Excitement

The theme verse for our youth group is John 10:10 “The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.” That’s where the name XSession comes from, Jesus came to give us life in abundance, life in XSession, more than we could ask or imagine. He has blessed us with life, and as a part of defining and understanding what an abundant life in Christ looks like, we have this acronym: PLEAD Life. 

The P stands for Passion.
The L stands for Love.
The E stands for Excitement.
The A stands for Adventure.
The D stands for Danger.

Each of these are aspects of a full and abundant life in and with Jesus. 

This week I want to talk about Excitement. So, first of all, how do you define excitement? What does excitement look like? What does it feel like? What does it sound like? Either in yourself or in other people? What do you experience when you are excited? How do you know that someone else is excited? 

Without going into the technical dictionary definition, essentially, excitement is enthusiasm. It is an abundance of energy and enjoyment and anticipation. It is joy. It is feeling and experiencing life, fully, abundantly. It is active. It is most definitely not boring or mundane.

Now, what sort of things do you get excited about? Music? Sports? TV Shows? Friends? Social Status? Achievements? Travel? Books? Clothes? Etc… There are about a billion things that someone could get excited about in this world: What excites you?

God made us living, breathing, feeling people with emotions, not robots or drones or avatars, and as such, He made us with the ability to be excited, and more than that, excitement is part of the full and abundant life that He offers. Life was never intended to be dull, routine, mundane, boring, etc… Life is meant to be exciting. This is why we all seek excitement, and why it feels so good.

With that in mind, I want to look at a few verses.

Isaiah 55:12
“For you shall go out in joy
    and be led forth in peace;
the mountains and the hills before you
    shall break forth into singing,”

Psalm 96:11-13A
“Let the heavens be glad, and let the earth rejoice;
    let the sea roar, and all that fills it;
    let the field exult, and everything in it!
Then shall all the trees of the forest sing for joy
    before the Lord,...”

Psalm 98:4-9A
“Make a joyful noise to the Lord, all the earth;
    break forth into joyous song and sing praises!
Sing praises to the Lord with the lyre,
    with the lyre and the sound of melody!
With trumpets and the sound of the horn
    make a joyful noise before the King, the Lord!

Let the sea roar, and all that fills it;
    the world and those who dwell in it!
Let the rivers clap their hands;
    let the hills sing for joy together
before the Lord…”

The Bible doesn’t really use the word excitement, but the concept and idea of it are littered throughout. Often, it is expressed with the term joy or rejoice, and what we see in these verses from Psalm and Isaiah is an invitation for us to join in excitement, but we also see that excitement is embedded into creation. 

• The seas roar
• The rivers clap their hands
• The hills and trees and mountains sing for joy
• The fields exult (express great happiness)
• The whole earth rejoices
• The heavens are glad

We see in John, when people are excited about Jesus’ arrival in Jerusalem and the Pharisees tell Jesus to make His followers be quiet, that He says that even if they were, the very rocks and stones would cry out. Excitement is hardwired into creation, and it’s into this excitement that God invites us to come as well.

Unfortunately, in a lot of ways, churches and Christians have done a good job of stripping excitement from our relationship with God. I don’t think it’s really intentional or malicious, but we’ve often gotten to a point where everything about God is so incredibly heavy and serious that laughter and levity and excitement are unwanted or unexpected. We have sermons that convict, or teach, but very few that elate and make us excited about God or make us burst out laughing because He is so good and so full of light and joy.

This is not to say that we should not have serious sermons. God is awesome and all powerful, and sin is serious, and we need to have a proper understanding of Him, and we need, often, to be convicted, but we also need to be excited. We need to rejoice. We need to go out in joy. We need to make a joyful noise. We need to, in the words of Dr. Seuss

“They'll dance with Jing-Tinglers tied onto their heels.
They'll blow their Floo-Floobers. They'll bang their Tah-Tinkers.
They'll blow their Who-Hoobers. They'll bang their Gah-Ginkers.
They'll beat their Trum-Tookers. They'll slam their Sloo-Slonkers.
They'll beat their Blum-Blookers. They'll wham their Who-Wonkers.
And they'll play noisy games like Zoo Zitta Ka Zay, a roller-skate type of lacrosse and croquet.
And then they'll make earsplitting noises deluxe on their great big Electro Who-Cardio Shluxe.”

Now here’s the thing, God made us for excitement. He embedded excitement into creation. We are meant to live with excitement, but we can’t force it. You can’t tell someone that they are supposed to be excited. Excitement comes naturally from those things that elicit joy and anticipation. However, excitement can be learned or conditioned. It can be nurtured and grown. If we surround ourselves with people that squash joy, that choose death, we will tend to be less joyful, but if we surround ourselves with people who celebrate joy, who choose life, we will tend to be more joyful, more excited.

Jesus knew this, which is why He said:

John 15:11
“These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full.”

And we see this emphasized by Peter when he says:

1 Peter 1:8
“Though you have not seen him, you love him. Though you do not now see him, you believe in him and rejoice with joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory,”

God is good. He is the source of joy. He is exciting. Following Him is exciting. It isn’t dull, by any means. He has made us with the ability to feel excitement. It’s part of who we are, and we can be excited in Him and about Him. We can rejoice. We can laugh. We can sing. We can dance. We can jump. We can scream. We can smile. 

We can be excited!