Advent: Joy

Transcript

This transcript was generated automatically from the audio and may contain small errors.

Good morning. I... It's perfect. We have... We heard, like, the kids leaving. I want you to remember being a kid for a second, okay? I want you to remember being a kid at Christmas, okay? Just take a second. If you need to close your eyes, you can. I'm not judging you. I want you to remember just what it was like for you at Christmas time, and I mean, peak kid Christmas, present age. We're talking, like, eight or nine, and if you are eight or nine right now this morning, well, you just left. But if you did not, Peak, that is peak Christmas present age, okay. I want you to picture, I want you to picture something that you really wanted for Christmas whenever you were a kid. Now, you could actually fast forward that to today. It could be something that you really want for Christmas this year, that's fine, either way it works.

And I don't want you to say it all out. I want you to imagine it, and I want you to imagine you receiving that thing that you really wanted, okay. It doesn't matter what it was. I want you to imagine yourself receiving it. Now I want you to kind of take the camera and pan it back on your face. What face are you making? Are you smiling? You probably are. You probably have the goofiest, biggest smile on your face because you're just excited about what's going to happen. You have joy. This week for Advent we are focusing on joy, and joy is very different than hope or peace or even love. It's very peculiar in that it is the one thing, joy is the one thing, that we think will come on top of everything else. In other words, we We believe that joy, we assume that joy is going to be included on whatever thing that we're going to get. That's why we picture ourselves smiling whenever we're getting the thing that we want.

That joy is included on that. It's included when we get what we want. And in fact, there's the great tragedy, and it gets told over and over again, of living a life where you are chasing wealth or fame or status or approval and you believe that you will get joy when you chase those things. It's a great tragedy. The story has been told a million times in a million different movies. When you believe that joy is included when you finally get that job that you want. When you finally get the girl. When you finally get the status. When you finally get the approval. Joy is actually separate from our desires. Joy is separate from our desires. And it actually comes to us from a different place. It doesn't come to us from getting what we want. Our desires, the things that we really want, the things that we agonize over, the big decisions, all of those things are really just a prelude to real joy.

to to real joy We're gonna be looking at three scenes of joy today in Luke chapter 1 and a little bit in chapter 2 We're actually gonna get a bonus one So it's three and a bonus. It's not four It sounds better. Okay, and in these scenes, I want you to show I want to show you kind of the relationship between Joy and our desires Okay, a lot of times it's not what we think, but as we look in Luke chapter 1 we're going to find them. So we're going to start in Luke chapter 1 verses 13 and 14 for the first of three scenes, and we're going to be focusing on Zechariah, Elizabeth, and Mary. Zechariah and Elizabeth were a married couple, they were old, and in these verses we find out that Zechariah is hearing about John's birth, his son's birth. And Zechariah and Elizabeth are extremely old, okay? So this is kind of a miracle child that Elizabeth is going to be having. And

here's what it says. It says, Luke 1, 13, 14, but the angel said to him, do not be afraid Zechariah, for your prayer has been heard and your wife Elizabeth will bear a son and you shall call his name John and you will, look, joy here, and you will have joy and gladness and many will rejoice at his birth." So we find joy here. Predict it. You're going to have joy. Many people are going to rejoice. And at first it seems that joy is coming because Zechariah is getting a son. It's like Zechariah might be thinking, I'm finally getting what I want, a son, and I'm gonna have joy with that. But that's actually not the case. The angel points it out. So 14 ends and says you're gonna have joy, men are gonna rejoice. Verse 15, why? For he will be great before the Lord, the Son that you're gonna have, and he must not drink wine or strong drink, and he will be filled with the Holy Spirit even from his mother's womb. So

the joy that Zechariah is going to experience and the many other people are going to experience are going to come because a son will be great. What makes him so great? Let's keep reading verses 16 17 and He John his son He will turn many of the children of Israel to the Lord their God and he will go before him in the spirit and power of Elijah to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children and the disobedient to the wisdom of the just to make ready for the Lord a people prepared joy is

coming joy is coming to Zechariah and other people because specifically because God is bringing salvation to people. So we follow verses 13 all the way down. It's that John is coming and he will be great and when he will be great, that through that, through his greatness, God is going to bring spiritual healing. He's going to bring mended relationships. He's going to he's going to bring together the the foolish and wisdom. He's going to bring together children and fathers. And we see it again in the second scene. We see it whenever John is born. Look at, fast forward, to verses 57 and 58. This is whenever John is born. It says, now the time for Elizabeth to give birth, now the time came for Elizabeth to give birth and she bore a son. And her neighbors and relatives heard that the Lord had shown great mercy to her and they rejoiced with her. So we have Joy again here. This is Elizabeth and her neighbors coming

together. And it's hinted at slightly here. It says that they're joyful because the Lord had shown great mercy, but we really see it in Zechariah's reaction to having a son. So skip down a little bit even further verses 76 through 79 in Luke chapter 1. Luke 1 has a ton of verses. Okay, 76 it says, and you child, This is Zechariah speaking. And you child will be called the prophet of the Most High, for you will go before the Lord to prepare his ways, to give knowledge of salvation to his people in the forgiveness of their sins, because of the tender mercy of our God, whereby the sunrise shall visit us from on high, to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace. So Zechariah, although he is excited to have a son, his joy points to something different. His joy points to the fact that God is bringing salvation to many people.

That people are going to receive the knowledge of salvation. That those who sit in darkness are going to receive light. These people that are waiting, you can imagine people sitting in darkness. Sometimes whenever I get home I don't turn the lights on and then I just sit in darkness. And then my wife walks in and says, are you a vampire? What's your problem? Why are you sitting in darkness? And it happens, it does. But these aren't people just sitting in darkness because they got home and forgot to turn the lights on. These are people that are sitting in darkness because they have nowhere else to sit. These are people that don't know what they don't know. And this sun that is coming, God is going to bring salvation. These people that are sitting in darkness are going to receive light. God is going to guide people into the way of peace. And I just want to make a small comparison.

Compare this with their original desire. Let's talk about Zechariah and Elizabeth for just a second. What's their original desire? Well, they want a child. Luke 1:13 tells us that. It says that your prayers have been heard and you will have a child. I don't imagine that this was a prayer that Zechariah prayed one time whenever he was 25 years old. I imagine this is probably a prayer that Zechariah and Elizabeth had been praying for for a very long time. And it doesn't say, but I imagine that somewhere along the way they lost hope. Right? Somewhere along the way when the gray hairs set in, okay, they were they were like, okay, you know what, maybe God's not gonna give us a child. Okay? Maybe God's not gonna give us another child. But when the angel comes says, your prayers have been heard, you're gonna have a child. But I want to, I just want to show you, as miraculous as that is, as great as that

is, Zechariah and Elizabeth are getting exactly what they wanted, but it's only a prelude to something better. That the joy that is coming to Zechariah and Elizabeth is coming to them from beyond their original desire. In other words, let me say it a different way, God gives them a son but he ultimately gives them something so much better than a son. Right? He gives them a son. He gives them what they're asking for but ultimately it's to give them something that that far They are outpaces, outshines, a son.

Something so much greater, something that will bless not just them, not just their heritage, but many other people. Let's bring it to us. We pray for things, right? When you and I bring our request before God. God, we need money, we need a job, we need another child, we need a different job, We need a different house. We need a place to live. Big decisions, right? And we come to, we agonize over these things, okay? My wife and I, we are about to step into the moving process. We're finally gonna move to Burleson. It's gonna be great. It's been a long time coming. And agony is a great word to describe the process of us trying to figure out what the Lord wants us to do in terms of just a house. And it's not agony over five different houses to choose from. That's not what I mean. This is not first-world problems here. This is agony over just understanding what the Lord is calling us to do in that moment.

It's hard. We fought. It's frustrating. It's terrible, actually. I mean, my life group is like praying for us double time just because we were having so much trouble trying to figure that out. These are big decisions that you and I make all the time. Where we're gonna send our kids to school. What are we gonna do about their problem? What are we gonna do about the mortgage? What are we gonna do about the rising tax rates? How is my house worth this much? Okay. And our inclination, as we pray about these things, as we pray for relief, as we pray for clarity, as we pray for answers, our inclination is to believe that when we get those things, when resolution happens, then joy will come. Or at least relief. Maybe we're just hoping for relief. Joy is just the icing on the cake. We believe, we act like, we act like it's the end-all be-all. When we pray and we want that decision,

we want that, and those think, look, it's a real thing to pray for. I'm not trying to minimize it, but what I'm telling you is that when you and I act like that all of our problems are gonna be solved whenever this gets answered, we miss out on that joy. We believe when I change jobs, then I'll be happy. When we get more money, when we aren't struggling, then I'll be happy, then things will be okay. but our desires, what we actually pray for, the thing that we want, like Zechariah and Elizabeth and their son, the thing that we want that we pray for is actually just a prelude to something better. God, in his wisdom, he says, look, I wanna give you this, okay, but I don't just wanna give you this. I wanna give you something so much better. I wanna use this giving and receiving process, this whole thing to bring about something that will blow you away. And these things that we have, right,

these houses, cars, kids, careers, they're all good gifts. They're all good gifts, and we should be content with them by God's grace. But they are not the source of our joy. They're just a prelude. They're just the beginning of the sentence. They're just a hint, they're just a foreshadowing of something beyond that that the Lord is calling us to. So they're not the source. If they're not the source, then where is the source? And we see it in our last scene whenever we look at Mary.

Look at Mary, we're gonna be in verse 46. She has just found out that she's going to give birth to the Messiah. A big deal, okay? Big deal. And she prays, it's Mary's song, we call it the Magnificat, but in Luke 1, 46 through 50, this is what it says, this is what Mary says. 46, and Mary said, my soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my savior, for he has looked on the humble estate of his servant, for behold, from now on, all generations will call me blessed, for he who was mighty has done great things for me, and holy is his name, and his mercy is for those who fear him from generation to generation. When Mary hears that she's going to have the Messiah, she erupts in praise and thankfulness and joy. And it's not because she's going to experience motherhood in the most original way possible, okay? It's because of something deeper. believed Mary believed that God would bring salvation to people. She believed

that generations were going to experience God's blessing through her. She believed that waves of people for millennia to come and I don't know what Mary had in mind but she was definitely thinking of the future that joy was coming not just to her but to many other people. Mercy was coming not just to her but to many others, through her, through this gift that she's going to receive. Real sustaining joy comes not just when we receive good news but when we believe the good news. When we believe the good news that God is bringing salvation to people. And think about this, Zechariah and Elizabeth and Mary and the neighbors and Everybody who's hearing this, right? They are all kind of victims of this good news. They're targets of this good news. Good news happens to them. They are not asking for this. Zechariah and Elizabeth are asking for something much smaller than this.

They're asking for just a son. Mary's not asking for a darn thing. And still, good news comes to them. Good news happens to them, that God is bringing salvation, God is going to save people from their sin. He's going to make people new on the inside. He's going to mend and heal broken relationships and trauma and regret. He's gonna make all these things right. And when good things happen to them, when good things happen to them, they believe it. And when they believe it, that's whenever the joy comes. When they believe good news, that's whenever the joy comes. They are genuinely excited. Zechariah and Elizabeth and Mary and the neighbors, they're all genuinely excited because they believe that God would come through on what He was promising them. They believe the good news of salvation was coming to many people. There's a big difference between joy and not having joy.

The difference between having joy and missing out on joy is what you believe about God's good news. It's what you believe about, what you're hearing. The good news has not stopped coming. This is what Advent is, right? Remember, we remember the good news that Jesus is coming to us. That Jesus's mission is to bring usher in God's salvation to many people. This is what Advent is. This is why we celebrate it. This is why we do all that we do for around Christmas. that God is still bringing salvation to people, that God, that the good news hasn't stopped. It's still coming. And we have a choice to believe that and receive joy or reject it and just get, like like Dan Ham was talking about, just get happiness that fades. Be happy when you have ice cream for dinner and sad when it's gone, right? This fleeting happiness versus this eternal joy, this this hearty joy. So I want to ask you this morning, do you believe this? Do you

believe the good news? Actively. And I want to tell you how you can tell. And we're just going to take two things. We're going to take failure and fear. Two things, and they have to start with the same letter. My first question is, what do you do with failure? What do you do with failure? Years ago in my mid-20s I went back to my hometown and began to plant a church. Many church planning experts to start a church, if you're not familiar with the terminology, sorry, start a church. Many church starting experts would tell you never move back to your hometown to start a church ever. It's a really bad idea and it turned out to be a really bad idea for us and it failed man. Two, two and a half years in we were in the dust and that was hard. It was just the biggest gut punch of my life. I was in my mid-20s so I could do anything but I definitely couldn't do

that for sure. I had proof. I had tried and it was it was very difficult difficult season for Christi and I, it's hard, just hard, just a lot of hard things. The question is what do you do with failure? Does failure devastate you? When you fail, are you crushed? Or are you able to look past that hurt, that pain, those setbacks, and have something better in view? When I look back on my time as a failed church planner, I see God's grace in the midst of it and I know that he was preparing me for many other things and my wife and I actually recount that story to each other very often and how good it was that that God mowed down all of my overgrown pride, right, that he did, he just you know took a little off the top and and got me ready for actually serving people and loving people and and being a pastor.

That's a good thing. If failure robs you of your greatest treasure, if what you're doing right now as a parent, as a coworker in whatever job you're in, if you have to get that right, if you have to absolutely score a perfect 10 on that, Otherwise, you will be completely devastated. Everything is worthless. It's all gone. It's all been for naught. If that's you, if that's your mentality, I got to get this right every single time. Promise you're not having joy. Joy will escape you. It will slip through your fingers. You will have moments of happiness, but joy will not stay. However, if you believe that even in those setbacks, even whenever your children do things you don't want, even whenever your career goes sideways, even when you have a boss that you hate, even in that, that joy beats failure every time. If you have something to look past, if you have something to

hang your hat on, if you know that the Lord has called something, called you to something in your life that is beyond how your spouse feels about you, then you can have joy. If it's beyond how your kids look at you, then you can have joy. If it's beyond how well you're perceived at work, or if you have a lot of friends, or if you're busy on a Friday, if it goes beyond that, then you can have joy. But if you're just living for the weekend, man, it's gonna be happiness that comes and goes. What do you do with failure? What do you do when things aren't going right. The second question that I want you to consider is what do you do with fear, right? Failure and fear. So fear, I remember when Jed, my oldest was, I don't know, he was probably six or maybe seven. He was old enough to be afraid, okay? Old enough to be afraid. We're at a family reunion, big old family reunion, and there

is this zip line that goes across like half of the of the camp, okay? It's a really long zip line, it's very high. And, you know, all the older cousins are doing it and all the, you know, all the, whatever. Everybody who's, everybody's doing it, they're excited about it. And Jed kind of, you know, kind of bops up there and I'm like, do you want to go on this? And he said, sure. Like just total fearlessness. Like, okay, I'll go. And whenever he went on that zip line, it's like, it's like that whole, there were probably like 35 people to this family reunion, just a ton of people. And most of them were at the base of this thing and whenever he gets on there's like a hush that falls over everybody like is the seven year old getting on the zip line? Is this okay? You know? So they're all just watching with bated breath, you know, and they're almost afraid for him, but he's

not afraid, he's just going. You probably have no recollection of this, do you, Jed? Okay, that's fine. So we harnessed Jed up and he just goes down, he has a great time, he and everybody's still kind of amazed, right, that he did that with just no fear at all. And so it was strange to watch all these reactions. You know, most of the moms are just kind of like, you know, holding onto something very tightly and most of the dads are going like, yeah. But we're all kind of reacting differently to fear. Look, we all get afraid, all of us, all of us, even the brave ones, right? We all get afraid sometimes. But what does that fear do to you? Does it drive you into hiding? Is it your controlling emotion? Does it make you physically ill? Does your fear make you physically ill? Does your anxiety make you physically ill? Is it the main ingredient in your decision making?

Is fear the main ingredient in your... Is the fear of looking stupid or making the wrong decision the beginning of how you come to a decision? The difference between having joy and not is when you have joy, you have something bigger than what you are afraid of. You don't quit being afraid. Okay, it's not like the fear just dissipates, but joy does conquer fear because you have confidence not in how things are going to go. When I put Jed on that zip line, I had a blind confidence that everything would be just fine. Okay, I wasn't really, I wasn't like in prayer. Okay, I mean, I wasn't like believing the Lord God had him in control, you know, the whole time. I wasn't, I don't want to paint it that way, but I do want to say there's a way that you can live your life where you begin to send things down on the zipline and you can either have anxiety or you can have confidence

that the Lord God in heaven is going to take care of whatever you're sending down the zipline. Whether that's your career, that's your kids, that's your marriage, that's any other thing that you hold dear You can either send it down and wring your hands and completely miss out on joy, or you can trust that God is working, that God is doing something through that. He's working things out that the good news of God bringing salvation to people through all these little things that you and I kind of consider small, God is still bringing salvation to people through them. The good news has not stopped. If fear pins you down in despair, and you are paralyzed, and you just have to wait it out, my guess is that you are missing joy. If you believe though that God is stronger and that God loves you, then joy comes. That's a weird combination that God is stronger and that God loves you.

Sometimes it's really easy to believe that God can do something for you. sometimes it's more difficult to believe that God cares enough to do something for you. Right? That God is paying attention to your little life, to your little concern. It's hard to believe that sometimes. You want to talk about like geopolitical forces, you want to talk about war in Israel, yeah God's got that totally under control. Yes, yes Lord, yes. When you talk about your weekend plans or what your kids lives are going to be like, There's no faith at all, right? Like you are completely, you're completely pent up. You're completely in knots. We talk about, we sing about this actually. It says you make all things work together for my future and my good. And you make all things work together for your glory and your name.

Right, and this song, Canvas and Clay that we sing. So look at the pairing there though, right? It's our good and His glory. It's our future and His name. Those aren't separate things that God wants good for you, even though that good might not always look good. I'm not saying your life's gonna be sunshine and rainbows, but I am saying that the Lord God in heaven is planning good for you specifically in your life with your problems, the things that you're worried about, those things, not just big things, Not just medium things even, sometimes small things.

And I just can't, I've been bowled over lately. My, you know, many of you have been, you know, praying for my mom and my stepdad has passed in, he passed in September. And my mom is gonna be moving in with us, probably at the very beginning of 2024. And we're, you know, we're excited about that. There's gonna be challenges, but we're kinda pumped. and we know the Lord's kind of in that, it's good. But it's really hard to miss the fact that for us, we've been trying to move for four years. And now, now that we're finally able to move, my mom needs to move in with us at the exact same time. So rather than us buying a house two years ago and now having to sell a house and buy a different house that we can all fit in, the Lord just made us wait. Now let me just tell you, In the grand scheme of important things in the world, whether I have to buy a house twice or not, is really small. Really small. But God is faithful even in that.

Even in that detail working out. That he cares even for that. He cares about my aging mother. God cares about those details. And we can have joy and and believe and hope and hang our hat on that, or we can live in fear. As an extra, and just bonus, remember, it's not the fourth one, it's an extra one, it's a bonus one. I wanna mention the shepherds in Luke chapter two. The shepherds are, it's a famous interaction, they're talking with the angel. Luke two, 10 through 11, that's where we are. 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. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior who is Christ the Lord." Look at what the angel says. It says, don't be afraid. Fear not. Why? Why not be afraid? Because I've got good news of great joy for all people. This good news is going

to establish joy for people. This news will establish joy. It's not like, it's sound like he's saying people are gonna choose joy. No, it's that this news itself is going to usher in opportunities for people to have joy. It's gonna come to them. It's not gonna give everybody what they want for Christmas. It's going to give them something far better. Something far better. Jesus has come into this world to set us free. Jesus has defeated sin. Jesus has overcome our failure. Jesus eats fear for breakfast. Jesus is not worried about the things that we're worried about because he's in control and we follow him. If you don't, if you do not follow him, if you don't know Jesus, then you can right now. You might be saying, Drew, I failed the joy test, right? I'm totally given to fear and failure. Great. Then you completely understand that you need a Savior, right?

That's exactly where we need to be. If we come thinking that we've got it all figured out, that's not, that's not good. We're not ready. And if you have accepted Jesus, if you do walk with the Lord, but you have found that man some of that joy is missing, my encouragement, just pray even now. Pray as we sing. Pray as we respond. I'm gonna call the band up real quick and I just want to say during this, during this time of response I'm gonna be back near those couches and cheers. And I want to encourage you, if you need prayer, if there's a way for for you to kind of take a step forward, you think you need some help, you need just to figure that out. If you're given to fear or if you are given to whatever failures you have, you're just living in that failure, you don't have to. You don't have to. Find joy today. Let's pray. Jesus, thank you for your joy. Thank you for the

ways that you bring together so many things in our lives, so many little details, things that we consider to be failures or things that we consider to be regrets or things to be afraid of or things that we're anxious over. You've You've conquered all of those things. Enjoy. You've given us joy to conquer those things. Help us to take hold of that joy this morning. In your name we pray, amen. Would you please stand.