Nehemiah 8:1-12
The word joy appears in some sixty verses in the New Testament of the King James Bible and that’s withstanding the variant occurrences of the same root word such as “joyful”, “joyfully”, “joyfulness” “joying”, “joyous” and “rejoice”. This simple three-letter word is like buried treasure, everyone searching to find it but their looking in the wrong places!
True biblical joy can be distinguished from happiness in one crucial area, namely, happiness is dependent upon favourable circumstances whereas joy is not! In this sermon, the exhortation is given for those who name the name of Christ to examine themselves to see if what they have is the joy of the Lord which is our strength.