Spreading the Joy
4 Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice! 5 Let your gentleness be evident to all. The Lord is near. 6 Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. 7 And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. Philippians 4: 7-9
I am going to focus on just these words: 'Rejoice in the Lord always.The Lord is near.' Who has ever had a 'Joy-Buster' knocking at their door? Yeah!
Most of us have been confronted by 'Joy Busters'. They have a natural way of gate crashing into our lives. I am not going to rehearse the griefs and sorrows, aches and pains, family dramas and stress from school and work. These are very real. Every now and then someone becomes inconsolable because of loss and grief or trauma. The question we are going to be considering throughout this message is 'How do we comfort ourselves let alone someone else in the face of increasing amounts of "Joy-Busters.'
Today we increasingly recognise that many little traumas, also called little 'ts' can be like drops in a bucket. Eventually the bucket gets filled to overflowing and the little 'ts' have the same impact as a big 'T' Trauma.
I mean this very seriously, you are entitle to be stressed, anxious, and worried! The Bible has some pretty good things to say to help us with these things, but it never denies us the truth that things hurt and stress us. You are entitled to say, 'With all the issues I face in my health, family, finances, work - I have a right to be uptight!' Basically The Bible acknowledges that stressors, anxieties, worries, grief, suffering will all come our way. The questions is what we do next with our entitlement to be stressed.
Let's take a look at the lighter side of a few other unhelpful responses:
'Ah, bad things happen to all of us.'
'Oh, you shouldn't feel like that darling.'
'Snap out of it!'
'Get a grip on yourself.'
'Quit holding a pity party.'
'You think your problems are bad, wait till you hear mine.'
'You can leave your problems at the door, thank you. We only allow happy people in here.'
Of all the bad responses, I reckon that the next one is the one I would find most acceptable:
'Well, if your gonna be miserable I may as well all get in on the act. Let me tell you my problems.' At least this person is accepting to some degree!
There is the response of the legalist:
'You must have done something wrong!' Or,
'Don't you know what the Bible says, "Do not worry, you are commanded to rejoice."'
There is the counsel of the pessimist, the optimist and the realist. There are also people who live in denial - they have a way of making your problems not exist by declining to talk about them. They remind me of Job's friends. They make poor counsellors. When a 'Joy-Buster' comes a knockin' you need to know you have a good counsellor or two.
Now, if you do feel maxed out, the last thing you need is someone from the 'PTLA' turning up, you know, the 'Praise the Lord Anyway' society. Phewh! I can feel their hands patting mine… Seriously, be kind to them. We all have our masks! Most of these people have not lived or they are in a lot of pain themselves and do not know how to process it.
Anxiety is the supreme Joy-Buster. An anxious person is ever on edge. A worried person cannot be quieted. Jesus, Peter and Paul each address the issues of anxiety and worry, as in our text (Matthew 6: 23-34; I Peter 5: 7; Philippians 4: 4-7).
So how do we comfort ourselves let alone someone else whose door is being pounded by 'Joy-Busters?'
St Paul hit the nail on the head when he wrote. 'Rejoice in the Lord. He is near.' Some of you only heard the command 'Rejoice!' You are the legalists. We all have to confront that tendency within ourselves, especially when we are in over our depth trying to help someone who has gone through things we have never seen or heard of before.
St Paul actually said, 'Rejoice in THE LORD. HE IS NEAR.' We call that a 'Gospel Imperative,' a commanded that derives from or arises out of the good-news about who God is and what he has done or is doing. The focus of this kind of command is on God, not on us. We are the ones who carry out the command, but we can only do so if our eyes are fixed on our Lord Jesus and his proximity to us.
To be honest, I want someone to walk alongside of me when things are not so great, and for each of us to remind each other that Jesus really does know, care, understand, have compassion. This takes us closer to the gospel/good-news about Jesus.
This is how it pans out for me. When I go through a hard time I often hit a wall of negativity and need someone to hear me. Pity that person. Then I can begin preaching to myself in a good sense: 'Jesus really does care. He knows exactly what I am going through because he took all of my sin, sickness, disease - dis-ease, pains, worries and anxieties upon himself on the cross. He also lives inside me, my heart, mind, body and soul. He knows everything about me - stuff that I don't even know and can't figure out - thank God.'
I then meditate a little on what he went through for me. He actually took all of my spaghetti, gooey-wriggly stuff on to himself. I can't deal with it, but he can. I begin to get a sense of 'rejoicing in the Lord.'
'He is near.' In fact he is in me through faith. I get that in my head. I am top heavy. I need my knowledge to drop down into my heart and feelings. You can help me, not by telling me, but by walking with me and maybe sharing my joys and sorrows. Remember: a sorrow shared is a sorrow halved. A joy shared is a joy doubled.'
Speaking about joy, the Bible does not say these words, but God is joy! His nature is untold joy. He is the most joyfully positive person in the universe. He took joy in his creation, especially of people; you and me! He also takes joy in the rescue of people from depravity and sin by whatever name. He has provided the hope of eternal joy, and the capacity for us to experience joy in this life. Knowing God is present with you in any moment is to have joy.
Joy comes from God and what he does for us. It is a 'Fruit of the Spirit'; it rubs off on to you, or grows on you as you hang around God in Christ. Christian Joy is the expression of the Divine Presence with us. It comes for the Holy Spirit living in us and teaching us about God. It increases in us as we joyfully obey God's commands (John 13-15) out of love and gratitude for the forgiveness of sin which Jesus secured for us.
It was said that the early Church was filled with gladness (Acts 2: 46). Gladness translates a greek word, 'hagalliasei' = wild joy. They had wild joy because they were full of God and delighted to do his will, keep his word and commandments. They even found joy in the face of suffering, want and persecution, because the God of eternal joy was with them (Eg: 2 Corinthians 11: 23-29; 1 Thessalonians 1: 6; Acts 5:14).
Enthusiasm is another way of speaking about joy. Enthusiasm comes from two latin words, 'en' = in, and 'theo' = God. It means to be caught up in God. The Psalms, our hymns, and the Holy Spirit teach us about experiencing God. When we loose the experience of God's presence which brings joy by degrees, then we have become no more than a secular group that talks about God from what we know in our heads and not in our actual lived lives. Enthusiastic Christians mull expectingly over how God is going to use their hardship for his glory.
I think it is worth our asking whether we Christians can fairly claim to know Christ personally if we do not have joy. I remember reading or hearing a speaker 20 years ago say that 'a Christian without joy must be either in the morgue or already embalmed. An unenthusiastic Christian is a contradiction in terms. Though Christians are not free of difficulty or sorrows, they who have known the Christ of Easter cannot be blase' about Him who conquered sin, death, and the devil. Instead, there is the brightness of their joy to be seen in their eyes, to be heard in the lilt of their voices, and experienced in their energetic service to Christ and his people.'
St Paul said, 'Rejoice in the Lord. He is near.' Faith looks to Jesus' return expectantly and confidently. It also humbles itself to acknowledge God's presence whether we feel it or not. In this sense joy is not the same as happiness which is based on happenstance - our circumstances and what happens to us. Joy is based on the presence of God despite our circumstances. It is based on the promises of God to be with us. It is based on the one way deal God secured for us in the body and blood of Jesus, which was given to us for the forgiveness of our sins. All moments of joy include degrees of happiness. However, happiness does not always include joy. We are happy when we avoid pain in the pursuit of pleasure. However, joy rises above circumstances, and is something that requires explanation for how it can exist in the midst of hardship.
When Mary, the mother to be of Jesus, visited her cousin Elizabeth who was pregnant with John the Baptist, JB jumped with joy inside of Elizabeth. He was pumped with joy at the voice and presence of his Lord. We are in the season of the Church Year known as Advent. During Advent we look forward to jesus' coming again, but we also anticipate the celebration of his birth, and his continual presence with us.
I wish to finish with a story that reminds us to abide or take a position of rest and relaxation: as we trust God with joyful anticipation he will work things out for the eternal well-being of ourselves and our loved ones:
'In a series of evangelistic meetings I was pulling and tugging to get men to decision, but the results were meagre. I felt as though I could take a cudgel and beat them into the Kingdom of God! After on of the services I went out and lay down under an apple tree, exhausted. The beautiful Virginia apples were hanging on the tree above me. The Master came to me and seemed to say, "My child, you're tired, aren't you?" "Yes," I replied; "I have a right to be, for I've worked hard." "And you are out of patience, aren't you?" "Yes, I am," I replied; "but I think I have a right to be when they are so dull and unresponsive." "Do you see this tree?" said the Master. "How is it bringing forth fruit? Is it working itself up into a strain and frenzy in order to produce fruit?" "No," I said; "it seems to be just quietly pouring its life throughout he branches intuit he apples and they are becoming beautiful and ripe." He quietly replied, "You are in Me, as the branch in the vine. Keep the channels open, let My life flow through you int o the fruit, and it will be abundant." I arose with a new sense of trust… Service was no longer a strain, but a joy…' (Source Unknown)
I think it can seem trite to rehash the biblical truism that 'laughter is the best medicine' (Proverbs 17: 22, etc). We do not have time to talk about its benefits. However, Nehemiah 8: 10 says, 'The joy of the Lord is your strength.' Jesus had a lot to say about joy that was recorded in 'The Gospel According to St John.' In it, Jesus is recorded as saying, 'No one will take your joy away. (John 16: 22). Go about your day, your week and your life with an increasing measure of joy in the Lord, for the Lord is near.
