Joy

It's one of the topics that I enjoy speaking about the most. I've talked about it quite frequently over the last many years. Two topics, in fact, that I think many people like are the topics of joy and happiness.

If you are an American seeking the American dream, then there is a sense in which part of that dream has to do with the pursuit of happiness. It's actually codified in one of our founding documents: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights. Among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." Many people from all over the world come to this place as immigrants to pursue happiness and to find joy in some possible way.

The 17th-century French philosopher and mathematician Blaise Pascal wrote, "All men seek happiness; this is without exception." He says that whatever different means they employ, they all tend to this end. The cause of some going to war and others avoiding it is the same desire in both, attended with different views. All men seek happiness; that was his conclusion. Some may argue that point, whether or not it is actually valid or true, but I think that in most of our lives, we see it to be the case. I've yet to meet someone who does not desire to be happy or who isn't hoping to find joy.

I believe that God created us this way. I believe He hardwired us to desire, to long for, and to look for happiness and joy. In his book, Mere Christianity, C.S. Lewis wrote, "Creatures are not born with desires unless satisfaction for those desires exists." We are not born with desires unless satisfaction for those desires exists. God has hardwired you and me, all of us, all of the 7.4 billion people that populate this world. He has hardwired us to seek for and to look for joy. I believe that He did so knowing that if you pursue happiness and if you pursue joy, the odds are in His favor that you will ultimately turn to Him, because He is the source and the author of all true joy.

Joy and true happiness, unfortunately, in the pursuit, some people get hung up on other things that they think will bring them happiness and joy, but those things don't ultimately satisfy that desire. He alone satisfies the longing and the yearning of our hearts for joy and for happiness. This time of year, as we celebrate Christmas, points to that reality better than any other season or holiday.

When you distill it down, we are celebrating the advent of joy, the coming of joy to this world. We even sing that in a song: "Joy to the World." If you would open your Bibles to the Gospel of Luke, it's in the New Testament, right near the beginning, just after Matthew and Mark, and just before the Gospel of John.

Let's look at Luke chapter 2, a passage that is connected with this time of year. In fact, last night my family got together with my wife's family. Very few of my wife's family members—Aunts, uncles, cousins—are believers, and very few of them read the Bible. Yet every year, the Saturday before Christmas, they gather together as a family. There are 40 or 50 of us gathered together last night, and they read through the biblical account of the Christmas story. This passage is one of those passages.

Would you stand with me? Luke chapter 2, verse 8: "Now there were in the same country shepherds living out in the fields, keeping watch over their flocks by night. And behold, an angel of the Lord stood before them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were greatly afraid. Then the angel said to them, 'Do not be afraid; I bring to you good tidings of great joy, which will be to all people. For there is born to you this day in the City of David a Savior who is Christ the Lord. And this shall be a sign to you: you will find a babe wrapped in swaddling cloths, lying in a manger.'"

Father, as we consider together this proclamation of great joy for all people, as we think on these things today and as we celebrate this week, Lord, I pray that you would increase our joy.

A eunuch can increase the experience of joy that we have in You, and we would be able to express that in our lives. We would extend it to others who do not yet know the joy that is found in You. So, God, minister to our hearts as we have worshipped You in spirit and in truth. Now speak to us, we pray, by Your Spirit and through Your Word. We ask this in Jesus' name, and all those who had agreed said, "Amen." You can be seated.

The Bible begins with the account of creation, the account of the beginnings. That's why the first book of the Bible is called Genesis, the book of origins. In the book of origins, we see that in the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep. The Spirit of God hovered above it, and God said, "Let there be light." From that utterance of those words, and through the next six days of creation that are accounted for us in Genesis chapter 1, and again in Genesis chapter 2, God creates everything seen and everything unseen.

There are different ways that followers of the Bible, believers in the Bible, interpret these things, but all of us would agree— all Christians would agree— that in the beginning, God created. At the end of each of those days of creation, as He beheld the things that He had made, He said, "It is good."

When we come to the sixth day of creation, He creates man in His image. As He creates man in His image, God knew that there was a problem; there was something missing. So, God caused all the animals that He had made to pass before this one man, Adam. Adam was given the task of naming these animals, and as they went before him, he was able to identify and see that there was a part and there was a counterpart, there was male and there was female, but there was not found a helper for him comparable to him.

God knew that this was the case, but He revealed to Adam that there was a need, that there was something missing. The Bible describes in Genesis chapter 2 that God caused a deep sleep to come upon Adam. As he slept, it says that God took from his side— many English translations say "rib," but that may not be the best translation. He took from his side, and from one, God created two for the purpose of making them one again, to join them as...

Companions as one in relationship, what we find in the opening two chapters of the Bible is that God, the gift-giving God, lived in fellowship, communion, and connection with humanity. He was able to walk with man in the cool of the day in the garden. There was a companionship that man had with God, and because of who God is in His nature, there was a joy that was expressed and experienced.

How do we know this? Well, in the Old Testament book of Psalms, Psalm 16:11 says, "In Your presence, God, is fullness of joy." Adam had the opportunity to experience the fullness of joy of being in the presence of God, unhindered by sin and any corruption. There was a connection with God, but not only that; there was the relational connection that God had created for man and his wife. There was a joy that was experienced there.

King Solomon, one of the wisest men who ever lived, speaks about that joy in Proverbs 5:18, where he says that we are to rejoice with the wife of our youth. Again, in Ecclesiastes 9, he says to live joyfully with the wife whom you love. This was the experience of the first human couple; they had joy in the presence of God and joy in companionship with one another—an awesome fullness of joy.

Point number one on your outline, your sermon guide, is there in your bulletin: In the beginning, there was joy. That's what we find in Genesis chapters one and two. In the beginning, there was joy. However, if you've ever read beyond Genesis 2, you know that this joy was short-lived. We don't know how long it was experienced by that first couple, but we know that it was devastated in Genesis chapter 3.

We won't have time today to go through every verse of Genesis chapter 3 to see what takes place there, but to summarize, there is the entrance into the joyful world and the joyful experience that Adam and Eve had with one another and with God. There is the entrance of sin and ultimately death. In that passage in Genesis chapter 3, we see a number of things that come in as a result.

The result of the entrance of sin is profound. In verse 10, fear enters in; in verse 13, deception is introduced. In verses 14 and 17, a curse is mentioned. In verse 15, there is enmity, a separation between man and God, and between human beings as well. The companionship is broken, and as a result, in verses 15 and 16, there is pain and sorrow. In verse 17, there is toil; in verse 18, there are thorns; in verse 19, there is sweat and death. In verse 21, there is sacrifice, and in verse 22, there is evil. Finally, in verses 23 and 24, there is exile; man is banished from the presence of God.

We saw in Psalm 16:11 that in His presence is fullness of joy, and that fullness of joy was gone as a result of sin. In the New Testament, the Apostle Paul says in Romans 5:12, "Therefore, just as through one man sin entered the world, and death through sin, and death spread to all humanity because all sinned." This is the experience that we have been born into—an experience that is under sin, death, enmity, fear, deception, and a curse as a result.

Point number two on your outline is the human experience post-fall. After the fall, the human experience is characterized by misery. We see it constantly around us every single day. In fact, in our day and age, we are bombarded with it because we receive updates constantly about all the miserable things that happen around the world at a moment's notice. We no longer live under what is called a 24-hour news cycle; we have an every-second news cycle. News changes every second, and we are aware of it constantly, whether it comes over our smartphones, the radio, email, or TV.

There are ways in which we can cut the cord, if you will, for a little bit of time. We might be able to separate ourselves temporarily from the misery that is going on in the world. Let me tell you, in the year 2015, we have seen a lot of it. We have witnessed terrible things happening in the Middle East, horrific events throughout different places in Africa, and the refugee crisis in Syria due to the civil war. We have seen terrorist attacks in Paris, and much closer to home, we are affected by the ongoing turmoil.

North of us in San Bernardino, we see all these things, and maybe for a moment, temporarily, we can separate from it and not be bombarded with the misery. But then it hits close to home. There's not a day that goes by where someone in our church is not experiencing some heavy sort of trial: the loss of a loved one, the loss of their own health, the loss of a job, or the loss of whatever it may be. All of these things are the result of the curse and the fall into sin.

The human experience is characterized by misery, but I'm here to tell you that's not the way that God designed it or intended it. Not that He did not know in His foreknowledge and in His sovereignty that this would be the result. When God created us, He didn't create us as robots; He created us to have the ability to choose. In giving us the ability to choose Him, He also gave us the ability to choose not Him. Even the greatest of us, the very first that were created, chose to walk in a different way, and as a result, sin entered, bringing misery. But this was not as God intended, nor is it what God desires.

God purposed another plan. He purposed a way to restore and to bring us back into the experience of fullness of joy, to bring us back into the presence of Him who is the very fullness of joy. He designed and planned a reconciliation plan to bring us back into connection with Him, where we experience joy in connection with one another and where we can express joy.

That's why, as we start a new year, we will talk about our vision here at Cross Connection, which is life in connection with God, one another, and the world through Jesus. It is through Jesus that we reconnect with God and the joy that can be experienced there. We are also reconnected with one another in the body of Christ, where joy can be experienced and expressed. Then, we have a purpose to carry that joy to other people in the world.

So, even though there was a fall thousands of years ago, described in Genesis chapter 3, God designed a plan to bring back joy. The gift-giving God, like probably many gift-givers here, can't help but feel excitement as He prepares to give this gift.

Give hints along the way about the gift. Maybe you're one of those gift givers. I have one of those in my life—my wife. I love my wife; she loves to give gifts. If your house is anything like where we're living right now, we're kind of in between homes, so we're living with my very gracious parents who have allowed us, with our four kids, to invade their home. In their house, my mom doesn't have just one Christmas tree; she has a forest of Christmas trees. Under those Christmas trees are presents. My son Ethan, our oldest, has been having a blast trying to find all of his presents.

In giving presents, my wife wraps these things, and we know that there's a day set aside when they will be opened and the mystery of the presents will be revealed. However, she can't contain the excitement, so she gives hints. Do you have any gift givers like that in your life? Maybe you're one of those.

God is like that. He had planned and purposed this great gift to bring joy to a joyless world. He knew exactly when that gift was going to be revealed. In His purpose and plan, He had a time set aside for that purpose and plan to be revealed, for that gift to be opened. But until that time, from the time of the fall until the opening of that gift, He was giving hints through individuals we call prophets in the Old Testament. He speaks about that gift that is going to come, revealing that it will bring great joy.

One of the classic passages that speaks about this is in Isaiah chapter 9. If you've received any Christmas cards this year, probably some of those had this passage in Isaiah chapter 9, verses 6 and 7. It says, "Behold, unto us a child is born, a son is given, and the government shall be upon His shoulders. He shall be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, the Everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace."

That verse in Isaiah chapter 9, verse 6, talks about the coming of the gift, the coming of the Messiah. Just before that, in the previous five verses, Isaiah 9, verses 1 through 5, the prophet Isaiah describes this gift in terms of joy. He says that this one, this gift, is going to bring joy—it's the joy you experience when you bring in the harvest. Although we, living in the 21st century here in Southern California, don't normally bring in harvests, you may have gotten a Christmas bonus, so it's like the joy that you get when you receive a...

Christmas bonus or receiving your check brings joy, but the joy that you experience is deeper. Isaiah speaks of this in Isaiah 9, verses 1 through 5, where he describes the joy of victory in battle. It is the kind of joy that comes when you win a battle and bring in the spoils. He talks about this great joy as light coming into a dark place.

Isaiah also emphasizes that joy is personal. He states, "For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given." Later in Isaiah's prophecies, specifically in Isaiah 61, verses 1 through 3, he again speaks about the one who would come to bring joy—the Messiah. In Isaiah 61:3, it is said that He will come to console those who mourn, to comfort those who are sorrowful, and to give the oil of joy for mourning. This Messiah is destined to bring joy.

Throughout the Old Testament, the prophets provide insight into who this individual is and what He represents. The prophets of old foresaw the advent of joy; they could see it coming in the distance. Inspired by God, they wrote and spoke about the coming of this one who would bring joy.

These prophets tell us in Genesis 3:15 that when He comes, He will destroy the curse of sin and the one who brought it—Satan. Later, in Genesis 12:1-3, they reveal that this Messiah, who would destroy the curse and Satan, would come from a family—the family of Abraham. In Genesis 17, it is specified that He would come through the son of Abraham, Isaac.

Further, Genesis 25 tells us that not only would He come through Isaac, but also through Isaac's son, Jacob. Then, in Genesis 49, it is clarified that He would come through Jacob's son, Judah. Later, in 2 Samuel, another prophecy is given, stating that He would not only come from Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Judah, but also as the son of King David, thus being in the royal line of King David.

As you go a little bit further, you come to Isaiah chapter 7, where you find that this one who would be born from Abraham, through Isaac, through Jacob, through Judah, and through King David, would come by miraculous means. He would be born of a virgin. Later on, in Micah chapter 5, verse 2, we are given more information about this one who would bring joy. He would come from Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Judah, and King David, and he would be born in the City of David, in the city of Bethlehem.

All of these prophecies point to this one who would come because the prophets foresaw the advent of joy. Ultimately, it would come about as we read just a few minutes ago in Luke chapter 2, verses 8 through 12.

Now there were in the same country shepherds living out in the fields, keeping watch over their flock by night. Behold, the angel of the Lord stood before them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were greatly afraid. The angel said to them, "Do not be afraid, for behold, I bring you good news. I bring you good tidings of great joy, which will be for all people. For unto you there is born this day in the City of David a Savior who is Christ the Lord. This will be a sign to you: you will find a baby wrapped in swaddling cloths, lying in a manger."

Jesus was born there in Bethlehem. The Gospel accounts tell us, in the Gospel of Matthew and the Gospel of Luke, that he came from Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Judah, through King David, born of a virgin, betrothed to a man named Joseph, who was of the lineage of David. During that period of time, it just so happened that the Roman governor declared that there needed to be a census, so all of these individuals had to go back to their hometowns.

Joseph, with his betrothed pregnant wife who had never known a man, took her with him to Bethlehem. Lo and behold, while they were there in Bethlehem, she gave birth to this little child, the one whom angels proclaimed. Joy has come to the world for all people, not just for one small segment of people in one small place at one period of time, but for all people in every age. Joy has come, the one who ushered in joy and opened the way into joy. Later on in his ministry, Jesus...

Jesus went about Galilee, traveling around Jerusalem and the region of the Gentiles on the eastern side of the Sea of Galilee. He preached the gospel, and people began to follow him. Just days before he would be betrayed, killed, and crucified, he spoke with some of his followers. In John chapter 15, verse 11, he said, "These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may remain in you and that your joy may be full."

In a world characterized by misery and joylessness, Jesus says to his followers that he has spoken the gospel so that his joy would be in them and their joy would be full. The very night that Jesus would be betrayed by one of his disciples, Judas Iscariot, he was praying to God the Father in heaven. He prayed in John chapter 17, verse 13, "Behold, now I come to You, Father, and these things I speak in the world." What things? The gospel. He continued, "These things I speak in the world that they may have my joy fulfilled in themselves."

That was the purpose of the preaching of the gospel: to bring good news and great joy for all peoples. Jesus said he had spoken this good news in the world so that they would have his joy fulfilled in them.

Point number four on your outline is that the Christian experience should be characterized by joy. If anything, the Christian experience should be characterized by joy. It is one of the fruits of the Spirit. The evidence that God dwells in us is joy. The world should be able to see the life and expression of joy in the Christian, the follower of Jesus.

People are seeking happiness in all manners, and we live in a nation that is given to the pursuit of happiness. In this nation, those who are seeking it should see joy in the followers of Jesus. Why? Because in his presence is fullness of joy, and he spoke the gospel to us so that his joy would be full in us. Therefore, our lives should manifest this joy.

Joy to the world! It ought to be that these things dominate our lives: joy and happiness.

Point number five on your outline is the church. The church, which is the gathering together of followers of Jesus, is to experience, express, and extend joy. We are to be the instrument through which joy to the world is extended to all people. Jesus came 2,000 years ago, preaching the gospel of great joy—the good news of great joy for all people. If you are a follower of Jesus today, that means you have received the gospel, the good news of great joy for all people. Therefore, we are to experience that in our own lives, express it within the body of Christ, the church, and extend it to people who are outside these walls.

This includes people in your family, people that you work with who don't know Jesus, and people in your community—your neighborhood, those you play basketball with, or those on your kids' soccer teams. Whoever it is that you come in contact with, our lives are to be the expression and extension of joy.

It is unfortunate that Christians are often characterized more by fear in our day than by any other thing. When you look at Christians in the West today, the number one characteristic is that they are afraid of the world. But we have nothing to be afraid of, for Christ is in us. What the world should see when they see us is joy, yet what they generally see is fear, rebuke, and anger. God wants to manifest joy in our lives so that we would be the expression of it.

That is what we want to do here at this church: experience, express, and extend joy to a world that is in such desperate need of it. I have shared this quote before, but I love it. Charles Spurgeon said, "When you speak of heaven, let your face light up and be irradiated with heavenly gleam. Let your eyes shine with reflected glory. And when you speak of hell, well then, your everyday face will do." Our lives should be irradiated with heavenly joy.

Eyes reflecting the glory of our risen Lord extend His glory, meaning to cause it to cover a large area and to make it longer and wider from this central point. May it be that our lives, individually and in this church corporately, would be a place from which joy extends to our community, and then people would see it. That is what this holiday is about: the Advent, the coming of the very embodiment of joy, Jesus. His coming is what we celebrate.

Was He born on December twenty-fifth two thousand years ago? We don't really know. What are the odds that He was born on that day? Well, one in 365, actually. But does it matter that He was born on that day or not? No, what matters is that He came. He came to bring good news of great joy for all people: for white people, black people, red people, and every other colored people; for male people and female people; for Muslim people, Chinese people, Mexican people, American people, and all people. Nobody is outside the extension of the grasp of His grace and His joy.

Therefore, we cannot harden our hearts towards any of these people. We must be open to share His joy with all. How is it that Jesus is able to be the extension of joy for all people? I think one of the answers to that is found in the Old Testament book of Isaiah, specifically in Isaiah chapter 53. I'd love for you to turn there with me. Isaiah chapter 53 is right about the middle of your Bible. If you find the Psalms and turn to the right, ultimately you'll get to a big book called Isaiah.

If you've ever read Isaiah 53, you know that it is a poetic prophecy about the suffering of Jesus on the cross. It was written 700 years before Jesus came to die on the cross; that's why it's called a prophecy. In this passage, we see that Jesus suffered and died for our griefs and sorrows because of sin through one man.

Sin entered the world, and death through sin, and death spread to all humanity. We've already seen in Genesis chapter 3 how fear, deceit, sin, suffering, pain, and sorrow all came through the fall.

In Isaiah 53, we read about the suffering servant. Look at verse 1: Isaiah writes, "Who has believed our report, and to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?" For He shall grow up before Him, God in heaven, as a tender plant, as a root out of dry ground. He has no form nor comeliness, and when we see Him, there is no beauty that we should desire Him. He is despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows acquainted with grief. We hid, as it were, our faces from Him; He was despised, and we did not esteem Him.

Look at this verse: "Surely He has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed Him stricken, smitten by God and afflicted." But He was wounded for our transgressions; He was bruised for our iniquities. The chastisement, the punishment for our peace, was upon Him, and by His stripes we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way, and the Lord in heaven, God the Father, has laid on Him, Jesus the Son, the iniquity of us all.

He was oppressed and afflicted, yet He opened not His mouth. He was led as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before its shearers is silent, He opened not His mouth. He was taken from prison and from judgment, and who will declare His generation? He was cut off from the land of the living for the transgressions of my people; He was stricken. They made His grave with the wicked, but with the rich in His death, because He had done no violence, nor was any deceit in His mouth.

Yet it pleased the Lord, the Father, to bruise Him; He has put Him to grief. Why? When you make His soul an offering for sin, He shall see a seed; He shall prolong His days, and the pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in His hand.

Jesus is able to be the one who brings joy to the world and gives us access to the fullness of joy through the gospel because He has taken our grief, our iniquity, and all of our sin upon Himself on the cross.

Years ago, He came to do this for us so that He could give us the oil of joy for mourning, allowing us to experience His fullness of joy. He has borne our griefs.

We are going to finish our time together this morning by partaking of communion, the bread and the cup. We will do this again as we start off our year in just a couple of weeks, but it seemed appropriate to do it today as well. We remember the One who came for the purpose of bearing our grief, our sorrow, our iniquity, and our sin. He bore it upon Himself in His body, which was broken for us. His blood was shed for us so that our sin could be removed and that we could experience fullness of joy forever in His presence.

As the ushers come forward, our worship team is going to come out. We will worship the Lord as we distribute the bread and the cup together. Just grab them, and we will partake together in just a moment.

But as we do, let's pray. Father, we thank You that though we have fallen short and failed You by our sin, we have also experienced the misery, suffering, and sorrow of this world through our sin. Jesus, You came down into this darkness to bring light and joy for all who would put their trust and faith in You.

Jesus, we thank You that You willingly laid down Your life. You gave Your body to be broken, You gave Your back to be whipped, and You laid out Your hands to be nailed to a cross. There, You died for our sin. Your blood was shed so that we could experience joy through forgiveness and through Your righteousness.

I pray, God, that we would experience it, that we would express it, and that we would extend it to others. As we now prepare our hearts to remember Your death, burial, and resurrection through the partaking of the bread and the cup, I pray that You would minister to us, Lord. Help us to remember the goodness of Your grace. In Jesus' name, amen.