Good News of Great Joy

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Good morning, church.

After that introduction, I feel like there should have been a "Womp, womp, womp."

It's good to see you all here this morning, and I'm really excited because I am actually starting with the right sermon.

Last Sunday at the church I preach at in North Oklahoma City, I opened the wrong sermon and started preaching.

About halfway through the introduction I thought, "Nope, that's not right."

So I'm not going to do that to you unless I just feel like you're not getting it, then I will.

I'm not above repeating a sermon.

We are continuing our series on the fruit of the Holy Spirit within us.

We all know the story.

Shepherds keeping watch over their flocks by night.

Suddenly an angel appears to them and fear grips and overwhelms them.

Surely speaks these words, "Do not be afraid, for behold I bring you good news of great joy, which will be for all the people for today in the city of David there has been born for you a Savior who is Messiah, Christ the Lord."

I honestly think that this is one of the coolest moments recorded in all of the text of Scripture.

Just the sheer shock of encountering an angel in any way seems to me to be probably a life-changing transformational moment.

When you come in contact with one of the messengers of the Lord, but then to be surrounded by a whole host of the heavenly angels declaring, "Glory to God in the highest and on earth, peace among men with whom he is pleased."

Now I don't know about you, but every once in a while you will hear somebody say something and say these words, "This changes everything."

A lot of preachers want to believe that every one of their sermons is one of those moments.

Don't tell us it's not true, okay?

Leave us in our delusion.

But in truth there are very few if any times when everything actually changes.

But in that moment, that moment when those angels are announcing good news of great joy, something is actually going to change and the phrase is spot on.

Everything for humanity was truly about to change.

Israel's existence and reality are about to change.

The nation's existence and reality are about to change.

Why?

The prophet Micah tells us in chapter four verse eight, he says, "But to you tower of the flock," describing some hills outside of Bethlehem, "to you it will come, even the former dominion will come."

Did you hear what Micah prophesied?

Something was coming to that place, to the very place those angels appeared to those shepherds that was going to reestablish something that had been lost.

The prophet declares that the former dominion will come, meaning a dominion, a kingdom that used to exist but had been lost will come and be announced in that very place.

And that is exactly what is happening when the host of heaven gather around those angels declaring good news of great joy.

Why does this change everything?

Because when the former dominion was lost in Eden, everything changed.

Existence changed.

The way you do life changed.

The duration of life changed.

Because when the former dominion was lost, everything about Eden, that intimate, personal relationship with God was also lost.

But all of that was about to change with the birth of our Messiah King.

Before I pray, I want to ask you a question.

Have you let that good news of great joy change you?

Has that message of joy changed the trajectory, the existence, the reality, not just of how you live, but your very existence?

As we go to prayer, may I ask you to search your heart and answer that simple question.

Has the good news of great joy changed me?

We pray with me.

Abba Father, we greet you on this Sabbath morning so thankful to be here in this place, so thankful for our host congregation, the Westmore Community Church, for allowing us to use their facility to be in this place and to lift up your name and celebrate Jesus.

Father, my prayer is today that that good news of great joy would become more than a phrase, more than a lyric, more than a line.

It would become the truth of our existence, of our being, of our relationship with you.

Lord, for every heart that is struggling to answer that question, will you speak your word in your way by your Spirit through this message today?

To the glory of Jesus I pray, amen.

Now you may be thinking, how in the world was that an introduction to a sermon on the fruit of the Spirit, joy?

Well very simply, when the dominion and presence of God were lost, when the dominion and presence were lost, our existence on this earth changed.

When Eden was lost, it took some joy with it.

And it is so pronounced that that absence and that loss exist within the heart, mind, and even the DNA of every human being that was born after them.

There is this intrinsic, inherent understanding that something is missing, amen?

I mean, I just watched a video the other day of a young man who was a famous Disney star and how he has recently come to the Lord and just listening to him talk about how he thought he had life, how he thought he had all these things, and the transformational impact coming to Jesus had made in his life.

Joy was lost because relationship, presence, and nearness to our Creator was lost.

And that changed our existence.

Now there are several words that I'm gonna keep stressing and repeating over and over and over again today, and I'm going to do it because quite honestly, growing up, whenever we came to a sermon on joy, I mean this is terrible to admit, but I don't ever remember hearing a sermon on joy that I understood.

Because there's always this attempt, legitimately, to help us understand the difference between happiness and joy.

And maybe there were some great presentations in my childhood that I was just too thick in the noggin to get, but what I'm hoping today is to show you exactly what joy actually is and what a powerful impact it can have in our lives.

When we come to Galatians chapter 5, Paul describes the fruit of the Holy Spirit's presence in our life, but it is in contrast and juxtaposition to a life lived according to the selfish desires of our flesh.

That same selfish flesh desires the same selfish desires that were responsible for changing our existence, for changing our being, for changing our trajectory in this world in Eden.

The things that Paul lists as the manifestations of a flesh, selfish-driven life are the very things that started in that fateful choice of eating a piece of fruit for which they had been forbidden.

I want you to put yourself in Adam and Eve's place for just a moment, and consider what that moment was like when everything new as their existence changed.

In a flash, in a twinkling of an eye, with the speed of a crunch, their being changed.

Life changed.

Something came into their flesh that was alien to that flesh, death, with the speed of one bite.

Many of us, all of us have been sick to our stomachs at some point in time over a tragic piece of information that comes our way, or the realization of a stupid decision that we've made that's coming back to haunt us, a bad investment, an ill-spoken word, whatever it is, we've all had that moment where our stomach just kind of does that little loop-de-loop and we're like, "Oh, am I right?"

I don't think any of us have ever had the moment that Adam and Eve had that day.

Can you just try for a moment to understand the impact of that moment when that piece of fruit stole their joy because it changed their existence?

Why do I focus so much on the pain of loss?

Because that's really what they were experiencing.

I mean, I can't even imagine what that pain of loss felt like when God had to tell them this beautiful orchard called Eden that I've placed you in.

I must now remove you from this orchard.

I must now put you out of this paradise.

I can't even imagine what that pain of loss felt like.

But it's important for us to try to understand because the only way to truly connect you and I to what joy actually is, is to get us to consider its opposite.

And there is no better emotional opposite than the reality moment when everything changes and everything you have known about life and relationship with God feels lost.

The pain of loss is a specific type of sorrow.

You know, we have sorrow over many things in our lives, but we don't have the same level of sorrow over everything.

There is a moment when I grieve, when OSU beats OU, few and far between as it may be.

Y'all are so nice today.

I thought I'd get a lot more grumbling in the crowd from that one.

There's a moment of sorrow when maybe you miss an opportunity in a job.

There's a moment of sorrow when someone you love is moving away.

But there is a moment, a specific type of sorrow, the pain of loss.

And it's more than just disappointment and it's more than discouragement.

It's an emotion of devastation over what has been lost because you know it cannot be retrieved.

We will see them again.

All is not lost.

There are roads that go to Florida.

And they have told me they're going to have a spare bedroom for all of us.

My friends, what I'm submitting to you today is that in that moment, humanity not only inherited an appetite for sin in our flesh, it inherited an overwhelming sense of loss and with all the things that were lost, none of them was as important as joy.

And I'm not talking about a fleeting emotion because this is how we're going to understand just how significant joy really is.

How does it relate to Eden?

Eden was our state of being.

It was the framework, the model, the place of our existence.

Why do I say that?

Because while joy is an emotion of intense happiness, it's different from other emotions because it's not so much dependent on circumstance as it is a state of being.

And that's what differentiates it from happiness.

I can be momentarily happy when my team wins.

I can be momentarily happy about the weather in Oklahoma, but give it 15 minutes and my happiness is likely going to change.

But joy is not a fleeting emotion.

It is a state of being.

It is a state of existence in which I live.

That's the difference.

I didn't understand that when I was a kid no matter how hard they tried to explain it to me.

Growing up trying to understand the difference between happiness and joy isn't easy because joy does come forth as an emotion of happiness, but it doesn't just go away when happiness does.

Because joy is my state of being, and that's when we realize joy is such a treasure to be rediscovered.

The angels didn't say we bring you good news that will make you happy.

The angels said we bring you good news of great joy.

Joy that comes not only, not only it comes when that which is lost is restored and a state of being changes.

Joy comes when that which is lost is recovered.

That's a very specific emotion, isn't it?

Ever lost your keys?

There's something about, there's a specific emotion, there's a specific state of mind that happens in us when something that is lost is retrieved, especially if that something is something we never thought we'd see again.

That's joy.

That's that state of being that we thought after we left Eden we would never have.

It is the very thing that will take a person's life.

They will go through life, they're happy, they've got all the wealth, they've got all the fame, they've got everything they need and suddenly in the midst of even all of their happiness they find that there's something missing and they know it intrinsically, they know it inherently, something is missing.

What is it?

Joy.

A joy that can only be restored when my state of being is corrected.

Paul describes the fruit that we are now able to partake of because of the presence of the Holy Spirit in the life of a believer.

The fruit is only available to me because of Christ's death on the tree, a death that changed my state of being.

Stay with me.

Walk this journey with me, I plead with you.

What was my state of being?

Well the apostle Paul described it in Ephesians chapter two verse one.

He says, "But you were dead in your trespasses and sins in which you formerly walked according to the course of this world."

My state of being outside of Jesus, even though I may feel like I'm alive, if I'm outside of Christ, I am dead in my trespasses and sins, that's my reality.

And even the happy sinner knows something's missing.

And they intrinsically search for it, even when they don't know what it is they're searching for.

My state of being was walking and going through life according to the power of evil because it had dominion over me.

It became my reality.

Ephesians chapter two verse four, "But God being rich in mercy because of His great love with which He has loved us, even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ.

By grace you have been saved and He raised us up with Him and seated us in the heavenlies in Christ Jesus."

My friends, joy is alive within us, not as a momentary reaction to a pleasant circumstance, but as an anchor to the new reality.

Joy is my state of being because Jesus changed my state of being.

Are you with me?

And that's not a momentary emotion.

That's what differentiates joy from happiness.

Jesus changed my existence, literally, from death to life.

And something that big needed a response, needed an emotion, needed a reality, needed a definition that would be equal to what has just happened.

And my friends, that is joy.

And it doesn't get any bigger than joy.

It's greater than happiness because happiness is for a moment.

But once my existence is changed in Christ, my joy is for eternity.

I'm sure they tried to explain this to me when I was a kid, but I didn't get it.

My joy is found in Him because that is where my life is hidden with Christ.

We're gonna start focusing really on why being in Christ is so important.

You see, my joy is secure in Him because in Him is my new state of being.

In Him is my life and my existence.

Last fall, Tanya and I had the privilege of standing on the Areopagus, Mars Hill in Greece, and getting to teach and preach where Paul stood so many generations ago.

And on that mountain there, he talked to the philosophers, and philosophy is really just the seeking of an answer for all of life's mysteries and questions and existence.

Listen to what Paul said to these people who were looking for the meaning and purpose of life.

He begins to describe God.

He said, "He made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined their appointed times and the boundaries of their habitation, that they would seek God if perhaps they might grope for Him and find Him, though He is not far from each of us.

For in Him we live and move and exist.

We live and we move and we have our state of being.

My state of being is in Christ, because that's where it was changed.

In Him, I moved from death to life.

In Him, my happiness went from temporary to eternal."

In Him.

We, Paul says it so powerfully, "In Him we live and move and literally exist."

And again, I go back to this.

If you go and you search definitions of joy, you will eventually come across definitions that help you understand joy is a state of being.

And all of humanity is searching for a better state of being.

We're all searching for joy because that's what we lost in the speed of a bite in Eden.

For those who are in Christ, He is your state of being and your existence.

All of this was planned by God from the beginning.

Do you remember when Moses, well, I mean, you remember from the story, I know you weren't there.

I know some of you think I was, but I wasn't.

When Moses was at the burning bush and he asked the Lord to tell him who he was so Moses could go back and tell the sons of Israel who were living in bondage and slavery in Egypt, he said, "Lord, who do I say sent me?"

And God said to Moses, "I am that I am."

Some modern translations say, "I am who I am."

I don't like that.

I like the original, "I am that I am."

And he said, "Thus you shall say to the sons of Israel, 'I am has sent you.'"

God's answer to Moses is, "You go tell him I exist.

That's who sent you."

What a name.

In Exodus chapter six, that sacred name, "Iya Asher Iya" becomes the basis of the sacred name "Yahweh" who was and is and is to come.

The God who has existed, does exist, and will always exist.

And somehow I want you to think about this.

This reality of his existence is the hope of their changing, are you with me?

Their state of being.

When God wants to help them know, well how, when they're like, "Well how are we ever going to get out of Egypt?

How are we ever going to get out of bondage?

How are we ever going to make this transition?

Who are we going to turn to?"

You're going to turn to the one whose name means, "I exist."

There's nothing before me, there's nothing after me, so what's a Pharaoh?

What's an army?

I will be here millennium upon millennium after they are dust.

Because I exist.

God's encouragement to people in that terrible state of being as slaves is to tell them the essence of his own existence.

And if I want existence, and if I want a new state of being, I am only going to be able to find it in the one who is, "I exist."

Where else are you going to find existence?

Why was the angel's message such good news?

Because the great I Am sent his son to save us by giving us his life for us and by inviting us into his own existence, his own state of being.

And that is why the gospel brings good news of great joy.

Because the good news of the kingdom, the good news of Jesus is, he's about to give us a chance to change our state of being.

From lost to found, from dead to life.

Paul writes to those scattered throughout Galatia and Asia Minor that the fruit of the Spirit is love and secondly, joy.

This will never make any sense until we begin to focus on the Holy Spirit as the presence of God in me that changes my everything.

In Romans chapter 6, Paul says that when we are baptized, we are immersed in water into Christ.

We are baptized in the likeness of his death and raised with him in the likeness of his resurrection.

There is a union that takes place where I enter into Christ and Christ enters into me.

And I can't have a new existence, I cannot have a new state of being outside of Christ.

How did we ever think we could do this without him?

baptism is that moment when passing through the water, we pass from this life, this existence, this state of being into a new reality, a new life, a new state of being.

No longer dead in my trespasses and sins, but alive in Christ.

And at that moment, the pain of searing loss, which is a powerful lyric from the song "How Deep the Father's Love for Us."

Maybe you remember the lyrics, "How deep the Father's love for us, how vast beyond all measure that he should give his only son to make a wretch," that's us, "his treasure.

How great the pain of searing loss, the Father turns his face away as wounds which marred the chosen one bring many sons to glory."

That verse, that song uses that phrase, "the pain of searing loss."

That is a great line.

That is such a poetically powerful line, but in that song, it's being used to describe the loss that the Father feels when Jesus is on the cross giving his life as the fruit of righteousness for us.

But we feel that pain of searing loss as well.

And we ache within us for something we know should be there but isn't.

Life in relationship with God.

People can go their whole lives telling themselves they don't need God.

And then for reasons they cannot explain, wake up one day and go, "I have to find Him."

That aching pain is something we don't even real - didn't even realize was gone.

And only in Christ do we learn it can be restored.

And there's only one word that describes the moment that pain of loss is finally gone, finally replaced when we find our lives in Jesus.

And that's joy.

But that joy only comes when we place our faith and our lives in Him.

When we pass away from this life in baptism calling on His name to enter into the new forever, into our new state of being.

Jesus is my state of being.

I live and move and exist in Him.

Now stay with me.

Therefore He is my joy.

He is the restoration of that thing my heart longs for.

Me in Christ and Christ in me.

And that changes everything.

Paul says that even as the selfish flesh shows its selfish sinfulness by all those sinful deeds, there is a manifestation of the Holy Spirit in our lives described as the fruit of the Holy Spirit and one of the most potent and important ones is the fruit of joy.

Because people can understand your momentary happiness due to circumstance because they live that same existence.

But they do not understand your eternal joy by being in Christ and Christ in you.

So why describe joy as a fruit?

Because as I say it again, the fruit of the Spirit is something that the Holy Spirit produces within us, but it is also something that we pursue to partake of because of His presence in our lives.

We partook of the fruit of the tree in Eden.

We partake of the fruit of Christ's righteousness receiving Jesus.

He puts the Holy Spirit in us and we must choose to continue to partake of that fruit, the fruit of joy.

You see nobody can change your state of being, your state of existence unless you choose to give it away.

If you choose to live your life having been set free from death, having been set free from the mastery of sin, but you continue to live a life that is governed by the selfishness of your flesh, I can promise you, you are not eating the fruit of joy.

Why?

Because the joy of the Lord is our strength.

And that over there does not look very strong, does it?

Getting beat up by our flesh is not a fun state of being, can someone please say amen?

That is no fun.

And it happens because our flesh tries to tell us that our state of being is weakness, but God says partake of the fruit of joy and you will have the strength of the Lord.

There are many great verses about joy in the Bible, too many to tackle in one message.

A remnant of Jews have returned from their 70 year exile in Babylon.

The Babylonians destroyed the first temple of God built by King Solomon.

Now they've taken a census of the people and they have set about to rebuild the walls of the city and begin construction of a new temple.

And Ezra the priest gathers all the people near the water gate and begins to read the Torah first given to Moses at Mount Sinai and given to Israel.

It was supposed to be a day of great rejoicing, but as Ezra read the words of God, as he read the Torah, the people began to weep bitterly.

They began to realize the unique relationship that no other nation had had with the one true God.

They began to realize what their sin had caused and what they had lost, not only in the destruction of Jerusalem, but of their freedom and the destruction of the temple.

They felt the pain of searing loss of the relationship that they had with Yahweh, their God.

But God did not want them weeping on that day.

So he said to them through Ezra, "Go and eat of the fat," meaning the benefits of the land, "drink of the sweet," the vineyards, "and send forth portions to him who has nothing prepared," meaning don't just celebrate for yourself, make sure the poor also have the means of food and drink to make this a holy day of celebration.

"For this day is holy to the Lord our God.

Do not be grieved, for the joy of the Lord is your strength."

Now how many of you knew that was the context of that verse?

It sounds more like a psalm, doesn't it?

And I'm sure that there's places in the psalm where the same idea is shared.

But when the Jewish people read the law, they began to realize what had been lost.

But God didn't want them to think that their joy was unrecoverable.

He didn't want them to seek their joy in their attempt at perfection, but in the power and nearness of His presence with them.

And so He tells them, "Do not be grieved, for the joy of the Lord is your strength."

Please hear this, it is not my joy that is my strength.

Remember I've said this is - the fruits of the Spirit are not a go home and do better Christianity behavior modification course.

It is the pursuit of the presence of the Lord.

It is the joy of the Lord that is my strength.

His joy, like His existence and His life, are eternal and unchanging.

So also is His joy because He never changes.

Because He forever exists, I find His joy, His existence, to be the thing in which I find my strength.

In Hebrew the word for strength is maoz.

It can be translated as defense or fortress or stronghold or refuge and I love it because so many of the words or definitions of that word have the idea of a place of safety that you enter into.

Where do we find our joy?

When Christ becomes our stronghold.

When Christ becomes our refuge.

To have that peace, to have that strength, you have to go into somewhere.

And this is what Paul's trying to teach us about joy.

It is found when we press into Him and He pours His presence into us.

Sounds like a great plan, but it only works if I seek His presence.

Do you remember when I read that verse in Ephesians 2 that described the former reality when we were dead in our trespasses and sins?

Do you remember that line that I read, "By grace you have been saved?"

If you know anything about that verse, you know that in most translations it's in parentheses.

This is a translator's way of telling you that it wasn't in the oldest manuscripts, which means that phrase, "By grace you have been saved," was probably added later.

And here's my theological explanation of how I feel about that.

So what?

Is it true?

Yep.

Some well-meaning editor or translator felt that that would be a really great place to remind us of that truth.

It's kind of like the ending of the Lord's Prayer.

Thy kingdom come, for thine is the power, the glory forever.

Yeah, that's probably added.

You know what my theological response to that is?

So what?

It's great.

It's spot on.

Whoever added to Paul's original words wanted to stress something that we have heard and stressed our whole life.

We are saved by grace.

Grace in Hebrew is hesed, loving - God's loving kindness.

From a Hebrew perspective, the first fruit of the Spirit is love and God's love is always manifest as hesed.

So grace is directly connected to God's love.

But in Greek - but it's in Greek that the Holy Spirit expands our understanding and adds another layer of insight.

You see, the Greek word for grace is also a Greek word for joy.

Same root.

Same word, family.

We did a series on the charismata, on the gifts, the grace gifts of God, the gifts of the Spirit that were given to edify and build up the church.

The word for grace, karos, is - grace is karos.

The word for joy is kara, and they're related.

For we are saved.

When we are saved, it's because someone or something of greater strength shows up in that moment of my existence, in that moment of my reality, and something of greater strength does something to rescue me.

I am saved by the power of grace and the Lord, the joy of the Lord is my strength.

Which means I am saved by joy.

In the same way I'm saved by grace.

Because it is that state of being, that existence in Him, in which I find what I need to win.

Worship team, you can return, please.

Paul writes, "Rejoice in the Lord always."

And again, I will say rejoice.

My friends, as we go through this series, I want to say something to you that will be transformational.

I want to explain these fruits of the Spirit in a way that will be a blessing to you.

But I have to be honest and tell you, you will never find the strength of joy in the circumstances of this world, because this world creates some incredibly painful, difficult circumstances that many of you in this room are going through right now.

But your strength to wake up tomorrow and say, "Modet, ane, I give thanks, O Lord, for another day," is not in the momentary emotion of your experience, it is in the eternal reality of His existence.

He is my source of joy, He is my source of strength, and no matter what is going on in my life, when I have chosen to press into Him, my existence, my being, my whole reality is joy, even when I feel sad, because sorrow does not change the reality of my existence in Him.

Isn't that powerful?

The world needs the church to be Spirit gifted and Spirit empowered.

They need us to flow and function in the charismata, the gifts of the Spirit, given for the edification and strengthening of the body so that we can be strong, that we can be one.

But the world also needs a church that is joy gifted.

A group of people who are partaking, not just theoretically in the reality of their new existence, but who daily get up and decide, "This is who I am now, that's what I was, this is who I am, because I'm in Christ and Christ in me."

That's the manifestation that our world desperately needs, because church, please hear me, I know I'm going on, but please hear this.

Every person out there is searching for what you already have in here.

Do they see it?

This is why I started by asking you to ask a hard question.

Has the good news, the great news, the good news of great joy actually changed everything for you?

Is it just a poetic line in a song?

Or is it something that you press into every day, in every circumstance?

What my body is doing to me does not change what His Spirit's presence in me is doing.

My body may be in the presence of dying, the Spirit is preparing me for eternal life.

Death does not change my reality.

Pain does not change my reality.

Broken relationships do not change my reality.

Total nightmare does not change my reality.

And it cannot touch my joy, because I'm not in a republic.

I'm in a kingdom.

And in my King, there is joy.

We're gonna sing a song, we call it a response song, we're gonna sing of the greatness of God.

But we're church.

And if I stand up here and tell you, "Oh, there's this wonderful, life-changing reality you can have in Jesus," and then never actually invite you to come to it, well shame on me.

So as soon as I leave this stage and we begin to sing, I'm just gonna be right down here on this front row over to my left.

And if you're here and you know in your own heart, you've been — maybe not even knew you were searching for it, now you know.

You've been searching for a new existence.

And now you know you can have it in Christ.

If you're at that place where you're ready to call on the name of the Lord, when you're ready to unite with Him in baptism — we don't have a tank of water ready today, but if you're just ready to have that discussion, you come see me.

We'll take those first steps of opening your heart and your mind to the new reality that He has for you.

And if you're already a born-again believer, why don't you use this time as we sing about the greatness of God to commit to the Lord that this week you're gonna try to do something like you've never done before.

And on Monday, you're gonna press in to the new reality of His existence.

Amen.