is he doing? He’s grunting, he’s grimacing, he’s growling, and he is grinning! The guy would rather be no other place! He actually enjoys combat!
Look at the Hogs, watch Bostic crunch somebody under, and wait until they sack the Saints quarterback, and what will they do? They will celebrate! They will do little dances of joy! And when they score, they will spike the ball, they will high-five each other, they will bounce allover the end zone – sheer joy. Unlimited fun, even though they have been bruised and battered and punished. Sheer joy.
What is the point? That the real joy is on the scrimmage line. That the real excitement is out where the battle is being fought. That even though it costs you, and you get sore, and you take your lumps, the way to get joy, real joy, wonderful joy, true joy, is to be on the front line, the scrimmage line.
If it’s true in football, it’s true in life, and it’s true where the Lord’s work is concerned. If you want joy, real joy, wonderful joy, true joy, the song says, let Jesus come into your heart. But I will go a step further. If you want joy, real joy, wonderful joy, true joy, then go to work for Jesus. Take some punishment for Jesus. Get in trouble for Jesus. And you will know joy, real joy.
One day Jesus chose seventy believers and sent them out, two-by-two, to preach and teach in the villages of the land. He asked them to do a tough task, he reminded them they would face opposition, and he even set some very tough, demanding conditions on their work. And I don’t know that I would have predicted their reaction when they returned from this task. Let’s read about it in Luke’s Gospel.
Luke 10:1-20
Now somehow it seems as though Jesus had forgotten to take his motivation lessons, didn’t listen to his motivation tapes today. It looks like he never took the Dale Carnegie course on how to win friends and influence people. I mean, how are you going to get your volunteers to do anything if you tell them it’s going to be so tough. Listen to the barriers, listen to the punishments these seventy witnesses were going to have to face:
First, the task was going to be an overwhelming one. "The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few." Nothing discourages some of us like an overwhelming task, a job that just looks too big to be possible.
You’re in the Army and the mess sergeant points you to a room and says, "Start peeling potatoes." And you go in the storage room and see about a ton of taters; you can’t even get started. It will take forever to peel those terrible tubers, and you don’t even want to get started. An overwhelming task.
Three years ago when I started working here, I found that the filing system was a non-system. I found just jumbles of papers and drawers and whatnot, and I said, "Well, we’ve got to organize that". But it looked like an overwhelming task, and instead of tackling it, I just started stuffing new papers in empty drawers. And today, I will not, I will not let you open my desk drawers or some of the file drawers, because I am ashamed of the clutter. But being ashamed doesn’t get me started on creating a filing system. Why? Because it looks like an overwhelming task.
So that’s the first barrier, the first punishment the seventy had to take. The job they were to do was far, far too big for so few workers. Convert the world, with only seventy people. Witness in every town and village on the landscape, with only thirty-five pairs of workers. Overwhelming. The harvest may be plenteous, but the laborers are few.
The second barrier they would face would be their lack of equipment, their unpreparedness. Bad as the job was, with the numbers of people they had to preach to, it was made worse by the Lord’s command, "Carry no purse, no bag, no sandals; and salute no one on the road.” Travel light; travel without encumbrances. No purse, no money, not even a Visa card, just depend on your wits and your Lord.
No bag: no handy-dandy tool kit of sure-fire methods. No props, just be yourself. No sandals, no status symbols, no creature comforts, just look for those inner resources, just go out there and do the work. And they must have felt unready. They had to have felt unprepared. Dexter playing without shoulder pads, teachers teaching without chalkboards, doctors doctoring without examining rooms, Metro moving people without trains and busses: ill-equipped, unprepared, unready. What a bummer! No joy in that, it would seem.
So what do we have so far? We have the seventy sent out by Jesus to do an overwhelming task, one that was just impossible to do, and to do it without equipment, ill-equipped. Pretty bad so far, isn’t it? But it gets worse.
Because after all that, when they go out there, half the time they are going to face rejection. They are going to get abused by the very people they are trying to serve. "Behold, I send you out as lambs in the midst of wolves … whenever you enter a town and they receive you, heal the sick in it and tell them the kingdom of God is near, but whenever you enter a town and they do not receive you, go into its streets and say, ’We wipe off the dust of our feet against you, and you are going to be judged. He who rejects you rejects me"!
Rejection: not everywhere, but enough to make it hard. Rejection that hurts, rejection that stings... and that doesn’t sound like fun at all, does it? Most of us can keep on doing what we are doing if it means something to somebody, but when you face rejection, when they say no to you, you may just want to quit, right? It’s not everybody who can absorb hostility and keep on going.
So this is tough. Being one of the seventy is tough. An overwhelming task, to be done without enough preparation and equipment, and to be done in a hostile, unfriendly, rejecting environment. What would you think the reaction of the seventy would be? How do you think they will feel after they get back from this impossible, bruising, worrisome, hardship-giving job?
Well, the answer is in verse 17: "The seventy returned with joy …!” Isn’t that astounding? Hardships, bruises, beatings, rejections, but this: "the seventy returned with joy, saying, ’Lord, even the demons are subject to us in your name!’ And he said to them, ’I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven. Behold I have given you authority over all the power of the enemy, and nothing shall hurt you … rejoice that your names are written in heaven’"
Joy! Why? Because they saw that they did make a difference. Because they saw that something was getting done. Because the rejections they got were nothing compared to the knowledge that Satan and the powers of evil could be driven back. Because there is more joy on the line of scrimmage anytime than on the sidelines or in the comfortable place or just in the background. The joy is on the line of scrimmage!
They say that if you want a job done, give it to a busy person. Why? Because he or she has discovered that the joy is on the line of scrimmage and he would far, far rather do than simply sit and see.
One of my friends says he will not accept an assignment on a committee unless he can be the chairman. It’s not egotism. It’s the awareness that it’s more fun to be in charge of something than just to be an assistant or a rope-holder. Joy on the line of scrimmage.
Today the Lord Jesus calls His church to a witness in the world. He calls us to nothing less than the redemption of humanity. That’s big job, a huge job. This world has more than five billion people in it and most of them are not saved. That’s a huge, huge task. This city is torn apart by violence; this city is full of need. Redemption will be a huge, overwhelming task. But just remember, there is joy on the line of scrimmage.
And it’s a job for which the skills may not be there. You are waiting, you say, until you know more about the Bible, you are waiting until you get sane more training, you are waiting for the right inspiration to come along, you are waiting until there is a revival preacher that really gets to you … none of those last week really hit the ball home for you, you are waiting for something more to come along. But the Lord says, No, you already have something to work with. Now just get out there and give of yourself, give of your very best, because the joy is on the line of scrimmage.
Where the punishment is the greatest, that is where the greatest joy is.
Where the sacrifice is the sharpest, that’s where the most happiness is to be found.
Where the rejections and the discomfort are, that is where the deepest satisfaction is, because right there you learn that you have authority over evil. You do! You can drive back the demonic and see Satan fall like lightning and in the midst of all that hostility you get joy!
Sit on the sidelines, come to church occasionally, worship from afar, and there is some joy. But take on a task, a big task, a demanding task, and that’s when you get the joy.
Nickel-and-dime your gifts, invest a couple dollars here, a couple dollars there, and you’ll feel maybe okay. But figure out what the tithe is, invest an honest ten percent of your income in the kingdom’s cause, and I promise you, you will know real joy, wonderful joy. ’’Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also"
Bottle up all we give you here, cork up inside all the preaching, all the inspiration, all the Bible teaching, all the fellowship you find in this place, and chances are you’ll feel some satisfaction. But I promise you, let it out, let it out into the world, let it out as a witness, even where you get rejected, and even there you will know a joy and a depth that I cannot begin to describe. There is joy on the line of scrimmage. Some three hundred people moved into our community last month: 300 in one month. Tackle that and share the Gospel with them, and you’ll get excited, I guarantee it.
And if you are in doubt at all about this, then this morning simply remember Jesus, who for the joy that was set before Him, endured the cross, despised the pain, and is now seated at the right hand of God.
Come on now, hunker down, and let’s go together to the line of scrimmage and get the joy.
