Scripture is shared from the NASB...
We just sang Joy to the World as a praise song, and I think we did a pretty good job of it. I’d like to try this exercise together if you would indulge me for a moment. Let’s sing that first verse again, only let’s do it with a scowl or a frown on our faces… It’s on pg 135 of our hymnals if you need the words in front of you. “Joy to the world, the Lord has come, let earth receive her king. Let every heart prepare Him room, and heaven and nature sing, and heaven and nature sing, and heaven and heaven and nature sing.”
How many got through the whole thing with a frown? We sang the proper words, but with a frown on our faces, this is what people might hear…
Joy to the world, the Lord has come, let blah, blah blah blah blah I don’t want to sing this song, its really not something that I believe… fa la la la la…
Let’s try it again with a smile on our faces…
Joy to the world, the Lord has come, let earth receive her king. Let every heart prepare Him room, and heaven and nature sing, and heaven and nature sing, and heaven and heaven and nature sing. Did that feel better, or did it hurt? You don’t have to answer… I believe I already know that answer.
The word Joy itself is difficult to say without a smile, unless you’re like Eeyore and go through life like everything’s a chore and nobody really cares. Oh joy, here I go walking down the street, wonder who I’ll meet… joy oh joy…” We laugh at this, but how many followers of Christ fit this description?
The definition of Joy is “a feeling of great pleasure and happiness.” Can you feel great pleasure and happiness and not have a smile on your face? Perhaps you can. For me though, when I even have a thought of great pleasure or happiness it puts at least a grin on my face.
In the NASB, the bible I use for my study, the word Joy is used 182 times. Surprisingly, at least to me, it is used twice as much in the Old Testament as it is in the new.
The Gospels record the feeling of joy in connection with the proclamation of the good news of the kingdom: for example, at the Savior’s birth (Luke. 2:10) The angels that appeared to the shepherds said “Do not be afraid; for behold I bring you good news of great JOY which will be for all people;” Jesus’ birth was a great joy for all people. Now, the birth of a baby is a joyous occasion in a family, but this birth is a joyous occasion for all people. This announcement came to the lowly shepherds, not to the kings and noblemen, not to the Pharisees and Sadducees. This shows who God was trying to reach in my opinion. He wanted to reach the marginalized so that they would know this gift was for them as well as everyone else. He went to the ones that had no sense of entitlement, who appreciated the beauty of this gift, the value of this gift and the meaning of this gift.
How about at the triumphal entry as Jesus was coming in to Jerusalem Mk. 11:9 “Those who went in front and those who followed were shouting: "Hosanna! BLESSED IS HE WHO COMES IN THE NAME OF THE LORD”, again, this was anyone and everyone that followed Him. They didn’t send out an RSVP invitation to this impromptu parade. When they were shouting do you think it sounded like this? (Do Eeyore impression…) Or like this? (With a smile and joyful.) It was with great joy! The people were anticipating the arrival of The King that would change the world as they knew it and were ecstatic in anticipation of what was to come.
After the resurrection Mt. 28:8 “And they left the tomb quickly with fear and great joy and ran to report it to His disciples.” We know that those that found the empty tomb were already full of fear because Jesus had been crucified, they saw Him die. They say Him placed in the tomb, and now they saw that He was no longer there… fear and great joy it says. Joy because He had done what He said He would do. He came back.
In John chapter 15, it is Jesus sharing the word joy, talking about being the true vine, to stay connected to Him and bear fruit, and in verse 11 He says, “These things I have spoken to you so that My joy may be in you, and that your joy may be made full.” It now becomes the result of a deep fellowship between the church and Jesus.
When He was speaking to His disciples he said this in John chapter 16 verse 22 “Therefore you too have grief now; but I will see you again, and your heart will rejoice, and no one will take your joy away from you.”
Here in this world there are many that will try to take your joy away from you. We are part of a society that finds joy in many things other than Jesus. I shared this on Wednesday night but I’m going to share it again here today. Sarah, Katie and I were out on Tuesday doing some shopping to finish out the angel tree gifts and we got a call from a close friend. We decided to meet up at McDonald’s because our friend Mariah was leaving to be with her husband in Washington. They were married here the day before Thanksgiving and he had to go back to Washington because he is a Marine and is stationed there. Anyhow I said all that to say this. I walked in wearing a Polar Plunge hoodie from 2012 or 13, I don’t remember which and a gentleman asked me if the water was cold the year I did that. Sarah told him that they had to clear the ice away from the water before we plunged that year and I told him that I was dressed up as a smurf but didn’t really need the blue paint, my legs were already blue from the cold winds. I went up to place an order and I don’t know what he said after that, but Sarah told him that I am a pastor. The guy said he wouldn’t have guessed I was a pastor. Now when we walked in, Katie and I were kidding around with each other as we do and we were laughing and enjoying ourselves. I have no idea why that guy would have not taken me to be a pastor. Was it because I was publicly displaying joy and that’s not something society thinks pastors do? Was it because I’m young? I didn’t ask him because I didn’t know he said that until we left or I would have. I did a Google search for “what does a pastor look like” and clicked on the images button to display pictures of what Google searches come up with. Most of the pictures showed white men in ties, with a few men of color also in ties, there were even a few pictures of female pastors, also dressed in nice attire. Most of them when showed in public had a microphone in their hand or they were holding up signs in support or protest of something. What I didn’t see was a picture of a man or woman in the community, having fun, enjoying their surroundings, spreading Joy. Why is that? In my opinion it is because so many of us have been baptized in pickle juice and we walk around without our Joy showing. We suppress it, we compartmentalize Jesus and let Him out in comfortable areas. I’m speaking in generalities here, so don’t think I’m calling you out. If you feel called out, it’s the Spirit’s doing not mine because I’m only sharing what I feel I am being led to share.
Why do we suppress our joy? We see it shared quite a bit at Christmas time. We see it shared around Easter time, and those are the times of year for the greatest turn out at Church services. We celebrate joyously the birth and the resurrection of Christ during those times. Why do we only celebrate joyously then? Joy to the world, the Lord has come! That’s only a Christmas song because we make it out to be one. Where in those lyrics does it say Christmas? Where in those lyrics does it say winter? This is a song to be sang every day of our lives and shared with everyone as the good news that is Jesus has come, He has died, He has ascended, and He is coming back! We go through our lives, we work, eat, sleep, repeat right? Romans 14:17 says “for the kingdom of God is not eating and drinking, but righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit.” Romans chapter 14 addresses the worldly judgment of one another. It teaches that we are not to judge, but we are to know that Jesus came as a sacrifice for ALL, Joy to the WORLD, not just to the Christians, not just to the Jews, not just to the “insert your group here…” Judging is something that zaps our joy… whether we are the one doing the judging or the one being judged… either way it is a joy decreasing task, instead we should love and direct. The whole world rejoices in the coming of our Lord. Let His kingdom come as we were taught to pray.
A story is told of a farmhand who had worked for a married couple for several years. As time went on, the couple grew older and older and they couldn't do as much they had and the farm was beginning to look a little shabby. The paint on the barn was peeling. The fences had holes in them and slats were loose. The gravel road had potholes in it. Shingles on top of the farmhouse were beaten and weathered and needed replacing. But as the farmhand made his way to milk the cows each day, he thought: What is that to me? It's not my farm. Then, one day the farmer and his wife asked him to come for dinner. They told him how much he had meant to them. They told him that they had no children to inherit the farm, so they wanted to give it to HIM when they died. The next day, the farmhand was walking to the nursing barn, he noticed the paint on the barn. In a few days he'd painted the barn and fixed the fence, and in the next few weeks he was putting a new roof on the farmhouse and putting new gravel on the road. Why would he do that? What made the difference in his attitude? He was now an heir. And as a Son he began to treat the old farm different than he ever had before. And so it is with us. We are heirs to the Kingdom of God. And because we are heirs we have the joy of knowing that what we do, we do because of the fabulous gift of salvation our Father has given us.
Personally I find it difficult to say the word joy with a frown. Now don’t get me wrong, I can do it, but if I truly think about that word and it’s definition, I don’t know that I can keep the frown on my face. There is a commercial out right now that I have heard on the radio. It’s a commercial for a dentistry office I think. They say something like say this phrase without a smile on your face, your parents are coming over for the weekend, yay, I can hardly wait. Now say it with a smile on your face, your parents are coming over for the weekend, yay, I can hardly wait. My sarcastic nature thinks that the lady really meant it in the way she said it without the smile on her face, but the same principal applies when it comes to spreading joy. A smile makes all the difference. We should be smiling, we should be joyous, we should be full of great pleasure and happiness.
Dwight L. Moody says it well, “Happiness is caused by things that happen around me, and circumstances will mar it; but joy flows right on through trouble; joy flows on through the dark; joy flows in the night as well as in the day; joy flows all through persecution and opposition. It is an unceasing fountain bubbling up in the heart; a secret spring the world can’t see and doesn’t know anything about. The Lord gives His people perpetual joy when they walk in obedience to Him.”
I had the pleasure of experiencing the joy on the faces of those we went and sang carols to last Sunday. Their smiles of appreciation for us to take time out of our days to share His joy with them was wonderful. I heard that Mildred turned to the person sitting next to her at the nursing home and said “that’s my church group.” When we were speaking to Doris, I thought that she was going to give us a full sermon and was going to invite her to speak this week… You could feel her joy that came from His love being spread from us. On Wednesday we delivered the angel tree gifts to PELC. Mr Wallace was overwhelmed with the amount of gifts we brought in through the generosity of our congregation. We know that only comes from the love of Jesus. Now those are just a few instances of joy that I have experienced over the last week… There have been times though that I felt my joy disappear. I am nowhere near perfect and have had many instances in my life that joy was zapped from my body. I had an instance earlier this week that kept me from working on anything else until I addressed it. I had reacted in a situation that was definitely over the top and not very loving. I am not going to go into details, but as I processed through what had happened, I wasn’t able to do anything, eat anything, or focus on anything else until I had asked for forgiveness not only from God, but from the people I offended as well. Not that it was on the same level as King David, but I was directed to Psalm 51:12-13 which says, Restore to me the joy of Your salvation And sustain me with a willing spirit. Then I will teach transgressors Your ways, And sinners will be converted to You. I had lost my joy in this situation and was not a very good example as a representative for Christ. I had to admit what happened and repent.
So many today in churches all across America have lost their joy and are not ready to admit it has happened. The good news I bear is that joy can be restored. The word "restore" itself implies that it is something that the Psalmist once had and needed to recover. To "restore" can mean "to bring back into a normal or former condition." When one restores an old automobile, it means the owner seeks to bring the automobile back as close as is possible, to what it was when it was new. Let’s look at several things in regard to the restoration of joy. He does not ask God to return his salvation, for he never lost it, but rather his request is for joy. The Christian who has lost his joy is a pitiful sight.. We can see the repentant response (vss 1-6) (Psalms 51:1-6) "According to the greatness of Your compassion blot out my transgressions. Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity and cleanse me from my sin. For I know my transgressions, and my sin is ever before me. Against You, You only, I have sinned and done what is evil in Your sight, So that You are justified when You speak And blameless when You judge. Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin my mother conceived me. Behold, You desire truth in the innermost being, And in the hidden part You will make me know wisdom.”
So he brags on God, Psalms 51:1 and in verses 2-4 his request is to be cleansed from his sin by the only one that can cleanse him. Then he requested restoration (Psalms 51:12) “Restore to me the joy of Your salvation And sustain me with a willing spirit.”
No one ever recovers lost joy until there is a request for its return. Note several things about this request. It is earnest. He meant business with God, crying out of desperation. It is expectant. He would have never asked God to restore his joy if he did not believe that God would do it. It is expressive. The Psalmist, Kind David, knew his joy was gone. He did not deny the reality of his condition. It expresses what David knew about his inner life. The Reasons For The Request Why did the David ask the Lord to restore his joy? Sin and disobedience had run its course in David’s life through his sin with Bathsheba, who was the wife of Uriah the Hittite. Rebellion, adultery and murder had caused tremendous problems in David’s life. He was tired of sin and its consequences. Sin hardens. Hard hearted people are certainly not joyful people.
Sin hinders. One loses his joy when there is unconfessed sin, because it grieves the Holy Ghost, who produces joy in the heart of every believer. Sin handicaps. It so cripples one’s life that he or she cannot think right, walk right, or feel right. The results of restoration will be saints teaching. (Psalms 51:13) Then I will teach transgressors Your ways. One who has joy restored will be teaching the way of God. The second result will be sinners getting saved. (Psalms 51:13) , And sinners will be converted to You.
Have you experienced the joy of Salvation? Have you lost the joy of your Salvation?
If you answered yes to either of these questions let me say that joy can be received through Jesus Christ, and joy can be restored through Him as well. Joy to the world, the Lord has come! We should find joy in serving our savior. We should find joy in knowing that he lived to serve us and is still living to serve us today. He came so that we can have eternal life, full of joy and gladness. His mercy poured out for us, His example laid before us, His undying love shown for all to know. I’m going to ask those singing our song of invitation to come forward right now. I’m also going to ask that if you feel like your joy has been taken, come to Jesus and ask for it to be restored. If you feel like your joy is just not where it should be on the joy meter, come to Jesus so that He can refill it. Remember the fire He baptized you with when you accepted Him as your savior. As you are singing this song of invitation today, remember the gift that God so willingly gives to us every day. His grace, His mercy, His love all are never ending gifts waiting to be unwrapped. Let’s stand.
