“All I want for Christmas is Joy”
Hebrews 12:1-2 TLB
Well it’s that time of year again when my wife and I make our annual trek to the attic to bring down our Christmas decorations. Last Sunday afternoon. I will admit getting all those boxes down is not my favorite thing to do. This year I counted them and there were 57 boxes of decorations. Did I mention that my mother-in-law owned a Hallmark store for 15 years? If everything didn’t sell we inherited a lot of ornaments. Ornaments are often fragile. They break easily. So in all that moving as I was coming down the ladder with the box I heard an ornament fall and hit the floor and break. Unfortunately my wife heard it too. HallMark Martin names their ornaments. Like they are kids/babies or something. This one was named Joy. So when my wife picked it up she said honey, “you broke my joy.” I immediately thought, now there’s a sermon illustration.
Joy is not meant to be fragile but it can be. It can break. Falling to pieces. At times JOY can get lost. We forget where we put it. And it takes a long time to find out. Joy has been defined as Jesus first, Others second, Yourself last. And there is truth in that but there’s also more to it. We often compared JOY with another word. Happiness. But although they sound similar; they are not the same.
First of all, happiness is based on circumstances. Based on what is happening in your life at the moment.
• You get a raise at work. You’re happy.
• Child makes the honor roll. You’re happy.
• You make the last payment on your car. You’re happy.
Happiness is based on your circumstances. So naturally when...
• You don’t get a raise
• your child doesn’t make the honor roll
• it seems like your car payments are never going to end.
You’re not so joyful. You’re not happy. That brings us to joy. Joy isn’t like happiness because it isn’t based on whether things are going well or not. In the Scripture we are given nine fruit of the spirit. I want you to see something here at the outset. In Galatians 5, Paul refers to the works of the flesh. Notice that word is plural. Works. He names 16 of them. Then he comes to the fruit of the spirit which he then names nine of them. But it is not plural. It’s not the fruits of the spirit. It is the fruit of the spirit. You see all of this fruit-it’s like it hangs in one clump... Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness-whereas when you are saved you get one spiritual gift-you don’t get all of them but you do produce all of the fruit of the spirit. You can’t produce just one or two. They hang as a clump of fruit. As one. That is important because I want you to understand that they all work together.
This is where we see the difference in happiness and joy. You cannot have happiness and sorrow at the same time. They are opposites and both of them depend on circumstances. If things are good, we’re happy; if things are bad where unhappy. But joy and sorrow can and do exist together. The Scripture says that “Jesus was a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief, but for the joy that was set before him, he endured the cross.” Hebrews 12:2. Jesus was looking to the future and the ability to do that is a critical part of joy. Let’s look at this verse closer. Let’s break it down. And maybe I should ask you first. How many of you want real joy in your life? Okay. I want you to see several truths here.
(1) People watch how we live. We have a large cloud of witnesses surrounding us. Who are these people? They seem to fall into two groups.
• The Saints. Those who have gone on to be with Jesus. The writer of Hebrews names at least eight people... Abel, Enoch, Noah, Abraham and then he closes by saying “time is too short for me to tell you about all the others.” Starts a list... Then tells us all of their accomplishments. Now these are the great cloud of witnesses surrounding us... Watching us. Encouraging us.
• Unbelievers in the world. As a believer in Jesus Christ, are you aware that unbelievers watch you? And here is why. They want to know if your faith is real or not. They want to know if when times are tough, when you find yourself in the Valley, when all of your circumstances go wrong, will you still stand up for Jesus or will you give up? Anyone can stand for Jesus when everything is good; when the blessings are pouring in... But it’s when things are not so good, they will ask... hmmm, where is your joy now?
(2) The weight of life can damage your joy. We carry a lot of weight around that God did not intend for us to carry. I’m reminded of this because 12 months ago I made a commitment to lose at least 25 pounds. So I lost 27. And when I was at the gym this week I picked up a 25 pound weight and I thought this is what I was carrying around with me and I don’t need to.
But as you know, there are many things that can weigh us down.
• Grief
• Guilt
• our feelings
• sorrow
• anger
• loneliness
When anything weighs us down, presses on us, burdens us, we move slower; we don’t think as clearly. Scripture says give that to Christ. Jesus said my burden is easy, my yoke is light. A yoke is meant for two people. You are one of them. Jesus is the other. Try to do it alone and you will fail. Oxen can’t do it alone and you can’t either. So put them down.
(3) When you run, run with endurance. We all run don’t we? That’s why we get run down. We don’t have any trouble running, but what we have trouble with is the endurance part. Here is how you define endurance. Endurance is the ability to get through a difficult situation without breaking down. Without dropping out. It’s the ability to actually finish the race.
(4) Learn to keep your eyes on Jesus. Why? Because He is the source and the perfecter of our faith. He is our source-the one who gets us started and also our perfecter-the one who matures us and gives us the ability to keep going. Ask any runner. Two of my sons ran track and so we spent hours at track meets. Track meets are not always as much fun as football games or soccer games. Sometimes multiple events are taking place at once. Pole vault. Broad job. Running the 440. And the events don’t last long. You can come for a track meet and stay three or four hours to see your child run for five minutes.
But ask the writer what the key to finishing well and reaching the finish line is and they will tell you-run hard and don’t look back. If you start looking back or to the side, it slows you down or can trip you up. Just keep your eyes on Jesus-on the finish line!
Now there is a reason for all this. We are to run this way because there’s something God has prepared for us. Here it is. JOY. And here’s the good news. It’s not just for later. It is for now. You see, there is an element of hope in JOY. Expectancy. And because Jesus knew that one day he would sit down in the presence of the Father; that gave him the ability to endure the cross; the path to JOY goes through the cross. Despising the shame. The disgrace of the cross. Not only was there pain, there was the very public disgrace that went along with the crucifixion. You know what shame is like. You know what it means to be disgraced. Embarrassed publicly. Perhaps nothing worse. Paul says, only one thing can get you through that. JOY. Because JOY does not depend on your circumstances. It depends on Jesus.
Joyce Landorf is an author and she wrote the book Balcony People. I read it for the second time this week. She shares a story that on one of her business trips she was changing planes in the airport and slipped into a gift shop just long enough to find two greeting cards. Clerks were really busy but she eventually reached the counter and gave the cashier her money. After she’d counted back her change she immediately turned and waited on someone else and forgot to put Joyce’s cards into a bag. So since she was already ringing up another customer, Joyce said to another salesperson, I’ve paid for these but I need a bag. May I have one? She said it was as though she was asking the cashier for the keys to her car. The cashier shook her head no and simply replied, “It’s not my shift yet.” She said I discovered at that moment that you can experience rejection at the hands of someone you’ve never even seen before. She said I just stood there and laughed and I never did get a bag for those cards. So months later whenever anyone in her family would ask her to get something or to do something she would reply, not my shift yet. The kids caught on and all of them began to use it when they were asked to do something. It’s not my shift yet. Let me remind all of us that as believers it is our hope and should be our goal to bring JOY to other people. Your shift started the day you received Christ. And it ends the day he calls you home. Until then let the joy out. Stop hiding it. Your shift has already started.
