Joy in Hard Places

Have you every seen the movie Jingle All the Way? What we find is that as much as Howard wants to believe finding this gift will make everyone happy, his attempts at trying to “buy” joy only creates more problems in our lives.

Let me put it simply...YOU CAN’T BUY JOY!

When we are in a hard place, we often think we can pull ourselves out of it. That we can secure our own joy. But what we will learn in Luke is that...

The joy of the Gospel is found in resting in and believing the Lord will fulfill what He has spoken to us through His Son.

We will see in two women, Mary and Elizabeth, how their joy was found not in perfect life circumstances, but in trusting that God would fulfill His Word to them.

I think there is a reason that God uses these two women to help us understand this idea of joy. Pregnancy is a combination of hope and joy. Hope of a beautiful child, hope of all the possibilities for how this child will bless your life, hope on the gender of the child. But sometimes we don’t get what we hope for. That’s because Hope is joy not yet fully realized.

Hope looks to the future to a time when we will receive something great. Joy comes when this hope is realized, when we RECEIVE this thing in the future. But Mary and Elizabeth have no doubt to them about their children nor about what their children will do in the future. About what God has invited them to be a part of.

Think about it, both of these women have reasons to be skeptical about this process. They both have full confidence about what their sons will accomplish even though they will not see it fully realized for over 30 years!

They have joy in the bigger picture. They realize they are being invited to participate in something they have no business being a part of.

We are also being called to participate in something wonderful, invited into a joy that we don’t deserve. Our story shows us 3 significant ways we find joy in this Good News. Joy in community, joy in God’s mercy, and joy in remembering God’s good promises.

Joy in community - Luke 1:39-45, 56

Gabriel tells Mary that she will have a child, as proof of this miraculous act Gabriel also tells her that her relative Elizabeth who is in her old age is having a child. So Mary goes to check this out. But immediately upon entering the house something else miraculous happens, the baby (yes, baby!) inside of Elizabeth leaps for joy at the presence of the infant Jesus inside of Mary’s womb. John already starts to perform the role he will for the rest of his life, “preparing the way for the Lord”.

Why is Elizabeth excited? Because even without Mary saying a word, the Holy Spirit has opened her eyes and made her aware of the significance of the child that Mary has in her womb. The mother of her Lord is in her presence. God himself is coming and she is participating in this! Then she praises Mary, because what is clear is that Mary believes this Good News as well. They have become co-participants in this Gospel. Both of these women are in challenging circumstances.

Discuss Elizabeth’s disgrace and Mary’s future challenges

So now that they sit together, their joy is not in where things currently stand with either of them, but in being part of God’s plan of redemption. They are blessed because of the blessedness of their children and how God would use them.

It tells us that Mary stayed with Elizabeth for about 3 months. These two women, rather than being isolated from one another, were able to celebrate in community!

Imagine these two walking out on the streets together.

Yet to these two it didn’t matter, because what they knew they had was far greater than the pressures of the world.

Social media should actually be called “anti-social media”. We get a “fix” when we get that friend request but we don’t actually make “friends”.

How social media makes us less social and less connected to community. We create communities based on similarities, when community is about celebrating people across difference are brought together in the Gospel!

The best place for us to find our joy is together as the church as we celebrate the joy of our Savior who came to us and will come again.

Notice too, how celebratory Elizabeth is that Mary came to her, even as her and her child are subordinate to them.

But even Mary herself is “blessed” not because of what she will do but because of the child that she will bear!

Part of community is celebrating with one another knowing that the way God blessed one of us is a blessing to ourselves. Our world wants us to compete against one another, it wants us to push for positioning, rather than celebrate when one of us succeeds.

If you have siblings, did you ever have a time that you were upset your sibling got a better gift than you did, even though you also had great things you received?

Romans 12:9–10 “Let love be without hypocrisy. Detest evil; cling to what is good. Love one another deeply as brothers and sisters. Take the lead in honoring one another.”

Joy in recognizing God’s character reflected in our lives - Luke 1:46-50

After Elizabeth has given Mary this incredible encouragement. Mary then shares what many call the Magnificat. This is a prayer of rejoicing to God, it is humble response to God’s mercy in her life.

God is her savior so she rejoices and she magnifies him as God.

To identify God as her savior is to see herself as a sinner in need of a Savior. As a servant of the Lord she was no different than any other person except for the favor the Lord was having on her. She is a humble state in the eyes of the world but also in the eyes of God.

He has looked with favor on her “humble condition” (is that how you would see it?!) so that she will be called bless

She, as an unmarried pregnant woman in a poor family, is in a “humble” state.

God is the might on over all creation and He is holy (set apart as great from society) and he has “done great things for her”

Do you see how Mary’s is identifying God’s character throughout her life. She notices that God is being true to His holy (that is right and just) character in what He is doing for Mary. She thanks God, in the middle of what will be difficult circumstances, because she see’s what is on the other end of this journey.

I was recently listening to an interview with Joni Erickson Tada. If you don’t know her story I would recommend reading it, or watching the movie on her life. But as at 17 year old, she dived into the Chesapeake Bay, but not knowing how shallow it was, she collided at the bottom and became paralyzed from the shoulders down. She discussed how a child asked her recently that if she could, would she want to go back and tell her 17 year old self not to jump in the water.

Have you ever had those things happen in your life before? Things that you would never CHOOSE to go through, but looking back you are thankful for where it brought you.

So how do we get through the hard places? What do we lean on? We lean on God’s character, trusting who He is and celebrating that the challenges we go through are for our good and for His glory.

In recognizing God’s character what we start to notice are all the smaller ways that God reveals himself in our lives. Look at vs. 51-53. We see these divine reversals.

-Notice how God’s character is revealed in the every day life.

-I have a hunch...God’s character is not revealed in the circumstance, but in the response to the circumstance.

But it isn’t just that we recognize God’s character, it is also about remembering His promises.

Joy in remembering God’s good promises - Luke 1:54-55

Mary, as she ends her song, looks back at how God had “helped his servant Israel” and “to Abraham and his descendants”. She looks at the promises God has given from Genesis. Over 2000 years of promises that are being fulfilled at this moment in Mary.

We don’t take promises seriously anymore. Back then a promise was a “covenant” signified with a sacrifice. The sacrifice said “what happened to this animal happen to us if we break it”. We have pinky promises now.

God made a covenant promise to Abraham

Why is this important? Because Mary see’s the role that she is playing in this narrative of redemption throughout history.

In knowing how God has fulfilled His promises in the past, to Abraham. It points us to the many woman in Genesis whom God showed favor to.

Mary can see this and look forward to what God will do through Jesus as if it has already been done, as if it is already accomplished. This lets here see how this divine reversals will occur. God will provide victory over sin and death through her Son.

-This is what Elizabeth says to her in v. 45. That Mary “believed that the Lord would fulfill what He has spoken to her!”

-Elizabeth also is filled with joy because she see’s the role she is playing, and that her son will play, in making the Savior of the world known!

Trusting God’s promises are most difficult in the hard places of life, that is the time that it is easiest to forget God will be true to His Word to us.

1 Thessalonians 1:6–10 “and you yourselves became imitators of us and of the Lord when, in spite of severe persecution, you welcomed the message with joy from the Holy Spirit. As a result, you became an example to all the believers in Macedonia and Achaia. For the word of the Lord rang out from you, not only in Macedonia and Achaia, but in every place that your faith in God has gone out. Therefore, we don’t need to say anything, for they themselves report what kind of reception we had from you: how you turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God and to wait for his Son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead—Jesus, who rescues us from the coming wrath.”

Why did the persevere the “severe persecution? Where did they find their joy? How did they turn from idols to the living and true God? The truth that Jesus is coming back and that He will rescue us.

-One thing we can often miss is that Christmas isn’t just celebrating that God came as a child, but it is also that we know since He was true to His promise to come the first time that we can believe with confidence He will come again.

-What did these believers in Thessalonica do with this joy and hope? They became to an example to other believers “in every place”. They participated in the joy that Mary celebrates in Luke.

We have been given this incredible opportunity to be part of this story.

To-do List

1. Don’t struggle alone

2. Remind yourself of God’s character through His Word

3. Participate in the story!

How has God called you to enjoy His promises by playing a part in the story of redemption? None of us are Mary, but we don’t have to be. Each of us is called to remember God’s promises and to live out the truth of the Gospel in our lives.