Teaching podcast from the Eagle Community Church of Christ in Mont Belvieu, TX.
Hey, friends. This is John Guenther with the Eagles Community Church of Christ. Thanks so much for listening to our podcast. This week, you're listening to our 3rd week of, the season of Advent, and we're talking about the topic of joy. What does it mean to have, Biblical joy?
John:Is it just forcing joy into your life? Is it, just saying whatever's happening, I'm just gonna be happy. Christians should always be happy, or is it much more than that? Let me give you a hand, it is. So I hope, I hope you get something great out of this, lesson.
John:This series has been fantastic to me personally, and, if we can help with anything, let us know. We'd love to have you visit. Anytime you get the chance, come see us in person. Have a great week. There's nothing more awkward to a song leader than singing and nobody singing with him.
John:So y'all did wonderful this morning. I just wanted to share, as we began, something I shared with my small group this week. I don't know how each sermon hits you, but I have thought about the peace sermon all week. The idea, and we didn't have time to cover all the things in the definition of Biblical peace, but to think about peace not only as the absence of conflict, but also thinking about peace as, I want to help you, and you want to help me have peace, or have full and complete lives. There's something special about that.
John:And that's who we're supposed to be as the Church. Amen? I think too often we come and we think so selfishly, though we may not see it as selfish, it's just kind of what our culture tells us that we want things the way we want them, and we want them right now. Right? But to think about coming to a place with other people who you may or may not agree with, or may have different lifestyles than you, or different, ages than you, going through a different part of their lives than you, but to think about I'm not going just for me, but that we can all be complete and whole.
John:I just love that thought. Today we move on to the 3rd week, and you can see as I have mentioned, we talk about this idea of joy, and what biblical joy is.
John:Being in a good mood is really great, and most languages have lots of words to describe the experience like happy, cheerful, joyful, and so on. The same goes for the languages of the Bible. In ancient biblical Hebrew, there's a variety of words like, simcha, sason, or gyo. In the Greek new testament, there's kara, euphersone, or agiliasis. Each word has its own unique nuance, but they all basically refer to the feeling of joy and happiness.
John:Now, what makes these biblical joy words interesting is noticing the kinds of things that bring happiness and also seeing how joy is a key theme that runs through the whole story of the Bible. Let's start with sources of joy. On page 1 of the Bible, God says that this world is very good. And so naturally, people find joy in beautiful and good things of life, like growing flocks or in abundant harvest on the hills. The poet of Psalm a 104 says, a good bottle of wine is God's gift to bring joy to people's hearts.
John:People find joy at a wedding or in their children. There's even a Hebrew proverb that compares the joy that perfume brings to your nose with the joy a good friend brings to your heart. However, human history isn't just a joy fest. The biblical story shows how we live in a world that's been corrupted by our own selfishness. It's marked by death and loss and this is where biblical faith offers a unique perspective on joy.
John:It's an attitude god's people adopt not because of happy circumstances but because of their hope in god's love and promise. So, when Israelites were suffering from slavery in Egypt, god raised up Moses to lead them to freedom and the first thing the Israelites did was sing for joy. Even though they were in the middle of a desert, they were vulnerable. The promised land was still far away. They rejoiced anyway.
John:Later biblical poets looked back on this story and they remembered how the Lord caused his people to leave with joy. His chosen ones with shouts of joy. This joy in the wilderness, this was a defining moment. A way of saying that the joy of god's people is not determined by their struggles or by their future destiny. This theme appears later in Israel story when Israel suffered under the oppression of foreign empires.
John:The prophet Isaiah looked for a day when god would raise up a new deliverer like Moses. That's when those redeemed by the Lord will return to Zion with glad shouts, with eternal joy crowning their heads. Happiness and joy will overtake them. And while the Israelites waited, they chose joy to anticipate their future redemption. This is why it's significant that when Jesus of Nazareth was born, it was announced as good news that brings great joy.
John:We're told that Jesus himself rejoice and gave thanks to god his father, when he began to announce the kingdom of God. He even taught his followers the same joy in the wilderness saying, when people reject you or persecute you for following me, rejoice. Be very glad because your reward is great in heaven. After his death and resurrection, Jesus commissioned his followers to go out and announce the good news that he was the risen king of the world. And as they did so, the early Christian communities were known for being full of joy even when they were persecuted.
John:Like when the apostle Paul was sitting in a dirty Roman prison, he could say that he's chosen joy even if he gets executed. He called this the joy of faith or joy in the lord. He believed it was the gift of god's spirit, a sign that Jesus' presence is with you inspiring hope in the midst of hardship. And when you believe that Jesus' love has overcome death self, joy becomes reasonable in the darkest of circumstances. Now this doesn't mean that you ignore or suppress your sorrow.
John:That's not healthy or necessary. Paul often expressed his grief about missing loved ones or losing friends or his own freedom. He called it being full of sorrow and yet rejoicing. As he acknowledged his pain, he also made a choice to trust Jesus that his loss wouldn't be the final word. This is very different from the trite advice to turn that frown upside down.
John:Christian joy is a profound decision of faith and hope in the power of Jesus' own life and love, and that's what biblical joy is all about.
John:They do an excellent job with those. The only thing I wanna correct there is he said that joy for the Christian does not have to do with your circumstances. That cannot be right, can it? Because how much is our joy as Christians affected by our circumstances? Right?
John:Absolutely. We kind of get tossed to and fro, and wherever we find ourselves, we may or may not be full of joy. Count it all joy when you come into trials of various kinds, the Scriptures say, and we go, what? And so, I hope what you heard there was that joy in this sense is a lot like hope, as we talked about a couple of weeks ago. That hope is not just something where I try to be optimistic and see the best in things, but even when my circumstances I don't see any way out, I get to choose hope.
John:I get to choose to have hope in a God who has shown me He is faithful. Is God faithful, church? Y'all look like y'all don't know. Is God faithful, church? Yes, He is.
John:All you have to do is go to scripture. All you have to do is look in your life and see how God has brought you through all of those times. Good, bad, ugly, don't wanna talk about it. Right? And God is faithful, and so we choose to hope in Him, and that's exactly the what we do with joy.
John:Is that even when our circumstances aren't ideal, we can choose to have joy, not necessarily in the circumstances, but joy that comes from God. And I love what he said at the end because that's perfect, because what we don't want to do is walk around when someone is going through something difficult and say, You turn that frown upside down, sir. You're a Christian. Shouldn't you be happy all the time? Have you ever heard somebody say that?
John:That's when you go tell them, Go sit down, the rest of us will handle this. We're always worried about talking to someone in their hard times. What am I gonna say? A lot of times the answer is nothing. Just go sit with them.
John:Just send them a note and say, I am praying for you. I want you to know you are not alone in this. But the idea that we can choose joy in any circumstance is powerful. Because it releases you from being confined to those circumstances. We had a girl that we knew, she had interned.
John:I can't remember exactly what she had done, but she had helped one summer with our church in Texarkana, and she lost her mother to a college girl, college age girl. And I remember not long after that, probably within a year, I remember her saying, I don't want to be known as the girl who lost her mother. And it clicked for me, like, maybe I was treating her as the girl who lost her mother. But we are not defined by our circumstances, are we? We are defined, hopefully, by our relationship with Jesus Christ.
John:And so just as we have each week, we're going to go through quite a bit of scripture talking about joy or finding joy in what God is doing and who He is. From Isaiah 61 verses 12, the spirit of the sovereign Lord is on me because the Lord has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives, and release from darkness for the prisoners, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor in the day of vengeance of our God, to comfort all who mourn. Now, if that sounds familiar to you, it should. Because Jesus, right after being led into the the wilderness, into the desert, comes back into Nazareth, and it says that he picked up the scroll and it was somebody's turn to read.
John:It said he found the place in Isaiah where it said this. And Jesus in doing so, remember he read, and they all kind of marveled because he kind of, started this, maybe celebrity, like, people knew he was around. Right? But in that moment, he sat down, everybody is kinda looking, maybe talking, whispering, that's that's Jesus. And he stands up and he says, today, this has been fulfilled in your hearing.
John:That should be good news. That should bring great joy that god said this and he is faithful. And we know he's faithful, but I don't want Him to be working through you. Why isn't He working through me? What do you mean it's been fulfilled and they tried to kill Him?
John:They took what should be joy and the faithfulness of God and turned it into a negative. Down a few verses in verse 10, I delight greatly in the Lord. My soul rejoices in my God, for he has clothed me with garments of salvation and arrayed me in a robe of his righteousness, as a bridegroom adorns his head like a priest, and as a bride as a bride adorns herself with her jewels. You ever think about salvation like this? That I can delight greatly because of what God has done for me.
John:I think we need to think more about these kinds of things, that I am a saved person. If you're walking out here in fear, that is not a spirit from God. Right? Does not give you a spirit of timidity or of fear. But I can go and I can delight greatly in the Lord because this is how He sees me, that He will dress me, that He will make me clean and worthy.
John:For as the soil makes the sprout come up and the garden causes seeds to grow, so the Sovereign Lord will make righteousness and praise spring up before all nations. Does it feel like that's about to happen right now? So can we have joy in the fact that god will do it? That there will be a day where every knee will bow and praise springs up before all nations. I'd like to see that.
John:My little taste of heaven kind of back on what Francisco was saying, my little my little taste of heaven is singing. I love to get together and sing. It's awkward with 2 young boys, because as soon as I do that at home, Logan is usually plugged in his ears, And that works on the psyche, you know, should I be singing in public if my own son can't handle it at home? But my little slice of heaven is praise to God. Because we can as we walk around in our culture, we can be so inundated with negative things.
John:Yeah? Negative things dragging you down, wondering, oh my goodness, how are we gonna ever get through this? Why don't we dwell on the God who is faithful, who can cause praise to spring up before all nations? We praise him this morning for that. 1 Thessalonians 5, we're gonna read 16 through 24 here, Rejoice always, We say, okay, maybe.
John:Praying continually. Give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus. Do not quench the spirit. Do not treat prophecies with contempt, but test them all. Hold on to what is good.
John:Reject every kind of evil. May God himself, the God of peace, sanctify you through and through. May your whole spirit, soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. The one who calls you is what church? The one who calls you is what church?
John:Faithful. And he will do it. I love that. You you put the 23 and 24 together. May your whole spirit, soul, and body be kept blameless.
John:This idea that Jesus is coming back. The Lord is coming. We should anticipate that and as we read last week, what does that mean? How should you live? Be blameless.
John:Live a life for him at the coming of our Lord Jesus and the one who calls you is faithful and He will, if you didn't get that before, He will do it. Now, that's positive. I would like to hang on to that for today And not all the negative things that can drag us down and pull us away from God. He will do it. From John 1, verses 6 through 8, there was a man sent from God whose name was John.
John:He came as a witness to testify concerning that light, so that through him all might believe. He himself was not the light. He came only as a witness to the light. We've read week after week about John, because John is also a fulfillment of God's promise. Remember, as we read in Isaiah, this reed out in the wilderness who's preparing the way for the Messiah.
John:We know that's exactly what John the Baptist did, and so that is one of those things we can look look at and say, he is faithful. He said it, he said it would happen, and he did it. And what I love is, I don't know anybody want to be famous in here? Yeah, I do too, yeah. Or I have in the past, at least.
John:But certainly there's a lot of things that come with being famous, right? A lot of negativity. I would like to be famous, but I think it would probably go to my head. Ally is probably the most famous, she is in at least a movie, right? Sorry.
John:But do you think it would go to your head? Yeah, I think it could. Now, can you imagine John the Baptist, full of the Holy Spirit from inside his mother's womb, being told he was special from day 1? His parents told he was special. That might be the scariest thing of all, because we all think our kids are very special, right?
John:God told me mine was special. How about you? Can you imagine the bumper sticker they had on their car? But it might go to my head, but John, as we have read week after week, John was never confused about his role in the coming messiah. He was not they the people coming to him said, well, maybe this guy we know the story of Zechariah, Elizabeth.
John:Maybe this guy is that special guy, the Messiah, the sent one for us. And John never confuses anyone and he says, I'm not even worthy to untie his sandals. All I do is prepare a way for Him. And in my favorite Scripture that John says, at one point he says, I must decrease or step back, he must increase. John is saying, I know my place.
John:And maybe we ought to have that same attitude and that same desire to be that kind of person, That, Lord, I'm going to get out of the way, so that you can take over, because we try to fix it, don't we? That that circumstance that's going on right now, you're like, well, if I only work harder, if I do this, if I make that decision, or if I would have made those decisions. Oh, that's the worst. Right? But maybe what I need to do is get out of the way and let God take over.
John:That I have joy in Him because He is faithful. Not that I'm happy about where I am, not that I can take joy in loss or or joy in these terrible circumstances, but I can take joy in knowing that my heavenly father is faithful. Amen? Verses 19-twenty 8. Now, this was John's testimony, when the Jewish leaders in Jerusalem sent priests and Levites to ask him who he was.
John:Listen to this. He did not fail to confess. He didn't himhaw around. Y'all y'all know that word is not an Arkansas word. Himhaw.
John:Y'all got that? Okay. Good. We in Texas. He did not himhaw around.
John:He did not fail to confess, but confessed freely. I'm an open book. I am not the Messiah. They asked him then, who are you? Are you Elijah?
John:Has Elijah come back to us? We know the awesome things he did. Maybe you're Elijah. He said, I am not. He said, are you the prophet?
John:He said, no. Finally, they said, who are you? Give us an answer to take back to those who sent us. What do you say about yourself? John replied in the words of Isaiah, the prophet.
John:There's a reason he does that. Right? God is faithful. God told you. I am the voice of 1 calling in the wilderness.
John:Make straight the way for the Lord. Make it easy. Prepare the way. Use a bulldozer if necessary. Now the Pharisees, who had been sent, questioned him.
John:Why then do you baptize if you are not the Messiah nor Elijah nor the prophet? So they see this baptism without, well, he's gotta be one of those. Right? It's gotta be. Why do you baptize if you are not the Messiah nor Elijah nor the prophet?
John:John said, I baptized with water, but among you stands one you do not know. He is the one who comes after me, the straps of whose sandals I am not worthy to untie. You see John saying, it is not. Don't get it confused. It's not me.
John:This all happened at Bethany on the other side of the Jordan, where John was baptizing. Having joy knowing that they anticipated God doing something about their circumstances. And what they got was exactly that. They got a faithful God, who John the Baptist prepared the way for, sending his son to be on his mission. From Psalm 3, a psalm of David, when he fled from his son Absalom, Lord, how many are my foes?
John:How many rise up against me? Many are saying of me, God will not deliver him. Sounds like a great circumstance to be in. Right? He is surrounded.
John:It feels like. Everyone's, against him. God will not deliver him. But notice this attitude. But you, Lord, are a shield around me.
John:My glory, the one who lifts my head high. I call out to the Lord and He answers me from His holy mountain. I lie down and sleep. I wake again because the Lord sustains me. I am who I am because of you, God.
John:The only reason I can complain is because you're you're faithful to sustain me, God. I will not fear, though tens of thousands assail me on every side. Arise, lord. You hear this plea? Arise, lord.
John:Deliver me, my God. Strike all my enemies on the jaw. Break the teeth of the wicked. When we say, hold up. Turn the other cheek.
John:Break the teeth of the wicked. From the lord comes deliverance. May your blessing be on your people. In the midst of being surrounded on every side and it feels like everyone is against you, God is faithful. That God will handle it, and how God handles it is up to God, but God is faithful to handle it.
John:It. So my encouragement to you this morning is to choose joy. I know, I've been around here for two and a half years, and I know a of stories now. Some of you are going through one of those hard times right now, and you don't have to be happy about the struggle, but you can choose joy in the big picture. That God is faithful and he will bring you through it.
John:There will be a day when you look back and say, oh, that's how you wanted to do it. Might not have been the way I would have chose it. It might not have been near as fast as I wanted, but God is faithful. We're going to have a song of invitation. We'd love to pray with you.
John:Nikki, since I'm leaving, I'm going to ask you to come up here in case somebody needs to pray, if that's okay. Sorry. Susan had to wake him up. No. Mickey's gonna be up here if you need to pray with somebody.
John:Since I'm leaving singing, we'll we'll have him we'll have him grab you and and so if you'd like to begin that walk with Jesus today, what a what a great day to start that. And if your life has gotten off track, you've given in to all the negativity. Choose joy this morning. Could you stand as we sing?