Sermon for Advent 3 - Joy - December 14, 2025 -
What gives you joy? Name one thing.
What are some examples of joy? Of course I’ve had times of great happiness in my life which come close to joy. Marrying my beautiful wife Barbara in 1987 was a great highlight.
And then comes the challenge of marriage, the ups and downs, the financial struggles, health struggles and changes in our lives due to the deaths of our various family members.
Having our children, Jared and Elia were both sources of great joy. But when Jared was born both he and Barbara came very close to losing their lives.
And then there's the struggle of raising children, through illness, through rebellion, through their own struggles as adults. But then there’s joy as Elia gets married, and as Jared is settled very well into a strong relationship.
And of course nothing beats being a grandparent to our two awesome grandkids, Stephen and Matthew.
We pass through many seasons of great happiness, moments that come close to true joy, yet each one follows a natural course that inevitably rises to peaks and sinks into valleys. By far the greatest point of joy for me was coming to faith in Jesus Christ when I was 17 years old on the Ides of March 1980.
That has been a joy that has sustained me for over 45 years. In the midst of all the ups and downs of life, losses of people that I love, all manners of struggle, the joy of knowing Jesus trumps everything by a very wide margin.
I can’t overstate the massive, extraordinary blessing of the change that came into my life permanently when I accepted Jesus Christ as my Lord and Saviour.
But of course it's a truism that you cannot avoid suffering in this life. Suffering is the universal constant. Hardship and challenge is completely unavoidable in life.
So it strikes me that for all our advances, for all of our technology, for all of the ways we have developed since the events described today in our scripture reading occurred way back in the day, humanity is still humanity.
People are still people. Much of life was very difficult back then, much of life is very difficult now. We needed God back in the time of Jesus, we need God now in our lives.
Back then many believed in God. Many didn’t, or they followed after idols. Or they believed in God in theory, but it didn’t mean much because they did not follow the ways of God outlined in the Bible.
And those “ways of God”, which some consider so very heavy - the 10 Commandments for example - were only ever calling us back how we were created, to the first book of Genesis. After God had created the world, He then created something unique, in His own image. Genesis 1: 27 So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.
A few verses later, God steps back, as it were and takes in all that He has created.
31 God saw all that he had made, and it was very good. And there was evening, and there was morning—the sixth day.
One key implication is our inner life—our conscience—and that’s where God’s commands come in. To understand that we can look at the 10 Commandments, the basis of the OT Law.
How do the 10 Commandments fit into that, you might ask? It’s actually really simple on the one hand, and pretty cosmic on the other.
We’re made in God's image. What’s that about? Well, for instance, God doesn’t steal. So we, made in His image, should not steal. Thus the Commandment.
God doesn’t lie. We should not lie, as image bears of God. Thus the Commandment. Etc. Etc.
Those commandments were simply a call to live as we were created, as image bearers of God.
They are about ordering our internal world. Do you ever feel like it’s chaos on the inside? That’s because you’re living out of alignment with the way you were intended by your creator to live.
And not you only. All of humanity got shifted out of alignment. Our internal moral world, which is like a universe in itself, got seriously displaced, messed up, fouled up by the first few humans ever made in God’s image.
Adam and Eve’s decision to want to be like and live like gods was the decision to live in a gross distortion of reality. What reality? God is God. Our Creator is God. The Lord is God. We are not. He is above. We are below.
So because of that proto-sin, or first sin, the internal moral world of every human being has been messed up.
Our internal moral world drifts toward chaos when it is not anchored in the truth.
You may have loved and served God for a long time. You may be in a season of your life you are considering returning to a relationship with God after having spent time away from His presence. Perhaps you have tasted what the world has to offer, and have come to suspect that truthfully God, and following Jesus, has far more to offer you both here and in eternity.
Or you might not care about eternity. Hard to catch a vision of that. Maybe you feel that life should be anchored on something, lest drifting forever becomes our future.
Wherever you are at, of course you are welcome here. Just a side note: That’s the sign of a healthy church.
We are not all at the same place, we do not all think the same way, but we are together seeking God.
Or maybe we’re not yet seeking God, but we like being part of what feels like an authentic community of fellow strugglers.
And hear this: you can belong to this church before being clear about the Christian faith.
You just need to be willing to journey with others who are seeking to follow Jesus. Jesus the God-man, Jesus the One who came to us as an infant.
And in this season we are looking at the miracle of the Incarnation. The entry of the Son of God into this world, that we focus on this time of year, was very, very human. It truly was. And yet, despite the simple appearance of a normal birth, we find this: In Jesus God is breaking into human reality, into human history. The Everlasting One is touching down in-person into the human situation.
The Author of the story has written Himself into the scene—for you. The same Word who spoke galaxies into being chose to step into His own creation as a baby. Wrapped in human flesh. Held by a loving, blessed mother. Loved by a human step-father.
It’s amazing when you think about it that we have a God who knows the life we live because he too lived it and claimed no special advantage over common men. That means the One who knows every star by name also knows your name, your story, your wounds. The Incarnation is the invasion of divine life into our darkness, into our chaos.
“The holy One to be born will be called the Son of God”. Divinity has beaten a path into the human dilemma, looked humanity straight in the eyes and called us….[Pause]…. brother, sister, friend”. And this we can think of as perhaps the root of true joy.
What does God say to us in this season of light, especially when we may be so aware of the darkness around us and inside us. When our experience of life is presently, perhaps, the opposite of joy. I want to get practical here after my attempt to paint a picture of the hardness of life and the goodness of God.
I’m going to speak in broad terms about avenues to joy, and there are barriers to joy. There are routes, pathways, decisions and attitudes and actions that lead to joy, and there are routes, pathways, decisions and attitudes that will lead away from joy.
Toward Joy:
This path is built with wise, loving, truthful choices—the kind that leave your conscience clear and your soul able to breathe.
It’s carried along by gratitude, hope, and humility (yes, even when you’re right and nobody throws you a parade).
The actions here are life-giving: integrity when it’s costly, service when it’s inconvenient, and a healthy rhythm that includes rest, laughter, and—if we’re being properly civilised—a good cup of tea.
Walk this way and joy doesn’t just drop by for a visit; it moves in, takes its shoes off, and starts rearranging the furniture.
Away from Joy:
This route can look faster, easier, and more satisfying in the moment—until the bill shows up.
It’s laid with selfish, impulsive, and dishonest decisions: spiritual junk food that fills you up but doesn’t nourish you.
Attitudes like bitterness, envy, and despair don’t always barge in; they slip in quietly like unwanted guests who somehow know where the snacks are.
The actions on this road isolate, numb, and slowly neglect what matters most. Joy doesn’t merely dim—it packs up and leaves a wee note on the counter: “You know where to find me when you’re ready.”
But as we look at this, it’s just sort of obvious on the one hand. Sometimes we lose track of the obvious in the day to day struggle of life. So maybe it helps unpack a few things.
But there’s something way deeper than this. Something that undergirds joy. There is something that is an anchor to joy.
Joy is an attitude or state of being that is not subject to circumstances - to things going well or going badly for us.
Happiness is a response to things going well, and it turns on a dime when bad things happen, as they always will.
I want to suggest that all of the challenges related to having real joy or not having real joy can be whittled down or synthesized down to one main question—not because joy is fragile, but because it runs deep:
That question is: “What is settled in your mind and your heart and your soul? There are two key areas that lead to a real, consistent experience of the joy of the Lord.
Is joy, for you, a feeling you can lose… or a reality that holds you?
Happiness rises and falls with circumstances. But the joy of the Lord goes deeper than circumstances —deeper than mood, deeper than momentum, deeper than a good week or a brutal one. Real joy doesn’t blow away in the wind; it’s anchored.
So the question becomes: What is established in your mind, your heart, and your soul that makes joy resilient—almost impervious—to what’s happening around you?
And I want to give you two key areas that, once settled, don’t just increase joy—they make it steady.
The first thing that leads to deep joy is knowing God through Jesus Christ, it is in believing the gospel of God’s grace.
What is the gospel? In the simplest terms:
The gospel is the good news that God loves us, Jesus died for our sins, rose again, and anyone who trusts in Him is forgiven and given new life with God—now and forever.
That’s the gospel in a nutshell. If you believe the gospel, you KNOW that you are forgiven.
You know that the wall that once separated you from God, the great chasm that stood between you and a relationship with God is no longer there.
Jesus has made a way for you to live – not in fear of God’s judgment, not estranged or a stranger to God, but as a friend of God.
Actually, if you are a follower of Jesus you're an adopted child of God. That’s the way the Bible describes your relationship with God.
14 For those who are led by the Spirit of God are the children of God...the Spirit you received brought about your adoption to sonship. And by him we cry, “Abba,g Father.”m 16 The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are God’s children.o Romans 8:14-16
When the gospel is settled in your mind – you understand what Jesus did and that what He did He did for you;
When the gospel is settled in your heart – you know that you know that God is for you and not against you, that God loved you enough, valued you enough to send His only Son to lay down His life for you.
When the gospel is settled in you, heart, mind and soul…that can only lead to joy. How is it though that we can have joy - not happiness that is based on circumstances - but real joy deep down in side us?
That joy that has sustained many of us for most of our lives, even though there has been real suffering in our lives.
I think of Paul and Silas in prison. The book of Acts records that when they were in prison for sharing the gospel - a dark, dank, miserable, mould filled Roman Jail, they sang praises to God.
Habakkuk was an Old Testament prophet—likely in Judah—who spoke as the nation was sliding toward crisis and invasion. Habakkuk is a powerful example because he refuses to fake it. He looks straight at the coming loss and describes it in plain language: no figs, no grapes, no olives, no harvest, no sheep, no cattle—nothing left to lean on.
And then he says something that only makes sense if joy runs deeper than circumstances: “Yet I will rejoice in the LORD, I will be joyful in God my Saviour” (Habakkuk 3:17–18).
That isn’t a sunny mood. That’s settled faith. Habakkuk shows us a joy that isn’t rooted in what he has, but in who God is. And then you have the apostles in Acts 5. They’re threatened and flogged—publicly shamed and physically hurt. And as they leave, the text says, “They rejoiced because they had been counted worthy of suffering disgrace for the Name” (Acts 5:41). Their reaction doesn’t match their injuries; it rises above them. They’re not celebrating pain—they’re celebrating belonging.
When your identity is settled, when you know whose you are, joy can show up in places where it seems like it shouldn’t even exist. Jesus says the kingdom of God is “within you” and “in your midst” (Luke 17:20–21). A kingdom is wherever the King’s authority is recognised.
When King Jesus is trusted, his reign takes root inside a person—shaping conscience, desires, and identity. That’s why joy can be steady: it’s tied to who rules your heart, not what happens to you. But the kingdom is also “in our midst”: it becomes visible between us when we forgive, serve, speak truth, bear burdens, and love across differences. Joy isn’t only private; it’s something a community can carry together when Christ is Lord at the centre.
If the gospel isn’t settled deep in you, real joy will be thin and occasional. You might still catch glimpses—like standing outside in the cold, looking in at the Christmas windows—watching others worship, feeling the sweetness, leaving church encouraged.
But unshakable joy—the kind that holds steady when losses and hardships hit—comes when the good news is settled in your soul. And that can change: bring God your doubts, and choose—daily, simply—to trust Him.
The second thing that leads to true joy is when we live at peace with God in our thoughts and actions, when right and wrong is established in our lives.
God’s way of living is the way of freedom, it’s the way of generosity, it’s the way of relationship and love.
That’s really what the law of God is all about. It’s to help us know right from wrong. To help us live free from bondage to sin.
And here’s the deal, when right and wrong is not settled in us, whenever we face a moral choice or an ethical choice, we will face a dilemma that will compromise our joy – even if we do trust in Jesus and trust the gospel.
I’m so glad that God has given us the Bible to help us build our lives on what is true, to be able to discern right from wrong.
Luke 2:8 In our passage today the angel says to the shepherds: "Do not be afraid. I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. 11 Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is Christ the Lord.12 This will be a sign to you: You will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger."
Good news of great joy. For all the people. So there’s something in the message of this season that is universal – for everyone.
Something we should want to hear, want to know about. Maybe even want to spread to our neighbours. And it is news of great joy. If everyone in any circumstance of life can access this joy, it must be a joy that rises above circumstance. It must be a joy that is not the property of one class or one nation or one people.
If this is a joy for everyone it is a generous joy. If it is a generous joy about the great news of Christ’s coming,
then it’s going to cause me, it would seem likely, to shift my focus from only my needs, to the needs of someone else.
Perhaps you. Perhaps this is a joy that takes me out of my personal sorrow. Like you, I’ve experienced much sorrow and much loss in my life. But believing and focusing my attention and energy on God and not my losses, my own sorrow changes.
This shocking news of the Incarnation, God taking on human flesh, which is revealed as true only by the Holy Spirit, lifts me up above my situation and calls me to participate in something much greater than my singular life.
Somehow this news connects me to you and you to me.
And it calls to both of us to lift our eyes up, to look beyond the valleys and even the hills to the One who created both from His dwelling place, and who, this good news suggests, is not planning on sitting tight in his dwelling place.
He’s coming. He’s coming to you and He’s coming to me. Today and this month we celebrate the first coming of Jesus - the first Advent of the Lord.
But at this time we also give special consideration to our expectation of His promised 2nd coming - his second advent, when he returns to the earth in the flesh.
So I think we better look up, and also to commit or recommit ourselves to the truths of this season.
What truths does this season of joy call me to? Simple. The gospel is real. The incarnation of Christ…God manifested, come to us in the flesh.
This truth calls to me to commit my whole life to this Christ child that we celebrate this season. It is a call to expect God. To expect that God DOES reach into human history… that means, by the way, into your story…the life journey you are now on.
And He reaches into our lives in order to shape us. In order to make us like his own beloved Son. And it starts by the Holy Spirit of God birthing something in you, as it birthed something in Mary.
That’s where the joy comes from. God’s joy is birthed anew in us as He sends the Holy Spirit to do one of two things.
If we’ve never known the Son, if we’ve never known Jesus as Lord and Saviour, if we’ve never received Him, the Holy Spirit comes and births faith in us. He gives us the capacity to understand the gospel.
When the Holy Spirit comes and He is welcomed, He takes up residence in you. And He calls you to Jesus. This is an incredible gift. That’s one thing…The Holy Spirit brings faith. Saving faith. The other thing the Holy Spirit does is renew faith.
We may have been pulverized by this past week. Hopes and dreams have been bloodied and we’ve lost track of why any of it matters. The Holy Spirit calls us in this time of Advent to reclaim what we have believed, to return if we need to, to a place of surrender to God’s will.
To allow Him to bind up our wounds. To allow Him to take up the broken pieces of our lives. You know, He wants to do that. He cares when we get hurt. He cares when life smacks us around.
He cares when we stumble and fall. And He does way more than care. He calls us to lift our eyes from the muck and mire around us…to look upon Him, even as He comes to us…as an infant. What an absolutely amazing thing.
To be called upon to gaze upon the wonder of the baby in the manger, and to grasp once again by God’s grtace, what deep and profound love exists in that manger.
That the Christ of God would leave His comfort at the right hand of the Father in order to come to me, in order to come to you, in the manger. Think of the energy. Think of the effort. Think of the love bound up in this act of Incarnation. There is joy in such thoughts. There is hope in such an understanding.
Our Redeemer, the One whose arrival we anticipate afresh this Advent, knows and loves and reaches out to you and to me in order to say: “Come, follow me”. So the joy of the Lord is our strength. It is still true to this very day. When we have settled in our hearts, our minds and our souls that we believe the gospel, that Jesus is Lord to the glory of God the Father, we have joy.
When we live our lives consistent with that first joy, when we live in obedience to Jesus by living with a clear conscience, then that joy has the opportunity to burrow down deep in our lives. And as important as this season of Advent, this season of Immanuel - the story of God with us - is, it is also a story, a narrative that continue through us - through you and through me.
The Incarnation shows that God’s strategy for changing the world is personal presence. God moved into the neighbourhood in Jesus; now He moves into more neighbourhoods through you. Because this is so important, I want to give some practical ideas for us to take home. You will find these also in the daily devotional guide for this week.
1) Daily “settling” time: Scripture + prayer that re-centres the heart on the gospel
Pick one short gospel-anchor passage and live in it for a month (not a different passage every day). Read it slowly, then pray it back to God in plain language: “Father, because of Christ, I’m Yours. Help me live today like that’s true.”
This is you intentionally letting the Spirit “testify with your spirit” (Romans 8:14–16) and letting Christ’s words remain in you (John 15:11)—so joy becomes less reactive and more rooted.
2) Keep a clear conscience quickly: daily examen + fast repentance + one concrete act of obedience I suggested that our joy leaks when right/wrong is not settled. So build a rhythm where you don’t carry moral fog around for weeks.
End the day with a simple review: ask where you moved “toward joy” or “away from joy,” confess what needs confessing, make one small repair if required (a text, an apology, a boundary, returning something, cancelling the dishonest habit), and receive forgiveness again.
This aligns with living at peace with God (clear conscience) and keeps the inner world from drifting into chaos—so joy has room to “burrow down deep.”
These two habits connect the 2 anchors we’ve talked about: (1) the gospel settled in mind/heart/soul, and (2) a life aligned with God’s ways—so joy becomes steady rather than circumstantial.
So here’s the heart of it, friends: the angel didn’t announce a good mood—he announced good news of great joy. Joy doesn’t come from getting a break; it comes from getting a Saviour.
It isn’t the thin happiness that rises and falls with paycheques, diagnoses, relationships, or the weather—real joy is what happens when the gospel is settled in you and the reign of King Jesus is established within you.
When that settles—when you know you are forgiven, adopted, held, and loved—joy becomes an anchor, not a visitor.
And then, as you walk in the ways of God with a clear conscience, that joy doesn’t just keep you above water;
it becomes strength for obedience, courage for suffering, and love for your neighbour.
Advent joy is God moving into the neighbourhood in Christ—and then moving deeper into the neighbourhoods of our hearts by His Spirit. So don’t stay standing outside the window looking in.
Come in. Dig deep. Settle it. Receive Him again. Because the Christ who came to shepherds in the dark still comes to ordinary people in ordinary chaos with the same word: “Do not be afraid… I bring you good news of great joy.”
Let’s pray.
