Advent 2021: Joy

 

Advent 2021—Joy!    NOTES NOT EDITED
The Lost and Found of Christmas
Psalm 51.

SIS: If you have never had True Joy, you can get it; and if you had it and lost it, you can get it back.

One of the worst experiences in the course of human existence is the experience of “loss.”  This experience can be a benign as “losing your car keys” or as devastating as losing a spouse to death or divorce.  Any loss leaves a “hole,” and sometimes it is a gaping “hole.” 

David experienced this same kind of crushing loss.  He had lost “the joy of his salvation” and desperately wanted to find it again. This is the very joy that is promised to all by God in the Christmas story.  Remember the angel’s announcement to the shepherds that first Christmas.  Let’s read that announcement together (Luke 2:9 ^KJV):

⁸ And there were in the same country shepherds abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night. ⁹ And, lo, the angel of the Lord came upon them, and the glory of the Lord shone round about them: and they were sore afraid. ¹⁰ And the angel said unto them, Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people.

Joy is a gift promised to all those upon God bestows His saving grace through forgiveness of our sins.  David had that “joy,” but had lost it.  David desperately wanted that joy back.  Listen as I read David’s plea to God for the restoration of his joy.  Psalm 51:12^KJV:

Restore unto me the joy of thy salvation; And uphold me with thy free spirit.

One of the saddest AND happiest places in life is a “Lost and Found.”  It is sad place for all the lost stuff, but what joy when something is found.  A few years ago, a woman was travelling on the subway early in the morning. She had a neatly wrapped brown paper package she held in her lap. When the subway came to a stop, she got up, arranged the package securely on the seat and departed the subway. A gentleman sitting beside her noticed she had left the package. He quickly jumped up and approached the woman saying, "Excuse me, Ma'am, you left your package." The lady smiled and replied, "Thank you, Sir. Just leave it. It is breakfast for my husband. He works in the Lost and Found Department."

I can only imagine what people working in Lost and Found Departments actually find. This Sunday, Lord willing, I'm going to guide people through the Scriptures to see that if they don't have joy they can find it in Christ, and if they feel they had it and lost it, joy can be restored.

Christmas is about “restoring something lost.”  One important gift that can be restored is “joy.” Three important questions guide us down a path to gaining, or restoring joy in our lives.  What is joy?  How do you lose it?  How can you get it back?

1.  What is Joy?  v8 “Let me hear joy and gladness!”

I’ve found over the years great confusion exists in regard to the meaning of “joy.”  Before exploring what joy is, let us rule out what joy is NOT.

First, it is not “happiness.” This might strike you as odd, or even irrational, but a person can be “full of joy” and not be happy. Happiness is an emotional response to favorable circumstances.

Second, joy is not a “false piety” that outwardly puts forth a blissful countenance when your insides are awash in ugliness. Joy is not something we work up, but something God works in.  I’ve known a lot of Christians who feel a “duty” to act joyful even when the circumstances of their lives better suits being sad.  This kind of self-delusion has no place in a person’s life.  This kind of joy will be like the seed that Jesus spoke of in a parable in the N.T. 

Jesus spoke of the seed of God’s Word falling on shallow ground.  The seed quickly takes root but the roots are not able to go deep enough to sustain solid growth and the young plant springing from the seed quickly withers in the harsh light of daily living.  False piety is like seed sown in shallow ground and cannot sustain a genuine, lasting sense of joy.

Joy has nothing to do with “circumstance,” whether good or bad.  Joy can exist equally in a state of sadness as it can in states of bliss.  I know that seems counter-intuitive or perhaps completely insane, but that’s what the Bible teaches.

Jesus explains the irony of having a sense of “joy and victory,” even in the midst of great tribulation.  Jesus said in John 17:13

¹³ Now I am coming to You, and I speak these things in the world so that they may have My joy completed in them.

Speaking “what things?”  Jesus has been preaching from John 15:18 through chapter 16 and now into chapter 17 about how the disciples would be hated and persecuted.  Look at the John 17:14, the verse below what we just read:

¹⁴ I have given them Your word.  The world hated  them because they are not of the world, as I am not of the world. 

The greatest tragedy of modern preaching has been teaching people that Christianity is a the pathway to “health, wealth, and happiness.”  I hate to burst your faulty theological bubble, but that is not what the Bible teaches.  In fact, it is more likely that if you live a truly godly life in an ungodly world you will not always be “happy, healthy, and wealthy.”  If happiness is your goal, Christianity should not be your game.

Let me show you another word from the Lord that describes the irony of having a sense of victory or well-being (which describes joy), in spite of your circumstances.  John 16:33 says,

³³ I have told you these things so that in Me you may have peace. You will have suffering in this world. Be courageous! I have conquered the world.” 

Though Jesus does not use the Word joy in this passage, the idea of courage even in the face of great trial and difficulty is precisely what joy is all about. Return with me to our Psalm, chapter 51.  David cried

Let me hear joy and gladness (v 8)

The O.T. word used here refers to “mirth, or an exulted feeling of goodness.”  Indeed, joy is associated with our “emotions.”  When we experience joy, we have a sense of “mirth,” or well-being. 

Joy, however, is not just a feeling.  Joy is also and instrument through which we climb out the pit of difficult circumstance to get to a point of a “real feeling of well-being” – not a false piety that must force a smile – but a genuine sense of “mirth” or well-being.

In the deepest sense of the word, joy is not an emotional response – but a spiritual resource.  LET ME REPEAT THIS BECAUSE IT IS VERY IMPORTANT.  In the deepest sense of the word, joy is not an emotional response – but a spiritual condition—a state of being.  

Particularly, joy is a state of being in the “favor of God.”  The beloved Christmas story makes this clear as we saw with peace last week.

LUKE 2    ¹⁰ But the angel said to them, “Don’t be afraid,  for look, I proclaim to you good news of great joy that will be for all the people:  ¹¹ Today a Savior,  who is Messiah  the Lord,  was born for you in the city of David.

Now, glance down a couple verses to verse 14:

¹⁴ Glory to God in the highest heaven, and peace on earth to people He favors!

Most scholars accept the reading of the oldest manuscripts (as here in the CSB, v14) which translates the word for “He favors” as a “genitive,” rather than a “nominative” (eudokias, vs. eudokia) This is important because the “genitive” form describes a “state of being.”  Joy and peace (and a thousand blessings beside) result from “being in the state of salvation.”  Joy is something only Christians can experience – a genuine sense of good will and feeling of fulfillment that allows one to transcend (Jesus said, “conquer”) even the most difficult of circumstances.   So, this brings me to another question:

2.  How does one “lose” or “lack” joy? (v 12)

Return with me to our passage in Psalm 51.  In V12 David cries,

¹² Restore the joy of Your salvation to me, and give me a willing spirit. 

If David is asking God to “restore” his joy, then it is clear that David had lost something that he once had.  How did that happen?  Look at the ancient title to this Psalm.  Remember, these are very, very old inscriptions and scholars agree they are most likely reliable, and even some suggest they may in fact be part of the inspired text. 

The occasion of this Psalm is David’s affair with Bathsheba and the resulting calamity of his first son’s death because of the affair with Bathsheba and murder of her husband. 

How does one “lose” one’s joy, if they have it or keep from ever getting it in the first place?  The answer given in this Psalm is a simple one-letter word --- SIN!  Read verses 1-5 with me:

¹ Be gracious to me, God, according to Your faithful love; according to Your abundant compassion, blot out my rebellion.² Wash away my guilt and cleanse me from my sin. ³ For I am conscious of my rebellion, and my sin is always before me. ⁴ Against You—You alone—I have sinned and done this evil in Your sight. So You are right when You pass sentence; You are blameless when You judge. ⁵ Indeed, I was guilty _⌊when I_⌋ was born;  I was sinful when my mother conceived me.

Aren’t I a scrooge?  Here it is the week before Christmas and I’m preaching about “sin.”  Why can’t I just be like most other preachers and preach about the “joy of salvation?”  Well, I am preaching about the “joy of salvation.”  But, if you never had it, or had it and lost it, then wouldn’t it be nice to know how you lost it?

Sin will always make you miserable.  Maybe not at first, but sooner or later, probably more sooner than later.

Do your remember the younger brother in the story of the Prodigal (Wayward) Son?  The young boy was tired of living at home and being confined by the duties of a Jewish son. He wanted to “see the world” and “sow some wild oats.”  So, he demanded his father give him his inheritance early. Why the father agreed is another matter, but he gave him his inheritance.  The Bible says, the son set off on a journey to a far off land.  At first the Prodigal Son had a great time.  The KJV calls it “riotous living.”  He was having a grand time in his merry-making.  He was living “high on the hog” as we say.  Yet, soon he was not so “high on the hog” but living with the hogs.  The Bible says, (Luke 15:14-16)

¹⁴ After he had spent everything, a severe famine struck that country, and he had nothing.  ¹⁵ Then he went to work for one of the citizens of that country, who sent him into his fields to feed pigs.  ¹⁶ He longed to eat his fill from the carob pods  the pigs were eating, but no one would give him any. 

That’s the way sin works – you go from living “high on the hog” to living “with the hogs.” A beloved evangelist once said, “Sin will always take you farther than you want to go, keep you longer than you want to stay, and cost you more than you want to spend.” Sin will ALWAYS disappoint you and steal your joy!

So, I’m no Scrooge!  I’m not going to leave you without a remedy for your sin.  I’m not going to leave you in despair.  NO!  I HAVE GOOD NEWS OF GREAT JOY.  CHRISTMAS IS ABOUT THE BIRTH OF THE SAVIOR! We see this again and again in the Christmas story.

This brings me to the most important question of the day—or of eternity really. 

3.  How do I get “joy,” or if you are a Christian, get it back? (vv 7-14)

Again, I can answer that question with simply one word.  It is a little bit longer than the word sin, but even more powerful.  The word is FORGIVENESS.

Do you want real joy in your life?  The kind of joy the angels sang about.  There’s just one place to find it – in the forgiveness of God. Read along with me verse 7 (and the verses following):

⁷ Purify me with hyssop, and I will be clean; wash me, and I will be whiter than snow.

All his life David had watched the priest sprinkle blood upon people who had been cured of leprosy or had touched a dead body—two of the most grievous, destructive situations in Jewish life.  The branch of the hyssop plant was the instrument of forgiveness and restoration.  It was God’s foreshadowing illustration of the Messiah’s final and complete blood sacrifice for sin provided by Jesus on the cross.

To have your joy restored requires a “U-Turn.”  In Biblical terms that means, “repentance.”  Joy comes when we acknowledge our sin and resolutely with great intensity, turn from it. 

That’s why I say, “One does not discover joy on anything found UNDER a tree, but joy is found in surrendering to the One ON the tree.  Christmas is all about a Savior, the Messiah, Jesus Christ.

Forgiveness restores what sin destroyed.

The story is told of a little boy visiting his grandparent in the country. 

The little boy had brought along his new slingshot to practice shooting in the woods.  On the way out into the woods for a practice session, the little boy spied Grandma’s pet duck.  Overcome by impulse the little boy put a stone in the slingshot and let it fly.  The stone hit its mark and the duck fell dead on the spot.  The boy realized what he had done and panicked.  Quickly he hid the duck in the woodpile.  As he was covering up the evidence of his deed, he noticed his older sister watching. Sally had seen it all, but she said nothing – at the time.  After lunch the children were setting with the grandparents eating lunch. When lunch was over, Grandma said, “Sally, let’s do the dishes.” Sally, glanced at her brother and said, “Johnny told me he wanted to do the dishes tonight” as she mouthed the words to her brother: “Remember the duck.” So, Johnny did the dishes. Later, Grandpa asked if the kids would like to go fishing. They both responded with enthusiastic acceptance to the idea. But Grandmas said, “I need Sally to help me make supper.” Sally smiled and said, “That’s all taken care of, Grandma.  Johnny wants to help get supper ready tonight” as she mouthed the words to her brother: “remember the duck.” So, Sally went fishing and Johnny stayed to help get supper ready.  This process went on for several days. Sally did what she wanted and Johnny did the chores for both of them.  Finally Johnny was so miserable he went to his Grandma and confessed, everything.  Grandma said, “I know what you did.  I saw the whole thing from the kitchen window. I forgave you when you did it. I wondered how long you would let Sally make a slave of you before you confessed.”

Sin makes us its slave and steals our joy, until we allow God’s forgiveness to break it’s hold over our lives.  The only remedy for sin’s misery is God’s forgiveness.  

When this truth really takes hold of your life, you will experience “joy.”  Not a weeklong joy.  Not a monthlong joy.  But an eternity-long joy.  A joy that lasts.  A joy that maintains.  A joy that sustains.

Do you remember Charlie Brown’s words a few moments ago?  He was not “feeling the joy” of Christmas.  He was forlorn and depressed—as many are throughout the year and especially during Christmas time.  Charlie Brown was the brain-child of a very talented artist named, Charles Shultz.  Charles Shultz had every reason to be happy—not just at Christmas, but all year long.  At one point in the 80’s he was one of the top-ten highest paid entertainers in America.  He was bringing in a personal income of over a million dollars per week.  He built his own ice-hockey facility at his home just north of S.F.

Shultz was fabulously wealthy.  He is the most famous cartoonist to ever dip a pen in ink.  By worldly standards he should have been as joyful as he was wealthy.  Yet, we all know it doesn’t work like that--though most of us think we could make it work if we just had more money. How easily we are deceived or deceive ourselves.

Shultz was not wonderfully joyful, even though he was fabulously wealthy.  His official biographer pointed out the jagged truth that Shultz was a “tortured soul troubled by frequent bouts with depression.”  It seems Charles Shultz shared more with Charlie Brown than just the same first name.

Friends, as we celebrate Christmas we can be full of joy.  That was the promise to the shepherds, and is a promise to each of us:

For, behold, I [bring you good tidings] of great joy (Lk 2:10). 

Perhaps you have never really experienced this “great joy” that comes to those who live in the “favor of God through Jesus Christ.”  If you have never had this joy because you are still bound by the grip of your sin – you can get joy today.

Perhaps you are a believer but you long ago allowed sinful attitudes and sinful actions to annihilate the joy you once had.  If you are a Christian but have lost your joy—you can get it back today.

Joy cannot be found in any package under a tree, but joy is found in surrender to the One ON a tree.