Surprised by Joy

Joy

Today we are going to be reflecting on the nature of Christian Joy.

Joy is one of those things that I think most of us know goes deeper than simple happiness. It’s hard to describe Joy, but you know if when you experience it. And I think Joy usually accompanies relationships. Like I feel happy when I’m watching Star Trek or eating Kimchi Fried Rice. But I experience joy when I hold my children or see my wife celebrated.

And even beyond this, we are going to look at the idea that Biblically speaking, there is a sort of Joy that is given to us only from God. It’s a special kind of Joy that is exclusive to our relationship with him.

There are several words used for Joy in scriptures, about 18 between the Hebrew and the Greek. I won’t drag you through the weeds of them, but what is interesting is that sometimes joy is a noun and sometimes it’s a verb. And there are some words for Joy that only get used in the context of worship towards God. Joy is something that we have, but it’s also something that we do, and the truest joy is found in God and God alone.

How is it that we participate in this joy? Is it something that happens to us? And do we have a part to play in embracing joy?

Before we jump into these ideas, I do want to take a moment to address the fact that for some of us, there are some seasons where Joy seems elusive. Where we are doing everything right, but there seems to be a lack of Joy.

Juan De La Cruz or St. John of the Cross, is a theologian from the 16th century. And he experienced a deep depression that he described as The Dark Night of The Soul, where he began to lose the sense of Joy in his life.

That light guided me

More surely than the noonday sun

To the place where He was waiting for me,

Whom I knew well,

And where none appeared.

St. John of The Cross

Sometimes I think God brings us through dry seasons in order to deepen and mature our relationship with him. Much like a marriage, there comes a time when the honeymoon phase is over, and the covenant the two made has to become something deeper than butterflies in their stomachs. I think our relationship with God can be like this.

So if you are in this room, and you find yourself in a place where God’s joy seems to be just out of reach, know that He hasn’t forgotten about you. He is faithful even when we can’t perceive it. Keep showing up. Keep the faith.

Today we are going to be returning to Luke chapter 1, this time we will be in verses 39 - 56.

If you remember, Zechariah the priest and Elizabeth have just been told that that they are going to become pregnant in their old age and give birth to John the Baptist, who is going to become the first bonafide prophet in 400 years.

And now Mary, who is betrothed to a man named Joseph, but still a virgin, has just been told by an angel that she is going to concieve, via the holy spirit, the Messiah who will be called Jesus. And the angel told her about her cousin Elizabeth as well.

So Mary is going to go and visit Elizabeth. Now, I don’t know what it’s like to be pregnant. But I know that Jayna really enjoys journeying through pregancy with the women in her life. It was really exciting for her when her and her sister were pregnant at the same time. There’s this sense of shared experience and excitement.

So imagine this same dynamic but dialed up to 11 right? Not only are Mary and her cousin pregnant at the same time, but one of them is preganant far beyond child bearing years, and the other before she’s done the thing that is usually required to make baies. And both carrying children who are going to change the world forever, who are going to fulfill God’s long-awaited promises.

This goes to show us that for God, nothing is ever too late, and nothing is ever too soon, if he wills it.

Mary Visits Elizabeth

39 In those days Mary set out and went with haste to a Judean town in the hill country, 40 where she entered the house of Zechariah and greeted Elizabeth. 41 When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the child leaped in her womb. And Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit 42 and exclaimed with a loud cry, “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb. 43 And why has this happened to me, that the mother of my Lord comes to me? 44 For as soon as I heard the sound of your greeting, the child in my womb leaped for joy. 45 And blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her by the Lord.”

Let’s reflect together on Mary’s song.

Mary’s Song of Praise

46 And Mary said,

“My soul magnifies the Lord,

47 and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior,

48 for he has looked with favor on the lowliness of his servant.

Surely, from now on all generations will call me blessed;

49 for the Mighty One has done great things for me,

and holy is his name.

50 His mercy is for those who fear him

from generation to generation.

51 He has shown strength with his arm;

he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts.

52 He has brought down the powerful from their thrones,

and lifted up the lowly;

53 he has filled the hungry with good things,

and sent the rich away empty.

54 He has helped his servant Israel,

in remembrance of his mercy,

55 according to the promise he made to our ancestors,

to Abraham and to his descendants forever.”

56 And Mary remained with her about three months and then returned to her home.

The Holy Bible: New Revised Standard Version (Nashville: Thomas Nelson Publishers, 1989), Lk 1:39–56.

So mary goes to visit her cousin Elizabeth.

It’s 3-5 day journey from where Mary lived, so she likely would have had to travel in a caravan to avoid getting mugged or attacked. There was this urgency that Mary felt she needed to be with her cousin in this season.

And it says that John, leaped in the womb upon hearing mary’s voice. Jewish tradition regarded the human fetus as a fully-fledged human being who could respond to external stimuli. And two weeks ago we read that the angel told Elizabeth that her son, John would be filled with the Holy Spirit even before he was born. In this account, John is responding to the presence of the messiah, the one of whom he will prophecy, and will one day baptize.

The word used for “leap” in the Greek is exclusively associated with joy. It’s how one might describe young horses prancing across a field. This is one of those verb versions of Joy. And it’s also the kind of Joy that is used exclusively in regards to God.

This story tells us that true Joy, the greatest Joy, is something only God can give to his children.

Joy in God is the happiest of all joys.

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Charles Spurgeon

It is a gift born of the Spirit, born out of his presence. Notice how Luke goes out of his way to remind the reader that Elizabeth is filled with the Holy Spirit. So John is experiencing a Joy found only in the Spirit. We will come back to that.

If we look at Mary’s song. It’s this beautiful piece of Hebrew style poetry, and Hebrew poetry made use of a technique called Synonymous Parallelism, basically where the second line mirrors the same ideas as the first line, but emphasizes it in a different way. We see in verse 46.

My soul magnifies the Lord,

and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior,

The idea is that to worship of magnify the lord is to express my joy to him, that Joy is an active part of my posture towards God.

There are two main themes that we we are going to draw from this story:

The idea is that Joy is a two part dance. A noun and a verb.

Joy is God’s gift to us through the Spirit. Noun

Joy is our response to Him in worship. Verb

Jesus actually wants to give us joy, but we have an active part to play in the receiving and living out that Joy.

During the candle lighting, Josh and Haley read out of John 15, where Jesus describes himself as the vine and his followers as the branches. He tells his disciples to abide or remain in him and obey his commands. To draw their life from him. Lose your life in order to find it. Deny yourself, pick up your cross and follow me. And he tells them, that he wants them to do all of that so that his Joy may be in them, and that their Joy may be complete. But the pathway to that Joy is obedience. It’s denying yourself. It’s picking up the way of crucifixion.

The scriptures time and time again reveal to us that Joy is something that we actively participate in and choose. So it is a gift from God, something that cannot be found without him, but it is also something, like all of God’s gifts, that must be stewarded in order to become all that it can be.

In Genesis, the gift of the Garden was just that, a gift, intended for human being’s enjoyment, but with this gift also came a mantle of stewardship. God asked human beings to live in and enjoy the garden, but he also asked that they have dominion over it , subdue it, and to multiply it.

And this is the nature of all of God’s gifts. If you’re anything like me, sometimes we get into these attitudes of asking God for things like peace. “God give me your peace.” but we fail to steward our lives in a way that would engender peace. I would rather that Jesus wave his magic wand over my life and resolve every issue. But that’s not the precedent he has given us in the scriptures. His gifts are things that we need to be actively engaged in, in order to bring about their best good.

Dallas Willard famously wrote that Grace is opposed to earning, but it is not opposed to effort. Joy, like any gift from God, is something in which He gives us agency to steward, to develop, to multiply.

Maybe you’ve heard that Joy is a choice. I think this is partially true, But is it just one choice, one time? Or is it a series of choices? And is it just as simple as flipping the happy switch? Or is it more like the summation of many choices made over a period of time which emalgumates in Joy?

We have a hard time getting our son to eat his vegetables. He’s six. So we do what most good parents do, we lie to him in order to manipulate him into healthy habits.

He’s really into the hulk, so we said, “William, you know why the hulk is so strong? It’s because he eats his green vegetables. That’s why he’s green!”

So one time he ate one piece of lettuce and gagged for about a minute before he could get it down. Then he rolled up his sleeve, flexed his skeleton arm and proudly declared,

“I’m strong now!”

The next time we encouraged him to eat vegetables, he said “But I already ate salad.” That one time remember. Sometimes we think choosing Joy is like that.

Yes, we choose Joy. But it’s not as simple as choosing to be happy, and putting on a happy face. That’s fake. Joy is something you choose everyday that grows and matures over time as we steward it under the shepherding care of Jesus.

So that when you need joy in deep places of sorrow, it’s a muscle that has seen rigorous training.

There’s a reason why Paul in prison was able to sing songs of priase to pass the time. He had chosen Joy, not just in that moment. But he had chosen a life of Joy that became apparent when the rubber met the road.

Joy is an indicator of a robust and healthy spiritual life. This doesn’t not mean that those who are filled with Joy do not experience grief or sadness. Jesus himself experienced grief and sadness. In the same way, a generally fit and healthy person can still get sick or be struck with an illness. But generally speaking, Joy is an indicator of a life that abides in Christ.

If someone wakes up and says, “I choose to be healthy today”, that’s great, but your ability to get healthier over time will depend upon the many many choices you make in the coming days, weeks, months, years, and consequently, for the rest of your life.

Now we all know that physical health isn’t always so simple. People who make really healthy choices are sometimes afflicted with things far beyond their control, but generally speaking, If I make good decisions about what I eat, my physical activity, my habits, I will be generally healthier than if I didn’t make those decisions.

Spiritual health is the same way. We all know that love is more than a feeling. Que Boston song here. Love is, in fact, demonstrated through your choices, and love must be practiced. We get better at love as we grow. The same is true of every fruit of the spirit.

Grace is opposed to earning; it is not opposed to effort. How do we cultivate and steward Joy?

Pathway to Joy

Abide

Cut Out

Embrace

The disciplines of fasting and prayer have been with God’s people for thousands of years and they are rich with meaning, but something that is commonly understood with fasting and prayer which are always done together, is that, in light of God’s mercy and love towards us, we lay down something (like eating) in order to pick up something (like prayer).

The idea is that we respond to God’s love by cutting out what we think we need, and picking up what we really need.

In Matthew 4, Jesus quotes Deuteronomy 8 and says,

‘Man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.’

So we embrace the love of God (abide), we cut out things we think we need (fast) in order to pick up what God has for us (pray)

Abide

This is the secret of joy. We shall no longer strive for our own way; but commit ourselves, easily and simply, to God’s way, acquiesce in his will and in so doing find our peace.

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Evelyn Underhill

John 15 - Jesus is the vine, we are the branches.

Joy is a byproduct of a life that abides.

Remember, in the beginning when we talked about the Holy Spirit. We believe that The Father, Jesus, and The Holy Spirit are all equally God, one God in three distinct persons. We called this the Trinity. So The Holy Spirit is God.

Luke says that the holy spirit would be in John “even before he is born.”

When Mary visits Elizabeth, John Leaps in Elizabeth’s womb!

John cannot see Mary, Doesn’t have the cognitive ability to understand that Jesus is in there. John is experiencing a Joy that transcends the physical boundaries of our world. Red Hills is a Foursquare church, whcih means we are Pentecostal, which means, we really love the Holy Spirit.

Becuase the Holy Spirit, the living presence of God in us, is not just a nice thought. The Spirit of God in us is actually how the Christian expereinces a life of Hope, Peace, Joy, and Love that flies in the face of the wisdom of our age. So the Joy we have as Christians, is a joy only found in the embrace of God’s presence and power.

We are given the gifts of Christ, like Joy, through the Spirit, the presence of the living God in us, and we then have the burden of stewardship, to cultivate and multiply those gifts.

Joy is a byproduct of a life that abides.

We are to be drawing everything in our lives from the example of Jesus. Everything always comes back to Jesus.

We are creatures built to emulate. From a very young age, we learn to navigate the world, by emulating the people around us. What are we emulating? What are we being formed in the likeness of? Deut 6. God tells his people,

Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. These commandments that I give you today are to be on your hearts. Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates.

God is asking his people to baptize their lives in the scriptures. To surround themselves with God’s commands so that they may be formed by his character.

We are all being formed by something. We are all abiding in something. God can do a lot with a submitted heart, but when we have divided loyalties, when we have things that are competing for the influence of God in our lives, we are inhibiting the fullness of Joy that He wants to give us.

How many of us have signed up for the class of Christianity, but have yet to put in the work, have yet to take the assignments seriously? We complain about how we aren’t learning anything, but we have yet to commit to the work. Grace is opposed to earning, but it is not opposed to effort.

So we need to abide in Christ, but we also need to cut out what is competing for our devotion. In John 15, Jesus says that he cuts away every branch that does not produce fruit. So what do we need to cut out? So We abide, we cut out, and we embrace. We abide in Jesus, what do we need to cut out? What robs us of joy?

Cut out things that rob us of Joy

Unhealthy Comparison

Anxiety / Fear

Sinful Pleasures

Unhealthy Comparison

Comparison isn’t the thief of Joy.

Abigail Dodds

There’s a famous quote from Teddy Rosevelt. “Comparison is the thief of joy.”

This is perhaps a truth not fully realized. It is true that typically the way in which we compare ourselves to others will usually lead away from joy. Because when we compare ourselves to others, especially on platforms like social media, there is a spirit of competition and judgment.

Either I’m feeling discouraged about my own life in the light of how well someone else is doing, or I’m sitting in judgment of someone else’s lifestyle choices. This sort of comparison is obviously problematic, and very few of us have been untouched by this dynamic on social media.

But comparison is a very normal cognitive process, and necessary for living. Like we said earlier, we are built to emulate.

Paul even writes that people should be comparing themselves to him, in light of how he compares himself to Christ.

“And you should imitate me, just as I imitate Christ.” - 1 Cor 11

The goal shouldn’t be to stop comparing ourselves to others but rather (as Abigail Dodds puts it)

Leading our comparisons in the right direction — away from envy, pride, covetousness, and self-pity, and toward Christlike imitation and the fear of God — will turn us into better parents, mentors, and friends.

Abigail Dodds

I think it’s really important to be able to celebrate the lives of others without being trapped in our own self-obsession.

When we look at others in light of ourselves, we miss out on what God has for us.

Embrace the journey God has you on, and celebrate the ones he has others on. Okay, so we cut out unhealthy comparison.

Anxiety / Fear

It is anxiety that robs us of our joy. And what is anxiety but fear? Fear is the enemy of joy. It is hard to be joyful when we are afraid.‌

R. C. Sproul

Dead things must be pruned.

Mark 8 - After Jesus feeds the 4,000

He warns his disciples to “watch out for the Yeast of Herod and yeast of the Pharisees.”

What does yeast do in bread? It’s a rising agent. Unleavened bread, flat bread is baked without yeast. If yeast gets into it, it raises the bread. The practice of baking unleavened bread was a symbol of purity. The passover was celebrated with bread that was pure, without yeast.

Jesus compares the influence of Empire (Herod) and the Influence of Legalistic religion (Pharisees) with yeast in bread. If you let even a little bit of yeast in, it ruins the mixture.

When the heat of life comes upon us, it reveals what’s inside of us. Are we drawing our life from the vine? Are we drawing our life from Jesus? Or are we drawing our life from popular culture, from nationalism, from empire? Or are we drawing our life from hyper religiosity, from paranoia, from stubborn fundamentalism.

Jesus seems to be saying that both of these elements are equally dangerous. And even a little bit of yeast, even a little bit of trust to either of these sources, will ruin the mixture.

Mark 8:15

Jesus performed the miracle of feeding the 4,000 because it says in verse 2 that he had compassion on them.

Be careful of the yeast of herod and the pharisees because - Herod and the Pharisees do not love you, and they do not care for you.

God performed a miracle for the well-being of his followers.

The Media Platforms you follow do not care about you.

They don’t.

Our popular media is

fueled by fear

It’s Designed to generate anxiety

It chooses the language of Outrage

creates Echo chambers

Friends we are always being discipled. We are being made to emulate someone or something, always. I like to think that I am so smart, that I have all sorts of human agency, that I have the power of my will to lean on to help me determine who I am, that I’m a thinking creature, and I’m free agent who determines my own destiny.

But the fact is, I am much more inclined to be tribalistic. To think and feel things that like-minded people around me think and feel. I would rather be told what to think or feel about something.

The ugly truth is that I am much more a product of the influences in my life than I am the product of my own free-thinking and will-power. We are creatures who are designed for discipleship. It’s how we grow; it’s how we exist.

The question is not, “Am I being influenced and formed by some outside voice” the question is what outside voices are influencing me. And this has so much to do with our Joy!

Jesus taught his disciples that the fullness of our Joy is based completely on the influence on our lives. Our Joy is 100% dependent upon where we draw life from. Joy is an equation. If we want complete joy, we have to examine where we are drawing our life from. What vines are we grafted into? What yeast is in the mixture?

Who or what are we allowing to disciple us? Who do we sound like when we speak? Do we sound like Jesus? Or do we sound like Ben Shapiro? Do we sound like Jesus, or do we sound like Oprah Winfrey? Or Donald Trump or Bernie Sanders? Or Joe Rogan? Or Bill Maher? You fill in the blank.

Are we drawing our life from the culture? Or are we drawing our life from the Spirit?

Discipleship is Immersion. We are all immersed in something. We need to be immersed in the presence of God and in the scriptures if we are to have Joy and Joy to the fullest.

Third thing to cut out.

Sinful Pleasures

Man cannot live without joy; therefore when he is deprived of true spiritual joys it is necessary that he become addicted to carnal pleasures.

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Thomas Aquinas

God designed things to be pleasurable.

But pleasure cannot substitute peace. Pleasure cannot substitute Hope. Pleasure cannot substitute Joy.

Our culture is abundant in pleasure, escapism, and distraction. But pleasure is fleeting, and pleasurable satisfaction is a moving target.

When does pleasure become sinful? When pleasure becomes the goal of one’s life rather than the byproduct of it.

God designed sexual intimacy to be pleasurable, but the goal of sexual intimacy is not pleasure alone. God created our sexuality to draw us towards our spouses in a life of intimacy, closeness, often but not always pro-creation, and yes it’s pleasurable, but when we decide to rearrange the established order of God’s design based on our hierarchy of importance, that’s when we fall into sin. Sin is the reordering of God’s design into ours based upon our perceived values of importance.

What the human heart is craving in all things pleasurable is actually Joy. But at the heart of all things joyful is not pleasure, it’s Shalom, Rightly ordered relationships with God and with one another. When we seek pleasure as a shortcut to Joy, we put the cart before the horse.

Okay, so we’ve talked about what we cut out. What we lay down. Now what do we pick up? What do we embrace.

Embrace Spiritual Practices

Gratitude / Contentment

Choosing Hope

Self-giving Love / Charity

Gratitude / Contentment

Gratitude changes the pangs of memory into a tranquil joy.

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Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Worship for what he has done.

Mary actually has a lot to be mad about. Everyone knows that she and Joseph aren’t married when she gets pregnant. So she is dealing the with the shame of her community. Her life got put on a very different trejectory than she was expecting. And now she probably has to face a lifetime of gossip about how sinful she is, even though God chose her because of how humbly and faithfully she lived.

So Mary knows that she has to rejoice in the Lord, because there isn’t much in her world to rejoice in. She expressed gratitude to God in her song, and recounts the ways she has been blessed by all this.

and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior,

48 for he has looked with favor on the lowliness of his servant.

Surely, from now on all generations will call me blessed;

(she knows that one day people will realize that her son is the messiah and her reputation will be redeemed.)

49 for the Mighty One has done great things for me,

and holy is his name.

Mary recounts all the ways God is showing up for her people.

You can find so many studies that reveal how giving thanks and expressing gratitude makes us generally happier and healthier.

Pracitce Gratitude.

Choosing Hope / Worship

You are my hiding place and my shield; I hope in your word.

- Psalm 119:114

Mary and Elizabeth both model the Joy that accompanies a worshipping heart. When Elizabeth learns of her pregnancy, she sings a song of praise to God. Mary does the same thing when she meets with her cousin.

They declared the truths of God outloud in song as a way to remember the goodness of his promises.

The Psalms were in some ways, the hymnals of the ancient Hebrews. Actively choosing to remember the promises of God was something that was accomplished in worship. The Psalms are filled with reminders of who God is, what he has done, and what he will do.

“Let praise be a weapon that conquers anxiety”

We are like Dori in finding Nemo when it comes to matters of faith. We suffer from short term memory loss.

He has helped his servant Israel,

in remembrance of his mercy,

55 according to the promise he made to our ancestors,

to Abraham and to his descendants forever.”

Rememberance is in fact a discipline. Sometimes we need to literally sing the promises of God over ourselves. When my son is afraid to go to sleep at night, he always asks me to sing a Jesus song, because even though he made it through the night before, he needs fresh hope for the night that is before him.

Worship can act as an Ebineezer. Stone of remembrance.

We choose hope, in the discipline of worship

Self-giving Love / Charity

In everything I did, I showed you that by this kind of hard work we must help the weak, remembering the words the Lord Jesus himself said: “It is more blessed to give than to receive.”

The Apostle Paul

Mary goes out of her way in her song to highlight the exaltation of the humble, and the provision of the poor and needy. Our Christian Joy is found in the good work of God, and the good work of God is always found in the loving service of the poor. Jesus even went out of his way to emphasize that caring for the poor is worship of him. In Matthew 25 he said, “You visited me when I was in prison, you fed me when I was hungry, you clothed me when I was naked.”

It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that people who are really self-obsessed are generally very unhappy. I think self-care is really great, but a big missing ingredient to self-care is selflessness. God mandated rhythms or rest and celebration for his people. Those things are really important. They are just as much a part of spiritual discipline as reading the scriptures and serving your community. But sometimes we try to cure our self-obsessiveness by coddling ourselves, when sometimes what we need is to get outside ourselves a little bit and think about others.

Stagnant water occurs in nature when there is an inflow of water, but no outflow. We are designed to be people who generously give to the world what God has given to us.

Brief Background of St. Nicholas, Archbishop of Myra (modern day Turkey)

📷

Known for profound Generosity

We don’t have much documented on him, because he Insisted on secrecy when it came to his giving and service to the church (SOTM give in secret.)

Sold all he had to care for the poor

There was a poor man with three daughters who was so desperate, that he was considering selling his three daughters into prostitution.

Threw a sack of gold into their house in the middle of the night

Eventually the man tracked Nicholas down, but Nicholas demanded that he wait until after he died to tell the story.

The Dutch settlers brought this history of the veneration of St. Nicholas to the americas in the 18th century.

Dutch Translation is Sinter Nicklaus - Shortened to Sinter Klaus

Santa Claus

How fitting that this season of Joy be represented by profound generosity of a devout Christian.

It’s a shame that this tradition of Christian History has been distorted into what it is today. I’m sure that the real St. Nicholas of Myra would be appalled if he knew that his image was being used to detract from the focus on Jesus. l

#ReclaimChristianHistory

Henry Drummond

No one can get Joy by merely asking for it. It is one of the ripest fruits of the Christian life, and, like all fruits, must be grown.