Good morning and happy mother’s day! You know, there are 1000 topics and sermons you can preach on Mother’s Day. I feel a lot of pressure up here today, because I want to talk about something memorable and impactful – something that can change our lives. But then I thought, “Isn’t that what we try to do every Sunday?” So, as I normally do, I prayed and asked God to give me a message that will allow the Gospel to become more real to all of us today. And God told me to preach about Joy.
Who knows the difference between joy and happiness? I have put the definitions in your bulletin insert. Happiness is the quality or state of being happy; good fortune, pleasure, contentment, and joy.
Joy is a feeling of great happiness; a source or cause of great happiness: something or someone that gives joy to someone; success in doing, finding, or getting something.
It becomes hard to tell the difference between those 2 words because they use the other in the definition. We have a tendency to use them interchangeably. Happiness = joy and vice versa.
So in order to differentiate between the 2, I believe God has given me additions to those definitions – happiness is something we seek ourselves, and it comes and goes based on circumstances. But joy is a gift of the Spirit from God. We don’t have to search for it, He gives it to us, and it becomes the state of our hearts.
A man was looking for his glasses. He looked on the counter, he looked on the nightstand, he even went out to his car thinking he might have left them out there. In the end, he found them on his head. Do you know why he didn’t find them right away? Because he wasn’t looking in the right place! We always find things in the last place we look…
I don’t know about you, but I want joy in my life. And just like the man with his glasses, sometimes I look in the wrong places for my joy, or I confuse it for happiness. I have looked for my joy at the bottom of a cake pan, in my bank account, and in the faces of other people. As a mom, I have found a lot of happiness in my children, but it can be a bittersweet – as much as we love our kids, they can sometimes behave in a way that causes us to have a less than joyful reaction!!! They grow up to become their own people, and sometimes their decisions make you not-so-happy.
How about you? Where have you looked for joy? In a relationship? In a job? In a possession like a car or a home?
We might find “temporary joy” - or happiness - in those things. Fleeting happiness that we think will turn to joy, but it never fails that we become disappointed in the very thing we thought was going to fulfill us.
We apply for our dream job, and we get the call that they are making an offer! OH HAPPY DAY!!! We dance around and think of all of the stuff we are going to buy with all of the money we are going to make! We are excited about all of the new people we will meet and the new experiences we will have, and all is right with the world.
Then one of your kids mouths off. And you get a flat tire. Then some unexpected expense pops up and you get into a fight with your spouse. You go to take a shower and there is a spider in there. Just a few hours ago you had reached the epitome of happiness, and now, here you are, miserable again. Snapping at people. Kicking the dog. Why does this happen to us?
It is because we confuse momentary happiness with the gift of Joy, and we tie that happiness to the wrong thing. In her book, “Made to Crave,” Lysa TerKeurst talks about how her happiness was tied to food. “Tying my happy to the wrong things is partially what caused my weight gain in the first place. There were too many experiences I enjoyed primarily because of the food that was attached to them. The movies were tied to popcorn. A birthday party was tied to cake. A ballgame was tied to a hotdog. School parties were tied to cookies. A morning meeting was tied to gourmet coffee. Getting gas was tied to snack crackers and a soda. Watching TV was tied to chips. A summer outing was tied to ice cream. A winter outing was tied to hot chocolate.”
Like so many of us, our joy and happiness are tied to something that they shouldn’t be tied to. And that sets us up for disappointment and failure when other things threaten to remove them. In Lysa’s case, her ties caused her to gain weight, so when she realized she needed to lose weight, it looked as though all of her happiness and her joyful activities were going to have to go out the window.
How many of us think that happiness is tied to money? Have you ever looked at someone with a lot of money and thought they must be super happy and trouble free? Then you read some story on the internet about how their wife cheated on them or how their manager ripped them off, or how they are filing for bankruptcy. If happiness is tied to monetary riches, we would think they had it in the bag, but in reality, they struggle with the same happiness-killers as the rest of us.
So what is the secret to lasting joy? To not allowing our circumstances to dictate our happiness? If it’s not money or food or a new job, what is it? We find our answer in John 15.
Starting in verse 1: “I am the true vine, and My Father is the vineyard keeper. 2 Every branch in Me that does not produce fruit He removes, and He prunes every branch that produces fruit so that it will produce more fruit. 3 You are already clean because of the word I have spoken to you. 4 Remain in Me, and I in you. Just as a branch is unable to produce fruit by itself unless it remains on the vine, so neither can you unless you remain in Me.
5 “I am the vine; you are the branches. The one who remains in Me and I in him produces much fruit, because you can do nothing without Me. 6 If anyone does not remain in Me, he is thrown aside like a branch and he withers. They gather them, throw them into the fire, and they are burned. 7 If you remain in Me and My words remain in you, ask whatever you want and it will be done for you. 8 My Father is glorified by this: that you produce much fruit and prove to be[a] My disciples.
9 “As the Father has loved Me, I have also loved you. Remain in My love. 10 If you keep My commands you will remain in My love, just as I have kept My Father’s commands and remain in His love. 11 “I have spoken these things to you so that My joy may be in you and your joy may be complete.”
Jesus tells us that our joy is complete in Him. Not partial, not here today and gone tomorrow, not affected by our circumstances or our moods, but complete in Him. And while that is awesome to read and it is obviously true, what does it MEAN? How do we GET THERE? How do we find this lasting, complete joy that we all seek so desperately?
Well, fortunately God doesn’t leave us hanging! He tells us!!! If we are looking to things other than Him to bring us joy, 1. Some things in ourselves may need to be removed. Jesus tells us that “Every branch in Me that does not bear fruit He takes away, and every branch that bears fruit He prunes, that it may bear more fruit.” In both instances, something is getting removed. Let’s look at the pruning process.
First, it is important to understand that Jesus used a lot of fishing and agricultural references when He spoke because He wanted his listeners to understand what He was saying and make connections between the life they are living and the life they should be living. So many people in New Testament times understood his pruning reference because they had been doing it for a living.
When you prune a tree or a vine, you have to use the right tool. While a saw might work well for a large branch, you probably need to use a smaller tool when removing a smaller branch in a more delicate area. There is a difference between an oak tree and a rose bush! But whatever tool you use, it needs to be sharp so that you don’t harm the healthy parts.
God’s Word is the perfect tool for pruning humans. Hebrews 4:12 tells us that, “For the word of God is living and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the division of soul and spirit, and of joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.”
Pruning is important because it improves tree health and strength. It removes diseased or insect-infested wood. Typically it involves thinning the crown to increase airflow and reduce pest problems, and removing crossing or rubbing branches. Pruning encourages trees to develop a strong structure and reduces the likelihood of damage during severe weather. All of these actions encourage growth of the main trunk.
Picture Jesus as the root of our faith, and our main trunk as our relationship with Him. We want it to be strong and healthy, and a straight-up direct line to His throne. Some things that can cause our trunk to become crooked can be found in Colossians 3:5 – “Therefore, put to death your members which are on the earth: fornication, uncleanness, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry.” Once these things die, they need to be removed so that they don’t corrupt our branches, which produce fruit.” Are you with me so far? When we become Christians, we have a shared life with Jesus Christ. Therefore, we share His mind and will. We can walk in the fullness of everything that relationship offers to us as long as we are obedient.
Have you ever done something you KNOW is wrong? Maybe it sounds fun, or maybe you feel pressured into doing it, but in any case, you made the choice to do something that you know is not the right thing to do. The reason you know it is wrong is because it either goes against the law of the land or the Law of the Lord – it is an unloving act. Because it is unloving, it is in direct disobedience to God’s will.
So you suffer consequences. If you get caught, you might suffer legal consequences or at least feel the anger of others. Even if you don’t get caught here on earth, God knows you did it and you might feel some guilt or shame because you know you have acted in a way that would detract from His holiness. So you promise yourself and God that, if you are confronted with this situation again, you will do the RIGHT thing and honor Him.
That is called “pruning.” The Holy Spirit convicts us of our sin, and works in us to remove the parts of us that are dead. God’s pruning process uses the circumstances in our lives to help us grow in His character and appearance – a healthy, spiritually-disease-free vine that produces loving fruit for His Kingdom. We can experience the Joy of the Lord when we allow God to remove things that draw us away from Him and cause our spirits to be sick.
2. The second thing we need to do to experience complete joy in Jesus Christ is this -We need to rely on God as the one who decides what needs to be pruned.
Sometimes we want to hold on to things that God says need to GO! We want to live a joyful life in Christ, but we think we are amazing and why would God want to change us? There are things we might like about ourselves – our sense of humor, our ability to multitask, our biting sarcasm. In our flesh, those things seem like great characteristics!
We ask, “What’s wrong with a good sense of humor? Doesn’t God want us to laugh and joke and have fun?” Of course He does, but maybe your sense of humor needs to be pruned. Maybe you need to learn some clean, non-offensive jokes. I used to be pretty raunchy. Eddie used to tell me I had the mouth of a truck driver. But some of the things I said made people laugh, so when I became a Christian, I felt God working in me to remove the bad humor and replace it with more appropriate jokes.
I have little nieces and nephews, and I have enjoyed learning jokes that will make them laugh. For instance, what does a nosey pepper do? It gets “jalapeno” business!
What do you call an alligator in a vest? An Investigator.
What do you call a fake noodle? An Impasta.
I could go on all day. But see, those jokes are amusing for everybody and they are good and clean. God allowed me to keep my sense of humor, but he pruned it so that I wouldn’t dishonor Him by telling inappropriate jokes.
I mentioned multitasking. I believe God had me include that because sometimes, we do so many things at one time that none of them get done with excellence. In order to get ahead in our society, we have to be faster and more capable than the next guy. Especially for moms, we have to be able to talk on the phone, drive, drop our kids off at daycare, and schedule meetings from our cars, all while trying to listen to the Bible on CD! So what gets done well? Probably none of those things.
And in our effort to squeeze as much into our days as possible, we end up squeezing God right out of it. At the end of the day, we never do seem to make enough time to give Him the best of ourselves, even though He has given the best of Himself to us.
In itself, multitasking might not be a bad thing, but it can cause us a lot of stress, which then makes us sick. So we need to trust God to prune the bad stuff – maybe He is trying to get you to only do 2 things at once instead of 10. And He certainly wants our undivided attention at times, so when the Holy Spirit tells you to turn off the TV while you are reading your Bible, why not give that a try? Focus on God and let His word make you into a strong, fruitful vine.
3. A third thing we can do to find complete Joy in Christ is reproduce fruit. As believers in Jesus Christ, we can be confident that He, as a branch, is perfect. The fruit that He produces should also be perfect, especially once the bad offshoots have been removed.
Even baby branches can produce fruit. You might have been pruned a while ago in a certain area, and your branch is starting to grow and flourish again. You might just be a little freshly-pruned nub that is growing off from the main branch, and while you are still green, before you start growing tough bark again, is the best time to produce some spiritual offspring.
Now, I am not a gardener. As a matter of fact, pretty much everything I have ever tried to grow has died. I can’t believe that my kids made it as far as they did. But there was one thing that I grew that I had really good results with. Has anybody ever grown a spider plant?
I got one when it was little, and pretty soon it started sprouting these little flowers which turned into “spiderettes,” or little baby spider plants. At first, when the mama plant was little, it produced 5 or 6 of these spiderettes. But after a few months, as I removed the dead leaves and gave it enough water, and turned it so that the whole plant could get sunlight, I was getting 10 or 15 of those little things! I was so excited by them, but I couldn’t really keep them all, so I started giving them away. I shared them with my family and friends, and even gave them more than they wanted so that they could share them with THEIR friends.
I would like to think that there are descendants of my spider plant living on to this day. Eventually, of course, my spider plant died, but because I gave away some of her “fruit,” she can live on.
When you are gone, what kind of fruit will you have given away so that you can live on? What will you have reproduced? It really depends on your root. Hebrews 12:15 tells us that we can have a root of bitterness springing up to cause trouble and defiling many. Ephesians 4:31 tells us that along with a root of bitterness can come wrath, anger, clamor, and evil speaking. Yikes! I don’t want to produce any of that fruit!
I want to produce the fruit of the Spirit, which is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self control. Against such there is no law. And those who are Christ’s have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. (Galatians 5:22-24)
When we have Christ as our root, one of the fruits of that relationship is Joy. And when we focus on that relationship, and tie our happiness to Him and Him alone, then we can experience the 4th thing, and that is that we can remain in Him and our joy will be complete. Remain is a synonym for “abide,” and it is used in some translations. It also starts with an R so I could have some OCD synergy with this sermon. In the main verse that we read earlier in John 15, Remain or Abide is used 10 times in 11 verses. Think it is important? Why does Jesus say it so many times?
When we remain, we bear much fruit, over and over again, as long as we are alive, like my spider plant. But when we don’t remain, we can be discarded, withered, gathered, and burned. We become fuel for the fire of the enemy. We forget about our first love – our root that has given us life - and get drawn back to the desires of the flesh, and our spirit slowly dies. Our lifeline to joy dries up like a tree in a drought.
When we remain, we grow and flourish, even though we might be getting pruned on a regular basis for our own good and the good of the Kingdom. We are green and soft and pliable – not good for burning, but for producing fruit for eating and leaves for shade;
but when don’t remain - when we leave – when we are removed from our healthy root – we turn brown and crusty and dry and hard. We become a stick instead of a branch, not good for anything but poking things and being chewed on by dogs.
Remaining connected to the root is imperative for our life! And connecting our happiness to the root of Jesus Christ is the only way that our joy can be complete. Like nutrients in a tree flow to the branches through the root, so joy flows to us as individuals through Jesus Christ. Without a strong, healthy connection to Him – even if we break away just a little bit - we will lose some of those joy nutrients, and we might try to find joy somewhere else, until we are nothing more than a stick.
I have given everybody a green thread. I want you to put it somewhere to remind you that we are to find our Joy – our complete Joy – in Jesus Christ. You might want to tie it to your wrist for a week, and every time you turn to something other than Jesus for your happiness, look at it to remind you what a healthy, connected branch looks like, and that Jesus promises us that all of our Joy – our complete joy - can be found in Him. Wear it to remind yourself that, even though you might be being pruned, you are still connected and green and healthy, and able to produce the fruit of joy in others. Tie your joy to Jesus.
And if you don’t know Jesus and the joy that can be found ONLY through a life in Him, PLEASE see me after the service. Let’s pray:
