I’m not going to ask for a show of hands, but how many of you feel like this this morning.
[Show “Keep Calm. It’s only Christmas” meme]
The truth is that in spite of the words of the famous Andy Williams song that tells us that Christmas is the “the most wonderful time of the year”, the reality is that for many people it is a really stressful time. Some of us here this morning have lost loved ones during the holiday season, so each year Christmas reminds us of that loss. For others the pressure to spend money that we really don’t have to buy the perfect gift for everyone adds to the stress we already feel over our finances. And for most of us, just the busyness of the season puts extra pressure on us.
And the world has no shortage of remedies with how to deal with that stress. A blogger named Cynthia Ewer shared these “10 Tips for a Stress-Free Holiday Season:
1. Prune the to-do list.
2. Cut the gift list.
3. Wrap as you go.
4. Buy, don’t bake
5. Call, don’t send cards.
6. Scale back décor.
7. Cut the clean-a-thon.
8. Downsize dishwashing
9. Finger food, not feat.
10. Stay home!
Now I’m not opposed to any of those ideas. In fact, I’ve actually done some of those things. But ultimately none of those solutions actually solve the problem of the stress of the holidays because they only deal with the externals and not the root cause. That is why the gift of joy that we’ll talk about this morning may very well be the least utilized and yet the most needed of the four gifts of Christmas that we’re focusing on during this season of Advent.
Hopefully, you remember that Advent is a word that means “coming” or “arrival”. And if we’ll take time to make this time the season of expectation, waiting and wonder that it’s intended to be I think that we’ll find that we’re actually able to enjoy this season rather than getting stressed out by it.
We began that season two weeks ago by looking at the gift of hope. And we discovered that when Jesus came to this earth that very Christmas, he made it possible for us to have the kind of hope that helps us to conquer our past sins, to live a godly life in the present and to overcome our fears about the future. [Light hope candle]
Last week, we looked at the second gift of Christmas – the gift of love. We discovered that the love that God has for us was demonstrated by the loving act of sending His Son to this earth for the purpose of making a sacrifice that would turn away the wrath of God that we deserve. That love did not wait to act until we deserved it and God did that knowing that most people were going to reject that gift. [Light love candle]
The third gift of Christmas – the one we’ll talk about this morning – is the gift of joy. [Light joy candle]
The theme of joy runs throughout the Biblical account of the birth of Jesus.
When the angel came to Zechariah to reveal to him that he and his wife would have a child in their old age, he told Zechariah…
And you will have joy and gladness, and many will rejoice at his birth,
(Luke 1:14 ESV)
Several months later when Mary went to visit Elizabeth, and greeted her, Elizabeth responded with these words:
For behold, when the sound of your greeting came to my ears, the baby in my womb leaped for joy.
(Luke 1:44 ESV)
And I’m sure that most of us are familiar with the words that the angel spoke to the shepherds after Jesus’ birth:
And the angel said to them, “Fear not, for behold, I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people.
(Luke 2:10 ESV)
And when the magi saw the star that led them to Jesus so that they could worship Him, they also experienced great joy.
When they saw the star, they rejoiced exceedingly with great joy.
(Matthew 2:10 ESV)
In order to better understand what Biblical joy is all about, we’re going to do what we’ve done each week so far in this series and look at a passage that is not traditionally associated with Christmas. So I’m going to ask you to journey with me to a time that is about 33 years after the birth of Jesus. It is the night before Jesus will go to the cross in fulfillment of the plan that had been initiated all those years before at His birth. Jesus has just finished observing the Passover meal with His disciples where He had told them that He was about to go to the cross. So undoubtedly the disciples have reason to be fearful and stressed out.
After that meal, Jesus and the disciples leave the upper room and begin to walk toward the Garden of Gethsemane, a place that Jesus had frequently gone to pray with them. On that walk, Jesus sees a vine and uses the occasion to give an object lesson about how they can experience joy during one of the most difficult and sorrowful times they had ever experienced.
So go ahead and turn in your Bibles to John chapter 15 and follow along as I read:
“I am the true vine, and my Father is the vinedresser. Every branch in me that does not bear fruit he takes away, and every branch that does bear fruit he prunes, that it may bear more fruit. Already you are clean because of the word that I have spoken to you. Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me. I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing. If anyone does not abide in me he is thrown away like a branch and withers; and the branches are gathered, thrown into the fire, and burned. If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. By this my Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit and so prove to be my disciples. As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Abide in my love. If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father's commandments and abide in his love. These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full.
(John 15:1-11 ESV)
If you think about the context, the promise that Jesus makes in verse 11 is absolutely amazing. He tells His disciples that the things he had just spoken are the key to them having joy that is complete and full in their lives. So it is obvious right off the bat that joy is not merely an emotional feeling that is dependent on our circumstances. From the perspective of the disciples this has to be absolutely the low point in their journey with Jesus. The One they have spent the last three years of their lives with, the One who they have come to know as the promised Messiah, is about to die and they are obviously worried and uncertain about what is going to happen to them now. And in the midst of those daunting circumstances, Jesus reassures them that they are going to be just fine because it is possible for them to have His joy in them and when that occurs, it will produce joy in them – not just an ounce or two of joy, but joy that is full.
In order to understand how that was possible for those disciples, and how it is possible for us, we need to work through this passage in reverse. But before we do that, let’s see if we can’t identify the one word that is going to be the key to our understanding. As you look through this passage what is the one word that stands out to you?
That’s right – it’s the word “abide”. If I counted correctly, that word appears 10 times in this passage – with two of those uses being commands. That same word played a predominant role in the passage that we looked at last week in 1 John 4 and I told you then that we’d look at it in more detail this week.
The Greek word translated “abide” in this passage could also be translated “remain”, “stay”, “persevere” or “continue”. But there is really no one English word that is adequate to convey the richness of what Jesus said here. “Abide” is used in this passage to describe a continuous intimate union. In the context of the vine metaphor that Jesus uses here, it is pictured by the branches that remain connected to the vine.
HOW TO RECEIVE THE GIFT OF JOY
1. Receive Jesus’ joy rather than trying to generate my own (v. 11)
Notice what Jesus says in verse 11. It is His joy in us that produces joy that is full in our lives. One of the reasons that people get so stressed out at Christmas is because they are doing all kinds of things in order to try to create their own joy. But even really good things, like serving others, cannot produce real lasting joy apart from a continuous, intimate relationship with Jesus.
That is why the 10 tips for a stress-free holiday that I shared with you earlier, while they might produce a temporary respite from some of the stress of the holiday, can’t possibly create lasting joy. It might very well be a good idea to scale back on all the activities that surround our observance of Christmas and some of us could probably benefit from doing that. But if we’re expecting that using paper plates instead of fine china that we have to hand wash is going to bring us joy, we’re in for a rude awakening.
So if the key to my joy is allowing Jesus to insert His joy into my life, then it seems that in order for me to do that I need to understand the source and nature of Jesus’ joy.
• Jesus’ joy was a result of abiding in His Father (v. 10)
Jesus told His disciples in verse 10 that His joy was a result of abiding in the love of His Father. Jesus’ joy came from the fact that he had a continuous, intimate relationship with His Father in which He constantly stayed connected to His Father. Their connection was so deep and profound that Jesus’ very identity was found in His Father. So, in His humanity, there was nothing more important to Jesus than doing His Father’s will. That is why Jesus had earlier told His disciples:
“My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to accomplish his work.”
(John 4:34 ESV)
So as a result of abiding in His Father like that, Jesus could have joy in the midst of the most difficult circumstances, even when it came to dying on a cross:
Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.
(Hebrews 12:1-2 ESV)
Jesus certainly wasn’t looking forward to dying on the cross. He understood what a painful ordeal that was going to be physically, emotionally and spiritually. But because His will was so intricately interwoven with that of His Father, he could face even that horrible fate with joy.
• Abiding in His Father required obedience (v. 10)
In verse 10, Jesus made it clear that there is a very close connection between the idea of abiding and obedience. As Jesus had pointed out very early in His ministry, He had not come to abolish the Law, but rather to fulfill it (Matthew 5:17). During His life here on earth as a man, Jesus never once disobeyed the commands of His Father because, as we just pointed out, His greatest desire was to do His Father’s will and not just carry out His own desires.
So if the key to having joy that is full requires me to receive Jesus’ joy rather than trying to generate my own, exactly how do I do that and what does that look like? The answer to that question is found in the rest of this passage…
2. Stay connected to Jesus
That is the main theme of this entire discourse and the essence of what it means to abide in Jesus. And Jesus reveals three key ways that we can do that:
• The way I stay connected to Jesus is through:
o His words (v. 7)
In verse 7 Jesus points out that in order to abide in Him, His words must abide in us. But exactly how do I do that? Does that just mean I read the Bible, or study it, or even memorize it? Does it just mean listening to teaching and preaching from the Bible?
Obviously those are all good things, but if we look at this passage in total, it is obviously much more than that. It is helpful here to think about how the words of God the Father abided in Jesus’ life here on earth. Those words were not meant merely to listen to, or study. They were living words that were to be lived out in Jesus’ life on a daily basis.
I love how Pastor John Piper described what it means to have the words of Jesus abide in us:
It means that we welcome Jesus into our lives and make room for him to live, not as a silent guest with no opinions or commands, but as an authoritative guest whose opinions matter more to us than anyone else's and whose commands are the law of our life.
When I abide in the words of Jesus like that, I will view the Bible in a whole new light. I will see it as the living words of a living person that are the means of staying connected to Him in a continuous, intimate love relationship.
o Prayer (v. 7)
In the second part of verse 7, Jesus talks about prayer and He promises His disciples that they can ask whatever they wish and it will be done for them. But obviously Jesus is not suggesting in any way that God is just some genie-in-the-sky who is there to do our bidding and give us what we want. You’ll notice that the promise Jesus makes there is conditional – in this case the condition is that a person must first have the words of Jesus abiding in him or her.
Jesus would demonstrate what praying like this looks like just a short time later when He prayed these words:
“My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as you will.”
(Matthew 26:39 ESV)
Because Jesus abided in the Father and the Father abided in Him, the things that He prayed for were completely in line with the Father’s will. I love how honest Jesus’ prayer is here. He expresses His own wishes to God – that the cup of going to the cross could pass from Him – but ultimately His prayer is that He would carry out God’s will and not His own will.
I often wonder how much more joy we would have in our lives if we learned to pray like that:
? What if when we had problems in our marriages we prayed something like this: “Father, this relationship is hard and I’m ready to bail, but I know that your will is for us is to stay married, so I’m going to do everything I can to save my marriage.”
? What if when we were struggling with our finances we prayed something like this: “Father, we’re really struggling with our finances right now and it would help us pay our bills if we just quit giving to our church for a while, but we know it’s your will to give the first portion to you, so we’ll keep doing that and trust that you’ll provide for our needs.”
? What if we were having a real hard time with our boss at work and we prayed something like this: “Father, you know I’m having a hard time with my boss and I’d like to just quit and find another job, but God I know it’s your will that I’m in this job right now, so please show me how I can minister to my boss better.”
Learning to pray like that would go a long way in helping us to develop joy because it would get our focus off of our circumstances and put it where it needs to be – on living a life that pleases Jesus because I’m so closely connected to Him.
o Pruning (v. 2)
In this passage, Jesus reinforces the idea that we saw frequently in our study of Romans. There are only two kinds of people in this world. First, there are the branches who don’t bear fruit. While they may have some kind of superficial attachment to Jesus, they don’t abide in Him and stay connected to Him. They are eventually removed and gathered up and experience God’s wrath and judgment.
We don’t have time to go into this in any detail this morning, and there is not universal agreement on this, but to me it’s clear that those in this group are not genuine Christians who somehow fall away from God. Instead, they are those who might even call themselves disciples of Jesus, but who have only a superficial connection to Him rather than being totally committed to Him. We see a lot of people like that in the gospel accounts. They are willing to follow Jesus as long as there is something in it for them. But as soon as Jesus asks them to make a commitment in return, they scatter quickly.
The second group are the branches that do bear fruit. They are the ones who abide in Jesus and stay connected to Him. But even though they bear fruit, God the Father desires for them to become even more fruitful – to produce “much fruit”. So he prunes them to make them more fruitful.
If any of you have ever grown vines or fruit trees, you know the importance of pruning. If you don’t cut away all the little suckers and the non-producing branches, they will take up a lot of the resources of that vine or tree and cause it to bear less fruit than it is capable of bearing.
And that is what God has to do to us sometimes to allow Jesus’ joy to be in us. As we abide in the words of Jesus, God often reveals those things in our lives, even some good things, that are keeping us from being as fruitful as we could otherwise be in order to prune those things from our life. And that is often painful at the time. But sometimes we have to go through the pain of today in order to get to the joy God desires for us to have tomorrow.
TWO TESTS
In this passage Jesus lays out two tests that can help us to determine whether or not we are in fact abiding in Jesus.
1. Am I bearing fruit?
I’ve already mentioned briefly the idea of bearing fruit. Jesus makes it clear here that if we are abiding in Him - if we stay connected to Him in a continuous intimate relationship - we will bear fruit. That is a statement of fact, not a command. So if I’m not bearing fruit, that means I’m probably not abiding in Jesus.
I think that fruit takes two forms. The first has to do with our character. If we abide in Jesus, then, as we have learned, that means the Holy Spirit dwells in us and he will produce the fruit of the Spirit in us. So our lives will be characterized by love, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control as well as the joy we’ve been looking at this morning.
The second way we bear fruit is by reproducing the relationship we have with Jesus in others. That means that we will share about what Jesus has done in our lives not out of a sense of obligation, but rather because we know it is God’s will that all come to faith in Jesus and we want to do everything we can to be a part of that process.
2. Am I living a life of obedience?
We find this second test in verse 10. Jesus could not be more clear here. The only way to abide in His love is to keep His commandments. Obviously none of us can do that perfectly, but what Jesus speaks of here is a mindset and a lifestyle in which we seek to do that the best we can and where we find joy in living like that.
Those who are not abiding in Jesus, usually view obedience to Him as something that robs them of joy rather than producing joy in their lives. They think that living in obedience to Jesus’ commands will take away the things in their life that they think are giving them joy. But as we’ve seen this morning, genuine, lasting, full joy comes only from having the joy of Jesus in us.
This week I was privileged to see this kind of joy in action in the life of one of our families. As I’m sure most of you know by now Harold Grimm was placed into hospice care over a week ago and yesterday he went to be with Jesus. As I had the chance to spend some time with Harold and his family and friends during the last week and to be with the family last night, there has indeed been sorrow, grief and sadness because we’re all going to miss Harold. But I have to tell you that at the same time there has been this amazing sense of joy in the midst of those difficult circumstances.
There has been weeping to be sure, but there has also been singing, and praying and praising God. And that is because Harold, and those around him, are abiding in Jesus so that they can experience His joy in them that allows them to have joy that is full.
My prayer for you this morning is that no matter what difficult circumstances that you might be facing in your life right now that you, too, would receive the gift of joy that God is offering to you this morning.
[Prayer]
For further help…
Discussion Questions
1. What, if any, are the differences between “joy” and “happiness”?
2. Is it possible for an unbeliever to have joy in his or her life? Why or why not? What are the implications of that answer for how we share our faith with others?
3. The Greek words for joy (“chara”) and grace (“charis”) come from the same root word (“chairo”) – a verb that means “to rejoice”, “to be glad”, or “to be well”. How does that connection help us to better understand the kind of joy Jesus speaks about in John 15?
4. The passage in John 15 is bracketed by a promise that Jesus makes in chapters 14 and 16 to send the Holy Spirit after He leaves the earth. How does the Holy Spirit help us to stay connected to Jesus in the ways we discussed this morning?
