Joy Beyond Christmas

We live in a world bombarded by advertising. Everywhere you look, someone is advertising something and it can get a little out of control. There are the advertisements that are just ridiculous, the ones that lie to you, and always the ones that overpromise and underdeliver. But there is one key to advertising that is critical if you want to be successful. You have to excite the prospective customer enough that they move from not interested to “I want that” to “I need that” as quickly as possible. So if an ad can appeal to your emotions, there is a higher probability that you will want the thing it is selling.

But there is one ad that always makes me laugh. I keep thinking to myself, “Who is falling for this?” There are these ads of women who are way to excited about eating a salad. Have you ever seen these?

The message being conveyed is, “Look how eating this salad will make you feel.” And that is important. If I can show you how good it will make you feel, you might want whatever it is I’m offering. Our culture uses all sorts of words to describe this: happiness, excitement, or, as our themes of Christmas suggest, joy.

We are going to revisit a familiar story today. The time of waiting has ended. Jesus has been born in Bethlehem. The Savior of the world has come. The sun has set. The most glorious day in history has come to an end. But there is still one surprise God has up his sleeve.

Luke 2:8–20 NASB95

In the same region there were some shepherds staying out in the fields and keeping watch over their flock by night. And an angel of the Lord suddenly stood before them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them; and they were terribly frightened. But the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid; for behold, I bring you good news of great joy which will be for all the people; for today in the city of David there has been born for you a Savior, who is Christ the Lord. “This will be a sign for you: you will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger.” And suddenly there appeared with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God and saying, “Glory to God in the highest, And on earth peace among men with whom He is pleased.” When the angels had gone away from them into heaven, the shepherds began saying to one another, “Let us go straight to Bethlehem then, and see this thing that has happened which the Lord has made known to us.” So they came in a hurry and found their way to Mary and Joseph, and the baby as He lay in the manger. When they had seen this, they made known the statement which had been told them about this Child. And all who heard it wondered at the things which were told them by the shepherds. But Mary treasured all these things, pondering them in her heart. The shepherds went back, glorifying and praising God for all that they had heard and seen, just as had been told them.

“Do not be afraid; for behold, I bring you good news of great joy which will be for all the people; for today in the city of David there has been born for you a Savior, who is Christ the Lord.” The greatest news in history (up to this point) has been delivered! A Savior has been born! Hope has arrived! This should give us a feeling of great joy! This is a central theme of Christmas! There are people out there who are really good at selling joy! But here’s the thing...the lights will go back in the box. The toys will stop getting played with. The Christmas sweaters will get put away, and Christmas will leave. But how do we maintain the joy of Christmas beyond the Christmas season?

Christmas can often mask or delay some of the things we deal with the rest of the year. Then the year ends, the feelings fade, and our problems are back. How can we experience joy beyond Christmas? To do that, we need to talk about three things.

Joy is not a feeling.

If you look up the word joy, Google gives a very simple definition: A feeling of great pleasure and happiness. The trouble in our culture is that joy is attached to a feeling. So joy can only be experienced if the right feelings are felt, which require external circumstances to be right. As things around you produce feelings of pleasure, joy is felt. But biblical joy is not a feeling. It is completely countercultural.

The classic example is James 1:2-4

James 1:2–4 NASB95

Consider it all joy, my brethren, when you encounter various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance. And let endurance have its perfect result, so that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.

James tells his audience to count it as joy when they encounter trials. Listen, life is no picnic. We are going to have trials. But a Christ-centered life allows us to experience joy in spite of those trials, not because of them. We don’t throw a party because we go into catastrophe. But we can be grateful for what trials produce.

Trials produce endurance. You are able to endure more trials the more trials you face. It’s not fun, but it does work. Paul writes in 2 Corinthians 4:8-10,

2 Corinthians 4:8–10 NASB95

we are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not despairing; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed; always carrying about in the body the dying of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our body.

Now, the context here is persecution for the faith. There are people who are being attacked for their faith. Some of them are being killed. Those who live are being made stronger so they can do more to advance the mission of Christ on earth. Thankfully, for now, you and I still live in the free-est country on earth, where you have the ability to live out your Christian convictions without hindrance. The churches in the first century didn’t have that option, but they did it anyway.

At the end of Acts 5, Peter and John are arrested for the second time for preaching in the name of Jesus. They are flogged and released, and verse 41 says that they went on their way rejoicing that they had been considered worthy to suffer shame for the name of Christ. Think about that. How can this be? How can someone have joy even though they are suffering? It is because joy is not a feeling.

Instead...

Joy is rooted in a person.

The Bible overwhelmingly demonstrates that joy is not a feeling. The shepherds in Luke 2 are experiencing a genuine feeling attached to joy, but joy is not the feeling itself. They go on the hunt for this child, they find him, they explain what happened, and Mary and Joseph are beside themselves! The shepherds then go back to work. I can guarantee you that even though they laid eyes on the Savior of the world, the feelings associated with that event went away. If they now live for the feeling they had when they experienced the event, they are setting themselves up for disappointment. The baby they just laid eyes on is not going to make the payment for their sins for the next 33 years. Then the rescue they are really looking for won’t come for millennia. We are still waiting for that. If our joy is rooted in a feeling, then joy can only come when the feeling is present.

But if joy is rooted in a person, then joy can be experienced regardless of the feeling associated with it. The earliest disciples could experience joy when they were falsely arrested and beaten because their joy was not rooted in feelings. They were rooted in Christ, the promised deliverer. Only in the hope of deliverance, a future promised far greater than anything we could provide for ourselves, were they willing to face such abuse. They knew that who they were becoming was worth the price paid. The greatest key to experiencing joy beyond Christmas is experiencing Christ himself every day.

Last week, we talked about one of the keys to experiencing peace being abiding in Christ. To abide means to hang on. Don’t let go. As the branch dies when severed from the vine, so the Christian stops producing without holding on to Christ. This is the illustration in John 15 Jesus uses as he gives some final words of encouragement before his betrayal, arrest, and crucifixion. We are going to revisit those verses.

John 15:1–11 NASB95

“I am the true vine, and My Father is the vinedresser. “Every branch in Me that does not bear fruit, He takes away; and every branch that bears fruit, He prunes it so that it may bear more fruit. “You are already clean because of the word which I have spoken to you. “Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself unless it abides in the vine, so neither can you unless you abide in Me. “I am the vine, you are the branches; he who abides in Me and I in him, he bears much fruit, for apart from Me you can do nothing. “If anyone does not abide in Me, he is thrown away as a branch and dries up; and they gather them, and cast them into the fire and they are burned. “If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. “My Father is glorified by this, that you bear much fruit, and so prove to be My disciples. “Just as the Father has loved Me, I have also loved you; abide in My love. “If you keep My commandments, you will abide in My love; just as I have kept My Father’s commandments and abide in His love. “These things I have spoken to you so that My joy may be in you, and that your joy may be made full.

To abide or remain or hold on tight to Jesus requires that we obey him. His desire is that we follow his commandments. Jesus holds the map to living a fruitful life. The catch is we have to follow the path he has outlined for us to arrive at the proper destination. We are not permitted to modify or change the outline. Then it would cease to be his plan and it would become our plan.

Imagine you set out to drive from here to Nashville, Tennessee. You set the destination in the navigation system of your choice and it outlines a path for you. You begin to follow the path, but you think that a different route would be better than the one suggested. So you go off course, and the GPS tries to reroute you. But you keep making decisions that take you off course. You keep getting frustrated because you are not getting where you want to go, and you don’t trust that the GPS is giving you the best directions. But if you keep insisting that your way is better, you will never arrive at your destination. It is only when you submit to the path laid out by the GPS that you will arrive at the proper destination. So it is with a relationship with Christ. Jesus says he knows exactly where you need to go to experience joy in all circumstances. But you must trust him to get you there. Joy is experienced regardless of circumstances when it is rooted in a person.

Therefore...

Joy is a choice.

Once you turn on the GPS navigation in your car or on your phone, you have a choice to make. Will you follow its instructions, or will you insist you have a better way? If you will submit to Jesus’ roadmap, you will find that his way works. And when you experience his way, yes there will be lots of bumps along the way. You are going to hit a few potholes. You bight blow a tire or two. You might run out of gas if you aren’t careful. But if you have the courage to choose to follow Jesus’ path, you will experience joy and you will discover God’s design for your life.

Are you in? Maybe you are here today and you live for the joy of Christmas, but as soon as Christmas fades, so does your joy. Back to the difficulties and trials of life. You’re living from one high to the next. Your joy is rooted in external things, but if you will trust Jesus to take over guiding the car down the road, you will experience joy beyond Christmas, even when life is hard, even when you are treated unfairly, even when the world is chaotic, because you will come to understand that God has something greater for you. But you must come to him to receive it. Like a present at Christmastime, salvation awaits for those who will receive the gift. If you would like to know what it means to experience joy beyond Christmas, I encourage you to admit you have been driving off course. The Bible calls this sin. Sin is us choosing our way over God’s way. Salvation is turning to God, asking for forgiveness, and returning control back to him.

Joy begins there, but it doesn’t end there. Joy is learning what it means to abide in Christ. It is choosing to see that even though you walk through some rough stuff, that the king of the universe is with you every step of the way. Immanuel did not mean God with us only when he was here on earth. It still means he is here with us even in the midst of trouble. Joy is realizing that the thing you are going through right now is not a solo experience. If you are abiding in Christ, he is with you every step. He is in the mountaintops and the valleys. Joy beyond Christmas is learning how to walk in that.

Biblical joy is the confidence that you are playing for the winning team. It is rooted in the fact that Jesus is coming again. It is rooted in the fact that when he does, he will rule and judge righteously. It is the fact that when he does, we will be exactly the way we should be. It is anchored in the hope that the pains, the sufferings, and the heartaches we experience in this life will cease, replaced by a world that lives in harmony under his control, where you will know no fear, anxiety, pain, and death will just be a memory. I choose joy even when my feelings don’t match it because joy is not a feeling and it is rooted in a person. That is joy beyond Christmas.