Jesus is Our Joy

Well, thank you, Pastor David. So we’re going to go ahead. If this is your first week with us, or maybe you’ve been following along online, whatever the case may be, we are observing the Christmas season through the lens of Advent. And Jay and I did not grow up with this tradition, where it was done in either our church or in our homes. I think that’s a fair thing to say. And so every week we’re like, when do we light the candles? Do we light the candle? I thought, “Do you light the candle before?” And Jay’s like, “I lit the candle at the end of church.” And I’m like, okay.

So really the posture of lighting the candle is to give us a moment to focus. I was following along with all of David’s stories and life — all great. But we’re going to just turn our attention as I light these candles. I don’t know if fire is coming out of here. Oh, I think so. Oh, is that where it went? If you’re ever with me on the Fourth of July, I always go, “Where’s the fire?” It’s not the lighter, it’s always the fire.

And so as we light these — if you were with us, we talked the first week about hope. And last week our focus was on the peace of God. And this week I have the honor and privilege to be discussing joy. And I’m going to tell you, I am excited about this.

For the joy set before Him

I hope that you’ve had an opportunity to slow down through your week, to reflect, either in reading or even just the theme of the week. I was thinking as I’ve been preparing, the idea of Advent is really to encapsulate the whole picture of the gospel, right? That ultimately Advent means the second coming, the awaiting of Jesus. And so I hope you’ve had an opportunity to read along with us. It’s never too late to join the reading. Don’t let any sort of lie bombard your mind that you are far behind. And what I like about the book, because I’ve been using the book, is that there’s a grace day on Saturdays. And I’m going to tell you that I’ve used that grace day, I think, both weeks, of just like, oh, I’m a little bit behind, but I’m going to just keep pressing on.

So all week I knew — Jay asked me to speak, and I knew I was going to be talking about joy. And there’s been two things, two spectrums, that I’ve really been meditating on, thinking through, praying through the week. And if you have your Scriptures, we’re going to kind of start at the end. If you have your Bible, we’re going to go to Hebrews chapter 12, verse 2. Hebrews chapter 12 is actually probably one of my favorite Scriptures.

But the place that I’ve been pondering is this — and I’m obviously just picking up in the middle, because there’s verse 1. “Looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and He sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.”

As I’ve been thinking about joy, I kept going back to that Scripture: for the joy that was set before Him. For the joy that was set before Jesus, our Savior. And as I’ve been pondering and sharing this — and I’ve shared it plenty of times before — what was before Him wasn’t these people who were worshiping Him. What was before Him was chaos, was persecution, was mocking. And for the joy of the potential of those people being reconciled to His Father, He endured the cross. He viewed it as joy.

The joy He experienced in His deepest and darkest moment was the hope that would be found, that someday we would all be reconciled with the heavenly Father. He was literally the fulfillment of promise. And yet He was experiencing joy that someday we would all encounter Him and His Father. Just think about that.

Sometimes I think it’s easy to picture Him on the cross, and we focus often on His Sonship, but the reality is He was a man who still had to choose how He was going to respond. He still had to decide to walk in obedience. He still had to decide to walk in love. We read in Scripture He was moved by compassion. He was not just a God who was here who didn’t experience and encounter emotions or thoughts. He still had to choose every day to walk in obedience, to walk sinless, and to walk humbly before His Father.

Knowing how it ends

What I think is interesting is there was a purpose to His suffering. And oftentimes we want to talk about joy. Now, I should say, I don’t like to watch things that are going to make me nervous. I don’t like to watch things that are scary. I don’t even like to watch things that are going to be extremely intense. I always want to stay in happy. So I watch the same things over and over and over and over. Ask Jay. God bless him, we’ve been married for 22 years. And if we’re watching something at night, it’s like one of five things.

And if I fall asleep on it, guess what I’m going to do the next night? I’m going to start right where I left off. One night I fell asleep — I was waiting up for one of our children, and I’d fallen asleep during a movie, and so I put it back on. And he said, “Didn’t we watch this already?” And I said, “Yeah, but I fell asleep. This is right where I picked up.”

So I don’t like anything that’s going to be really intense. In fact, I’m a big Survivor fan, and I usually don’t watch it in real time, but I’m going to tell you the first thing that I do before I watch it. I Google who was kicked off Survivor tonight. I always want to know the end, because it just makes it that much more enjoyable for me. I’m not even kidding. Even that much of not knowing stresses me out. So I’m just going to Google, and guess what? I can enjoy Survivor knowing who’s going to be booted at the end. And I actually enjoy it more knowing how it ends. Okay, that’s just me.

We once watched a movie — I don’t even remember. Oh, A Quiet Place. People are having to be quiet, and it’s a lot of jump scaring, and I was just like, “Do these people die? Do they live? What happens?” So literally we were at the drive-in and I’m googling the end of the movie, spoilers. I don’t like that anticipation, and it doesn’t spoil it for me. I can enjoy something knowing how it ends. That’s just how I am. I don’t spoil it for anyone else. I just sit there happy watching. I know who’s going to be kicked off, and I can just enjoy this.

So it’s no doubt that I’m starting at the end of this when we’re talking about joy, because this is where we’re living. We’re living in the reality that Christ has died and rose again, and we’re living in that victory. But before we can get there, we need to understand His suffering.

And I want you to know, God does not cause our suffering. Jesus was suffering. Suffering was the result of sin. Quite literally, Jesus’ suffering in that moment was a result of a sinful world. And yet in His suffering He found joy. His joy was knowing what was on the other end. And what was on the other end, for all of us, that we get to live in, is the hope, the joy, the peace, the love, and the salvation that would be available to everyone.

Joy is a choice

The hope is we can find joy in the midst of our suffering. There’s lots of places in Scripture about joy. When I was studying, I read it and then I forgot where I read it, and I was going to Google it when I was sitting there and I forgot. But I think there’s something like 200 places where Scripture is talking about joy. There’s lots of great places that talk about joy. And yet we start off in the place of suffering: for the joy that was set before Him, He endured the cross.

I’m here to tell you, as we light these candles and we hang on to the hope and we continue to find the peace of God, that in the midst of wherever we find ourselves, joy is a choice that we get to have as believers, as Christ followers. We have the hope and joy that is found in Jesus. Quite literally, that is what we have. It’s intended to be our anchor in the midst of our darkest moments. Joy can be found. We are to live with our eyes and hearts and minds on Jesus all of the time, despite our situation, because He’s intended to be our joy.

Can I just be real? I was thinking about the opposite of this, and I thought, without Jesus, our suffering is torment. Without Jesus, our hope is hopeless. Without Jesus, we are the ones that have to control and manipulate our way through the situations we find ourselves in, to try to mitigate the pain and the torment. And that almost becomes witchcraft, because that’s what control ultimately is. We have to try to manipulate things to work. That’s what life without Jesus is.

And so we all find ourselves in different places as we walk into this Christmas season. Some with joy that is just truly found in Jesus, that is living in the beauty and the rest found in Him. And that’s a beautiful place to be. And some of us find ourselves somewhere in the midst of asking God, “Why did You cause this?” And I’m here to say He didn’t cause any of it. That is a result of us living in a sinful world. But as a result of that, what we have is an answer to it.

Because joy isn’t the absence of bad things. Joy isn’t an absence of pain or a perfect life. Joy is a byproduct of growing in the understanding of God’s grace and mercy. That’s what joy is. It’s a byproduct of those things. And we understand that it’s not dependent on our situation. It’s not an emotion that we can invoke. It’s a perspective of seeing what is happening and choosing to respond with joy, rejoicing at all the good that is happening.

And it’s not that we walk in this place of oblivion, but it’s really having an understanding of who our Savior is. When you understand who your Savior is and you’re in deep, knitted relationship with Him, He gives you the perspective that you need. Scripture actually talks a lot about joy, and we find our joy in obedience to Him, when we follow His precepts, which is His word. See, we are without joy probably because we are not feeding ourselves the way we ought to be. But the good news is His mercies are new every morning. The opportunities to get ourselves reset are new every morning. And this is where we find the joy.

Fall on your knees

The other phrase that I’ve been considering — and we’re going to sit a little bit of time on this. One of my favorite Christmas songs is “O Holy Night.” Maybe it is a hymn, because it was on a hymn site — I found this history of hymns online. The internet’s a wild place. It was so wild looking up the history of a hymn. Okay. But one of my favorite Christmas songs is “O Holy Night,” because there’s something in the words: a thrill of hope, a weary world rejoices. Every time I sing that, it moves me.

As I mentioned the first week I taught, the gospel is found so beautifully in these Christmas songs. And I don’t know many words. I’ve said this many times. Even today I was singing with all my heart, and I realized I don’t even know what I was singing. It wasn’t the words that were up there. I thought they were, and then I looked up and they weren’t matching my heart. I don’t know all the words of songs. But as I was reading the words of “O Holy Night” — “Long lay the world in sin and error pining, till He appeared and the soul felt its worth. A thrill of hope, the weary world rejoices.”

This is the gospel. This is the good news. This is the joy that we are to bring in. That in our sin, in our error, in our darkest trials, we can rejoice, because we have a Savior who came, who humbly submitted Himself to His Father. He came as a child. He went through the progression of growing and submitting Himself to His parents. He grew in who He was. This is the gospel: that He made Himself accessible from the beginning of time so He could always, always identify with who we are. He had to choose it all. But He still walked through that. And this is where our joy comes from. This is what we hold on to.

It goes on to say, “Fall on your knees, O hear the angel voices.” I thought about what it means to fall on your knees. It’s about surrender. Fall on your knees. When you’re on your knees, there’s no other place to be. Fall on your knees. O hear the angel voices.

As we look at Scripture, I found that true joy only comes when we surrender. Mary had to surrender to God’s plan for her, and she found joy. You read her beautiful song she writes after she says, “Let it be.” After she responds, she responds with this beautiful echo of words and heart, and she finds joy. I think about the shepherds — we’re going to look at them in a moment. They had to surrender, and they found the joy. They found the King. And Jesus in His surrender found joy.

Good tidings of great joy

Turn with me to Luke chapter 2. I’m going to start in verse 8. This was after Jesus was born. “Now there were in the same country shepherds living out in the fields, keeping watch over their flock 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, for behold, I bring 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 will be the sign to you: You will find a Babe wrapped in swaddling cloths, lying in a manger.’ And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God and saying: ‘Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, goodwill toward men!’”

Our Savior was born humbly and died humbly, right? He quite literally died in a humble way. He rose in victory and conquered death so we could experience the fullness of His hope and joy in this lifetime. But I’m going to tell you that there is a beautiful message in this. I believe sometimes we don’t surrender because of fear. We don’t surrender whatever we’re walking through. We try to hold on to everything because we’re afraid that we’re going to be let down.

But I’m going to tell you, do not be afraid of whatever you’ve heard. Do not be afraid of what you’ve experienced. Do not be afraid to surrender it all. Because the good news is you don’t have to do it alone. Because I’m telling you today, we come with a message of good tidings of great joy, which is available to all people. That is the good news and the joy: that the Savior was born.

We go on to read in verse 15. “So it was, when the angels had gone away from them into heaven, that the shepherds said to one another, ‘Let us now go to Bethlehem and see this thing that has come to pass, which the Lord has made known to us.’ And they came with haste and found Mary and Joseph, and the Babe lying in a manger. Now when they had seen Him, they made widely known the saying which was told them concerning this Child. And all those who heard it marveled at those things which were told them by the shepherds. But Mary kept all these things and pondered them in her heart. Then the shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all the things that they had heard and seen, as it was told them.”

As I’m reading this, I’m realizing we don’t have to walk through things confused. He calls out for us, waiting for us, just like the shepherds, to leave it all and look for Him. To leave it all and look for Him. I don’t know what it looks like, but I know that He can always be found. He’s not playing a game of “You’ve got to find me harder.” He’s not playing a game of hide-and-seek. But He is waiting for you to respond to Him, to come find Him.

The shepherds didn’t just agree that it was good news. They decided to journey together to find Jesus. They decided to respond to the message of the gospel, the good news and great tidings that was there, and look for Jesus. Are you willing to journey to find Jesus? Not because of what you need, not because of what needs to be fixed, but because He is enough.

Is Jesus enough?

As David was talking, I thought, you would have thought he was reading some of my notes, about just going to Jesus when we need something. That’s not the way it’s intended to be. Jesus is enough because He is the joy. He is our salvation. He is our strength, our hope, and our peace.

Is Jesus enough to be your joy if nothing else changes? I’m going to say that again. Is Jesus enough? Is the joy found in Him enough? If nothing in your life changes, if you don’t get any one of your prayers ever answered again, if things go completely downhill in the opposite direction and you’re spinning, are you blaming God or are you looking to God?

This week I had a really heavy week. It was just a heavy week. There was sickness, and then there was chaplaincy stuff, and then there was work, and there just was a lot going on. And I started Sunday night or early Monday morning saying, “Jesus, are You enough? Not even for me.” Hear me out. But I found that I was pulling back a little bit, because I was uncomfortable. I didn’t know what to say. I didn’t have the solution, and that made me uncomfortable. I’m going to be really honest.

And I found myself later in the week — it was a desperate moment, and I called my mom, and I said, “Mom, I need you to pray.” I was sharing this desperate moment with her. And all I had was Jesus. And I say that as if there’s something more. And so I got on my knees and I prayed in the Spirit, and I prayed, because I said, “Only You, Jesus. Only You can meet this person right here. Only You can do it. There’s nothing that I can say. There’s not enough education. There’s not enough right words. Nothing. All that needs to happen is You need to intervene. Only You.” My hands are tied, quite literally tied, and all I can do is sit and wait and pray.

And I was reminded how earlier in the week I was just thinking, I don’t even know what to say. And all people are looking for is Jesus. They’re not looking to understand all of the things that we’ve overcomplicated it to be. And I have the audacity to say, “All I can do is pray.” Think about that. That should almost be like heresy to say. It really should be that repulsive that I would say all I can do is pray.

But the reality is Jesus is absolutely enough. And if for any moment I think that I can make anything happen, I put myself in a place I was never intended to be: the savior. We have a Savior who is enough. And in His deepest, darkest moment, He found joy. So why can’t I?

The reality is, when we realize that Jesus is enough, when we come to that place of reckoning where Jesus is the only thing that we need and there’s no more solutions that we can figure out, that’s actually when we experience true freedom. But I’m going to tell you, that’s a hard place to be. And I’m going to tell you that this week I struggled with it, because I didn’t quite like feeling that I couldn’t be Pastor Suzie, that I couldn’t come in and have a solution. I was literally like, “Yeah, there’s nothing I can do.” Quite literally. And so all I knew to do was to go pray. Well, it was to call my mom and then to go pray. Those are kind of hand in hand for me. So it’s like, “Mom, I need this,” and, “Goodbye,” and then I just know what she’s doing.

But this isn’t easy to live out. But I’m going to tell you, when we come to a place of hope and confidence that Jesus as our joy is enough, everything will change in us, because Jesus is absolutely the answer.

The kingdom mindset

See, the world has the temptation to show us that we can figure it out for ourselves, that we need to try harder, that there is some three-step program that needs to happen and then your life will come into order. The world wants us to look for self-gratification, for striving, for happiness, for answers, for purpose, for success, and then you can fit Jesus in there. Once you’ve kind of figured that piece out, then where does Jesus fit in?

And as I read in “O Holy Night,” it says, “Fall on your knees.” We see through Scripture that it is about surrender, and just turning to Him and saying, “Okay, until I hear You tell me move, I’m just going to keep doing what You’ve asked me to do until something in this situation changes. I’m just going to keep declaring who you are and choose to walk in joy.” Choose to vocalize joy. Choose to say those things.

I get a good vent. I get it. I once was venting to my mom about something, and she just said, “Well, honey, have you prayed about it? Do you walk in there prayed up?” No. It was easier to be annoyed. “Mom, what are you talking about?” And I’m like, “Okay, you’re right.” Because it’s just easier to feel that venting. And I get that there’s places where we partner, right? Because that’s what I was doing. I was sharing an experience with my mom. We were partnering together. She’s listening. She’s encouraging me. And then she’s telling me, “Don’t fix it. Go pray.” So there is a joy and a place that we can walk in when we know that Jesus is the only answer.

See, the world is saying you’ve got to strive. You’ve got to find purpose. You’ve got to be successful. You do you, boo. Do what feels good to you — all the stuff. Lots of self-gratification. You don’t wait for anything. That’s half of our problem. We don’t know how to wait upon the Lord. We’re like, “I prayed at church on Sunday. Why hasn’t anything changed?” It’s Sunday afternoon. We just want it now. And then we’re like, “Well, Jesus didn’t work.” Well, He’s not a tool. We don’t just put Him in and — oh, no. There’s a process. We’re all in process. No matter how old we are, how young we are, we’re all in a process that He’s walking us in, to grow our faith and to be perfected in Him.

See, the kingdom mindset is quite opposite of that. The kingdom mindset is, “Come follow me, because I’m enough.” Not me — Jesus. Because He’s the good news. Because He’s the hope. Because He’s the joy. It says in Scripture, in Him you will never thirst or hunger again. David just brought it up this morning: it tells us not to worry about tomorrow. See, that’s the kingdom mindset.

Just think about this. He’s walking, and there’s these men. They’re striving. They’re doing their job. They’re fishing. They’re literally throwing nets. They’re not catching anything. He tells them, “Cast your net on the other side.” So they throw a net on the other side, and they catch all of these fish. Now, do we have any professional fishermen in here? Professional, like you’re making money off fish. If you are, that’d be great. Those crab boats make a lot of money. Anyways, we don’t have any professional fishermen in here, but this is what they do. They’re fishing, and they catch all of these fish, so much so that the net is breaking. Their provision comes.

And what does He tell them to do? “Come follow me.” Leave it all there. Just think about that. That’s the kingdom mindset. I’ve told you what to do. Now, are you willing to walk away from this bounty, from this plenty, and come follow me, and I will make you fishers of men? That’s the kingdom mindset: that sometimes even when we get our prayers answered, it’s, “Okay, now let’s go.” It’s not just to sit with it. It’s not just to stay there. See, that’s the way the kingdom works. And the world tempts us every day to look for everything else but Jesus.

But true joy can only be found when we find Jesus. Joy is only found when we walk with Him. Joy is found in His word, because Jesus is enough. Jesus is enough. The things that people are facing that you’re around, and you don’t know how to share the gospel — Jesus is enough.

That’s all. The world wants us to have fireworks going off, and no — just walk with Him. They had everything, and He’s just like, “Come walk with me. Come be with me. Come spend time with me.” “I’m going to go pray alone.” It says He got away often. I think we’ve sensationalized church and Christianity so much that Jesus is no longer enough. Unless you’re feeling that deep emotion, unless you’re moved by something, then Jesus is there. But no, He’s there every day.

I’m going to tell you, when I was reading the Scripture, I was moved by one verse. Not because I’m holy, but because He’s holy. Because when you start understanding the weight of Scripture, all of a sudden it is, “Man, Jesus, I want You to be enough in my life. If nothing ever changes — if I have to not strive, but just keep at this, but I’m in Your will — then let that just be enough. I don’t want anything that’s not of You.” That’s a really hard place to say, because the world tempts me — at least myself — all the time with all of these other things.

And Jesus is simply enough. He came humbly. He died humbly. He died in surrender. But He died with joy in His heart.

This is the question that I’ve been wrestling with this week, so I throw myself there: do you and I genuinely believe that He is enough, and that He has the capacity to meet people in their darkest moments? Not because you had all the right things to say, but because Jesus is simply enough. I have been wrestling with that question a lot this week, and a lot, unfortunately, my answer is how much I think of myself, if I’m going to be real honest — and how humbling it is to be in a moment where Jesus is the only answer, and the beauty of His faithfulness and His goodness.

The man who wrote “O Holy Night”

So a little quick story before we end, about the story of “O Holy Night” that I found on this history of hymns page. It was written by this man named Placide Cappeau. He was French. I a few times made sure I was asking the internet to tell me how to pronounce it. That’s how you pronounce it, I think. Placide was asked by a priest in his community to write a Christmas poem. So what Placide did is he researched by reading the Gospel of Luke, and then he wrote “O Holy Night.”

It was then later, after the poem was discovered, someone else got it and put music to it, and that’s how “O Holy Night” came. It actually was one of the first songs to ever be played over the airwaves. Some other really smart guy got the technology and figured out how to get on the airwaves beyond Morse code, and all of a sudden people heard Luke chapter 2 being read. When you think about history and how we got to where we are, there were some really brilliant minds that got us to this point. Okay, so here’s a guy who makes this discovery, and he plays his violin, and this was the first song ever played worldwide.

Ironically, Placide was an atheist. And that was noted in the history: when it was found out that he was an atheist, the church basically banned the song from being played because he was an atheist. It doesn’t say anything different. It doesn’t say if he chose Jesus. But the reminder is that the truth is available to all of us. It’s up to ourselves to choose.

Placide read through the Gospel of Luke and wrote “O Holy Night,” which is a beautiful, beautiful song when you read all three verses. It was what he found in the gospel: that this baby was born for people who were struggling, that this baby was born for these people who were lost, that love and joy would be part of the gospel. And he never responded to Jesus, which blows my mind when you read the lyrics.

And so the reality is that Jesus is always enough. Jesus, our joy, is enough. But we still have to choose. We still have to choose to walk in that promise, to read Scripture and allow it to shape and mold and transform our hearts and minds. Or we could be like Placide, who could write a beautiful poem, read the Gospel of Luke for all of his understanding, and still walk away not knowing the Savior.

So my prayer for us — if you can bow your head. May the joy of the Lord be your strength this week. May you see Him in the midst of your situations. Would you respond to His voice, and would you know how deeply loved you are. In Jesus’ name, amen.

Amen. We love you guys. We are so thankful to have you here. Go share the love of Jesus and the joy that is only found in Him with someone this week. Have a blessed week.

Transcribed from the message recording and lightly edited for reading.