Selected Scriptures: Good News, Great Joy

Well, if you have your Bible with you this morning, and I hope you do, turn to
Luke chapter two. I mentioned last week we are taking a little bit of a break
between now and the end of the year from our study in Revelation. We'll pick that
back up in January. But this morning, with Christmas now 10 days away, we have lit
a candle for joy. We have sung joy to the world and songs of joy all morning
long. And it's clear that there is a connection between Christmas and joy. So that's
what I want us to focus on this morning. Think about how often joy is tied to the
message of Christmas. Think about the hymns we sing of tidings of comfort and joy.
Joy to the world the Lord is come. Good Christian men rejoice. So come all ye
faithful, joyful and triumphant. Mountains echo in reply, echoing their joyous strain.
Joyful all ye nations rise, the weary world rejoices. You get the point, right? We
sing about joy regularly and connect it to Christmas. And that's what I want us to
think together about this morning, this issue of joy. And specifically, there are two
questions I want us to wrestle with today. First of all, why is it that Christmas
and joy belong together? Why are they connected? And then secondly,
on a practical level. If you're not experiencing joy in your life, is there anything
you can do, what can you do so that you can experience the joy for which your
heart and soul longs? So the answer to the first question of why joy and Christmas
are connected is really simple and that takes us to our first text this morning.
The reason we connect joy with Christmas is because of what the angel said to the
shepherds in Luke chapter two. And it's because of what the magi experienced when
they saw the star rising in the east and coming to rest over where Jesus lay.
These are both familiar Christmas texts, but it's good for us to reread these and
reconsider these and to go back in time to what was going on with the birth of
Jesus. And let me just say, don't you love that kid in that picture? I mean, isn't
that great? All right, let's read both of these passages starting with Luke chapter
two, beginning at verse eight. Before we read, let me pray for our time in God's
word. Father, we come dependent on you this morning. We need your spirit to be at
work in our lives and our hearts as we come to your word. We need your spirit to
instruct us. And so I ask, Lord, that you would give us soft and tender hearts
that we would be ready to hear, quick to hear. And I pray that your spirit would
be at work in this room, working through your word.
We pray these things in your name.
Luke chapter 2 is starting at verse 8. This is the word of God for the people of
God. The Bible says in the same region, there were shepherds out in the field,
keeping watch over their flock by night. And an angel of the Lord appeared to them.
And the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were filled with great fear.
And the angel said to them, "Fear not for behold I bring you good news of great
joy that will be for all the people for unto you is born this day in the city of
David a Savior who is Christ the Lord and now turn to Matthew chapter 2 we're
gonna read there beginning at verse 1 so if you're in Luke you can flip back a
couple of books to Matthew, Matthew chapter 2, and look at verse 1.
And again, you follow along as I read. Matthew 2 verse 1, the Bible says, "Now
after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea, in the days of Herod the king,
behold, wise men from the east came to Jerusalem, saying,
Where Is he who has been born king of the Jews? For we saw his star when it
rose, and we have come to worship him. When Herod the king heard this,
he was troubled and all Jerusalem with him. And assembling all the chief priests and
scribes of the people, he inquired of them where the Christ was to be born.
They told him in Bethlehem of Judea, for so it is written by the prophet, and you,
O Bethlehem, in the land of Judah, are by no means least among the rulers of
Judah, for from you shall come a ruler who will shepherd my people Israel." Then
Herod summoned the wise men secretly and ascertained from them what time the star
had appeared. And he sent them to Bethlehem saying, "Go and search diligently for
the child, and when you have found him, bring me word that I too may come and
worship him." After listening to the king, they went on their way, and behold,
the star that they had seen when it rose went before them until it came to rest
over the place where the child was when they saw the star they rejoiced exceedingly
with great joy and going into the house they saw the child with Mary his mother
they fell down and worshiped him then opening their treasures they offered him gifts
gold and frankincense and myrrh, and being warned in a dream not to return to
Herod, they departed to their own country by another way. Amen. May God bless this
reading of his word. The grass withers and the flower fades. The word of our God
will last forever. So these two birth stories of Jesus tell two very different
stories. The shepherd who were in the fields, they are poor and lowly. The Magi
coming from the east, they are well regarded, they are exalted and they are wealthy.
The shepherds are notified about the birth of Jesus by an angel. The wise men
coming from the east were notified about the birth of Jesus by a star. The
shepherds go and visit Jesus at the manger scene on the night that he is born.
Wise men are coming months, weeks or months after he has been born. We don't know
exactly when they came, but they go first to Jerusalem before they wind up in
Bethlehem. So it's been an elapsed period of time. They've had to travel from the
east. And let me just say, when you have your crutch at home, your nativity scene,
and you've got the shepherds and the wise men there, but the wise men shouldn't be
there, okay? I hate to blow it for you, and the star was not over the manger when
the shepherds came. So let's think biblically about all of this stuff. The shepherds
come with no gifts to bring, the wise men come with the gold and the frankincense
and myrrh, and we can presume that by the time the Magi arrived that Mary and
Joseph were no longer in the stable, they were in a relative's house most likely
taking care of their newborn baby and staying in Bethlehem before their anticipated
return to Nazareth. But here's the thing that both of these accounts have in common.
Here's what's happening in both accounts. There is joy present in both places.
When the angel in Luke 2 tells the shepherds the good news, he says it is good
news of great joy. And when the Magi and Matthew 2 see the star resting over the
place where the baby was, they rejoiced exceedingly with great joy.
So we connect Christmas with the idea of joy because the Bible tells us that the
birth of Jesus inspired joy, called the people who were notified to be joyful.
It was a source of joy not just for the mom and the dad who had the baby. It
was a source of great joy for all who heard the news that morning. I wrote a book
a couple of years ago called The Four Emotions of Christmas and the premise of this
little book I wrote was that we go into the Christmas season hoping for,
longing for joy and peace and love and hope and what we often get is stress and
sadness and unmet expectations. The season that promises joy sometimes is a letdown
or a disappointment. And I suggest in the book and would suggest you this morning
that if the Christmas season doesn't bring the joy that your heart longs for,
it's probably because you're looking for joy in the wrong places. You're expecting
traditions or Christmas movies or Christmas cookies or presents or family coming home.
You're expecting that to be the source of joy. And those can all be joyful things.
I can attest to the joy I've experienced from some of those things already this
season and expect to experience going forward. But both Luke two and Matthew to tell
us that the reason for joy goes beyond traditions and parties and gifts.
There were no traditions when Jesus was born. There was no candy given.
There were no cookies made. There were gifts, but Jesus was the only one who got
the gifts.
There's something deep inside every one of us. There is a longing for joy.
There's a deep desire. Something longs for the Christmas season to fill us up with
joy. But what the angel told the shepherds is that the great joy of Christmas is
connected not with the events, the traditions of Christmas, but with the good news
that Jesus was born. And the reason the Magi rejoiced when they saw the star over
the place where Jesus lay is not because they saw a star, but because of what the
star pointed them to. They were rejoicing, not because they looked up and said,
"It's not a beautiful star," but that star was directing them to where the source
of joy was in Jesus. The reason that Christmas and joy are connected is because you
can't know deep, long, abiding, lasting joy throughout your life without knowing the
one who came at Christmas, without knowing Jesus. You can know happiness, but there's
a difference between momentary happiness that is often tied to circumstances and deep
abiding joy that is something only a relationship with God through Christ can bring
to I'm going to read you a quote from John Piper, and if you've ever listened to
John Piper or read anything that he's written, what you'll read here will sound
familiar because he really has one overarching message, and it's all about finding
the joy for which our heart longs. He says, "The longing to be happy is a
universal human experience, and it is good, not sinful.
We should never try to deny or resist our longing to be happy as though it were a
bad impulse. Instead, we should seek to intensify this longing and nourish it with
whatever will provide the deepest and most enduring satisfaction. All the evils in
the world come not because our desires for happiness are too strong, But because
they are so weak that we settle for fleeting pleasures that do not satisfy our
deepest souls But in the end destroy them now. That's a bold statement all the
evils in the world happen Not because our longing for happiness is too strong, but
because we go somewhere else to try to fulfill that longing for happiness the the
joy in the longing for joy in each one of us, as Dr. Piper is saying, is an
intense deep desire. So what is it that we're looking for?
How do you define joy? It's more than happiness, something that's deeper. The
dictionary defines joy as a feeling of good pleasure or happiness, but I think that
comes up short. I like this definition. This is on theopedia. Theopedia, did you
know there was a theopedia? There's not just a Wikipedia, there's a theopedia that's
for theological issues. And it says here that joy is the settled state of
contentment, confidence, and hope.
Joy comes from a settled state, being in a settled state of contentment,
confidence, and hope. That's That's what your soul's longing for.
To be, to have shalom, joy and peace are connected. When you are at peace,
you experience joy. When you experience joy, your soul knows peace. Think about how
much the Bible has to say about joy. You do a word study sometime on the word joy
or rejoice in the Bible and just look at all of the passages we find. And The
Bible says joy is a fruit of the Spirit, which means that it is the Holy Spirit's
job to stir joy inside of you. And if you go, "Well, He's not doing a very good
job," I would say, "Well, you're probably not walking in the Spirit." Because the
Holy Spirit is really good at generating joy. We just have to be in step with the
Spirit to be experiencing the joy that He is generating in us. It is a fruit of
the Spirit. If you try to manufacture your own joy, you will fall short. If you
walk by the Spirit, you will experience the joy of the Lord in your soul.
The Bible says that if we come into God's presence, we're to come in with joy and
with thanksgiving, we're to go out with joy, we're to be led forth in peace, We're
to rejoice in the Lord. We're to serve the Lord with gladness. These are familiar
Phrases that you've read in the Bible. We're told in Psalms go out with joy be led
forth in peace and in fact But what we read in the New Testament rejoice in the
Lord Always and just in case we miss it. What's it say after that again?
I say rejoice I
Could go on but you get the idea. The Bible has a lot to say on this. I'll give
you one more. Psalm 68 -3, "The righteous shall be glad;
they shall exalt before God; they shall be jubilant with joy."
One of the interesting things you find if you do this study on the subject of joy
in the Bible, you find that the Bible seems to be commanding us to be joyful.
We're told that to obey God we are to be joyful. And some of you are thinking,
well, how do I do that? Do I just grip my teeth and conjure it up and put on a
little plastic face and go, oh, I'm so happy when you're not? Is that what the
Bible's calling us to? You know, the Bible tells us there's a time to mourn and a
time to dance. But even in the times to mourn, we should have a settled Confidence
and peace that comes even as Cole was talking this morning about the death of his
grandmother and the grieving that comes with that You can grieve and have joy
simultaneously
That's what the Bible is pointing us to So I don't want to suggest that you're
supposed to plaster on some phony face and just say oh, I'm so full of joy when
you're not But this is again goes back to the confusion we have between the idea
of joy and the idea of happiness. I heard a British man tell me one time that
there used to be an old expression in England where they would say to people as
kind of the way that we say to folks have a good day or God bless you, they
would say, "May the haps be with you." And that was their way of saying, "I hope
things go well for you today." The haps was an expression for the happenings of
your day, May the things that happen to you go well for you. And there's connection
between what happens and happiness. Those two words share a common etymology.
What happens brings happiness. Joy comes, it transcends what's happening in your life.
It transcends your circumstances.
As John Piper said, there's a deep longing in the human soul for real joy. It is
the primary motivating factor of our lives. Everything we do, all of us, at some
level is motivated by a desire to experience joy. When you get up tomorrow morning
and go to work, you are getting up because you believe that you will experience
more joy in doing that than you would experience in staying in bed. And you're
going, "No, that's not true. You think staying in bed, that's the ultimate joy. But
look, you know, long term, getting up and going to work will bring more joy than
staying in bed in the moment. So you get up and go. When you decide not to have
dessert after lunch today, you will decide not to have dessert because you were
convinced it will bring you more joy long term to deny yourself dessert than the
momentary pleasure of that dessert would provide. Or at least that's what I'm told
that that's what would happen. Anyway, the point is every one of us makes choices,
the choices we make and everything we do or don't do, we're motivated at some level
by a longing for joy in our lives. Whatever we eat or don't eat,
whatever we drink or don't drink, whatever you ingest or smoke or don't ingest or
don't snort or don't smoke, you're doing it because you're thinking there would be
joy by doing it or not doing it. Every one of us on planet Earth is doing what
we're doing at any given moment because we believe it will maximize our joy short
term or long term. And where does that longing for joy come from? God's put it in
your heart.
And I believe he did so, so that our longing for joy would ultimately lead us back
to him as the source of joy. He wants us to long for joy because he wants us to
find the joy in him. C .S. Lewis put it this way. He says, "Joy is the serious
business of heaven. I sometimes wonder whether all pleasures are not substitutes for
joy." If you've ever read the book of Ecclesiastes, that's an interesting book in
the Bible. I remember the first time I started to read Ecclesiastes And I read the
first chapter and it said all is vanity and life is meaningless I go wait I
thought the Bible was true. Is that it's the Bible telling me that life is empty
and meaningless? Well, it's saying that if you're trying to live life apart from
God, that's what you're gonna find Emptiness meaningless vanity So Ecclesiastes is
Solomon's journal as he went on a journey to try to find out if he could
experience joy in this life apart from God. And he tries food and drink,
and he tries getting rich, and he tries all of the pleasures known to man on
earth, and at the end of his journey here's what he says, "This is the end of the
matter, all has been heard. Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the
whole duty of man." He said, "I tried everything else to find joy. This is the
only thing that's going to give me what my soul longs for.
I believe this is an Old Testament way of saying what Jesus said when he said,
"Seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness and all the joy will be added
unto you." Which brings us back to Christmas. What the angels told the shepherds,
what the joy the wise men experienced, ultimate joy, real joy, lasting joy in our
lives is anchored in a deep understanding of the good news that was delivered at
Christmas. When you hear the glad tidings of great joy that the angel spoke,
what was the message? Here's what was supposed to engender joy in each of us.
Unto you is born this day in the city of David, a Savior who is Christ the Lord.
The angel said that announcement, that reality, that Should be the source that it
should be what brings joy to your life And I think the question is does it for
you today? Does that announcement that unto us was born in the city of David a
Savior who is Christ the Lord does that? Cause your heart to swell with joy if it
doesn't I would suggest that the reason it doesn't is because you don't really
understand the implications of what took place at Christmas. You haven't really
thought long enough about what God did for us at Christmas,
the need we had and how God met it by sending His Son, and you haven't
reprioritized your life around that truth. Or to put it in another way,
the ultimate experience of joy comes when you first understand how desperate your
circumstances were and are apart from God's intervening grace in your life.
Most of us don't experience the joy because we don't know how desperate we are for
it because life kind of softens us to our need. The events of life condition us to
think well I'm not in any real great danger but the Bible says no there is great
danger. Your soul is in trouble, and when you recognize that and you recognize how
desperate you are, then you see the joy that comes when God says, "I have a
solution. I can solve the issue. Here's what I'm going to do for you. I'm sending
my son who will live a perfect life, the life you're called to live but don't. I'm
sending my son who will then die in your place and pay the penalty for your sin
that you should pay and then will rise again and offer you new life.
When you hear that news, once you recognize how desperate your situation is and you
hear that news, that brings great joy. And it also causes our lives to be
reprioritized as a result. If God sent His Son, who is our Savior and Lord,
that changes everything. That brings great joy because God who created us with this
longing for joy intends to be the source of that joy in rescuing us from our
situation.
We're created to experience joy in a relationship with him, but instead of turning
to him to satisfy our joy, we think I'm going to find my joy somewhere else.
In fact, the culture tells us joy is here, joy is there, you'll find it here. Do
this, do that. That was the same thing that the serpent told Eve in the garden in
Genesis chapter 3. God's promised you this and said there's joy there, but there's
not real joy there. You need to eat that one fruit. He told you not to eat. Then
you'll find the joy you're looking for.
So anytime we go looking for joy elsewhere, we come up empty.
The good news that the angel declared to the shepherds is that God has breached the
gap. He has found a way to rescue us from our own appetite's desires and our own
sin. In a world that's screaming at us with counterfeit offers of joy,
how do we make this season, the Christmas season, a season where we experience real
joy. Well, let me suggest to you this morning five things we can do. No, six
things, six things. I've got six things for you that will help you experience joy.
Here's the first one. Make sure you're looking for joy in the right place. Make
sure you're finding it in the right place. The Danish philosopher Soren Kierkegaard,
the theologian said, "Most men pursue pleasure with such breathless haste that they
hurry past it. We're running from place to place trying to find joy and pleasure
and we miss it in our pursuit because we run right past God on the way to what
we think will bring us joy. We accept cheap substitutes for joy.
In Psalm four, The psalmist says to God, "You have put more joy in my heart than
they have when their grain and wine abound." He's saying, "I know that going to a
feast and having great food and having drink and having your storehouses be full of
both can bring great joy and peace." He says, "God, you have put more joy in my
heart than those circumstances will ever bring."
If you try to, if your life lacks joy and you try to find it in wine or grain
or prosperity, you will come up empty. You may experience it momentarily,
but it will never satisfy your soul. God is the source of joy.
We find our joy in God. The Father, Habakkuk 3 says, "I will rejoice in the Lord,
I will joy in the God of my salvation." So that's rejoicing in God the Father.
We rejoice in God the Son. In Philippians 3, Paul says,
"For we are of the circumcision who worship God in the Spirit, rejoice in Christ
Jesus and have no confidence in the flesh." And we find joy in the Spirit. Romans
14 says, "The kingdom of God is not eating and drinking, but righteousness and peace
and joy in the Holy Spirit. God the Father, God the Son, God the Spirit, we find
our joy in all three persons of the Trinity.
Some of you are lacking joy because you've been trying to find it in the wrong
spot. You've been thinking that money or food or drink or relationships or status or
recognition would bring you the joy for which your heart longs. And these are not
necessarily bad things.
They can bring you momentary joy, but they won't bring you ultimate joy or lasting
joy. Ultimate joy is found when you turn to Christ, when you surrender your life to
Him, you reprioritize your life with Him at the center. That's where it all begins.
The key to finding the peace and joy and hope and love for which we long all year
long, but especially at Christmas, is wrapped up in believing that the person whose
birth is celebrated is who he claimed to be. He is God in human flesh, God
incarnate, the God of the universe, who came to live and dwell among us, fully
human, yet still fully God. When we recognize that the one who created us came to
establish a relationship with us, and we start to see that life has its ultimate
meaning in that relationship, that's when we start to experience the kind of joy
we're talking about. So make sure you're looking in the right place. If you're
lacking joy, turn back to God. And then you have to keep coming back, not just to
God, but you have to keep re -believing the gospel and finding your joy there. You
hear me say this over and over again here. You must re -repent and re -believe the
gospel over and over again. That's the pattern of the Christian life. We regularly
have to turn away from what we've been wandering for and turn back to Jesus and re
-believe that joy is found there, that life is found there, that peace is found
there. Go back to where you, to where we began this morning. The angel said to the
shepherds, "Here is the good news of great joy. The good news is the gospel.
God has sent a Savior who is Christ the Lord. What I'm suggesting to you this
morning is that whatever is robbing you of your joy today or tomorrow or this week,
whatever is bringing discouragement or sadness or hardship into your life, when you
stop in the middle of that and you remember what God has done for you in Christ
and what's true for you now as a result of that, That recognition of what it means
to be in Christ will cause joy to grow in you when you Rebelieve the gospel the
promises of God that that gospel message is an antidote To the discouragement and
the hardships that you're facing the sadness that you're facing not that the
discouragement and the sadness aren't real They are I mean we go through things in
life that sadness, and discouragement, and anxiety, and fear. We go through those
things, and they're real. But in the midst of that, we fight back against them with
the gospel, which reminds us of what is ultimately true, and reestablishes our
footing on the joy that we find there. And so here's the things you need to,
when I say, "Re -believe the gospel," Here's what you're re -believing. You're re
-believing that your sins have been forgiven. That your sin which earns you ultimate
death, separation from God's grace for eternity, that's been forgiven.
Hallelujah. You are a part of God's family. You've been adopted into the family of
God. He loves you, the God of the universe who made you,
delights in you and sings over you. He is for you. He's not against you.
He will never leave you or forsake you. He is transforming you more and more into
the image of His Son, the remodeling project that He's begun in your life. He will
complete it, making you the person you were created to be. You have a hope and a
future. You will live with God forever. These are the gospel promises,
that's just some of them, that when we reconsider and we remind ourselves of the
truth of that, if God is for me, who can be against me? Whatever circumstances I'm
facing, if these things are true, so what?
I could go on, but this is what we're talking about. There's no greater joy because
there's no greater love. We experience no deeper joy because there's no one who
loves us more. Everything for which your soul longs finds its ultimate fulfillment in
Jesus. So look to God for joy, re -believe the gospel to find joy, and then number
three, spend more time with him to find joy.
We read it earlier, Psalm 1611, you have made known to me the path of life in
your presence there is fullness of joy. At your right hand are pleasures forevermore.
If you are not experiencing joy, when was the last time you were in his presence?
When was the last time you spent time with him. Spending time with God means that
we are spending time in his word. You turn down the noise in your life that the
world is sending, you open your Bible, you pray, you ask God to speak to you
through his word, you spend time meditating on his word, you read the Bible and you
ask yourself, "Do I really believe these things are true?" And if so, that should
have an impact on your emotions, it should create joy in you. Let me give you an
example. This is a picture of the Mamertine prison in Rome. This is the kind of
hole that the Apostle Paul was in as he awaited his ultimate execution.
He lived in this hole in the ground. Now, do you see a shower in there?
No. Do you see a a bathroom? No. Do you see a bed? A closet?
No. What do you see? You see a rock chair you can sit on? And light coming in
from a hole in the sky.
But when you read the Apostle Paul's letter that he wrote to the Philippians, the
epistle of joy, he tells us there he has learned the secret of being intent in
whatever circumstance he finds himself in. Even if he's in a hole in the ground
with no shower and no toilet, he's learned how to be content in that. He's learned
how to experience joy in the midst of that because he says there is joy that comes
with the surpassing worth of knowing Christ.
He says that his heart is filled with joy because the gospel is going forth even
in his imprisonment. He's witnessing to the guards who are watching him and some of
them are becoming Christians. That causes joy even if all you get to sit on is a
rock in a hole in the ground. His growing understanding of who God is and God's
goodness, God's grace was his ultimate source of joy, not his circumstances. So you
spend time with God in his word, you come to know him better, You believe what the
Bible says and it starts to reshape your thinking and it starts to produce joy in
you Now I'm just assuming nothing here when I talk about spending time in God's
word I'm not just talking about reading a chapter a day and checking it off the
list. I mean studying it. I mean Meditating on it. I mean memorizing it.
I mean hearing it preached I mean letting your mind dwell on these things throughout
the day Not just like you take a pill, I read my chapter, that was my pill, it
should do. No, you have to keep it fresh in your mind, you have to let your mind
dwell on these things. Jeremiah 15, the prophet says about God's word, "Your words
were found and I ate them, and your words became to me a joy,
the delight of my heart, for I am called by your name, O Lord, God of hosts."
Jeremiah said, "When I internalized your word when it became my food, my sustenance,
it produced joy in me. Psalm 19 says that God's word is more to be desired than
gold. It's sweeter than honey from the honeycomb. So if you lack joy, increase the
time you spend with God in His word. Number four, add regular corporate worship to
your regular personal and corporate worship to your life, personal and corporate. What
we do this morning should be a source of joy as we come together and sing the
praises of God. But you don't just leave it here and then go home and say, well,
I'm done with that for the week. No, you keep worshiping God throughout the week,
singing praises to God out loud. I know you did it here this morning. You may
think I'm not a very good singer. Do it in your car, do it in the shower. You
don't have to put it on us. Okay, we don't want to hear it, but you can still
sing by yourself wherever you are. Psalm 32,
"Be glad in the Lord and rejoice you righteous and shout for joy all you upright
in heart." Psalm 100, "Serve the Lord with gladness, come before his presence with
thanksgiving, with singing.
Now I have to confess here, there are some pop songs that cause me to smile and
bring me joy. They're just a groove about them. There are some songs that when I
hear them I just can't help but smile, right? I got sunshine on a cloudy day,
right? When I hear that I just want to smile. I guess you, right?
Or, "Cheer up sleepy jean," that's another one for me, or,
"I'm digging those good vibrations." Right? Those songs will bring momentary smiles to
my face, but not lasting joy. But when I sing, "O to C," my name written on the
wounds, "For through your suffering I am free. Death is crushed to death.
Life is mine to live. One through your selfless love. That causes more joy than my
girl does.
Listen to what Martin Luther said about the gift of music and how it stirs up joy
in our hearts. He said, "My heart, which is so full to overflowing, "has often been
solaced and refreshed by music When sick and weary beautiful music is the art of
the prophets that can calm the agitations of the soul It is one of the most
magnificent and delightful presents God has given us next to the word of God the
noble art of music is the greatest treasure in the world so turn on the stream on
Spotify and sing along with it and just Fill your heart with joyful singing and
worship the Lord and see if that does not bring joy. Sing loud,
sing long, and sing hymns and not Motown, okay? Which brings me to number five.
It's actually connected to number four. Serve the Lord by serving others and it will
bring joy to your life. Come into His presence with singing, serve the Lord.
This is adding some spiritual physical therapy to your life. Serve the Lord by
serving others in the body of Christ. When you serve others from a pure heart, God
will bring joy to your own heart. And you've had that experience. You have served
someone and had the experience of serving them cause joy and contentment in your own
life. So if you're lacking joy, look for ways that you can bless somebody else,
that you can be a blessing to others, you can love others. Is there someone this
week that you could serve and bless? Someone at work,
someone in your neighborhood, a relative, a stranger. You could leave cookies for the
mailman. Kids, you could ask your mom, "Is there some way that I can help you this
week, something I can do, you could help with the dishes or take out the trash
without being asked. You could serve them and there would be joy coming in that.
It's on the banner here, serve. It's one of the ways that we evidence maturity in
Christ. We bear one another's burden and there's joy when we serve others.
Which leads me to number six, which is giving. There is great joy In giving not
just serving but in giving to others. I had this happen once maybe this has
happened to you I pulled into the drive -thru at Chick -fil -A. I gave them my order
and when I got to the window They handed me the sack and I handed them card. They
said no no the person in front of you paid for yours And you know what my first
thought was I should order the large fries I
Wanted the large fries, but I economized if I had a unknown I'd have gotten the
big waffle fries. Have you seen any of the videos that are viral on social media
the guy who goes into the diner and he asks for a glass of water and then he
tips the waitress $500 and she's she backs away like no what I can't take that and
he goes no I want to encourage him bless you and you watch her start to cry and
you see the joy in him I don't know who's funding his videos or where he gets the
500 bucks to be able to do that, but there's joy in doing that kind of giving.
You know, in the book of Acts, when the apostle Paul, he's been at Ephesus for
three years. That's the place he stayed the longest. He helped build the church
there. He loved the Ephesian elders. He's saying goodbye to them in Acts chapter 20.
And the last thing he says to them, as he's saying goodbye to them, he quotes
Jesus. It's the only quote from Jesus that we have in the book of Acts that is
not found in the Gospels. But here's what he says. He says, "In all things I have
shown you that by working hard in this way, we must help the weak and remember the
words of the Lord Jesus, how he himself said, 'It is more blessed to give than to
receive.'" You've heard that?
You know, this guy, Sir John Templeton, he was a banker, a financier, a fund
manager, Money Magazine called him arguably the greatest global stock picker of the
century. They called him that back in 1999. Here's what Sir John Templeton said.
He said, "If we try hard to bring happiness to others, we cannot stop it from
coming to us also. To get joy, we must give it. To keep joy, we must scatter it."
I mentioned earlier giving to the local church something Marianne and I have been
doing since we were first married and Like I said, there were some months where we
didn't have much to give But we knew that Jesus had said where your treasure is
your heart will be also Giving our treasure to the church drew our heart to the
church and to the work of the gospel
There's always been joy in being able to give we sat down recently and did our
year -end list. Who do we want to give to here at year -end? And it's a joy for
us to be able to invest in the work that God is doing through these ministries and
to bless them. Giving brings joy. Okay, I'm going to wrap it all up this morning.
Those are my six things, but let me just give you this quote from Ligon Duncan
that I love this quote. He says, "The key to a life of joy,
not superficial joy, not trivial joy, not joy in sunsets, not joy in wife,
not joy in children, joy in cars, not joy in football, not joy in money, not joy
in beauty, not joy in esteem, not joy in influence, not joy in anything else the
world can give, but joy in Christ, the key to a life of joy is, get this,
a God -centered, gospel -based, grace enabled shifting of our attention away from
ourselves and on to others. Okay, go back. Leave that up.
We need to bring it in. Put that back up on the screen.
The key to a life of joy is a God -centered, gospel -based,
grace -enabled shifting of our attention away from ourselves and on to others.
Okay, now you can go. I think the fundamental question we face this morning is
this. If I'm right, if our lives are fundamentally motivated by a quest for joy,
and I think they are, then the question we need to be asking is are we focused on
doing the things that will bring us joy? Are we pursuing God? Do we really believe
that knowing Him and being known by Him is the ultimate source of the joy for
which our souls long. Or do we spin our wheels trying to find joy in things that
will ultimately not satisfy the longing of our souls? Is your life prioritized in
such a way that you are seeking the kingdom of God and his righteousness first?
Or are you regularly chasing joy that will not satisfy your soul and will not last.
When we're committed to pursuing a life that is built around loving and serving God
and others, the joy we experience in life will be rich and full and real. When
Jesus was born, the angels brought glad tidings of great joy, and when Jesus comes
again,
your heart, if you know him, if you're his child, your heart will be filled with a
joy that you've never experienced but for which you have always longed. Join me,
let's pray.
Father, you've made us for yourself and we find our joy in you.
We want to acknowledge that and confess that this morning. We also confess that it's
easy for us to be distracted and think joy is somewhere else. lead us back to you,
help us to re -believe the gospel, fill our hearts with worship for you, turn our
focus away from ourselves so that we can love and serve others and give to others.
And Lord I pray that the joy of this season would be multiplied in our hearts as
we think about the good news of the gospel. And Lord for any here this morning who
are hearing this and thinking my soul does long for joy, but it's always been
elusive. If they don't know you, Lord, I pray that they would recognize their need,
understand the desperate condition our souls are in apart from you, and find their
joy in the relationship that you want to have with them.
Turn their hearts to you today. I pray in your name, amen.