All I Want For Christmas Is Joy Series

All I want for Christmas is Joy!

Assorted Scriptures

Pastor Jefferson M. Williams

Chenoa Baptist Church

11-30-2025

Choose Joy?

A few years ago, I attended the GC2 Summit at Wheaton College. This conference specifically focused on pastoral mental health and I’m thankful that we are having those conversations out loud nowadays.

For me, the most memorable moment from the summit was when Rick Warren sat on the stage and talked about his son Matthew’s suicide.

Matthew had struggled his entire life with mental illness but loved Jesus. Rick described him as having a tender heart and a tortured brain.

Rick and Kay were very close to Matthew and when they didn’t hear from him for a day they went to the house and found the door locked and the car in the drive. They called the police and asked them to do a wellness check and break the door down if they had to.

As they stood waiting in the driveway, they both knew in their hearts that he was gone. A couple of hours later, as the coroner brought Matthew’s body out, Rick and Kay held each other and sobbed.

Kay had just finished writing a book and had a necklace on that was the title of the book. She silently held it out to Rick to read - “Choose Joy.”

He looked at the necklace and back into his wife’s mournful eyes and said, “I know.” They both collapsed back into each other’s arms.

Dannette and Phil became grandparents the past week. Little Marcos has been through a lot. I call Geo, his dad, liquid sunshine. He’s one of the most joyful people I know. He told me that when they found out that Marcos would not be going home for five days that he felt like all the joy got sucked out of him.

Just in the past two weeks:

two national guard troops were shot in Washington DC. One died and the other is still critical.

Over 150 people died in a blaze in a skyscraper making it Hong Kong's deadliest fire in decades.

Three children were among the four people killed in a recent mass shooting at a child's birthday party in Stockton, California.

The saddest story I read was of Gerson de Melo Machado, a special needs 19 year old who wanted to be a lion tamer.

A few years ago, he tried to stow away on a plane bound for Africa sho he could tame lions there.

This past week, at a zoo in Brazil. He crawled down into the lion pit to pet the lioness and she killed him in less than 30 seconds in front of his friends and family.

In the face of so much sadness, how can I stand in front of you and encourage you to choose joy? How do you choose joy in the pain, grief, anger, and sadness that so often accompanies this season?

How can we sing,

“O Come all Ye Faithful, joyful and triumphant”

“Good Christian men rejoice, with heart and soul and voice”

“Joyful all ye nations rise, with the triumph of the skies, with angelic host proclaim, Christ is born in Bethlehem”

Or even “Joy to the Word, the Lord is come.”

I want to make the case this morning that there is joy to be found in the Christmas story and season. But it’s not in a plan or a program or a present but in a Person - Jesus Christ.

I want to look at the Christmas story and see if we can find joy and then look at a section of Scripture to find how we can live into that joy each day.

Joy in the Christmas Story

Luke begins with the story of Zachariah being visited by an angel as he was ministering as priest in the Temple. The angel tells him that he will have a son and will name him John:

“…and you will have joy and gladness , and many will rejoice at his birth for he will be great before the Lord.” (Luke 1:14)

Even though Zachariah and his wife Elizabeth are well beyond child bearing years, they are overjoyed as she conceives and is carrying a son when Mary visits her.

Mary has had her own angelic visitation. Gabriel has told Mary that “the Holy Spirit will come upon you and the power of the Most High will over shadow you, therefore the child born to you will be called holy - the Son of God.” (Luke 1:35)

When Mary traveled to visit her cousin Elizabeth, the baby John leapt in the womb when he heard Mary’s voice:

“and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit and exclaimed with a loud cry, “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb. And why is it granted to me that the mother of my Lord shall come to me? For behold, when the sound of your greeting came to my ears, the baby in my womb leaped for joy.” (Luke 1:41-44)