Joy to The World!

Recap Preparation and Peace

We continue in our Advent series. The first Sunday of Advent, we focus on the hope that God delivers through His Son Jesus Christ. That hope we have is an anchor for us. It keeps us moving forward in times of difficulty, but it also keeps us from being moved off course during times of difficulty. When we have Jesus, we always have hope. Since we have that hope, we should not give up.

Last week, we looked at Bethlehem and how Jesus wound up being born there, despite the fact that His Joseph and Mary were from Nazareth and He grew up in Nazareth. It was in accordance with the prophecy Micah spoke. We also looked at peace. Jesus is the Prince of Peace and one day He will make everything right. The only way we will experience true peace on earth is through Him. Human governmental systems will fail us. No matter how good we are from a worldly perspective, we are still fallible. We are not perfect, despite what we want to think about ourselves. Peace on earth does not happen through humanity, it happens through Jesus when humanity comes to know Him as Lord.

We also looked at what it means to be truly prepared for Jesus. Back at Christ’s arrival, there were people that thought they were prepared for Jesus, but they were only ready for the version of the Messiah they wanted, not the One that God had sent. They were not prepared, so they missed Jesus. Rather than being an advocate for His ministry, they were antagonistic to what He was doing to the point that they brutally murdered Him. We have to come to Jesus on His terms. He will not come to us on our terms. Now we are in a waiting period for when we are united with Jesus, either through death or when He comes back. I for one do not worry so much about when He is coming back. I have nothing to worry about. I know who I belong to. I hope you do as well.

On this third Sunday of Advent, we look at joy.

How do We respond to Jesus?

When we think of Jesus, how do we respond? Do we have a sense of joy about us or is there something else? Do we approach Him with a sense of joy and wonder? I sure hope so. Jesus is the news of great joy that the shepherds in Bethlehem received that first Christmas night. When we meet Jesus, there should be a response of joy and elation. In the Gospel of Luke, Elizabeth learns that she is going to give birth to John the Baptist. This is wonderful news because Elizabeth has been unable to have children up to this point and she is a little older. Back in those days, the worst thing that could happen for a woman was to not be able to have kids. That is not the case today, but that is how it was back then. So she is elated to find out that she is going to have a son.

Later, Gabriel approaches Mary to announce that she is going to give birth to the Messiah. Mary asks a simple question. “how can this be?” It’s an honest question. She has never been with a man, so how can she give birth. Gabriel tells her that nothing is impossible with God. He then tells her to consider her cousin Mary who is pregnant. Shortly after this encounter, Mary travels to see Elizabeth. Luke 1:39–42 “In those days Mary set out and hurried to a town in the hill country of Judah where she entered Zechariah’s house and greeted Elizabeth. When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the baby leaped inside her, and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit. Then she exclaimed with a loud cry, “Blessed are you among women, and your child will be blessed!” So here we have John, leaping with joy inside his mother’s womb. There is an excitement about the arrival of Jesus even though He had not even been born. Do we get excited about Jesus? Do we have that joy from knowing the LORD? Is that joy joy joy joy down in our heart?

Joy is one of those words that can often be confused with happiness, but there is a difference. Joy is not dependent on circumstances. Instead, it is rooted in us. It gives us the ability to have joy and smile, even when the circumstances should cause us to cry. Today we are going to look at Habakkuk’s third prayer. If you have your Bibles, please turn them to Habakkuk 3. Before we jump into this chapter, we have to set up what was going on before. I know that Habakkuk is not one of the prophets we really focus on. He is one of the minor prophets, not meaning that what he was saying was not as important as say Isaiah or Jeremiah, but because Habakkuk is a very short book. It only has three chapters. Prior to chapter three, God pronounces a series of woes on the people. They are trusting in the worldly things. They are reveling in drunkeness, they seek evil gain for themselves, they have plundered nations, and their neighbors. The have done terrible things in the name of looking out for themselves. As a result, bad things are headed their way. The overall theme of Habakkuk is to trust in God. Let’s take a look at chapter 3.

Habakkuk 3 CSB

A prayer of the prophet Habakkuk. According to Shigionoth. Lord, I have heard the report about you; Lord, I stand in awe of your deeds. Revive your work in these years; make it known in these years. In your wrath remember mercy! God comes from Teman, the Holy One from Mount Paran. Selah His splendor covers the heavens, and the earth is full of his praise. His brilliance is like light; rays are flashing from his hand. This is where his power is hidden. Plague goes before him, and pestilence follows in his steps. He stands and shakes the earth; he looks and startles the nations. The age-old mountains break apart; the ancient hills sink down. His pathways are ancient. I see the tents of Cushan in distress; the tent curtains of the land of Midian tremble. Are you angry at the rivers, Lord? Is your wrath against the rivers? Or is your fury against the sea when you ride on your horses, your victorious chariot? You took the sheath from your bow; the arrows are ready to be used with an oath. Selah You split the earth with rivers. The mountains see you and shudder; a downpour of water sweeps by. The deep roars with its voice and lifts its waves high. Sun and moon stand still in their lofty residence, at the flash of your flying arrows, at the brightness of your shining spear. You march across the earth with indignation; you trample down the nations in wrath. You come out to save your people, to save your anointed. You crush the leader of the house of the wicked and strip him from foot to neck. Selah You pierce his head with his own spears; his warriors storm out to scatter us, gloating as if ready to secretly devour the weak. You tread the sea with your horses, stirring up the vast water. I heard, and I trembled within; my lips quivered at the sound. Rottenness entered my bones; I trembled where I stood. Now I must quietly wait for the day of distress to come against the people invading us. Though the fig tree does not bud and there is no fruit on the vines, though the olive crop fails and the fields produce no food, though the flocks disappear from the pen and there are no herds in the stalls, yet I will celebrate in the Lord; I will rejoice in the God of my salvation! The Lord my Lord is my strength; he makes my feet like those of a deer and enables me to walk on mountain heights! For the choir director: on stringed instruments.

So we have Habakkuk answering the woes that he has heard about. Things at the prophet’s time are not going well for him, but he still takes the time to rejoice. “Yet I will rejoice.” He is choosing joy instead of bitterness. What do we choose when life keeps getting us down? Do we choose joy or do we choose bitterness? I’ve known plenty that choose the bitterness. That is not to say that we should not be upset about certain things. However, it does mean that those things should not confine us to being mad and angry all the time. Instead, it gives us the opportunity to choose joy in the face of hardship. We can have this joy because we know that God is going to make it all right in the end. He gives that word in Habakkuk, and He gives that word throughout His prophets.

Isaiah 61:1–9 “The Spirit of the Lord God is on me, because the Lord has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives and freedom to the prisoners; to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor, and the day of our God’s vengeance; to comfort all who mourn, to provide for those who mourn in Zion; to give them a crown of beauty instead of ashes, festive oil instead of mourning, and splendid clothes instead of despair. And they will be called righteous trees, planted by the Lord to glorify him. They will rebuild the ancient ruins; they will restore the former devastations; they will renew the ruined cities, the devastations of many generations. Strangers will stand and feed your flocks, and foreigners will be your plowmen and vinedressers. But you will be called the Lord’s priests; they will speak of you as ministers of our God; you will eat the wealth of the nations, and you will boast in their riches. In place of your shame, you will have a double portion; in place of disgrace, they will rejoice over their share. So they will possess double in their land, and eternal joy will be theirs. For I the Lord love justice; I hate robbery and injustice; I will faithfully reward my people and make a permanent covenant with them. Their descendants will be known among the nations, and their posterity among the peoples. All who see them will recognize that they are a people the Lord has blessed.” With that kind of guarantee, how could we not feel joy?

There is a huge difference between joy and happiness. Happiness is fleeting. Happiness is based on a series of external circumstances, but joy is not. Joy is born in the heart and we can have that unthinkable joy even when times are tough. When people are going through hard times, it is understandable for them to be upset, walking around with scowls on their faces. I saw this a lot when I was in the Navy. Sailors were happy as long as they were not asked to do any Sailor stuff. As long as things were going well for them, then they were happy, but the moment a schedule change happened, the food was bad, or whatever, they were simply mad and unreasonable. You know what happens when people get mad and unreasonable? They do what they can to get others around them mad and unreasonable. Misery loves company and miserable people will try to drag people down into their misery with them. It must not be like that for those of us that have joy in the LORD. Our joy comes from Him and the wonderful things He has done for us, not from anything the world can offer. Our contentment doesn’t come from worldly stuff, it comes from God. What we have is what He has decided we should have, so we should not get wrapped up in how things are going for other people.

That’s the thing, comparison is the thief of joy. We are here in this time of Advent and I know for a fact that many people have been doing what they can to keep up with Joneses during the holiday season. I saw a staggering statistic that approximately $6.1 Billion worth of products were purchased under the guise of “buy now pay later”. That’s a whole lot of people adding to their debt because they want to keep everyone happy on Christmas morning. We don’t want to be compared to anyone else when it comes to gift giving, unless we are being compared to as the good example. Part of having that unthinkable joy is to be content with what God has given us. We are not going to be content and joyful if we are worried about what someone else has and then are envious of them.

When we have joy, we keep our eyes focused on our own bags. Here’s a hypothetical. Let’s say we hypothetically walk into a room lined with chairs. On those chairs are paper bags that are sealed. We cannot see what’s inside until we open it. Now let’s say we are told to take that bag and have a seat, but don’t open the bag. So we sit down and begin talking and having a great time of fellowship enjoying the company of one another. Then about 30 minutes into the fellowship time we are then told to stop what we are doing and open our bags. Well, we open our bag and find that there is a $10 bill in there. That’s great! It’s $10 more than we had when we walked in so now we are happy. Well, what happens when we look across the way and see someone received a $50 bill? Now we aren’t happy, but that person is, until he sees that another person received a $100 bill. When we compare the blessings we have to the blessings that others have, it is going to steal our joy. Don’t fall for the trap. It’s hard not to, though. About a year ago, I ran into a pastor buddy of mine that had recently been made the pastor of a very large church. He’s a good guy and we had a nice time chatting. We got done and then someone else that was with me said, “you know, it looks like he makes more money than you.” And that was just one of those, “huh?” moments. Then the justification starts creeping up on why that might be the case. Before I could go too far down that rabbit hole I had to stop. Otherwise, what would it have done to stew on that comment? It may or may not have driven me crazy.

All that to say, it’s best if we are content with what God gave us. No need to compare our blessings with other people’s blessings. We might look at someone with envy with what they have and wish we had more, but the fact is that there are folks that will look at us with envy because we have it made as far as they are concerned.

Even if we got everything we wanted, we still wouldn’t have joy. Like I said earlier, lots of money has gone into putting presents under the tree on Christmas morning. That morning is going to come along and the kids and some parents will feverishly be going through all of the things that they were given. They will have a grand old time playing with the stuff that was given to them. Yet, those things are only going to keep them happy for so long. Eventually, they are going to want more.

Then you have folks that get everything that they want. Look at all these rich people there are out in the world. Most of them are miserable. Those folks that get whatever they want get stuck in the cycle of hedonism. We see it a lot with childhood celebrities. They keep jumping from one thing to the next thinking that it is going to bring them some level of contentment and happiness. It won’t, though. I think one of the reasons so many of them wind up being miserable is because they come to the realization that there is nothing in the world that can make them truly happy. There is nothing in the world that can give them true and everlasting joy. That joy comes from God alone.

Joy comes in the most unexpected places. It shows up in odd areas. Isaiah speaks about how joy pops up in strange places. John 16:16–22 ““In a little while, you will no longer see me; again in a little while, you will see me.” Then some of his disciples said to one another, “What is this he’s telling us: ‘In a little while, you will not see me; again a little while, you will see me,’ and, ‘Because I am going to the Father’?” They said, “What is this he is saying, ‘In a little while’? We don’t know what he’s talking about.” Jesus knew they wanted to ask him, and so he said to them, “Are you asking one another about what I said, ‘In a little while, you will not see me; again in a little while, you will see me’? Truly I tell you, you will weep and mourn, but the world will rejoice. You will become sorrowful, but your sorrow will turn to joy. When a woman is in labor, she has pain because her time has come. But when she has given birth to a child, she no longer remembers the suffering because of the joy that a person has been born into the world. So you also have sorrow now. But I will see you again. Your hearts will rejoice, and no one will take away your joy from you.”

Talk about joy coming in some strange places. Jesus explains that He is about to be taken and brutally killed. It is going to be a time of mourning, but that mourning will turn to joy. Their hearts will rejoice ant that joy won’t be taken from them. The joy that Christ gives is not based on circumstance, it’s based on Jesus. Jesus is the only source of true joy. My Sunday School teacher many years ago was a doctor. He spent his vacation time on mission, going overseas to give medical attention in third world countries. Here in America, we don’t often hear of cases of leprosy. Leprosy is a horrible disease that affects the skin. Back in Jesus’s time, when a person came down with leprosy, he or she was sent away to a leper colony because no one else wanted to be around them. It’s the same today in these other countries. The disease is so bad that body parts will start falling off. My teacher told us the stories of these people that were overjoyed and amazed that healthy people were coming to them and touching them. Then the good doctor would cure them of their disease. Unfortunately, just because he cured them of the disease did not mean that their missing appendages grew back. He said it was the most amazing thing to be there on Sunday during the worship services watching these formerly diseased people worshipping and praising God with joy in their hearts. They weren’t hung up on what they did not have, they were focused on what they did have. They have Jesus and He gave them great joy. This advent season, I hope that we respond to Jesus with that same joy. Joy doesn’t come from the things of the world, it comes from the LORD. When we belong to Jesus, that joy can’t be taken.

So how do we respond to Jesus? Do we rejoice in all things? Or is our reaction different? Paul wrote to the Philippians in Philippians 4:12 “I know how to make do with little, and I know how to make do with a lot. In any and all circumstances I have learned the secret of being content—whether well fed or hungry, whether in abundance or in need.” Paul was imprisoned several times in his career, but he never lost his joy. He remained rooted in Christ and rejoiced while in prison and while free.

My hope and prayer this Christmas season is that we keep our joy throughout the year. Let us rejoice in Jesus ever day of our lives. He is the only source of true joy and contentment. If you here this morning and don’t know Jesus, if you don’t have that joy, come to Him today.