Joy to the World - What is Joy
Notes
Transcript
What is Joy?
What is Joy?
Let the rivers clap their hands; let the mountains shout together for joy
before the Lord, for he is coming to judge the earth. He will judge the world righteously and the peoples fairly.
In the church we often talk about joy and sing about joy.
Joyful Joyful we adore thee.
Joy to the world the savior reigns
Let men their songs employ
While fields and floods rocks hills and plains
Repeat the sounding joy
Repeat the sounding joy
Repeat, repeat the sounding joy
But what is joy? What is this thing we call Joy?
My working definition of Joy is this:
Joy is an emotion of the soul and the spirit that gives contentment and rest.
Joy is an emotion of the soul.
Whether you believe a person is dichotomous or trichotomous meaning we are made up of two or three parts, Flesh, Soul, or Flesh, Soul, and Spirit we, biblically speaking are more than just physcial beings. We have a soul and I believe the soul and spirit have emotions.
Joy is like happiness but different. Happy is good, happy is nice. Happy has a place.
Happiness is more pleasure and natural based. Happy is more about pleasure and circumstance.
Happy is your team winning a game or great play.
Happy is when your direct deposit hits.
Happy is when you expect the electric bill to be $150 and it is only $89.
Happy is a cold drink on a hot day.
Happy is getting a deer after spending all morning in the cold.
Happy is a good meal.
Happy is good.
God wants us to be happy. He also wants us to be holy and we should never confuse the two.
When we are happy our brain releases dopamine which is like a reward or pleasure chemical. It releases serotonin, oxytocin, and endorphins.
Happy is good but because of the chemicals released like dopamine we can start to chase the feeling. We become dopamine addicts. We want the feeling, the buzz, the reward.
Don’t Settle For Fake
Don’t Settle For Fake
We know we need happy and more importantly joy but because joy involves contentment and contentment requires rest we often chase subpar substitutes. Somethings are what Kierkegaard calls Refined aestheticism.
We press into work, school, education, relationships, money, power, fame, and the like. Not everything is some great sinful vice.
We think because they are good things we are not captive to the dope fix, but they are cheap substitutes that cannot provide internal contentment like joy can.
Joy is different. Again,
Joy is an emotion of the soul and the spirit that gives contentment and rest.
Joy exists somewhere within us that happy does not reach because it is an emotion of the soul and spirit.
Some people seem to be afraid of being joyful.
We must remember that God created the earth and it was good.
God saw that the light was good, and God separated the light from the darkness.
God called the dry land “earth,” and the gathering of the water he called “seas.” And God saw that it was good.
God saw all that he had made, and it was very good indeed. Evening came and then morning: the sixth day.
All that God made was very good. Yes sin came into the world and corrupted everything but what God made was good and while we have sin and corruption that does not mean everything is now very bad.
We enjoy the world God created because it is good.
In the Old Testament the word joy appears some 200 times depending on your translation.
Some examples,
You are to hold a seven-day festival for the Lord your God in the place he chooses, because the Lord your God will bless you in all your produce and in all the work of your hands, and you will have abundant joy.
You have put more joy in my heart than they have when their grain and new wine abound.
Those who look to him are radiant with joy; their faces will never be ashamed.
God wants people to have joy. He desires for us to enjoy the life and world He created.
So go ahead. Eat your food with joy, and drink your wine with a happy heart, for God approves of this!
Wear fine clothes, with a splash of cologne!
Live happily with the woman you love through all the meaningless days of life that God has given you under the sun. The wife God gives you is your reward for all your earthly toil.
God wants us to have joy and find joy in life or as the French say, joie de vivre. We should find joy in life.
Anyone can have and find joy because we are all alive. We all have a soul and joy is an emotion of the soul. Joy is as natural as happiness, sadness, contentment, disappointment, or any other emotion.
When I first held my grandson I felt joy.
When I think back to our time with foster care I still feel joy. Even with all the pain and difficulties there was and is joy.
When we sit with our friends over a meal and we are laughing and joking there is joy in fellowship.
When the angel announces
But the angel said to them, “Don’t be afraid, for look, I proclaim to you good news of great joy that will be for all the people:
Today in the city of David a Savior was born for you, who is the Messiah, the Lord.
This will be the sign for you: You will find a baby wrapped tightly in cloth and lying in a manger.”
It is joyous because anyone and everyone can experience this joy. This joy was and is for everyone.
Notice the angel says this is good news of great joy for all people. All people can experience joy.
Joy is a good emotion that we can all have.
Joy helps us navigate the complexities of this world.
Joy helps us navigate the complexities of this world.
When we experience joy it creates a memory. If you have seen the movie Inside Out, they talk about core memories. When something major happens core memories are created and we can access those later when needed.
Joy is one of the greatest core memories because it reminds us of a better time.
I remember this as I pour out my heart: how I walked with many, leading the festive procession to the house of God, with joyful and thankful shouts.
Sometimes we need to be reminded that it was not always like this because that gives us hope that it will not always be like this.
Joy as a functional emotional memory helps us because we can remember that there was good.
Even in pain, discomfort, and despair we can remember a time when we did not feel this.
Joy also has this ability to reshape past pain. It does not remove it, it does not erase it but it can reshape it. Let me give you an example.
For his anger lasts only a moment, but his favor, a lifetime. Weeping may stay overnight, but there is joy in the morning.
We can have a rough day. Things can be hectic and hard. We can have a fight with our spouse or friend. Our boss can be hard. But God promises that joy in the morning. Sometimes it might take a morning or two but there is new joy because there are new mercies.
A new dawn, a new day, a new life for me. New Joy in the morning and the previous hard day is not as bad.
All of these things and so much more come with and from joy. As I said,
Joy is an emotion of the soul and the spirit that gives contentment and rest.
Contentment and rest, these are gifts from God to our souls. We need these, we have to have them and He gives them to all people.
so that you may be children of your Father in heaven. For he causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous.
Joy is a gift to humanity.
We do not chase it like a dopamine fix of happy but we receive it as a gift.
Joy is an emotion of the Spirit because the Spirit has emotions.
Joy is an emotion of the Spirit because the Spirit has emotions.
Every one has access to joy because we all have a soul, but not everyone has access to the joy of the Spirit.
The Holy Spirit is a person and He has joy.
And don’t grieve God’s Holy Spirit. You were sealed by him for the day of redemption.
If we can grieve the Holy Spirit it means He has personhood. If He has personhood He has emotions. This should not be shocking to us because we see the emotions of God all over the Bible.
For the Lord your God is living among you. He is a mighty savior. He will take delight in you with gladness. With his love, he will calm all your fears. He will rejoice over you with joyful songs.”
God rejoices over us.
We have emotions because God has emotions. We are created in His image. I fled from my emotions for a long time and wanted nothing to do with them but then I learned that I have them because God has them and because He gave them to me.
Now His emotions are different because they are not corrupted and He is not led or governed by them, but He has them all the same.
And as we just read one of them is that He rejoices over us.
Because God has them and because we have them we can have access to a level, as believers, that surpasses understanding.
The Bible talks about a peace that surpasses understanding which means it has nothing to do with understanding. Peace, like joy, is a spiritual reality. It is just as true as air, gravity, or happiness but different.
There is a joy available for the follower of Jesus that is like the joy anyone can experience but to a greater degree. This is because it comes from the Holy Spirit to our spirit.
But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness,
The spiritual fruit of joy is like universal joy but at a level almost unexplainable.
As a pastor and preacher this has to be one of the hardest things I have ever tried to explain because again it is a spiritual reality.
Joy produced by the Holy Spirit is a reality and it is really true but it is not natural.
Joy is a fruit of the Spirit and as followers of the Messiah, as people of the Spirit we should be the most joyful people on the planet. If everyone or anyone can have joy we as people to find their hope in Jesus and have the Spirit producing fruit, His fruit within us, we should be the most joyful people on the planet. We have a joy factory in us.
On the last and most important day of the festival, Jesus stood up and cried out, “If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink.
The one who believes in me, as the Scripture has said, will have streams of living water flow from deep within him.”
He said this about the Spirit. Those who believed in Jesus were going to receive the Spirit, for the Spirit had not yet been given because Jesus had not yet been glorified.
Jesus did not mention, He did not suggest, He did not imply, He cried out that those who believe in Him would have rivers of living water in them and this is the Spirit.
He is referencing Ezekiel 47 where it says that the river that flows from the temple in the coming kingdom will give life to everything it touches.
We have the Spirit in us and it should be giving life to everything in us. As the joy produced by the Spirit flows in us, it should flow out of us. As it flows out of us it should be giving life to everything. The contentment and rest we have should be infectious to others.
We as Christians should not only be the most joyful people on earth but it should be evident to others.
We can and often look at people who have spiritual gifts and talk about how filled they are with the Spirit of God, but when we see people who have Holy Spirit produced fruit within them we should talk about how filled with the Spirit they are.
Joy from the Spirit is greater than regular joy because it comes from God directly.
Spirit Produced Joy looks forward
Spirit Produced Joy looks forward
Just as we said that joy can help us navigate the complexities of this world, God produced joy looks forward. That is one of it’s greatest purposes. Joy from God helps us look not only back or to today but to what is coming. Last week I mentioned one of the best things ever,
Christ in you the hope of glory.
Joy from the Spirit helps us in times of distress because not only has it not always been this way but there will be a day when it is so different we cannot imagine it.
Instead, rejoice as you share in the sufferings of Christ, so that you may also rejoice with great joy when his glory is revealed.
Joy today is hope for tomorrow.
The joy to the world is not just that the King has come but what the implications of that are.
The kingdom of God has broken into the world of men. The King has come and He has brought joy with Him. Things are going to change.
Every person who has this Spirit produced joy in them, I have news for you, things are about to change. Breakthrough is coming. Change is coming, it has to because that is what joy does.
There are two questions.
Question One, have you trusted in Christ as your Lord and Savior? Have you submitted to Him?
Question Two, are you letting the Spirit produced joy out? We are going to talk more about this next week, but are you letting it out? Spiritual fruit needs to be let out to have its full effect.
