Jesus is our Great Joy!

We are continuing our series, / / It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year!

And of course along with the rest of the church world are in what we call the season of Advent, which is the 4 weeks leading up to Christmas, where we look at different aspects of Jesus and what it means to celebrate the coming of the Messiah as well as looking forward to the return of the King.

As it is with many aspects of Christianity, Advent is a multi-faceted thing, isn’t it? There’s a lot going on.

Each week we look at a different topic.

Each week we anticipate a celebration of an event that came 2000 years ago.

Each week we look forward to something that we have absolutely no idea when or how it’s going to happen, right?

Let’s be honest, when it comes to eschatology, which simply means the theology or understanding of the end times, or what we might call the Second Coming of Christ, what many look to the book of Revelation for, what some of the teachings of Jesus included, this talk of his return again, there are multiple viewpoints of what that is going to look like. We study scripture, but not because in scripture we find our salvation, but because scripture points to Jesus. And I think that’s something we always need to keep in balance. Don’t put a higher value on Scripture than the one it points to. And most definitely do not allow what you have learned or been taught of scripture to become so concrete that it drives a wedge between you and other believers in Christ.

And that in of itself could be a rabbit trail we go down all morning, but I would say this about that. RT Kendall, an absolutely wonderful man, who has authored more than 50 books and was pastor of Westminster Chapel in London, England, for 25 years, I heard him say this once, and it really stuck with me. And this isn’t a direct quote, I don’t remember exactly what he said, / / “As Christians we unfortunately, and too often ‘major on the minors’ and ‘minor on the majors’.”

Meaning this, don’t allow differences that do not have eternal consequences to so impact your relationships or connection with people that you can no longer connect on the eternal basis we do agree on.

There are things that we must hold 100%. Jesus Christ is Lord of all. The Messiah, the Savior of the world and only through Him will humanity find salvation. This is why the early church would have meetings, or counsels, where they would wrestle through scripture and the teachings of Jesus to come to a conclusion of what was most important. We call them the creeds. And I would say as a church we hold tightly to what is called the Apostles Creed. If you want more on that you can grab one of the free bibles we have in the lobby on the table which has the Apostles creed in the front, but also a 24 day study of the creed through scripture, showing why we believe what we believe.

Like I said, there are things we hold with one meaning. Salvation through Jesus Christ doesn’t have any ifs, ands, or buts in it.

But something like Advent, where we are looking at these wonderful topics, Hope, Peace, Joy & Love, as we work our way toward Christmas day. These things have an abundance of revelation and nuance that can be focused on throughout your lifetime. I love looking at scripture topically because every time I do I learn more about the very thing I’m looking at.

This is the beauty of scripture. The bible is the only book you can read 100 times and seem to learn something new every time. Why? Because God speaks through scripture, and scripture points to Christ and the Holy Spirit is the very spirit of truth who Jesus said would lead us into all truth. So every time I honor him and focus on these things he leads me and guides me further into truth.

I said this last week about Hope, and it is something that I had not really ever seen before, or at least not in the way I saw it this time. But that my understanding of hope was mostly based on the positive outcome of circumstances in my life. I’m hoping God does something, and when He does it, I praise him and it reaffirms my faith in God. But what happens if it doesn’t happen? / / What happens to our hope then when what we were hoping for doesn’t happen? See, as a result of this thinking, when things didn’t go well in my life, hope seemed to wain, and as hope wained, or let’s say when my hope was deferred, my heart grew sick. Just like scripture says in Proverbs 13:12, / / Hope deferred makes the heart sick.

So I found myself coming to this realization and said it last week, / / If I place my hope in the outcome of my temporal life rather than in the eternal salvation of Jesus Christ, then I run the very real risk of my heart becoming sick.

But / / if I keep my hope in what is unseen, then when what is seen lets me down, I will not grow weary, my heart will not be sick.

So, this week we are going to look at Joy. And I am excited to be getting into this because again I find myself looking at this in a different light than I have been before.

Let’s start with continuing to read the Christmas story from the gospel accounts, and then we’ll get into this topic of Joy.

In the last couple weeks we have read the part of this story where Gabriel the angel appears to Mary and tells her she’s going to have a child. Then tells her that her relative Elizabeth is also pregnant. She goes for a visit and stays with Elizabeth for a few months. Last week we read through Zechariah’s prophecy over both Jesus and his son John after His encounter with Gabriel and a subsequent 9 month or longer inability to talk, and possibly not able to hear as well.

And so we are picking up the story, I don’t know in the timeline when this happened, but at some point God decides to fill Joseph in on the plan, which is good, because he wasn’t necessarily buying Mary’s side of the story. “An angel told me that God made me pregnant…honest...” I’m not sure if she told him that before she left to Elizabeth’s, or after she got back and was most probably showing at that point. But at some point Joseph finds out and he’s like, “it wasn’t me...”. And that’s where we’re picking up the story in Matthew 1:18-25 and then Luke 2:1-20.

/ / This is how Jesus the Messiah was born. His mother, Mary, was engaged to be married to Joseph. But before the marriage took place, while she was still a virgin, she became pregnant through the power of the Holy Spirit. Joseph, to whom she was engaged, was a righteous man and did not want to disgrace her publicly, so he decided to break the engagement quietly.

If you don’t realize what that’s saying, let me interpret this scripture for you. He didn’t believe her...

I wonder if that ever came up in couples counseling…Joseph starts, “I just feel like she doesn’t think I trust her, and I don’t know why...”

“Joseph, remember that time the Holy Spirit of God put a baby inside of me and you didn’t believe me??? You were going to divorce me and walk out...”

“Mary. Come on, how was I supposed to know???”

“Well, clearly you don’t trust me....”

“Come on!!!!”

/ / As he considered this [ok, so he’s thinking about it…], an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream. “Joseph, son of David,” the angel said, “do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife. For the child within her was conceived by the Holy Spirit. And she will have a son, and you are to name him Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.”

All this occured to fulfill the Lord’s message through his prophet:

“Look! The virgin will conceive a child!

She will give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel, which means, ‘God is with us.’”

When Joseph woke up, he did as the angel of the Lord commanded him and took Mary as his wife. But he did not have sexual relations with her until her son was born. And Joseph named him Jesus.

Now, as a side note here, I kind of think Joseph wanted to believe. See what it says about him. He was a righteous man. Meaning his desire was to do what was right in the eyes of God. He wants to follow God. He wants to do what pleases God. He is waiting for the Messiah and my best guess is that He is WANTING this to be true, but how many know, that’s a big order to just jump on board with. “I’m pregnant…but don’t worry, it wasn’t from another man, It was from the Spirit of God…No, but for real, an angel told me...I have the Messiah in my tummy!” I can’t imagine being faced with that kind of decision.

And second. Both Mary, in the case of Jesus, and Zechariah, in the case of Elizabeth and John, both of them, from what we can tell, have Gabriel show up in person, while they are awake, obviously, he has to say, “Don’t be afraid...”

Joseph on the other hand has a dream. This is the other reason I think he wanted to believe, because it only took a dream. He didn’t write the dream off as pizza. He didn’t write the dream off as crazy, or fantasy, or wake up and go, “ya, but can I trust that dream?” NO, scripture says he woke up and the dream was enough, he took Mary to be his wife and honored the process, was not WITH her until after she gave birth to Jesus.

The decision to walk that road takes a lot of faith.

Now we jump over to Luke 2 and pick up the story there.

/ / At that time the Roman emperor, Augustus, decreed that a census should be taken throughout the Roman Empire. (This was the first census taken when Quirinius was governor of Syria.) All returned to their own ancestral towns to register for this census. And because Joseph was a descendant of King David, he had to go to Bethlehem in Judea, David’s ancient home. He traveled there from the village of Nazareth in Galilee. He took with him Mary, to whom he was engaged, who was now expecting a child.

And while they were there, the time came for her baby to be born. She gave birth to her firstborn son. She wrapped him snugly in strips of cloth and laid him in a manger, because there was no lodging available for them.

That night there were shepherds staying in the fields nearby, guarding their flocks of sheep. Suddenly, an angel of the Lord appeared among them, and the radiance of the Lord’s glory surrounded them. They were terrified, but the angel reassured them. “Don’t be afraid!” he said. [See, when an angel actually shows up, they need to say, “don’t be afraid!” they continued,] “I bring you good news that will bring great joy to all people. The Savior - yes, the Messiah, the Lord - has been born today in Bethlehem, the city of David! And you will recognize him by this sign: You will find a baby wrapped snugly in strips of cloth, lying in a manger.”

Suddenly, the angel was joined by a vast host of others - the armies of heaven - praising God and saying,

“Glory to God in highest heaven, and peace on earth to those with whom God is pleased.”

When the angels had returned to heaven, the shepherds said to each other, “Let’s go to Bethlehem! Let’s see this thing that has happened, which the Lord has told us about.”

They hurried to the village and found Mary and Joseph. And there was the baby, lying in the manger. After seeing him, the shepherds told everyone what had happened and what the angel had said to them about this child. All who heard the shepherds’ story were astonished, but Mary kept all these things in her heart and thought about them often. The shepherds went back to their flocks, glorifying and praising God for all they had heard and seen. It was just as the angel had told them.

Talk about a fantastic story. There’s so much in there we could get into this morning, but we’re going to zero in on one little verse in the middle of this story.

Luke 2:10, the angel of the Lord says to the shepherds, / / “I bring you good news that will bring great joy to all people.”

Now, as I said, when we look at these things in a sort of topical sense, we are looking at the topic of joy today, we can approach that from a few different angles. You could very easily say that the world should be happy that Jesus has arrived, right? And in fact, this is one of the things we do in this Advent season, we anticipate, with joy, the arrival, or the celebration of the arrival of Jesus Christ, the Messiah, 2000 years ago.

Christmas makes me happy. Jesus being born makes me happy. Having a savior makes me happy.

That is most definitely a very easy and very right way to look at this scripture. Of course it is. We should be happy Jesus has come.

But, as I have been reflecting through these days of Advent, and like I saw with hope, that when I put hope in the temporal things, the things now, the things I want, the things I think God should provide or give me in this life, and those things don’t happen, then what happens to my hope?

The same can happen with peace. If I require certain things in my life for me to consider that I am at peace, then I miss the peace of God that transcends any earthly situation. Jesus is my peace. I don’t have peace because everything is going right in my life, in the midst of things going wrong, I can still experience the peace of God. It doesn’t mean the situation always changes, but like Paul who said I have found the secret to being content, and that word content means independent of external circumstances I am contented with my situation in life. The english definition of the word content means a state of satisfaction. But Paul is directly saying wether I am satisfied or not, I might be very hungry, that’s not satisfying, I might be very full, that is satisfying, but either way, I am content, I am satisfied. And in Philippians 4:13 He gives us the answer, / / For I can do everything through Christ, who gives me strength.

Two really important words there.

/ / Through - which means our position in place, time or state, in other words, a relation of rest.

And the second is / / strength, which means to empower, or enable.

So, Paul is saying, / / I am enabled to endure any circumstance I face by positioning myself, or finding my place of rest, in Christ.

What did Jesus say in John 15:5? / / “Yes, I am the vine; you are the branches. Those who remain in me, and I in them, will produce much fruit. For apart from me you can do nothing.”

If you didn’t know, doing nothing is the opposite of being able to do anything...

Paul is simply repeating the words of Jesus, but flipped around. Jesus says, / / “Without me you can do nothing.” Paul says, “With Jesus, I can do anything...”

Abide, find your place of rest, your position in Christ and you will be able to endure anything.

Doesn’t mean the situation changes, it means you will endure through it.

Paul says in Romans 5:3, / / We can rejoice, too, when we run into problems and trials, for we know that they help develop endurance.

What does all of that have to do with Joy?

Well, in the same way that I can easily put my hope in the outcomes I want on earth, and desire peace by obtaining certain outcomes on earth, I can easily misinterpret what it means for Jesus to be my Joy, and thus, if I am not happy, or if I do not feel joyful, I can wonder where Jesus went and why He isn’t making me joyful and happy.

I watched a video this week that really had me thinking. Pastor Tim Ross from Irving, Tx, said, / / “Let’s not put Jesus glitter on it.” And I thought, “WHAT?” And he continued, / / “Sometimes God tells you to do something and obeying him does not mean happiness…” He was eluding to 1 Samuel 15:22 where the prophet Samuel says, / / “What is more pleasing to the Lord: your burnt offerings and sacrifices or your obedience to his voice? Listen! Obedience is better than sacrifice, and submission is better than offering the fat of rams.”

Pastor Tim’s point was this, if we preach following Jesus will make you happy, then when you aren’t happy you won’t think following Jesus is working. And I’ve seen time and time again, when things get difficult, when things get hard, people want to give up.

I’m not saying following Jesus WON’T make you happy. To be honest, in a lot of ways it will! But if we base our following Jesus on whether we are happy or not, we will want to give up when times call for endurance and obedience rather than joyful following.

“Oh, they said following Jesus would make me happy, would change my life. I’d be prosperous and looked after. But where is He now? Why am I broke, why am I hurting, why does it feel like my life is falling apart? What’s the point of following Jesus then?”

And they walk away.

I’m not against being happy, in fact, I think being happy is wonderful, and I seek that in life which aids in my happiness, but I have learned to not give up on God and not give up on myself and not give up on my relationships when I am sad, depressed, stuck and struggling in addiction or feeling at the end of myself.

So, what is it truly that the angels promised on that hillside with the shepherds?

/ / “I bring you good news that will bring great joy to all people. The Savior - yes, the Messiah, the Lord - has been born today in Bethlehem, the city of David!”

So, I want to suggest to you this morning,/ / that Joy is not just a feeling, but Joy is a person. And actually expressed in multiple people, and we’ll get to that.

/ / 1. Jesus is the Father’s Joy

I think in some ways this is what the angels were saying. This great joy that is brought to all people IS Jesus Christ, the Savior, the Messiah!

Let’s look at another scripture that eludes to Jesus being this Great Joy.

If you flip just a few pages in your bible to Luke 3:21-22 tells us about the baptism of Jesus by his relative, John the Baptist. / / One day when the crowds were being baptized, Jesus himself was baptized. As he was praying, the heavens opened, and the Holy Spirit, in bodily form, descended on him like a dove. And a voice from heaven said, “You are my dearly loved Son, and you bring me great joy.”

Other translations say it this way:

/ / ESV ...with you I am well pleased.

TPT …through you I am fulfilled.

/ / MSG …You are my Son, chosen and marked by my love, pride of my life.

AMP …In you I am well pleased and find delight.

I think all of this points to the Father affirming to Jesus in that moment, / / “You are my Great Joy!”

We would say that of our children, wouldn’t we? I don’t just say to Kaylee that she makes me happy, or brings me joy, no, She IS my joy. She is my delight. She is the very embodiment of my happiness.

Ed Piorek calls this the Central Event in the life of Jesus. Before Jesus had done anything we would consider as ministry. No teaching, no miracles, no healing, and in that place, that’s when God the Father says, You are my great Joy.

Another scripture this is shown to us is in Matthew 17 which is what we call the transfiguration of Jesus. Jesus is on a mountain with Peter, James and John and while they are there Matthew 17:3 says, Suddenly, / / Moses and Elijah appeared and began talking with Jesus.

And listen as they are there on this mountain and this unreal moment is happening, vs 5 says, / / …a bright cloud overshadowed them, and a voice from the cloud said, “This is my dearly loved Son, who brings me great joy. Listen to him.”

Again, pointing to this truth that Jesus is the great joy of God the Father.

And I would point out this morning that you also take that place in the heart of the Father.

My friend Trevor Galpin asks this question, / / “Do you know, and do you believe that God the Father loves you just as much, and in the same way that he loves Jesus, who is God the Son?”

In John 17:20-23 Jesus says this, as he is praying, / / “I am praying not only for these disciples but also for all who will ever believe in me through their message. [that’s me and you] I pray that they will all be one, just as you and I are one - as you are in me, Father , and I am in you. And may they be in us so that the world will believe you sent me.

“I have given them the glory you gave me, so they may be one as we are one. I am in them and you are in me. May they experience such perfect unity that the world will know that you sent me and that you love them as much as you love me...

So, Jesus is the Father’s Joy, but, / / In the the same way that Jesus is the Great Joy of the Father, you are the Joy of your Heavenly Father as well.

/ / 2. You are the Joy of Jesus

Not only are you the joy of the Father, but the next thing I want to look at is the place we fill in the heart of Jesus. In the same way that Kaylee, even when she does something that upsets me, she never loses the place of being my joy, of being my delight. I try to communicate that to her often, that even if I am upset, or saddened by something she has done, I don’t love her any less. I never want her to think I am putting up a barrier between her and me because of anything she has done. I’m not saying I’m perfect, by any means, but that is the true heart of God the Father, that no matter what we do, he does not turn from us. If there is a barrier between us and God it is of our own making, not his. And I wish I would have understood that earlier in my life. The number of times I would think that God was upset with me, or at the very least, I would have to go through some sort of penance before I was back in good standing with him.

I was talking to a friend a couple weeks ago and said, “Isn’t it interesting that the longer we are away from church, the harder it is to come back, and yet, it should be the most natural, easiest thing to do!”

The same is often true of our bible, or prayer. For some reason the longer I have not read my bible, or taken consistent time in prayer, the harder it is to come back for fear of some sort of punishment or retribution for my absence. That couldn’t be further from the truth.

We don’t have time to get into it this morning, but Jesus tells a story in Luke 15 called the Parable of the lost son, or prodigal son. And it perfectly depicts the heart of the Father upon our return from anything foolish we’ve done, even if it has been a direct push back of God and His ways.

Nearing the end of the story, the son has basically left home, in a bad way, taken his inheritance, spent it all on stupid stuff, finds himself homeless and broke, and finally realizes, “wait a second, my dad’s servants are better looked after than me.” So he goes home, and in his going prepares this big speech how he’s the worst and doesn’t deserve anything, but if his dad could just let him be a servant, that would be better than anything. And here’s where we see the heart of God toward those who have walked away and return, even if they’ve squandered everything.

Luke 15:20, / / “So he returned home to his father. And while he was still a long way off, his father saw him coming. Filled with love and compassion, he ran to his son, embraced him, and kissed him...”

His father completely ignores the attempt at an apology and tells his servants to bring the best of the best because they’re about to have a party like no one has seen.

That’s what we should have in our minds when we think about coming back to church, or picking up our bible again, or taking a moment to pray again… All of heaven leaps and shouts at our return!

Now, this is why I say not only are we the joy of the Father, but we are the joy of Jesus… Hebrews 12:1-2 says this, / / Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a huge crowd of witnesses to the life of faith, let us strip off every weight that slows us down, especially the sin that so easily trips us up. And let us run with endurance the race God has set before us. We do this by keeping our eyes on Jesus, the champion who initiates and perfects our faith. Because of the joy awaiting him, he endured the cross, disregarding its shame. Now he is seated in the place of honor beside God’s throne.

Because of the joy awaiting him, he endured the cross.

Some translations say, / / For the joy set before him, he endured the cross.

And there are two ways of looking at that, and I think both are correct.

First, you can easily say that the joy set before him was to be seated at the right hand of God the father. On the other side of the cross was resurrection and ascension back to heaven. So that’s obviously a joyful thing.

But the second is the reason he went to the cross in the first place, and that is for you. That is for me. I think you are the joy that was set before Jesus that helped him endure all the agonizing and torturous brutality that he went through on the cross. Because on the other side of the cross he didn’t just see his Father, he saw me and you standing there with his Father, because he said in John 14:6, / / “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one can come to the Father except through me.”

He saw me and you standing with the Father on the other side of the cross and it was all worth it.

The two more poetic translations split this pretty evenly:

The Message translation of Hebrews 12:2 says, / / Because he never lost sight of where he was headed - that exhilarating finish in and with God - he could put up with anything along the way: Cross, shame, whatever. And now he’s there, in the place of honor, right alongside God.

So, that very much leans toward the joy being sitting at the right hand of the Father.

But then TPT says it this way, / / His example is this: Because his heart was so focused on the joy of knowing that you would be his, he endured the agony of the cross and conquered its humiliation, and now sits exalted at the right hand of the throne of God!

Knowing that you would be his!!! You and Me were the thing that got him through!

Yes, of course the resurrection was a fantastic reason to give your life, knowing you’re not going to stay dead, but here’s the thing, I think that if Jesus knew that in dying he would stay dead, but it would still make a way for you, he would’ve done it. I have no doubt in my mind. That’s not what happened, He did raise again, He is seated at the right hand of the Father AND he proved that you were the joy of his heart to do it in the first place.

But this brings up a really strong point.

/ / Is there anything joyful about enduring agony and suffering?

Dr Chris Green, author and theologian says this about / / joy, it is not “being pleased with how things are going...” And yet the very definition of joy is a feeling of great pleasure and happiness.

But he continued to say, / / it would be deceitful to call people to joy in all situations if we only looked at it in the way of being pleased with how things are going.

If we look at Jesus, certainly not for his sake, and not because he could take any sort of pleasure in the cross, but for the joy set before him, And I think that is both in the obedience to His father, and seeing us standing on the other side of the cross with His father, he endured the suffering of the cross.

Jesus also shows us that obedience brings joy, not that it is always joyful. But what do we say when we offer to do something for someone and they say, Are you sure? “Of course, it would be my pleasure.”

Jesus said he found a fulfillment, a deep satisfaction in doing the will of the Father.

Just like the video I was mentioning earlier, God desires obedience more than sacrifice, and yet there is a joy in obedience, not always fun, happy, or pleasurable, but it brings joy to do what is pleasing to the Father.

Jesus actually says in John 15:10-11, / / When you obey my commandments, you remain in my love, just as I obey my Father’s commandments and remain in his love. I have told you these things so that you will be filled with my joy. Yes, your joy will overflow.

And then he continues on about following his commands.

On this side of the cross, following the will of His Father brought Jesus great joy.

On the other side of the cross, he could see us with His father, and we are with him and his father - it couldn’t just be obedience because obedience led to sacrifice and we already saw that God doest not want sacrifice…

We have to understand this… The cross was not the Father sacrificing the Son to satisfy a need of the Father. It is the son, and the Father, loving humanity so much that they decide the life of the Son is worth the lives of humanity restored to their original potential....eternity without corruption.

So, for the joy set before him, Jesus endured the cross.

Ok, so we’ve looked at Jesus being the Father’s Joy, and subsequently the Father being Jesus’ joy.

And we’ve looked at Us being the joy that Jesus saw on the other side of the Cross, and really, if God the Father loves us in the same we he loves Jesus, then we are also His joy.

And the third thing I want to look at this morning is.

/ / 3. Jesus is our Joy

Remember, I started by saying that Joy is a person, but not just one person, but expressed through many people. But this one is the greatest expression for us. That Jesus is our Joy. And this might be more important now, in this time, than ever.

Ya know, one of the problems we face in today’s society is this notion of living for what pleases me, for what makes me happy. And if it doesn’t bring me joy, get rid of it. And I know there’s a difference between Marie Kondo’ing your closet and Marie Kondo’ing your friend list, or church, or relationship with God, but I think there’s some truth in that. Because we have such a big emphasis these days on doing only what makes you happy we have less and less people willing to do what is needed to make things work.

I think this is why we have breakdown in marriages. As soon as it’s too difficult, and it’s not all happy, why keep trying?

I think this is why people have an easier time leaving church. There’s less drive to work through issues, It’s easier to just move on.

This is why the trades have seen a decline, a good days pay for a good days work, but people only want to do what makes them feel happy. Just watch or read anything by Mike Rowe, he’ll tell ya where it’s at.

But the problem is that when we live for what makes us happy, we run the risk of giving up when we are sad. When what WAS making us happy is no longer making us happy, does that mean we end up throwing it away?

Again, with all of those things, whether it’s marriage, or church, work or even friendships, if they get to a point where it’s not producing joy or pleasure in what we see as our definition of those things, then it is no longer worth it.

This is why we need to recognize that as I said earlier, and as Chris Green points out, We can’t just live life thinking joy is simply being pleased with how things are going…

We have to encounter the person of Joy so that regardless of our current surroundings or situations, we do not give up.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer was a pastor and theologian in the years leading up to WWII in Germany. And the first World War was so devastating for the people that when Adolph Hitler came on the scene some were taken so off guard that they thought it was a good thing. One Pastor was noted as saying, “The time is fulfilled for the German people of Hitler. It is because of Hitler that Christ, God the helper and redeemer, has become effective among us… Hitler is the way of the Spirit and the will of God for the German people to enter the Church of Christ.” Can you imagine being so disillusioned? And yet, look at today, we have people, even politicians, using scripture to endorse abortion, the killing of innocent lives. So, are things any different today? Another pastor in Germany at the time went as far to say, “Christ has come to us through Adolph Hitler.”

This is the world that Dietrich Bonhoeffer was living in. On May 10th, 1933 student groups at universities across Germany carried out a series of book burnings of works that the students and leading Nazi Party members associated with an “un-German spirit.” There were many of these burnings happening all over, but one in Berlin had an estimated 40,000 people gathered to hear a Nazi leaders propaganda.

Ok, so think of it, this is what’s happening around you, and in the midst of that, Dietrich Bonhoeffer decides to talk about joy… May 25th, 1933

/ / “The joy of ascension day, we have to become very quiet inwardly before we can even hear the soft sound of this word. Joy comes to life in the quiet and the mystery, indeed, this joy can not be comprehended, but it is never what we can understand that brings us joy, it is that which we cannot understand, but is real, tru, alive, that sets us alight with joy. That is why real joy itself is always somewhat incomprehensible. It’s joy unspeakable, both for others and for the person who feels it, joy is simply there...”

Clearly he wasn’t speaking about current feelings, or what he was seeing around him, because that was all in a state of chaos, wasn’t it? They are right in the middle of this rise of Nazi nationalism that will eventually become the bringer of the holocaust. And he sees that, where others are not. Yet he says underneath all that, if you are silent, in the quiet and the mystery you will see something else, something incomprehensible, that is Jesus...

And then, almost 10 years later, near the end of 1942, when things haven’t got better, but worse, he writes this:

/ / “The joy of God has gone through the poverty of the manger and the distress of the cross. That is why it is invincible and irrefutable. It does not deny the anguish when it is there, but finds God in the midst of it. In fact, precisely there. It does not deny grave sin, but finds forgiveness precisely in this way. It looks death straight in the eye but finds life precisely within it.”

The word that the angels speak to the shepherds on the night that Jesus is born, that they bring news of great joy for all people. The word / / joy means a quiet delight.

This is the kind of Joy that God is and shares with us. In the quiet and the mystery. Unexplainable yet invincible and irrefutable. And it’s found in beholding the Savior, Jesus Christ.

So, I want to ask you a question today.

In the trial, the sorrow, the mystery of life that you are living in. Can you look past it to see Christ who is the joy that will empower you to endure through any and all situations?

And regardless of whether you are happy or not, you choose obedience over feeling.

Do you recognize that not all of life will be happy, but in the quiet and in the mystery you can hold on to hope for the joy that is set before you, who is Jesus Christ?

Have you been disillusioned by the church or friends, family, or your marriage, thinking that it is only worth it when it makes you happy?

Or maybe you’ve been on the receiving end of it. People have walked away from you because they were no longer happy with the current situation.

Whatever your situation is, whatever you are walking through or facing this morning I want to pray for you, that you would find the mystery in the quiet.

We prayed from Romans 15:13 a couple weeks ago, and this is more than appropriate again. Paul prayed for the church, saying, / / I pray that God, the source of hope, will fill you completely with joy and peace because you trust in him. Then you will overflow with confident hope through the power of the Holy Spirit.

I won’t presume to understand all the complexities of joy in the midst of suffering - of a joy that would help someone endure even the suffering of the cross. But I know that joy is not something that comes from me. I know it’s not just a feeling. It’s the person of Jesus Christ. Peter says in 1 Peter 1:8, / / Though you have not seen him, you love him. Though you do not see him now, you trust him; and you rejoice with a glorious, inexpressible joy.

So, that is my prayer for you this morning, that you would be filled with an inexpressible joy. A joy that gives you endurance. A joy that gives you courage. A joy that you see before you that helps you endure through anything you are going through in this moment.

May our God, who is the source of hope, and the source of true joy, fill your heart and mind completely with the joy of the Lord, which is your strength, the power and courage to endure.