I usually post a video of the previous week’s sermon sometime midweek, but we had audio issues in the stream, so I am posting the manuscript for the sermon. It will not coincide perfectly with what was actually said, but it will be close. The Third Sunday of Advent theme is joy, and in this message, we see why we cannot do without joy – or at least we cannot do well without joy.
For the kingdom of God is not a matter of eating and drinking, but of righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit, because anyone who serves Christ in this way is pleasing to God and approved by men. Let us therefore make every effort to do what leads to peace and to mutual edification. (Romans 14:17-19)
The kingdom of God is righteousness and peace (we thought about that last week), and joy (which we’ll think about today). In God’s kingdom – which is to say, where God rules –– there is righteousness, peace, and joy. Righteousness is right relationships, with God and others. Right relationships are normal in the kingdom of God, but they are not normal in the kingdoms of the world. What do you think? Are right – and by that, I mean just, kind, merciful and, above all, loving – relationships the norm in your workplace? What about your school? What about Washington, D.C. or Beijing or Moscow or Jerusalem?
Last week we saw that the kingdom is peace. Once relationships have been righted, peace has a chance to grow. And peace does grow; it is not a static thing. It is not merely the absence of conflict. It is a positive wholeness and health between people and God and people and people.
Then the kingdom is joy, and when we come to joy, we are near to the heart of the kingdom. Joy sings from its citadels. It is one of the shared resources of heaven, like air or water. Heaven is serious about its joy. But we, I think, are not yet as joyful as God intends us to be.
Imagine this: You’ve just got to heaven, and you should be happy, but you’re worried about what God is going to say to you. You’re afraid he will bring up that thing you’ve kept hidden all these years. Or that 20-year grudge you refused to let go of. Or your first marriage – that didn’t end well. Or the lies. Or …
You find yourself standing before the throne, and the great God, the Glorious Father, is saying: “I am grieved…” and you think, “I knew it: It’s that grudge. I should have done something about that years ago. Or maybe the lies.” But what he says is: “My child … why were you not more joyful?”
And you say, “What? I mean, Almighty and glorious God, Lord of heaven and earth, creator of all things visible and invisible … what? I thought you were going to ask me about the grudge or about my first marriage. Or that time I cheated on a math test in the 11th grade – you knew about that, right?”
And he will say: “Child, I know all, and we will talk about those things. But first, you must tell me why you were not more joyful. Do you have any explanation for that? Because, if you had just been more joyful, the grudge, the divorce, the cheating never would have happened.”
St. Thomas Aquinas said: “Man cannot live without joy; therefore, when he is deprived of true spiritual joys, it is necessary that he become addicted to carnal pleasures.” Joy is not a luxury; it is a necessity. We need to be joyful.
I sometimes think we approach the Christian life from the wrong direction. Instead of being eager to do the right thing, we focus on not doing the wrong thing. We hope to escape punishment, when God wants us to strive to enter joy. We are passionate about avoiding shame, but indifferent about entering glory.
It is good that we don’t want to sin. God doesn’t want us to sin either, but he understands that joy is the best protection against sin. He designed it that way. That’s why Paul told the Philippians to rejoice in the Lord, and then added: “It is no trouble for me to write the same things to you again, and it is a safeguard for you” (Philippians 3:1) If you’re constantly giving in to temptation, the surprising reality is this: you’re not as joyful as God intends you to be.
At times, the church’s message to outsiders seems to be: “Accept Jesus or go to hell.” It’s not that that is untrue, but it is like trying to sell a Ferrari with the tagline: “It’s better than the bus.” We have great news to share! There would be fewer atheists if Christians were more joyful. Churches would be full if the people in them had joy. A church can have doctrinal correctness, moral rectitude, and political clout but if its people lack joy, it won’t have appeal.
My first point is a simple one, though you may not have thought of it before: God wants you to be more joyful. God himself is the most joyful being in the entire universe, and he wants his children to share his joy. What did Paul tell God’s people? “Rejoice in the Lord always” (Philippians 4:1) What did he say was the motive for his ministry? “I will continue with all of you for your progress and joy in the faith” (Philippians 1:25). That should be on every pastor’s job description: “Help our church be more joyful.” To the Corinthians he wrote, “…we work with you for your joy” (2 Corinthians 1:24). He wanted his friends to know the joy of belonging to Jesus in the Kingdom of God.
The idea that God is a cosmic killjoy who doesn’t want anyone to be happy is absolute heresy. When our heavenly Father requires us to give up a pleasure, it is only because it is keeping us from a greater pleasure, from all joy. As C. S. Lewis put it, “Our Lord finds our desires, not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us…”[1]
You think God is disappointed in you because you are not spiritual enough, not gentle enough, not holy enough, or whatever. “Disappointed” is the wrong word to use. Someone who doesn’t know the future can be disappointed, but God knows the end from the very beginning. He has never been disappointed; not once. But he has been grieved, and when you and I live joyless lives, he is grieved. Your heavenly Father wants you to be joyful. That’s my first point.
My second point is this: Joy is not a state of mind you or I can work up. It comes from outside us, from a bigger world. If we are closed to that bigger world, we will not have joy.
Our most important connection to that world is through the resurrection of Jesus. The resurrection is the link that connects us to the bigger world where God rules, where death has been defeated, evil routed, and joy unspeakable flashes with glory. It is a world of rich possibilities, one to which we cannot yet go but that has come to us through the Spirit of Jesus.
If we close the windows and doors of our soul; if we shut ourselves up in our own ambitions, hurts, failures, or even successes, the winds of joy will not blow through. We may have success or failure, pleasure or pain, but we will not have joy. The way of joy is not in; it’s out.
Joy comes from outside and invites us to come out too—to come out and play: to come out of ourselves, our troubles, and even our successes. We are never further from joy than when we are most occupied with ourselves – our health, our feelings, our relationships, our reputation. When we forget about ourselves, even for a moment, joy becomes possible. This is true in any activity – skiing, dancing, playing a game, falling in love, or offering a prayer. Remember what Jesus said: “For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will find it.” (Matthew 16:25).
When the winds of joy blow over you and joy begins to seep into you, the quickest way to lose it is to turn inward, to think: “I am having a spiritual experience. This is happening to me.” Joy comes from without. Focus in and it will vanish.
Because joy comes from without, we can have joy even in trouble, even in grief. There is nothing contradictory about being in grief and having joy because joy does not originate in you. It comes to you from outside, from the larger world, where the God of joy exercises his perfect rule.
Because that is true, you can even “Count it all joy when you fall into various trials…” (James 1:2, NKJV). You can count it all joy because you know, outside you and your problem, the great God is at work. He will make this trial and every trial serve your good, if you belong to Jesus. And he will use what you’re going through to make you something you could never otherwise be, to “produce perseverance … so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything” (James 1:4).
On the eve of Jesus’s crucifixion, a few hours before his arrest, he told his disciples that he wanted his joy to be in them. A little later, he prayed to his Father “that they may have the full measure of my joy within them” (John 17:13). What is Jesus’s joy that he wants his people to have? I believe Jesus’s joy is his Father and the kingdom he rules. His Father is good, loving, unstoppable, unbeatable, glorious, joyful, and wise. And his kingdom is good, just, peaceful, blessed, beautiful and glorious. His perfect rule has reached this rebellious speck of dust we call earth through Jesus, and nothing can stop it. And this God, by the grace of our Lord Jesus, is our Father! Open the window and let that air blow through! Or close it, and breathe the stale air of your own problem-filled life.
So, joy comes from outside. There is no sense in trying to work it up because joy is not in you. Remember what the author of Hebrews said about Jesus: “Who for the joy set before him…” Before him. It was out there, because out there is under the control of the all-powerful, all-ruling God. Joy doesn’t come from you but to you; it is always a gift.
And that brings us to my third point: Joy is strength. The joy that comes from out there enables a person to do what he or she would otherwise find impossible. “Who for the joy set before him endured the cross, despising the shame.” According to the author of Hebrews, Jesus did not endure the cross through sheer determination, nor through personal strength, nor even through genuine holiness. He endured it through joy!
We fault ourselves for not being spiritual enough when the real problem is that we are not joyful enough. “The joy of the Lord is your strength” (Nehemiah 8:10). If you close yourself up in the small chamber of your illness or difficult marriage or broken relationship until your world is no bigger than your problem, you will be weak, and you will get weaker. But if you come out of yourself into the joy of the Lord, you will be strong.
So, first point: You are probably not joyful enough. God wants you to be joyful. Second point: Joy originates from outside, not inside. Third point: Joy is strength. Joy enables us to do hard things. Fourth point: Faith is necessary for joy.
It is necessary, but there is not a one-to-one correspondence between faith and joy. It is not: if you trust, you will be joyful. In fact, the moments when you are most aware of the need to trust God are often the most trying moments in your life. But a life of trust, even if it is filled with hardship, is the kind of life in which joy comes often to visit. It may be that the before end of such a life, joy will come to stay, as it did for the Pilgrim William Bradford. During his final days, according to his famous contemporary, Cotton Mather, “The God of heaven so filled his mind with ineffable consolations that he seemed … wrapped up unto the unutterable entertainments of paradise.”[2] Joy had come to stay.
Faith opens the doors and windows to God’s larger world. Faith connects us to the kingdom of peace, to the resurrection that overthrows death, and to the God who makes all things work together for good. Faith is our connection to the outside, where the winds of joy continually blow. St. Paul writes: “May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit” (Romans 15:13). “…fill you with all joy…as you trust in him.”
When you are in the middle of some tough situation; when you are discouraged and ready to give up; when the walls are closing in and your world has shrunk to the dimensions of your problems; trusting God at that moment opens a window into the larger world. It doesn’t force your problems out, but it does invite God and his rule in. It allows the winds of joy from another world to blow through your life.
But you must trust God, this God, who is making all things new. You must believe in, trust in, rely on the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. That is the path to joy.
But there are also paths away from joy. You can choose not to trust. You can say to yourself and others, “Nothing’s ever going to change, and nobody cares—not even God. I’m on my own.”
Do you know what that is? Sheer unbelief. It is a rejection of the gospel and of the God who announces it. Christ is standing outside, where the winds of joy blow, knocking, and you are ignoring him, locking him out and yourself in with your problems. Faith does not cast your problems out; it opens the door for God to come in. Faith is not a tool to get your way, but an invitation for God to join you.
Another way to lose joy, or at least miss out on it, is to stuff yourself with joy substitutes. Joy substitutes are the junk food of the spiritual life: distractions like food and video games and TV. Remember when you were a kid and you reached for a cookie and your mom said, “No, you don’t. You’ll ruin your appetite, and supper’s almost ready.” It’s not that cookies are bad, nor are food and video games and TV bad. But use any of those things as a substitute for joy, and you’ll miss out on joy.
We can have joy – Jesus’s joy – because we have a God who loves us, a savior who died for us, and a glorious future awaiting us. Besides that, our present circumstances, even the hard ones, must serve God’s good purpose for us. We can experience joy more and more frequently as we trust our God.
Let me close with a story Brennan Manning told about a guy name Ed Farrell from Detroit. Ed planned a two-week vacation to Ireland to coincide with his favorite uncle’s 80th birthday. When the big day arrived, Ed and his uncle got up before dawn, dressed in silence, and went for a walk along the shores of Lake Killarney. When the sun first peered over the horizon, Ed’s uncle stopped walking and just watched it rise for the next 20 minutes. All that time, neither he nor Ed said a single word. Then, suddenly, the old man began to skip along the shoreline, his face radiant with joy.
When Ed caught up with him, he said: “Uncle Seamus, you look very happy. Do you want to tell me why?”
With tears running down his cheeks, Uncle Seamus said: “Yes, lad. You see, the Father is fond of me. Ah, me Father is so very fond of me.”[3]
Children: your father is fond of you. He is so very fond of you. He wants you to have joy. Trust him. Open the windows and let the winds of joy blow.
[1] The Weight of Glory, “The Weight of Glory” (1941), chap. 1, para. 1, pp.3-4.
[2] Adapted from Nathaniel Philbrick, Mayflower (Penguin Books, 2007), page 189
[3] Brennan Manning, The Wisdom of Tenderness (Harper San Francisco, 2002), pp. 25-26
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