God With Us Brings Joy

While researching for my opening illustration, I typed in “A Puppy for Christmas.”

The first page of results on Google was for a Hallmark Movie. You can’t make this stuff up.

Theme is joy. What could be more joyful than a puppy on Christmas morning?

ad for GMC where she gets the puppy, he gets the truck. Everybody has their idea of joy.

Have you ever given or received a puppy for Christmas? You’ve seen it on the TV commercials for sure. A super-cute, tiny, cuddly fuzz ball is usually wearing a bright red bow around its neck. It usually either comes bounding around the corner or peeks its head out of a box as soon as the kids or special someone lifts the loosely fitting lid. It’s always adorable, and it starts giving kisses or tumbling out over its clumsy, oversized paws.

You can probably feel the warm fuzzies even now as we talk about it, right?

So if you’ve ever actually been involved in one of these Christmas-morning puppy gifts, you know what it’s like to try to put a puppy in a box.

That little bundle of love and joy—we won’t mention the dog hair and, um, accidents—just does not want to be contained inside a box.

You certainly can’t wrap him up the week before and stick his box under the Christmas tree.

You have to work to keep him hidden—probably somewhere outside the house.

Then you have to wait until exactly one minute before the kids come down the stairs to drop that doggie into the box and probably bribe him with a treat or a toy that just might occupy him for 38.6 seconds, so you can pop on the lid and rush him into the hands of his new best friend.

Some people just skip the box altogether, hide out in the next room, then put the puppy on the floor and let him come bounding into the room to the accompaniment of squeals of delight.

You see, a dog is just plain uncontainable in a box.

It comes spilling out to love and lick everyone that’s around.

And it doesn’t stop there. The people who receive a puppy for Christmas just can’t keep it to themselves.

They pass that little pup around to everyone in the house, and they don’t stop there. They carry it or lead it around to the neighbors. They drive with it to the relatives or friends—or to the store or salon or dentist. (OK, maybe not the dentist.)

But they want to show and share this adorable little ball of fur with everyone they can. And then those people want to go grab their kids, husband, girlfriend, or whomever to share the cuteness and happiness that this little puppy exudes.

Joy is a lot like puppies. Fortunately, it’s not as hairy and doesn’t make a mess, but joy is boundless and uncontainable. Joy overflows, and when you’ve experienced joy, you want to share it with someone else—or as many people as you can. Joy bubbles over and touches everyone it comes in contact with.

Joy is what we are celebrating on this third Sunday of Advent.

If you’ve been journeying with us the past two weeks toward Christmas, you know that we have been celebrating Advent.

As a quick recap, the word advent means “coming” or “arrival,” and the season is marked by expectation, waiting, anticipation, and longing.

Advent is not just an extension of Christmas—it is a season that links the past, present, and future.

Advent offers us the opportunity to share in the ancient longing for the coming of the Messiah, to celebrate His birth, and to be alert for His second coming.

Advent looks back in celebration at the hope fulfilled in Jesus Christ’s coming, while at the same time looking forward in hopeful and eager anticipation to the coming of Christ’s kingdom when He returns for His people.

During Advent we wait for both—it’s an active, assured, and hopeful waiting. And each week, we focus on a different attribute of God represented in the coming of Jesus: hope, love, joy, and peace.

Because Jesus is Immanuel, “God with Us,” He is the embodiment of these traits, who has entered our world and who fills us with them all.

Our Source of Joy

Unlike puppies or new trucks, the truest source of joy is not material.

The apostle Peter wrote,

1 Peter 1:8–9 NLT

8 You love him even though you have never seen him. Though you do not see him now, you trust him; and you rejoice with a glorious, inexpressible joy. 9 The reward for trusting him will be the salvation of your souls.

An inexpressible and glorious joy. That’s deep stuff.

This is stuff that runs much deeper than happiness.

We love to be happy. We love to feel good.

But happiness comes and goes as the circumstances around us change by the hour and the minute.

Happiness can come from many things: Birthday parties and balloons. Your favorite song on a perfect summer day. An encouraging message from a friend. Winning the big game. A delicious meal.

These are good and enjoyable things to be savored and enjoyed for sure—but all are fleeting.

And pursuing happiness for the sake of happiness can be a shallow, self-centered pursuit.

“It is the very pursuit of happiness that thwarts happiness,” wrote Viktor Frankl, the famous Jewish survivor of World War II Nazi concentration camps who wrote the book Man’s Search for Meaning.

Joy includes happiness, but it runs much deeper. Joy permeates our souls.

In our lives, the stuff of joy looks like the birth of your child.

Your wedding day.

Being declared free of cancer for good.

Your loved one coming out of a coma with no brain damage.

Joy is rooted in gratitude, meaning, and hope fulfilled, especially when it is based in relationship with our Creator.

Joy comes from God with Us—Jesus is the source of our joy.

Peter called it “an inexpressible and glorious joy” that is part of the inheritance we are receiving in Christ. With His life and the promise of eternal life beyond this world, we find the deep kind of joy that fills us no matter the pain that we still face on this earth.

As Jesus explained to His disciples about His coming death and resurrection:

John 16:22 NLT

22 So you have sorrow now, but I will see you again; then you will rejoice, and no one can rob you of that joy.

As we turn our eyes expectantly to Jesus in this Advent season, and as we walk with Him beyond toward the day when He will come again and fulfill His healing work, we can experience His joy in the process.

And we can know with confidence that an even greater, unending joy awaits us one day. One day we will receive it in full.

Yet even now, we find hope and joy in what Jesus has done and what we know He will faithfully do in the future.

And like Nehemiah of the Old Testament, the Jewish leader who faced great odds in rebuilding the walls of Jerusalem, we can experience the truth that “the joy of the Lord is your strength” (Nehemiah 8:10).

Joy Defies Our Circumstances

We compared happiness and joy a little bit ago, but if there’s one defining characteristic of joy that I hope you take away from our time together today, it is this: Joy defies our circumstances.

Happiness comes and goes with positive events or experiences.

Joy flows deep even in the face of challenge, hardship, or suffering.

Joy drawn from Jesus, God with Us, sees the big picture beyond the immediate pain.

James famously said it best right at the beginning of his eponymous book of the Bible:

James 1:2–4 NLT

2 Dear brothers and sisters, when troubles of any kind come your way, consider it an opportunity for great joy. 3 For you know that when your faith is tested, your endurance has a chance to grow. 4 So let it grow, for when your endurance is fully developed, you will be perfect and complete, needing nothing.

Joy understands that there is more than meets the eye.

That God is at work always, even in the tough stuff of life.

And that eventually God will make everything right and healed and whole, including us.

Because of that, we can experience joy in the here and now, no matter how bad the here and now looks and feels.

Sure, there’s a process involved, and that’s part of the point.

As we continue to practice opening our hearts to God’s Spirit, immersing ourselves in His Word, and aligning our thinking and perspectives to His ways, we experience His Spirit working within us, bringing us clarity, understanding, and strength to trust and see and act in the joy He provides.

What are the circumstances you are facing right now as we journey toward Christmas?

What are the situations that are stealing your joy? Or the hurts where pain seems to overrule?

I don’t mean to make light of what you are going through, because I know the pain is real for us all. But can I encourage you to take a look from another angle? Can I encourage you to ask God to give you another view—to show you His big picture?

In Advent and in Christmas there is a miracle for us all: the miracle of God come to earth to be with us, to heal us, to forgive us, to redeem and restore all our pain, to turn it into good. This is a cause for joy even in our darkest days.

This was the message of the angel long ago announcing the arrival of Christ to the terrified shepherds outside of Bethlehem:

Luke 2:10 NLT

10 but the angel reassured them. “Don’t be afraid!” he said. “I bring you good news that will bring great joy to all people.

Jesus, come to be God with Us, has brought us joy—no matter what we are facing.

Joy Is a Choice

Before we close today, I’d like to look at one more aspect of joy that we can apply as we continue our Advent observance. That is the fact that joy can be a choice, and joy can be an action.

Remember when Mary showed up at Elizabeth’s house? Elizabeth was overcome with joy, which spread to Mary. When it did, the beginning of Mary’s expression went like this:

Luke 1:46–48 NLT

46 Mary responded, “Oh, how my soul praises the Lord. 47 How my spirit rejoices in God my Savior! 48 For he took notice of his lowly servant girl, and from now on all generations will call me blessed.

These are important words—with the key word being rejoices. It’s the active form of joy, the verb. And this is Mary choosing and embracing joy in the role she had been given by God.

She didn’t have to.

Remember those cartoons and old movies where an army sergeant or leader asks for a volunteer? The mission is dangerous, sometimes ridiculously so. It will require a brave and true individual willing to put his or her life on the line. Will the bold volunteer please step forward? You know what happens. At the same second, in perfect coordination, the entire line steps backward, leaving the main character standing in front when the leader turns around. Forget volunteering—he is volunteered, whether he likes it or not.

Mary could have looked at her situation a little bit like that. She didn’t ask to be the mother of God’s Son. If she had been asked, she might have stepped backward.

But in Mary’s words we see her response: She rejoices. She chooses joy. She focuses on the big picture and embraces her difficult role.

In a similar way, in our own situations and seasons, we can do the same. We can choose joy. We can rejoice. We can embrace the miracle of God with Us and align our vision with the work He is doing in and through us.

The Bible is filled with verses exhorting and encouraging us to rejoice. Probably because we all need lots of reminders.

Paul tells us:

Philippians 4:4 NLT

4 Always be full of joy in the Lord. I say it again—rejoice!

Romans 12:12 offers,

Romans 12:12 NLT

12 Rejoice in our confident hope. Be patient in trouble, and keep on praying.

These are only the beginning, but the message and the takeaway is the same: We have reason for joy because God is with us, and we can choose to embrace it.

Friends, let’s choose to make this a season of joy. Let’s rejoice as we figuratively await the arrival of Christ, and let’s celebrate His birth with joy. God is with us.

And so joy is with us—a joy that flows deep within our spirits and outward because our King, our Savior, is with us, always loving, always working, even in the midst of any hardship we will face.

Benediction

“But let all who take refuge in you be glad; let them ever sing for joy. Spread your protection over them, that those who love your name may rejoice in you.” —Psalm 5:11