Joy To The World

Introduction

This month is the month in which many people celebrate Christmas. You may decorate your home, you may buy gifts for family. If you turn on the radio, you will here classics such as “In My Mind” also known as Silent Night by the Temptations or my personal favorite “This Christmas” by Donny Hathaway. Neighbors have lights on the outside of their homes, people take pictures with Santa Claus at your neighborhood mall and retail stores are picked over as people try to buy the perfect gift for their families and friends.

There is a song in particular that many of us have heard. The song is entitled “Joy to The World”. You probably know the first verse, “Joy to the world! The Lord is come, let earth receive her King! Let every heart prepare Him room. And heaven and nature sing, and heaven and nature sing, and heaven, and heaven and nature sing.

Joy is an interesting emotion, historically in the Old Testament joy is closely related to defeating enemies. We see a joyous moment in 1 Samuel 18:6 “Now it had happened as they were coming home, when David was returning from the slaughter of the Philistine, that the women had come out of all the cities of Israel, singing and dancing, to meet King Saul, with tambourines, with joy, and with musical instruments.”

Joy is also related to occasions as well, occasions can bring joy. Occasions such as a wedding, or the birth of child. A joyful response of joy happens in worship such as singing praises of joy. Psalm 47 “To the Chief Musician. A Psalm of the Sons of Korah. Oh, clap your hands, all you peoples! Shout to God with the voice of triumph! For the Lord Most High is awesome; He is a great King over all the earth. He will subdue the peoples under us, And the nations under our feet. He will choose our inheritance for us, The excellence of Jacob whom He loves. Selah God has gone up with a shout, The Lord with the sound of a trumpet. Sing praises to God, sing praises! Sing praises to our King, sing praises! For God is the King of all the earth; Sing praises with understanding. God reigns over the nations; God sits on His holy throne. The princes of the people have gathered together, The people of the God of Abraham. For the shields of the earth belong to God; He is greatly exalted.”

Joy is also a response to reconciliation, we see things like Joel 1:12 “The vine has dried up, And the fig tree has withered; The pomegranate tree, The palm tree also, And the apple tree— All the trees of the field are withered; Surely joy has withered away from the sons of men.” And as we transition to the new testament it’s still a feeling of victory but it shifts. The idea of joy remains consistent but it changes for the Christian. Joy has eternal implications attached to it. The reason the christian can remain joyous during turbulent times is because we know the temporary nature of trials and tribulations as it relates to the eternity of peace in Heaven with the Lord. The joy is expressed in the way we live our life, it is expressed in the way we worship. We see that joy is an obligatory out pour of walking in the spirit. Galatians 5:16 “I say then: Walk in the Spirit, and you shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh.” and as we move forward we find out what that means exactly that we are filled with the characteristics of love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. Understanding there is no law against things tenets. Christ died for us to understand and experience true joy, to have the ability to be longsuffering in the face of backstabbing and trials.

Our Duty: Show Joy, Bring Joy

When we take a look at Galatians 5:22-23 we see an interesting transition. After the fruit of the Spirit is listed we see that there is no law against such. These tenets of Christianity can never be capped. We can never show enough love to our neighbor, we can never be too joyful or be too faithful. Understanding that Christ died so that we could experience something like joy!

How joyous it is to know the power and the salvation attached to being a Christian! There’s no law attached to joy! I can find joy in any situation. No one can regulate my joy!

Think of all the things Jesus showed us from the live he lived. As we think about that it should bring us joy that we can show similar things to the world that does not know Jesus. We can show them how to love our enemies, we can show them how to forgive, we can show them how to remain steadfast during turbulent situations.

Maintaining Our Joy

Having joy is not always the most difficult part. Typically it’s maintaining our joy no matter the situation.

The Single Mind - Joy is the offspring of stability. James 1:2-8 2 My brethren, count it all joy when you fall into various trials, 3 knowing that the testing of your faith produces patience. 4 But let patience have its perfect work, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking nothing. 5 If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all liberally and without reproach, and it will be given to him. 6 But let him ask in faith, with no doubting, for he who doubts is like a wave of the sea driven and tossed by the wind. 7 For let not that man suppose that he will receive anything from the Lord; 8 he is a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways.

An old Latin Proverb suggest when the pilot does not know what port he is heading for, no wind is the right wind. Our devotion to Jesus has to be singularly focused on Him. “”For me to live is Christ, and to die is gain.

In effort to maintain joy we cannot look at the circumstance within itself, but look at our relationship with the circumstance in conjunction with the power of Jesus. We are able to rejoice in difficult circumstances when our difficult times promote a greater fellowship with Jesus and each other. Our circumstance should promote a testimony that not only brings us joy but motivates other people to do better. We have to be stable and consistent in our approach to focus on Jesus and only Jesus during trying times.

The Submissive Mind - We have to be able to surrender and submit. Total submission says I give everything to God in effort that He will protect me during the most trying of times. Typically what stifles joy is our motivation to why we do the things we do. Paul suggest in Philippians 2 “Let nothing be done through strife and vainglory; but lowliness of mind let each esteem other better (more important) than ourselves.

When we are struggling with people we can’t focus on the person we have to focus on the Jesus that can change the person. When people steal our joy or motivate us to act out of character we give them power they were never supposed to have in the first place.

When we lash out we put ourselves first rather than choosing humility. It may seem irrational at first because the culture of revenge is alive and well in our society but we have to remember that vengeance does not belong to us.

Submission happens when we return the negative acts from people into positive acts of service toward them. We cannot control how people act and react toward us but what we can do is control how we respond and how we treat other people.

The Secure Mind

11 times in Philippians 3 you find Paul using the word things - He states that most people mind earthly things in v. 19. The spiritually minded saint should be concerned with Spiritual things. Why? Philippians 3:20 For our citizenship is in heaven, from which we also eagerly wait for the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. who will transform our lowly body that it may be conformed to His glorious body. I should rejoice in the fact that Jesus died to do this for me!

The quest for things is robbing people of joy. Everywhere we look, we are trying to attain stuff, new phone, new car, new house, new relationship. None of those things will bring us joy. The only way to a life of victory is to look at life through God’s point of view.

I count, I press, I look!

12 Not that I have already attained, or am already perfected; but I press on, that I may lay hold of that for which Christ Jesus has also laid hold of me. 13 Brethren, I do not count myself to have apprehended; but one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forward to those things which are ahead, 14 I press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.

15 Therefore let us, as many as are mature, have this mind; and if in anything you think otherwise, God will reveal even this to you. 16 Nevertheless, to the degree that we have already attained, let us walk by the same rule, let us be of the same mind.

Author Leo Buscaglia tells this story about his mother and their "misery dinner." It was the night after his father came home and said it looked as if he would have to go into bankruptcy because his partner had absconded with their firm's funds. His mother went out and sold some jewelry to buy food for a sumptuous feast. Other members of the family scolded her for it. But she told them that "the time for joy is now, when we need it most, not next week." Her courageous act rallied the family.

The world needs joy now. In effort to have joy it’s going to take some humility and some focus. Hard times are going to persist, people are going to make you angry but we have to make a decision now to have joy! 1 Thessalonians 1:6 “And you became followers of us and of the Lord, having received the word in much affliction, with joy of the Holy Spirit,” Focus on Jesus not how people will perceive you or how much it hurts right now because eventually your circumstance will change and that’s what I have to find joy in! Imagine if Joseph lost sight of the outcome. Imagine if Jesus lost sight of the fact that his sacrifice on the cross would save the world forever! Find joy and find it now!