HoHum:
“But the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid. I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people.” Luke 2:10, NIV.
WBTU:
Our problem is sin, not sins but sin. Individual sins are the symptoms of sin. Just a fever, headache and exhaustion are symptoms of the flu, so adultery, gossip, malice and the like are symptoms of sin. The Greek word for sin is taken from the world of archery and means “to miss the mark.” “for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,” Romans 3:23, NIV. We all miss the mark. We aren’t sinners because we sin; we sin because we are sinners.
Talking about joy off and on this past year. Joy is what we experience when we are grateful for the grace given us. Before Thanksgiving Day talked about gratitude and how we by nature are ungrateful. “For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened.” Romans 1:21, NIV. The ultimate missing of the mark is refusing to be grateful and give God his due. At its root, sin is ingratitude. Sin by its nature eliminates the possibility of joy.
An evangelist was asked if it was hard to get people saved. He said, “No, it’s not hard to get them saved. The hard part is getting them lost.” The guilt and misery associated with sin is absent in our culture because we deny there is such a thing as sin. C.S. Lewis said, “The greatest barrier I have met [in explaining the Christian message] is the almost total absence from the minds of my audience of any sense of sin.” If people are unaware that they are sick from sin, the gospel means little to them.
It seems illogical, but the absence of a deep sense of sin in our modern society is one of the biggest barriers to real joy. Without sin and the misery that comes with it, the gospel ceases to be a happy thing. Many believe the gospel a good thing, but hardly a matter of “inexpressible and glorious joy” (1 Peter 1:8). Jesus the Savior is good but not necessary.
We fail to comprehend the seriousness of our sin problem. A helpful comparison is leprosy. Dr. Paul Brand’s research among leprosy victims shows that the disfigurement of lepers is not a direct result of this disease. The problem is that leprosy takes away the sense of pain, so lepers do damaging things like putting their hand in fire. They don’t know what they’re doing and they do not care for their wounds, because they do not feel anything. Their misery is unconscious, but it is misery nevertheless and will show itself in burns, infection and deformity. The misery of sin does to the soul what leprosy does to the body.
Many want to compare themselves to others. Doing better than so and so. All of us have this sin disease. We are all terminal. We are all going to die eternally from this disease.
“The hope held out in the gospel” Colossians 1:23, NIV.
Thesis: What hope is held out in the gospel?
For instances:
Through the gospel we know that we are in bad shape
The greatest misery is not to be miserable, but not to know we are miserable. It is not good to be bad, but it is better to know that we are bad, that we are sinners. “Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners” 1 Timothy 1:15, NIV. If we do not know or do not care that we are sinners, then we have no need of Christ.
Knowledge of our true condition is the first step toward the joy of the gospel. Not to understand the seriousness of sin is to miss the magnitude of grace. The gospel is like a song sung back and forth between two choirs. One choir sings of human sin and misery. The other choir answers with God’s grace and mercy. The louder and more fierce the first choir sings, the stronger, more beautifully and joyfully the second choir sings. “Where sin increased, grace increased all the more,” Romans 5:20, NIV. To minimize sin is to minimize grace, and with it the gratitude and joy grace produces.
The gospel tells us how to be free from our sin
If it is true that the “wages of sin is death,” it is also true that the “gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 6:23). The answer is not trying harder to be what we can’t. The answer is God’s gift, expressed in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.
Ephesians 2 illustrates this: See step one in vs. 1-3, “As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins, in which you used to live when you followed the ways of this world and of the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient. All of us also lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings of our sinful nature and following its desires and thoughts. Like the rest, we were by nature objects of wrath.” Ephesians 2:1-3, NIV. Do we remember this? This was all of us.
Now here is step two: “But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions--it is by grace you have been saved.” Ephesians 2:4, 5, NIV. We are as helpless as dead people before God’s grace came to us. How helpless is a dead person? Go to a cemetery and find out. Stand over a grave and encourage the person buried beneath to walk. How will that turn out? Not so good? Now we can appreciate the amazing grace that raises spiritually dead people and makes them alive in Christ- that makes us alive in Christ. Can we feel gratitude and joy begin to well up?
Being made alive, being freed from our sin comes at a great price- the blood of Christ himself
In his book Written in Blood by Robert Coleman he tells of a little boy’s sister who was fatally ill and needed a blood transfusion. The sister had a disease that the brother had recovered from 2 years earlier, and her only chance of survival was to receive antibodies that could help her fight the illness. Since the brother had the same rare blood type as his sister, the boy was the ideal donor. “Would you give your blood to Mary?” the doctor asked. That was a tough question. Johnny’s lower lip trembled as he hesitated for a moment. Then he grinned and said, “Sure, for my sister.” Lying side by side, the brother and sister were wheeled into the hospital room. Johnny was strong and healthy; Mary was pale and thin. They didn’t talk, but when their eyes met, Johnny smiled. His smile faded as the nurse inserted the needle into his arm and his blood began to flow through the tube into his sister’s body. The room was silent until the procedure was almost over. Then Johnny spoke, “Doctor, when do I die?” The doctor was stunned to realize that the boy was prepared to make the ultimate sacrifice to save his sister. Happily, he didn’t have to. But God’s Son did die to save us. “For you know that it was not with perishable things such as silver or gold that you were redeemed from the empty way of life handed down to you from your forefathers, but with the precious blood of Christ, a lamb without blemish or defect.” 1 Peter 1:18, 19, NIV. Notice that Peter makes this statement 10 verses after he describes the Christian experience as one of “inexpressible and glorious joy” (1 Peter 1:8)
“Jesus answered, “I tell you the truth, no-one can enter the kingdom of God unless he is born of water and the Spirit.” John 3:5, NIV. Response to the gospel and invitation to come forward at end
Responding to the gospel brings many things like joy
Emphasizing joy this year. Tell the story of Paul and Silas in jail in Acts 16. “At that hour of the night the jailer took them and washed their wounds; then immediately he and all his family were baptized. The jailer brought them into his house and set a meal before them; he was filled with joy because he had come to believe in God--he and his whole family.” Acts 16:33, 34, NIV. There is the joy that comes from all our sins being forgiven because of having been obedient to the Lord. See that the “feeling” comes after the response, not before.
What a change to be produced in one night! What a difference between when Paul and Silas were put into prison, and when they were brought out and received as honored guests at the jailor’s table! Grateful for Paul and Silas I am sure, but grateful for the gospel of Jesus Christ. Joy is what we experience when we are saved through the gospel.
Conclusion and invitation:
Not that it is in the Bible but a story familiar around this time of the year is Ebenezer Scrooge. Ebenezer is a man incapable of joy. Scrooge is rich, but he lives alone in squalor. He takes pleasure in nothing and is indifferent to human suffering. On Christmas Eve, Scrooge is visited by a series of ghosts who take him on a journey of insight into his own character. They show him his sin. The ghost of Christmas future is the most shocking vision of them all. In a desolate graveyard, the spirit’s bony finger points Scrooge toward a headstone. Scrooge is commanded to wipe the snow off and read the name carved on it. The name is his own. Weeping and shaking, Scrooge pleads with this spirit: “Are these the shadows of things that will be... or are they the shadows of things that may be only? Why would you show me this if I was past all hope? Tell me that I may sponge out the writing on this stone.” Can the past be removed? Humanly speaking, it’s impossible. This is the human predicament. We are chained to our pasts, to things done and undone that cannot be changed. “What is twisted cannot be straightened; what is lacking cannot be counted.” Ecclesiastes 1:15, NIV. The misdeeds of the past are like chains. Our sin is carved in stone- or so it seems. Scrooge awakens from his vision and discovers he is not dead. He still has time, the end may change. Without Jesus, what kind of hope is offered? “Many see only a hopeless end, but the Christian rejoices in an endless hope.” At the end we see that Ebenezer Scrooge had joy. Nobody knew how to celebrate Christmas like Ebenezer Scrooge. Dickens titled this tale, “A Christmas Carol.” A carol is a song of joy. May we see ourselves as Scrooge saw himself and then see what God has done for us in Christ and then respond to the gospel. Then and only then there will be joy.
