The Advent of Joy in the Midst of the Wilderness

Introduction:

The Advent season is about preparing our hearts and narrowing our focus on the first and second advent of Christ.

For centuries the church has done this by focusing on four major themes that run throughout Scripture: Hope, Peace, Joy, and Love.

Today we’re going to study the third theme: JOY

Transition:I think you would all agree with me, happiness is a universal desire in the heart of every human being.

I think you would all agree with me, happiness is a universal desire in the heart of every human being.

What we’re up against:

God has hardwired each of us to experience joy. It’s interesting to discover what brings people joy.

It would go against God’s created order to assume that it is more spiritual to live an ascetic lifestyle. As if to say, the more stoic I can be about the here and now, the more celebratory I’ll be in the ever after.

When the Creator God stepped back from each day of Creation, what did he say? “It is good.”

And we know that when he stepped back to review all of His work, He added to that, “It is very good.”

Wisdom - the attribute of God says it this way,

Proverbs 8:

Proverbs 8:22 ESV

“The Lord possessed me at the beginning of his work, the first of his acts of old.

Prov 8:

Proverbs 8:29–31 ESV

when he assigned to the sea its limit, so that the waters might not transgress his command, when he marked out the foundations of the earth, then I was beside him, like a master workman, and I was daily his delight, rejoicing before him always, rejoicing in his inhabited world and delighting in the children of man.

The Creator God found joy in His creation, His wisdom delighted in His Creation...

Transition: What makes you happy?

What do you celebrate over? When was the last time you leapt for joy?

Companionship / sex / intimacy / romance (rejoice with the wife of your youth Proverbs 5)

Food and wine ()

Work

Nature

Pets

Weddings and parties

Children (heritage, joy of grandparents)

Good friends

Exercise

Transition: Wouldn’t it be nice if we could just always be happy?

Philippians 3:1 ESV

Finally, my brothers, rejoice in the Lord. To write the same things to you is no trouble to me and is safe for you.

Phil 3:

Philippians 4:4 ESV

Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, rejoice.

Culture and society advise that if we want happiness we have to cut out all the negativity in our lives

We take a good craving, and the good things that God has made and we turn them in to objects. And we demand that those objects perform for us. And if they don’t perform well enough for us, we replace those objects with other objects.

What’s worse is that we tend to do this not only with things, but with people. To the point we dehumanize our closest relationships: marriage, friends, neighbors, kids...

Ultimately what we’re saying is, “Thing, I need you to do the impossible for me. I need you to be the source of my joy and contentment.”

This is impossible because nothing that was created was intended to be the source of ultimate joy and satisfaction.

Did we not learn this by the actions of our first parents who had almost everything? They had to have the forbidden fruit, which was really just about them having control to dictate what was good and evil, but the point is that even though they had fulfilling relationships, work, spiritual unity with their Creator, pets, nature, food… it wasn’t enough for them.

That deep seed of evil that we talked about last week that the Bible classifies as SIN, pervades all of humanity in all of life since that moment in history.

Transition: Well that’s just disappointing and confusing. We’re told always rejoice, and we live with this longing for happiness, but due to SIN that pervades humanity, we’re all out of luck?

Yes. And no. As far as I know, not one person has taken that information and said, well since we can’t always be happy, there’s no use trying, I’m going to design my life to be miserable.

No, we’re human beings. Something inside of us still tells us that we can experience lasting happiness.

And I’m not really here to debate other religions and their methods, or society and their methods…

But, you’ve probably all heard these cliches and maybe others:

Fake it till ya make it

Turn that frown upside down

Suck it up, buttercup

You’ve got to find the silverlining

Remember, there’s always someone out there who’s got it worse than you

Now, all of those at some point might be a little helpful, but you can’t build a worldview on any of those. They’re a house of cards.

Transition: The Scriptures offer something hopeful, something altogether different. The Scriptures offer “Joy in the Wilderness.”

Since our first parents experienced sorrow, whether it was the sorrow of being literally kicked out of their home, or the sorrow of the first failed crops, or the sorrow of holding their dead son who had just been murdered by their other son. I don’t know who went first but Adam mourned the loss of Eve or vice versa, but sorrow doesn’t skip over people. Sorrow and suffering are painful reminders that SIN is still a part of our world. SIN reminds us that we’re not home yet.

Sorrow and suffering are painful reminders that SIN is still a part of our world. SIN reminds us that we’re not home yet.

But through the sorrow and through the suffering, there is a glimmer of hope that prevents us from giving up and keeps us on the journey. And that hope, when clung to with faith, produces joy even in the midst of the wilderness.

THE STORY

The Exodus Story contains so much beauty and hope

Beginning with the birth of a hero by the name of Moses

Moses was born at a perilous time in Israel’s history

The Pharoah of Egypt commissioned a genocide on the male babies of the Hebrew people

But God spared Moses through the water as his mother placed him in a basket that made it’s way to the Pharaoh’s own daughter who rescued Moses from the river and even hired his mother to nurse and care for the boy

Although Moses grew up in the Pharaoh’s palace, he never lost sight of who he really was

By the third chapter in the Exodus story, GOD has visited Moses and revealed his plan for Moses

He would use Moses to redeem God’s treasured possession

And while it took time as God judged the Egyptian people for their heinous crime against the Israelite people, finally the Pharaoh let God’s people go

As the Israelites begin their journey they are beginning to think the unthinkable was becoming possible

We know this story well - there they stood between two impossible situations (the Egyptian army on one side, and the Red Sea on the other)

God miraculously parts the waters and the people cross through on dry land

It wasn’t over yet, the Egyptians pursued them through the water, but God shut the water in on them, bringing final judgement on the Pharaoh and his army

The next part of the story isn’t told very often, nor is the significance explained

Exodus 15

Exodus 15 ESV

1 Then Moses and the people of Israel sang this song to the Lord, saying, “I will sing to the Lord, for he has triumphed gloriously; the horse and his rider he has thrown into the sea. 2 The Lord is my strength and my song, and he has become my salvation; this is my God, and I will praise him, my father’s God, and I will exalt him. 3 The Lord is a man of war; the Lord is his name. 4 “Pharaoh’s chariots and his host he cast into the sea, and his chosen officers were sunk in the Red Sea. 5 The floods covered them; they went down into the depths like a stone. 6 Your right hand, O Lord, glorious in power, your right hand, O Lord, shatters the enemy. 7 In the greatness of your majesty you overthrow your adversaries; you send out your fury; it consumes them like stubble. 8 At the blast of your nostrils the waters piled up; the floods stood up in a heap; the deeps congealed in the heart of the sea. 9 The enemy said, ‘I will pursue, I will overtake, I will divide the spoil, my desire shall have its fill of them. I will draw my sword; my hand shall destroy them.’ 10 You blew with your wind; the sea covered them; they sank like lead in the mighty waters. 11 “Who is like you, O Lord, among the gods? Who is like you, majestic in holiness, awesome in glorious deeds, doing wonders? 12 You stretched out your right hand; the earth swallowed them. 13 “You have led in your steadfast love the people whom you have redeemed; you have guided them by your strength to your holy abode. 14 The peoples have heard; they tremble; pangs have seized the inhabitants of Philistia. 15 Now are the chiefs of Edom dismayed; trembling seizes the leaders of Moab; all the inhabitants of Canaan have melted away. 16 Terror and dread fall upon them; because of the greatness of your arm, they are still as a stone, till your people, O Lord, pass by, till the people pass by whom you have purchased. 17 You will bring them in and plant them on your own mountain, the place, O Lord, which you have made for your abode, the sanctuary, O Lord, which your hands have established. 18 The Lord will reign forever and ever.” 19 For when the horses of Pharaoh with his chariots and his horsemen went into the sea, the Lord brought back the waters of the sea upon them, but the people of Israel walked on dry ground in the midst of the sea. 20 Then Miriam the prophetess, the sister of Aaron, took a tambourine in her hand, and all the women went out after her with tambourines and dancing. 21 And Miriam sang to them: “Sing to the Lord, for he has triumphed gloriously; the horse and his rider he has thrown into the sea.” 22 Then Moses made Israel set out from the Red Sea, and they went into the wilderness of Shur. They went three days in the wilderness and found no water. 23 When they came to Marah, they could not drink the water of Marah because it was bitter; therefore it was named Marah. 24 And the people grumbled against Moses, saying, “What shall we drink?” 25 And he cried to the Lord, and the Lord showed him a log, and he threw it into the water, and the water became sweet. There the Lord made for them a statute and a rule, and there he tested them, 26 saying, “If you will diligently listen to the voice of the Lord your God, and do that which is right in his eyes, and give ear to his commandments and keep all his statutes, I will put none of the diseases on you that I put on the Egyptians, for I am the Lord, your healer.” 27 Then they came to Elim, where there were twelve springs of water and seventy palm trees, and they encamped there by the water.

Transition: I want to examine this song together with you. It’s easy to skim and pass over some significant and meaningful pieces of the story...

Let’s observe:

What was their living situation? Homeless

What was their financial situation? Besides the things they borrowed from the Egyptians, they have no income to speak of

What was their resource situation? They only had the clothes on their back, and the food in their pack

What would you call what this group of homeless, moneyless, supply-less community doing here in chapter 15? They’re celebrating, singing, dancing, joyfully worshiping?

I understand that God had just dramatically and miraculously saved their lives from impossible odds, and yes, I know that if we keep reading we will find them complaining because they don’t know where they’re going to get food and water.

Transition: But I think that we’re missing out on something if we don’t see that the joy that they were expressing wasn’t only because of the rescue they had experienced. They had a forward focused joy. A joy that came as a result of anticipating the promise which was to come.

Let’s look

Exodus 15:17 ESV

17 You will bring them in and plant them on your own mountain, the place, O Lord, which you have made for your abode, the sanctuary, O Lord, which your hands have established.

Exodus 15:18 ESV

18 The Lord will reign forever and ever.”

What are they envisioning? Clearly, Moses had used the time of the famine and the time of the journey out of Egypt to the edge of the Red Sea to teach them that YHWH was going to bring them to a place where Creator-GOD and man would once again dwell together in peace.

You have to think as if you were a Hebrew, who had lived you entire life in slavery. Your grand and even great grandparents probably had too. You heard stories of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, but Jacob died almost 400 years ago, and Joseph died over 300 years ago.

In other words, they had no real categories for what was to come. But they were confident that whatever was in the future it was going to look like a form of Eden restored.

And whatever that looked like, they were confident that YHWH (their God) was going to reign as King forever.

Where did this confident hope that produced joy in the wilderness come from?

Exodus 15:11–12 ESV

11 “Who is like you, O Lord, among the gods? Who is like you, majestic in holiness, awesome in glorious deeds, doing wonders? 12 You stretched out your right hand; the earth swallowed them.

Ex 15:13

Exodus 15:13 ESV

13 “You have led in your steadfast love the people whom you have redeemed; you have guided them by your strength to your holy abode.

How do they categorize the character of YHWH?

Basic meaning (12) - the expanse between YHWH and the gods of the Egyptians is as wide as the sea itself, there is no comparison

(13) - they sing using shepherd imagery of a kind shepherd leading sheep to a safe place, but they don’t use the term kind, they use the Hebrew word chesed (translated steadfast love in the ESV). Any time you see that term that’s translated steadfast love, lovingkindness, immediately click on the hyperlink. Chesed is the covenant, loyal love that YHWH has for his treasured people. At this point in the story, the hyperlink only goes back to the covenant between YHWH and Abraham (all nations of the earth will be blessed) and Noah (he won’t destroy the earth again, but has made it a safe place to partner together just like Eden).

Transition: So the point is that all of those things that they heard of YHWH doing with Adam and Eve, Noah and his family, and with Abraham and Sarah, now they’re a part of this community of people who have been touched by the steadfast love of YHWH giving them confidence in what is to come and joy in the midst of the wilderness.

And throughout the rest of the Scriptures we find the poets and prophets creating a new hyperlink for the people of their day to draw on, saying things like

Psalm 105:43 ESV

43 So he brought his people out with joy, his chosen ones with singing.

Isaiah 51:11 ESV

11 And the ransomed of the Lord shall return and come to Zion with singing; everlasting joy shall be upon their heads; they shall obtain gladness and joy, and sorrow and sighing shall flee away.

Isaiah prophesied both the fall and the rise of Israel. They knew what the wilderness was like. They lived in exile throughout their history. They understood suffering and sorrow, but even though they would go through suffering and sorrow, it was not without promise and hope.

So, it’s really no surprise to us that the way Messiah was prophesied was

Zechariah 9:9 ESV

9 Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion! Shout aloud, O daughter of Jerusalem! Behold, your king is coming to you; righteous and having salvation is he, humble and mounted on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey.

And when the angel announced the birth of Jesus to the shepherds he said

Luke 2:10 ESV

10 And the angel said to them, “Fear not, for behold, I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people.

In other words, the forward leaning hope that you’ve been anticipating is bearing fruit. Joy is hear!

And while some see Jesus as being a stoic, Luke tells us that Jesus would be a man of joy

Luke 10:21 ESV

21 In that same hour he rejoiced in the Holy Spirit and said, “I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that you have hidden these things from the wise and understanding and revealed them to little children; yes, Father, for such was your gracious will.

And Jesus commissioned his disciples to go into the world and announce the good news that he had come with joy!

And they did,

Acts 13:52 ESV

52 And the disciples were filled with joy and with the Holy Spirit.

We might be tempted to think, well they had a lot to be thankful for

Acts 5:41 ESV

41 Then they left the presence of the council, rejoicing that they were counted worthy to suffer dishonor for the name.

Jesus is the only way to experience joy through the wilderness. Trust in not only what he has done, but in what he said he will do will produce in you a joy that is unmistakable. You won’t have to fake it till you make it, it will be real and strong joy.

From a dingy Roman prison, the Apostle Paul wrote these words:

Philippians 3:1 ESV

1 Finally, my brothers, rejoice in the Lord. To write the same things to you is no trouble to me and is safe for you.

Philippians 2:17–18 ESV

17 Even if I am to be poured out as a drink offering upon the sacrificial offering of your faith, I am glad and rejoice with you all. 18 Likewise you also should be glad and rejoice with me.

Communion

How are you going to apply this theme of joy to your life this week? Joy is a fruit of the Spirit. That doesn’t mean it’s automatic and will show up in your life just because you’re a Christian. What that means is that it is part of a cornucopia of gifts that is available to you by faith. You must make that daily choice to trust in the promises of God as found in His word. No matter what your circumstance is today, God not only knows, he is there waiting to walk through that sorrow and that suffering with you.

And he is leading us to (just like the the Hebrews) as the good shepherd through the wilderness. We have all the steadfast, covenant love to look back to to rekindle our faith when it is weak. And we have the second advent of Christ to look forward to.