Sermon manuscript:
Joy is one of the finest things in life. Joy from receiving a
gift, joy from receiving praise, joy from amusements—joy can come from so many
different things. Can we ever have too much joy? It certainly doesn’t seem so.
Perhaps, then, a natural question would be: “How do I get some more joy?”
That, in fact, is one of those big questions in life. If we
could put joy in a bottle and sell it for just a nickel we would soon be very
wealthy. Lots of books, lots of blogs, lots of YouTube videos promise joy. You
always have to do your part. You have to follow their rules. You have to buy
your products. But then you’ll be happy.
And, you know what? This stuff can work somewhat. Some stuff
can really give you a thrill. Some of the better stuff might be very wise and
beneficial rules for living well. Often living well is not as thrilling or as
easy as some of the other stuff, but it is also more stable and reliable too.
There are lots of things that can give joy or might give joy, but you also know
that none of this stuff is perfectly fulfilling either.
The best drugs, even, with the least side effects won’t go
on being effective. Illegal drug use can be very thrilling and very satisfying,
but it carries with it some dreadful consequences. Even a life that is lived according
to the rules is going to have its drawbacks. The most stable, well-lived lives
can get some horrible monkey wrenches thrown into them so that joy can be lost.
This can be so much so that joy can be thought of as a thing of the past, never
to come back. Then it seems like the question, “How do I get some more joy?” is
vain because it is impossible.
But that question, “How do I get some more joy?” isn’t a
very good question for us creatures to ask. You’re a creature. You’re created.
You’re not God. You do not create yourself. Whatever you have or don’t have is
because that’s what God has given you.
But what if you don’t like what God has given you? That’s
very common. You might not like your body. You might not like your spouse. You
might not like your standard of living. Some advice-givers might then say,
“Well, fix it! Don’t just sit there. Go get yourself some joy.” And so our joy
gets tied up with what we want to accomplish for ourselves. More money = joy.
Hotter body = joy. Better amusements = joy. And insofar as we are able to attain
such things we do experience some kind of positive emotion. It’s very agreeable
to be on the way up. Wouldn’t it be nice to always be on the way up? However,
on the other hand, when we don’t get these accomplishments, we are not happy at
all.
So, again, that question: “How do I get some more joy?”
isn’t a very good question for us creatures to ask. We are not gods, or, at
least, we aren’t very good gods. We are creatures. We are much closer to being
like the birds of the air and the flowers of the field than we are to being
like God. How do the birds live? They do not sow or reap or gather into barns.
Their heavenly Father feeds them. One day they find a meal one place; another
day they find a meal some place else.
Or consider the grass. It grows up supple and green. It
flowers and is beautiful. Then it dries up and withers. It has its day, then
its day is over. No amount of wishing or planning is able to make the dried up
and withered plant like the plant in bloom. For a plant to wish that it was
something other than it actually is at that moment is ridiculous. The creature
is created how the Creator wants. The creatures does not create itself. The
creature is totally dependent upon what the Creator does.
But this is a little too harsh of a picture of God for us as
Christians. We Christians do not have a Creator that operates as though by
chance or fate. We do not just resign ourselves to spinning the wheel of
fortune. Our God speaks to us. Our God even became one of us in our Lord Jesus
Christ. Jesus, when he talks about the birds of the air and the flowers of the
field, says, “Aren’t you much more valuable than they are?”
Indeed, you are. You are much more valuable than birds or
grass. The Son of God became man for you and died on the cross for you. His
love for you is such that even just for you, even if just you were the only
human being, he would still die for you. And for what purpose does Jesus do
what he does? It is so that we may have life, and have it to the full. Sounds
like joy to me.
Maybe another way of saying all this may be similar to what
we heard last week. Last week, in Ephesians 2, Paul says: “Jesus himself is
your peace.” I think we could say the same thing this week about joy.
“Jesus himself is your joy.” And we can reverse that statement too: “You
yourself are his joy.” I’m not making that up either. At the end of Ephesians
chapter 5 Paul speaks of the relationship between Christ and us, his Church, as
being like the relationship between husband and wife. Paul says that the two
becoming one flesh is about Christ and his church. We are his joy. He is our
joy. We are one. We are members of his body, one flesh. This is not something
sad. This is joy.
And let us not forget that whatever peace or joy we have now
in our believing is but the first taste of that which is to come. Now we only
know by faith. We might have any number of pictures in our head of what awaits
us. The actual experiencing of Jesus our peace and Jesus our joy will be beyond
our understanding and imagining.
So, again, there’s that question: “How do I get some more
joy?” Jesus himself is your joy. You have been given God’s own Son. He is even
one flesh with you. This joy is good and stable. It is life-giving and
never-ending.
But what if we were to say: “I don’t want that joy?”
Contrary to what you might think, that is not at all uncommon. How else can
unfaithfulness be explained? Why do people quit wanting to receive the Lord’s
Supper? Why do people quit hearing Jesus’s Word? Why do people quit praying?
Why do they quit thanking and praising? They don’t want to. They don’t want that
joy. They want some other joy. That joy might be a hotter body. It might be
success. It might be a better job. It might be amusements. It might be a stupor
from one addiction or another to keep you comfortably numb.
There are high and prestigious ways to get yourself some
more joy, and there are low, dirty, and looked down upon ways to get yourself
some more joy. Pick your poison. No matter what path is taken, no matter how
pleasurable it might be, no life lived poorly or lived wisely can get to true
joy. Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one goes to the
Father except through me.” No one is getting to true joy, no one is getting
to the Father, except through Jesus. All the other gods, all the other
potential sources for blessing yourself, can never give you the real stuff. Joy
is being with the Father through Jesus.
Because our joy is Jesus we may be different than others.
Having our joy waiting for us means that we can forego pleasure. We can be
patient when it comes to joy. We do not need to be living our best life now. We
do not need to be having all our joy all the time. We can be satisfied with our
present life being less than perfect. We can be satisfied with our present life
even being quite awful, or a waste, or whatever other bad things a person might
say. Jesus himself is our joy. We are one with him. If we are one with him
won’t be left behind.
How things usually go, though, is not nearly so bleak. Our
kind and merciful God fills us up with many good things. He gives us many more
good things than we realize. He certainly gives us many more good things than
we deserve. All this he does only out of his fatherly, divine, goodness and
mercy without any merit or worthiness in us.
But there is no guarantee—to say the least—that we will have
unmitigated joy all the days of our life. In fact, there is pretty much a
guarantee the other way. You won’t have unmitigated joy. How could you? You
aren’t home yet. You are but a stranger here. Heaven is your home. So quit
believing that you can make a heaven out of this earth if only you are clever
enough or work hard enough. Every attempt to make a heaven out of this earth
reeks of chemicals and artificiality. Nevertheless, many fall for the
deception. They are led to believe that the pleasures of this life are good
enough to sell your soul for them.
May you not be so fooled. Jesus himself is your joy. You
yourself are his joy. So that you may be together forever is why Jesus suffered
and died. This means, then, that you, too, can do some suffering and
sacrificing. You can do what is good, not always having to maximize your own pleasure.
Your joy is not in the fleeting pleasures or recognitions of this life. Your
life is eternal life. Doing what is pleasing to Jesus is good enough
justification for living the way you should live.
Then, when the time is right, when it is God’s will to bring
you home, your joy will be full, and no one will take your joy away from you.
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