Growing up in the 60s and 70s, I sang the words of “The Offertory” from The Lutheran Hymnal almost every Sunday.

Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me. Cast me not away from Thy presence and take not Thy Holy Spirit from me. Restore unto me the joy of Thy salvation; and uphold me with Thy free spirit. Amen.

 These words, based on Psalm 51:10-12, were sung immediately after the pastor finished his sermon. Do you remember that there were two different melodies, one found on page 12 for the service without Holy Communion and one on page 22 for the service with Holy Communion?  The words were the same, but the tunes were not!

When you trust God and His promises, when you believe that Jesus is your Savior, you have the JOY of knowing you have been set free from sin’s power and death’s grip. You have salvation.

But too often we live our lives as if we had sung “REMOVE from me the joy of Thy salvation.” We have a tendency to wallow in the misery of the moment. We shackle ourselves and others with the rules and regulations of traditions. We live as though we have no hope and there is no hope. That is because we forget what we already have in Jesus: forgiveness. The JOY of God’s salvation as a gift. It needs to be restored day after day, week after week, month after month, until we see Him face to face.

That restoration takes place when you spend time in God’s Word. It happens when you remember your Baptism. You are restored in the fellowship of other believers, especially when you receive the Lord’s Supper for the strengthening of your faith and reminder that your sins have been forgiven.

My father-in-law used to restore old cars, mostly Model A Fords. It seemed like the more he worked on a car, the more he found that needed to be done. He was striving for perfection, which was unattainable. But he kept working on those cars in an almost never-ending process.

You and I are an ongoing restoration project as well. Jesus has claimed us as His own, buying us back from sin and death by His sacrifice on the cross. With faith in Him we know we belong to Him from now on. We know we won’t reach perfection this side of heaven, but Jesus keeps working on us and in us. He wants us to be restored in the certainty of our life and salvation. So when we ask Him to restore the joy, He will do so.