Best Christmas Ever - Joy

Best Christmas Ever

Week 3: Joy – Luke 2:8-11

BCE-Joy

Good morning and welcome to worship today on this 3rd Sunday of Advent! What a wonderful week as the Body of Christ offering God’s hope, peace, and joy to the world. I am never worried when I need to be out of town for whatever reason. Whether I’m sick, or I’m sharing God’s Word at another church, on a Mission Trip, or family Vacation, we always have someone here to share God’s Word in a powerful way! Last week, Priscilla brought us an amazing message about Peace in a way only she could bring. It was just the Word that we needed… and my prayer today is that God will work through us to bring His Word in a powerful way as we talk about Joy!

Joy just goes hand in hand with Christmas doesn’t it. It is a joyous time of year. As I think back on the Christmases of long ago, I remember many of the gifts I received that I thought would bring me joy. My Remington .243 was a wonderful gift for a hunting boy, and it’s a gift that I have shared with my children as they have each been able to hunt with it. But, it spends most days locked up in a safe.

I remember the toy trains… I would put them together over and over… many times I would have train tracks all over my bedroom until I lost the little connectors, or the trains quit working, or maybe, I just got tired of it and it became one more mix of toys in the red footlocker turned into a toy box.

I remember the Emergency! Fire Truck set, my Papaw’s last gift to give me before he passed away… I couldn’t have been over 6 years old, “driving” those firetrucks around my Papaw’s oval rope rug. Eventually, I lost or forgot about those firetrucks, they are now just a fond memory that goes with my Papaw.

And then there was GI Joe. How many of you had a GI Joe… With the hair, and all the uniforms, and the weapons. I had all kinds of stuff with it. I had my own GI Joe Foot locker – it was about the size of a shoe box, but it was so much more than that. You know, it had a place for his rifle, and his pistol, a place for different uniforms. The year I got all that wow… what a joyful day I thought! I was the cat’s meow in my friend group. I could put my GI Joes in the footlocker with all the combat gear and go to my friend’s house and be the hero of the backyard sandbox battles.

Do you want to know what happened with my GI Joes and all their combat gear that brought so much ‘joy’? One 4th of July they and all my models were blown up in an epic battle in the back yard. It’s amazing what a perfectly placed firecracker can do. There were body parts and wings and fuselage and tank turrets all over the place. I might have even included a Barbie or two from my sister’s collection in that grand battle.

Why am I telling you this? Because I think we can all relate to the joy and surprise of the perfect gift… that then faded as our focus shifted, and then we looked for joy in something else.

When we expect gifts to give us joy that we long for in life, we will be greatly disappointed. Gifts give a fleeting moment of happiness, not true joy.

We have to find another source of our joy that does not fade when something new comes along.

Christmas is a season of joy; however, most would gauge this joyfulness on circumstantial things. How was the visit with the in-laws? How was the food? How many gifts did I get? Did I get all the things I wanted?

But, that isn’t joy… that is circumstantial, it is temporary. What we need is a joy that transcends the holiday hype. That is what Advent and Christmas is all about!

Advent is the awaiting of the coming salvation… Christmas is an announcement about the arrival of the Savior who would rescue us from our sin and give us real life.

This announcement is the very reason we can experience joy this Christmas… a joy that is not based on material circumstances, but instead is based on Jesus’ presence in our lives.

We live in a world that is hungering for a joy that will last. A quick search in Amazon or Google yields hundreds of books on how to find joy. Here’s a few titles:

“Boomerang Joy – Joy that Goes around Comes Around”

How about this one… “Joy Inc: How to Build a Workplace People Love”

“The Joy Factor: Finding your Dream Career”

Or

“Walking in My Joy” a book about living and finding joy in yourself, in the ‘I can make my own joy’ section.

And Finally,

“The Book of Joy” by the Dalai Lama.

Joy is on our minds, it is something we seek, something we want, and rightly so, it feels good to be joyful.

But here is the truth… Deep, abiding, resilient joy is found in Christ alone.

So, how do we find it? Simple, we don’t find it, Joy’s a gift.

Joy is a Gift

In Galatians 5:22-23 Paul calls it a fruit of the Spirit… it is given by the Spirit, preceded by love.

“But the Holy Spirit produces this kind of fruit in our lives: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. There is no law against these things!”

Maybe it’s just coincidence, but look at what the Apostle Peter says in 1 Peter 1:8;

“Though you have not seen him, you love him; and even though you do not see him now, you believe in him and are filled with an inexpressible and glorious joy.”

For Peter, love of Christ and belief in Christ precede joy as well. Even when we cannot see Him, or walk with Him, or eat with Him like the first disciples did we can experience a deep and abiding joy in our love for Him.

Christmas is a season that reminds us of who Christ is and why He came for us. Inexpressible joy is not something that can be placed under the tree. Abiding joy doesn’t come from Wal Mart, or Amazon, or eBay.

Our joy is found in Jesus Christ. Though we don’t see Jesus, we love him and we have faith in him. And through our relationship with and understanding of Jesus we receive the gift of deep, abiding, and resilient joy.

This kind of joy is hard to hide. Our second point is this…

Good News Travels Fast

Turn with me to Luke chapter 2, where the news of the coming Messiah was first delivered to a small group of shepherds:

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. “I bring you good news that will bring great joy to all people. (Luke 2:8-10)

Can you imagine the overwhelming and indescribable joy these shepherds must’ve been experiencing? This is THE news that Israel has waited generations to hear. The angel of the Lord tells them the news was good and would cause great joy.

John had a different way of expressing this great joy. Turn with me to John 1:14-18

So the Word became human and made his home among us. He was full of unfailing love and faithfulness. And we have seen his glory, the glory of the Father’s one and only Son.

John testified about him when he shouted to the crowds, “This is the one I was talking about when I said, ‘Someone is coming after me who is far greater than I am, for he existed long before me.’”

From his abundance we have all received one gracious blessing after another. For the law was given through Moses, but God’s unfailing love and faithfulness came through Jesus Christ. No one has ever seen God. But the unique One, who is himself God, is near to the Father’s heart. He has revealed God to us.

It is hard to put into words how profound this statement is, but the Lectio 365 app did an amazing job with those words…

They wrote:

John is expanding on an idea that had resonance for both Jews and Greeks. Religious jews knew the word or logos as the word of God spoken to the prophets. To Greek philosophers, the word or logos was the divine reason which pervades the cosmos, giving everything form and meaning. Incredibly this Word, John says, has somehow become a single human, who has come and ‘pitched a tent’ among us. (An idea lifted straight from Israel’s wilderness story, when God appeared as a brilliant light in their mobile tent-temples or tabernacle.) Now Jesus, the Logos, shining with the warm light of a more gracious glory, had come to dwell with His people.

In the birth of Christ, we find the reason for great joy. God is with us.

30 years after his birth, Jesus began His ministry by teaching, preaching, and healing as the crowds gathered to be near Him wherever He went. Often, we read these stories of how he would heal someone and tell them not to tell anyone, and what did they do… go and tell everyone!

Why? Because they were overwhelmed with joy and excitement at the teaching, preaching, and healing of Christ!

In fact, this is the good news - the gospel - and it’s still shared to this very day. It’s TOO GOOD to keep it hidden. Thursday morning, I sat on a Zoom call, listening to pastors share how they have shared the good news of Jesus in their communities. Things as simple as praying for their physical therapist who was going through a hard time… or talking to their hairdresser about the abundant life offered in Christ… or profound stories of people coming to faith for the first time… there were also stories of church leaders admitting that they haven’t shared their faith recently, and they need to… because it is too good not to share.

And that brings us to our third point…

Joy...Always.

I shared this in last week’s sermon about Peace when I preached in Coleman.

Paul knows a little something about adversity doesn’t he… We can read in 1 Thessalonians 5:16 that Paul tells us to Rejoice Always. A little something you may not have known, When Paul wrote 1 Thessalonians, he was the bees knees… he was the cream of the crop… he was the top dog… he was respected by the Jews because he was a Pharisee… He was well educated… and a citizen of Rome so he had a freedom that others didn’t have… he was part of the upper-crust of society… and the Christians liked him too… he had stopped arresting them and was preaching with them. Life was good for Paul. But not long after that, Paul started to face adversity. Some of the other Apostles and church leaders were disagreeing with some of what he taught... I mean, he was preaching to the Gentiles… those dirty Samaritans… those ungodly Romans, they were upset with him. The Romans and Jews both started arresting him. He was beaten, stoned, shipwrecked, snakebit, jailed, and left for dead. After all that, you would think he changed his tune… maybe he would say, rejoice sometimes… or maybe, when you suffer try to find the things to rejoice in… right… that would be reasonable. But as he sat in a dingy dank jail cell, likely at Caesarea Maritima on the Mediterranean coast, he wrote these words:

In Philippians 4:4-7, toward the end of his life, Paul writes:

Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice!

He not only says to rejoice always, he doubles down… he says it again…

Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice!

And, in case you hadn’t already guessed, the word rejoice means; feel or show great joy or delight. Even in adversity, trial, and tribulation we are encouraged to rejoice!

James, the brother of Jesus who was Martyred in Jerusalem wrote, “Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds…” (James 1:2.)

The apostles rejoiced in Acts 5:41, “because they had been counted worthy of suffering disgrace for the Name (of Jesus).”

HOW can these people rejoice in suffering? How can they look into the face of adversity and consider it pure joy?

The Sunday school Answer… Jesus. They had a relationship with Jesus. They devoted their lives to God.

During one of the darkest times of his life King David wrote Psalm 51.

Hear what he says and let his plea resonate with you today;

“Create in me a pure heart, O God,

and renew a steadfast spirit within me.

Do not cast me from your presence

or take your Holy Spirit from me.

Restore to me the joy of your salvation

and grant me a willing spirit, to sustain me.”(Psalm 51:10-12)

It’s okay to need God’s help. In fact, if someone like King David needed it then I can guarantee that we will too. Joy is available to all of us. Sometimes it’s more accessible than other times, but remember this:

The life of faith is a marathon not a sprint.

There can and will be long seasons where the journey is difficult but that doesn’t mean there is no joy.

My encouragement today is to rejoice always, and to count everything as joy. Even the seasons when it’s difficult, even when adversity finds its way to your doorstep. There is no amount of difficulty or trouble that can steal Christ from you. You are His and He is yours.

The Best Christmas Ever is Cause for Great Joy

If material possessions could give deep and abiding joy, then why aren’t all the millionaires and billionaires the most happy and positive bunch on planet earth?

If joy could be purchased from Walmart or Amazon and delivered to your front door, then why doesn’t everyone have it?

If indescribable joy could be found in likes, follows, and digital friends then why aren’t all the social media influencers teaching the rest of us courses on how to get Joy?

I’m pretty sure we all know the answer… and yet, many of us keep looking in the same old places for joy.

And that my friends is why the Christmas season is such a special one.

Yes, the presents and the potlucks are great, but deep down we know the most wonderful and amazing part of Christmas is the opportunity to refocus our energy on what matters most. During Christmas we remember who Christ is and why He came for us.

We have eternal hope in the promises of God made alive in Christ.

We have unshakable peace in Christ who will return for His church.

AND, We have the gift of deep, abiding, and resilient joy through our love for and understanding of Jesus Christ.

He is the same yesterday, today and forever.

Our great high priest.

The prince of peace - wonderful counselor.

Friend of sinners.

Immanuel. God with us.

Let’s pray together.