Go Out With Joy!

This message was delivered by Robert H. Schuller from the pulpit of the Crystal Cathedral. It was aired during the Hour of Power program on Hong Kong's ATV World Channel on 20 February 2011.

One word: out. It affects everybody at some point in their life. You're in - someday you'll be out. Or you're out - you were never in. How do you feel when you're out? Today, I'd like to leave a verse with you:

"You shall go out with joy and be led forth in peace." Isaiah 55:12

When we go out, we can never come back. We are changed.

I was taught years ago in seminary that it's impossible for a minister to ever preach the same sermon twice. If you did preach the same sermon, you're not the same and the people who are listening are not the same. We're all moving. We're all constantly on the go; fast or slow.

Where do you go from out? How do you live with the outs of life?

I want to give you three principles. Number one:

You can go out with joy if you have fixed frame of reference

That means something is not going to change. Your values will not change. You can change them but then that's your fault. It's your decision. Maybe some values should be changed. You can go out with joy and keep moving through life from one phase and stage to another. Maybe you are a family now. You're married, and then children come and you become a family with children all living in the home. Then one day, one leaves, and then another and before you realize it's what they call an empty nest, they're all out, never to return.

You can go out with joy if you have a fixed frame of reference. That means you have solid ideals, values, commitments and goals that you live with and will never violate or abandon. You can be sure of one thing and that is if you begin to stray away from an ideal, a moral or a value, in that moment you invite age to replace youth. MacArthur said it: you are as young as your ideals. You'll never feel old if you stay with your youthful ideals, goals, values and morals. I know for myself, I don't feel any older than I did when I was sixteen. I'm still the same guy. What was a sin to me then is still a sin today. My morality hasn't changed and my values haven't changed so at the deepest level, life has not changed. You can go out with joy if you have a fixed frame of reference.

You can go out with joy if you have a faith that is solid and never abandoned

When you pick up a faith as a child, develop it in the teenage years and then during adult maturity hold on to that faith and don't try to chip it away or water it down, that faith will remain strong. You can go out with joy from your teenage years and throughout your life and this joy will not be abandoned because your joy is tap rooted in the values of the faith and your faith keeps you young. You will never feel old.

Now I've outlived a lot of my friends and I think of them a lot. When I hear a piece of music or see a piece of architecture or look at a book, it causes me to remember certain friends or relatives. But I still go forward with joy because the happy memories are there and ultimately, as far as I can tell, the bottom line of living is called memories. I continue to collect even more memories and they're good. You shall go out with joy and be led forth in peace.

What outs do we have to go through? For some of you, a spouse is no longer with you because of divorce or a death. Where do you go from that out? For some of you, your career is progressing, but now you're going to have to step aside. The company won't keep you when you reach that age and then you're gone. A gentleman I know said the toughest thing about having to retire is the telephone doesn't ring anymore. Where do you go from out?

"You shall go out with joy and be led forth in peace." Isaiah 55:12

This is a bible verse that God wants you to remember from now till your end. It's His promise that you shall go out. Everyone listening to the sound of this voice, without exception, shall go out with joy and be led forth in peace.

What do we need in order to go out with joy? We need to have that fixed frame of reference which is our faith. And when you have a faith that is positive, it keeps you an optimist. Every new stage in life will have its peculiar blessings that you didn't experience prior to that. And the new blessings that are in each new phase are enough to keep you an optimist, believing that God is blessing you. That's how you can go out with joy.

You can go out with joy when you see a future. No matter what your stage in life, there's a future. As you get to the senior years and you look to the future, the future looks different. It looks different to me now then it did twenty years ago. In my case, it's very exciting because I happen to be richly blessed with five children and nineteen grandchildren. I'm looking forward and I see there's a graduation there, and there's a marriage there, and there's an anniversary there. Some you do not have that privilege, but you do have your own future and you can find blessings waiting for you in the tomorrow's you've never lived before. So be positive, be expectant.

You can go out with joy if you have a fabulous future.

Everybody can have a fabulous future because you make the decisions of what you're going to do. You make the decisions of where you will live, where you are or when you move. You have the decision about what clubs you will join or what groups you'll become a part of. You have a future. Find it, shape it, mold it and make it great.

You have a future if you have made Jesus your friend. The greatest thing in going out is not going out alone. Every person within the sound of my voice can have a special friendship with God and then you will never go out alone. Christ can be to you what He has been to me and what He is to me. He is my best friend and therefore I don't go alone. He is there ahead of me. I've lived with a hymn I learned as a little boy, "What a friend we have in Jesus, all our sins and grief's to bear. What a privilege to carry everything to Him in prayer. Oh what peace we often forfeit. Oh what needless pain we bear all because we do not carry everything to Him in prayer."

I don't know where you're at today, but I have a strong feeling that some of you have never really embraced Jesus Christ as your personal friend, Lord and Savior. I invite you to do that today. He is alive. He listens to you when you talk to Him. He'll walk with you through the good times and the bad times and most of all through the out times.

Ask Jesus into your life and He will embrace you. He lives in me and He wants to embrace you and use you. Just say to Him: "here I am, Lord. I feel You within me." And then when you come to the end, you'll discover the end is a new beginning because every time you go out, you're going to be going in and where you come in depends on you.

Let us pray: Oh Lord, here You are. Embrace us and be our best friend forevermore. Hallelujah, Amen.

© Copyright Hour of Power 2011. This message was delivered by Dr. Robert H. Schuller from the pulpit of the Crystal Cathedral and aired on the Hour of Power, January 9, 2011.