Advent: Joy is the Motor

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 There is a lot of problems in our society today. Rising violence, absence of honor, no respect, self indulgence, no commitment. But, one that gets overlooked, I think the most, is our lack of joy. The depression rate in our country is climbing at a very alarming rate. Gallup recently had a poll that suggests 22 percent of North American adults have have experienced depression or anxiety so extreme that they could not continue regular daily activities for two weeks or longer.

I don’t think our culture wants to be miserable, but its pursuit of happiness never seems to be achieved. We want to be happier more than ever, and it seems to be the exact opposite. Sadly though, I think as a response, Christians tend to think it’s not godly. To be happy. Growing up, I had a Sunday school teacher who would say, It’s not about being happy, it’s about being holy.

And I’ve learned more and more, maybe we can do both. I think we have kind of equated, especially within the Christian faith, A serious person is a smart person. Person who doesn’t joke, that’s the person that should lead because he is not silly. A few years into preaching. Now, let’s be real. There was too much joyful preaching probably, or let’s say, silly preaching when I first started.

Uh, eight years ago, here, or seven years ago, Passion Creek. Literally one time I, uh, preached on a hoverboard to try to make an illustration about balance. It was terrible, y’all. And none of you were there because I lost everyone that day and we had to start over. Uh But I, I started to feel that impulse.

Man, I, I need to be taken seriously. I’m young, I need to grow out my beard, and I maybe don’t need to make so many jokes. And I’m not good at jokes anyways. But I actually realized I really overcompensated because the world doesn’t experience joy, and one of our jobs is to put joy on display. Every time you’re around a follower of Jesus, and certainly every time you’re around a pastor, you should get this eminence of joy and happiness that comes only from the Father.

And so, this is terrible for you and I, as Christians, to think we’re not allowed to run to joy because we actually run on joy. Q. Richard Foster, one of my favorite books, it’s a reread every year, Celebration of Discipline, he ends, which are the practices, by the way, which we’re so excited to pick back up in February at our church, but he ends his whole book on all these different disciplines with the Discipline of Joy.

of celebration. He argues it’s the most important. Uh, here’s his quote at length. He says, Scripture tells us that the joy of the Lord is our strength. You see that many places, including Nehemiah 8. 10. We cannot continue long in anything without joy. Women endure childbirth because the joy of motherhood lies on the other side.

Young married couples struggle through the first difficult years of adjustment. Because they value the insurance of a life long together. Parents hold steady through the teen years. Amen? Knowing that their children will emerge at the other end human once again. Joy. You’re allowed to laugh today. It’s about joy.

Joy is part of the fruit of the Spirit 22. Often I am inclined to think that joy is the motor. The thing that keeps everything else going. The title of my message today is Joy is the Motor. And friends, some of our motors need a mechanic. We need some fixing. Some of our motors have gone missing. And so, we’re going to hope to get your joy back today.

And it’s going to be accomplished by looking at the book of Luke. And actually Isaiah. So open your Bibles to the book of Luke chapter 1. As we begin, I want to begin with the basic definition of joy because I realize a lot of us have a totally different understanding what is joy and what isn’t joy. Joy is an attitude of pleasure and well being.

This is interesting because a lot of us when we think of joy, we like to contrast it with happiness. But the more I study the scriptures, the more I don’t see those things being opposed. I think there’s moments where you can’t have joy and not be happy. But most of the time, joy and happy are synonyms.

Some other synonyms, it’s the time of year, uh, okay. Other synonyms are cheerful in the scriptures. Uh, glad, merry, happy. So let me ask you a simple question. When you imagine Jesus, does he have an attitude of pleasure and well being? In your mind’s eye, what is your version of Jesus? It probably was molded when you were young.

And maybe he wasn’t so happy. What about you? Are you described as an attitude of pleasure and well being? You’re like, well, I’m described as an attitude, but is it of pleasure and well being? And what about, this is a question I wrestle with and me and Pastor Caleb wrestle with, what is the attitude of our church?

How are we creating environments and teaching in such a way when you come into this room, there is an attitude. of pleasure and well being. And we hope that that answer, no matter what it is, it gets even better by the time we are done today. Let’s pray. Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, thank you for your joy. I pray that we leave here with so much of it.

God, help us see, uh, that joy and sorrow can exist together. We’re not talking about blind faith, where we just act like everything’s okay, when a lot of things aren’t okay. Help us, God, if we’re in a season where joy is hard to find. Remind us, God, that these things we’re looking for are not attainable in our own power, but it’s why we gather around the scriptures, Holy Spirit, we’re asking for a gift that comes from outside of us.

We’re asking for something supernatural that you are so generous in giving. So God, we today are even just opening our hands with the posture of receiving. Give us joy this morning in Jesus name. I pray everybody says Amen. Amen. Every Advent, Christians around the world focus on joy. And that’s because a major theme in the biblical text altogether, and certainly within the Gospels, is that of joy.

Hopefully you are in the book of Luke. I’m going to read, uh, kind of the beginning, middle, and end of Luke to show you that joy is all over. The biblical text, especially for Christmas, especially just the life of Christ in general. Luke 1 39. We were at Luke 1 last week. If you remember, if you were here, we talked about Zechariah.

Here’s different portions of it that we did not read because it’s about Mary. Verse 39. In those days, Mary, who’s the mother of Jesus, set out because she just heard about the, uh, coming birth, um, set out and hurry to a town in the hill country of Judah, where she entered Zechariah’s house and greeted Elizabeth.

Elizabeth, which again is Zechariah’s wife. When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the baby leaped inside her. Anybody remember who, uh, the baby is in Elizabeth’s womb from last week? John the Baptist, right? This baby leaped inside her and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit. Then she exclaimed with a loud cry, blessed are you.

What’s amazing this, uh, you can also translate this word happy. Happy are you among women, and your child will be blessed. It will be happy. Verse 43, How could this happen to me, that the mother of my Lord should come to me? For you see, when the sound of your greeting reached my ears, the baby leaped for joy inside me.

Joy. Joy is such a major theme for the Christmas story. Verse 45, blessed or happy is she who has believed that the Lord would fulfill what he has spoken to her. Turn with me probably one page in your Bible to chapter two, verse eight. We’re now seeing the birth of Jesus from the shepherd’s perspective.

Verse eight, in the same region, shepherds were staying out in the fields and keeping watch at night over their flock. Then an angel of the Lord stood before them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified. But the angel said to them, Don’t be afraid, for look, I proclaim to you good news of great joy.

That will be for all the people. This is good news, right? This is the gospel, and it’s going to be joy. This is, this is the way to describe the reception of Jesus coming and changing and saving us. It’s going to emanate joy for everyone, verse 11. Today in the city of David. A Savior was born for you, who is the Messiah, the Lord, the coming King, the Savior, the one who’s gonna make all things right.

Luke 10, actually, should have it up on the screen, just to show you that this, also, joy was a theme for Jesus life, not just, uh, His birth. At that time, Jesus, full of joy, through the Holy Spirit, said, And then, if I were to keep preaching, I would tell you what he said, but he was full of the Holy Spirit and full of joy.

Also, at the end, in Luke 24, verse 50, my eyes are getting too old, I can’t see back there, so I’m gonna go flip over to it. 24, verses 50 through 53, Then he led them out to the vicinity of Bethany, this is the very end of, um, of Luke. And lifting up his hands, Jesus blessed them. And while he was blessing them, he left them and was carried up into heaven.

After worshiping him, they returned to Jerusalem with great joy. And they were continually in the temple, praising God. So Luke begins with good news of great joy. Then you have his life, death, resurrection. It ends with great joy. Book of Luke might be about three things. Jesus, of course, joy, and eating.

We’re going to look at that in February. Jesus in the book of Luke is either coming from a meal, out a meal, or going to a meal. And that’s my kind of Jesus, you know? So we’re excited to talk about that in February when we look at hospitality. But when you do a deep dive on joy in the scriptures, you’ll notice right away joy never comes from within.

This is where the Western mentality has completely missed it because we assume, what is the message today? You’ll find joy, peace, purpose, if you just look within. And literally, the biblical text says, uh, you completely missed it. It’s actually the exact opposite. It can never come from within. In fact, your within is what created this chaos in the first place.

But many of us try to have joy without Jesus. Many of us, we seek to be glad without God and this pursuit isn’t productive. It’s actually destructive. I want to make that point with you by looking at Isaiah chapter 8. We’re flipping through the Bible a lot today, but I will never apologize for that.

Isaiah chapter 8, Isaiah, he’s actually writing a warning to the people of God about the coming destruction of Israel because of their deliberate disobedience. God keeps sending prophets, including Isaiah, and they just won’t listen. And so this book is a book of prophecy, both like in his moment and the future.

And so Isaiah 8 and 9 especially, Isaiah is warning them, hey, a serious coming. You’re going to lose because you’re being so disobedient God has to put you into exile and along that though He’s showing about what’s happening in the here and now which was 700 BC But along the way Isaiah then writes also throughout Isaiah There is hope coming and that hope is a coming Messiah the suffering servant Jesus Okay So throughout the Isaiah can be a little bit confusing to read because it’s like am I talk is he talking about?

That day or is he talking about when Jesus comes and the answer is usually kind of both? It’s it’s kind of a lot. All right, so I Israel here Here’s about a coming doom in verse 19 of chapter 8 and and this shows how they respond Okay, verse 19 when they say to you inquire of the mediums So, they hear bad news, they’re about to be in exile, then God, Isaiah’s warning them.

When they, who’s they? Your friends, people who give you counsel, all those sorts of things. When they say to you, inquire of the mediums and the spiritists who chirp and mutter, shouldn’t a people inquire of their God? Should they inquire of the dead on behalf of the living? Go to God’s instruction and testimony.

If they did not speak according to this word, there will be no dawn. For them, what is he saying here? Let’s consult the mediums and the spiritists. Every age we do this. Let’s consult the experts. Let’s consult the therapists, the scholars, the professionals, the politicians. Whenever we are scared, we look to an expert outside.

Write this down. We try to have joy without Jesus by looking to innovation. Every generation tries to innovate themselves out of darkness. Darkness is coming. What do we do? Let’s get creative. Who are the experts? Okay, let’s see what they have to say. And for us, it’s not so much people as it is, like, these things, like, uh, technology.

I think for us, we know things aren’t going well in, uh, in America. And I think we think, man, if we just keep innovating technology, we will have the joy we all long for. But how’s that working out? Right? We thought Facebook would connect us more together. It’s just dividing us more than ever. Right? Like we are stuck on these devices.

We no longer know how to think for ourselves. There’s all sorts of things. And we keep thinking the next answer is the next device, the next, the next technology. Now, certainly technology is a blessing, but it’s just that it’s, it’s not the creator. It’s just creation. And if you look to that to be your hope, you won’t have any joy at all.

And a big one that I think is pretty massive is innovation in psychology. I think we’ve kind of shifted in our era from theologians to therapists, which there’s nothing wrong with therapists as long as it’s in the right. Perspective and I would argue if they’re giving biblical counsel But what I’ve seen us do in our culture today is innovate our problems by blaming everybody else.

You notice that right? We’re not getting rid of evil. We’re just trying to blame shift, but it doesn’t seem to be doing the job We have a lot of people looking for joy And I think there’s moments where it feels like joy where you’re redefining who you are by your sexuality Are you redefining who you are?

You’re just giving yourself a whole new name A whole new identity, running away from God, and, and there is like this, uh, you know, this excitement from that, but you follow the trajectory of that story. It never ends in joy, it ends in more depression, it ends in more heartache. And we keep thinking, if I just innovate and tweak and change.

The reality is we keep getting back to the, to this point where we say joy is still unreachable. What do we do? What do we do when innovation fails us? Where verse 21 and 22 shows what a lot of us as humans do. They will wander through the land dejected and hungry. When they are famished, they will become enraged.

And looking upward and curse their king and their God. So they’re going to turn away from all authority. They will look toward the earth and see only distress, darkness, and the gloom of affliction. And they will be driven into thick darkness. We try to have joy without Jesus by turning to isolation, not just innovation.

We somehow think that getting away from people, people are the problem because guess what? People hurt. They hurt you. They hurt me. And so a lot of us think, I just need healing. And so in our weird, not wise minds, we think, Okay, I don’t need the church. I don’t need community. I just need to be by myself and figure this thing out.

And the reality is that thing only gets worse. It only gets darker. Dwelling on rejection is a damaging infection. And yet culture today says, isolate yourself. Get away. And then, once you’re away from those toxic people, Which there are toxic people, by the way. But once you get away from everybody, then you’ll be happy.

And the reality is, you’re not. The darkness, Isaiah says, only gets darker. So what’s the hope? Do we have joy? So far, this isn’t a very joyful sermon. Alright? Isaiah 9 verse 2 He then begins to show us what the hope is. The people walking in darkness have seen a great light. A light has dawned on those living in the land of darkness.

You have enlarged the nation and increased its what? Its joy. The people have rejoiced, that’s joy in the verb form, before you as they rejoice at harvest time and as they rejoice when dividing spoils. For you have shattered their oppressive yoke and the rod on their shoulders and the staff of their oppressor, just as you did on the day of Midian.

For every trampling boot of battle and the bloody garments of war will be burned as fuel for the fire. In other words, you don’t need war anymore. Verse 6, for a child will be born for us. A son will be given to us. Notice, from the outside, gifted towards us, and the government will be on his shoulders, and he will be named Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Eternal Father, Prince of Peace.

What’s he saying? Everlasting joy is possible, not through your own human innovation, not from isolation, that only gets darker, but joy is only possible through the Incarnation. It’s through God coming down in the flesh, and when He comes and makes things right, He will be your counselor. He will be your mighty God for you.

He will be a Father who is everlasting and the Prince of Peace. And so the question we have to ask ourselves every Christmas is, do you want real joy that comes through the incarnation, or the illusion of joy that comes through innovation and isolation? And sadly, many of us settle for what Michael Hendricks called pseudo joys or fake joys.

This book, The Other Half of Church, is such a phenomenal read, maybe a good read for you guys who are book nerds as you start 2024. He says the following, he says, When our brain, he’s a brain scientist, uh, he, a neuroscientist, sorry, that’s the, uh, anyways, I, I, I went to school here, you know, whatever. Um, when our brain looks for joy and does not find it, we become vulnerable to pseudo joys.

These are substances and experiences that trick our brain to temporarily shut off the unpleasant emotions, but they are non relational and ultimately unsatisfying. Joy substitutes can appear on the surface to be normal things, like food, social media, and shopping. We went to Sheil’s yesterday. That was fun.

But the Ferris wheel was broken, so I was heartbroken. The more obvious pseudo joys are alcohol, drugs, sugar, and porn. Low joy cultures will see an increase in these pseudo joy addictions. Are we not in a low joy culture? Increasing our joy will naturally calm our cravings for pseudo joys. And building joy should be an integrated part of any addiction group.

So the question I want us to kind of focus on, is how do you and I build real joy? How do we become a church that builds this thing? What’s interesting about joy, when you focus on it, you lose it. When you focus on something transcendent, it seems to always come. I think joy, there’s many components to increase our capacity for joy.

And your capacity for joy is found in the trifecta of communion, character, and circumstance. I’m going to be as quick as I can here. This can be like a Ten part series. Communion, character, and circumstance. When you feed into these three, you begin to increase how much joy you have. So let’s start with communion.

This is first and foremost. It means like a life giving connection with the Holy Spirit, the Father, and the Son, right? The Trinity. Okay, so when we are abiding in God, God abides in us. John 15 is one of my favorite chapters, uh, of all time. It’s all about abiding or remaining. I think if you were to, like, define what we do at our church, why do we do these practices?

It’s because of John 15. We’re trying to remain with Christ. And so he points to this vine, this imagery. If we’re connected to him, we begin to bear fruit. But 11, how he says it all ends for us. If we do the hard work of abiding with him, remaining with him, practicing the way of Jesus, Look what happens as the byproduct.

Verse 9, As the Father has loved me, I have also loved you. Remain in my love. So that love is ours. We’ve got to remain in it. Through, through, through Sabbath, Scripture, simplicity, and so many more. 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.

And look at this beautiful promise in verse 11. I have told you these things so that my joy may be in you, and your joy may be complete. Not lacking anything. I love this. The disciples knew Jesus. So when he says my joy, disciples must have perked up. You’re the most joyful, pleasure, well being person I know.

I want what you have. Okay, I’m going to remain in you, and this beautiful gift happens. Your joy is going to become mine? Wonderful. So communion, as you commune with Christ, become more like Him, you begin to form yourself into maturity, which deepens our joy even more. You can call this character. Character is overall well being that comes from being honest, being a man or a woman of integrity, having humility, right?

Working on your character. Psalm 112. Psalm 112. I think it’s a beautiful example. I often look at Psalm 12 and meditate on it and think if I can become this kind of man Where it’s described if I can have this kind of character, of course I’m gonna have joy and peace that passes all understanding Psalm 112 verse 5 good will come to the one who lends generously and conducts his business fairly That’s a man of integrity, right?

He will never be shaken. The righteous one will be remembered forever. He will not fear bad news His heart is confident Trusting in the Lord. His heart is assured. He will not fear. In the end he will look in triumph on his foes. What is this? It’s what happens when you practice the way of Jesus day by day, week by week, month by month, year by year, decade by decade.

I think that’s why some of my favorite people are older saints who’ve been doing this for decades. They just have joy. Nothing really brings them down. They have the perspective that they need. Wow! They’ve worked on their character. They’ve communed with God. And they, as a result of pursuing Christ, joy just becomes the foundation by which they do all things.

Okay, so when that happens, there’s also a cherry on top, though, because it’s not just communion and character. There’s another contributing factor to your joy, and we have to admit it. It’s circumstance, right? What is circumstance? Life is as it should be, and we respond with gratitude. Sometimes there’s seasons, sometimes there’s just days where everything worked out, right?

Where it was just really easy to have joy, like you didn’t even try, it just happened. For me, yesterday, I hit peak joy. We, uh, soccer, oh Lord, help us, we haven’t scored all year. And so, we always lose. Selah always asks, did we win? I said, we have to score to even possibly win. Okay, so this is like game 8, so we’re 0 7, entering into the game yesterday.

And just by the grace of God, it was amazing. We weren’t even filming, the first few games, we were filming everything, like maybe this is the moment. It never happens. We just put our phone away and just enjoying the day. Out of nowhere, Selah just goes full beast mode. Knocks over a kid, runs around, goal. I mean, I jump up like I’m at a son’s game, like, Let’s go!

You know, and I was, Gah! You know, I was just, So pumped. And, uh, I asked Jordan, did you get it on camera? No. I’m like, Oh man. First goal ever. We’re going to disappoint her on her wedding day. That’d have been cool to show. Like this is your first goal, you know? And then I’m like, she comes and gives me a high five and I have joy.

I’m so happy. Literally two minutes later, boom, boom, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah. Goal. Got another one. I’m like, whoa. And she came over to me and said, dad, I did it again. Cause it felt so good to do it the first time. Yes. Do it again, right? And she had so much joy and I had joy. It’s a beautiful circumstance and she wound up never scoring again for two reasons.

One, there was a dad on the other team who was like trying to entice violence on my kid. Cause he got mad cause they were losing. I’m like, bro, they’re eight years old. Get over it. You know, kind of thing. And so the coach was nice and like brought him to the goalie so that Selah wouldn’t get ran over. So welcome to America, but they’re lucky.

It would have been five, nothing. I just know. count out the sequence of how well she was doing. Anyways, joy! There’s some circumstances where it just happens. But there’s also a lot of circumstances where joy is a whole lot harder to grasp, right? Some of us are in hard seasons where it’s like, I want to be joyful.

Seems a little bit difficult. And yet the scriptures say we can have this joy that’s unspeakable, this joy that doesn’t really make sense. And one thing that really helped me in my understanding of joy. It’s that joy and sorrow can exist together, right? Joy begins before sorrow ends. Think about Luke 1 and 2, fullness of joy, John the Baptist is a baby shouting for joy, everybody’s excited, and yet we can still have sorrow because Jesus still has to go to the cross.

He still has to die. Right? There’s still a lot of sorrow in the coming days for the life of Jesus, and yet the angels say rejoice. You see this all throughout life, that you can have sorrow and joy. Exists together and that’s why I find it so hard if you come up to me after church or before keep doing it But if you ask like how are you or how is your week?

Like I just freeze because I’m like it was both the best thing ever and the worst thing ever all Probably in the same day anybody else right like as you get older you realize there’s just a lot of highs and a lot of lows And there’s stuff. I’m really excited about and happy and there’s other stuff I’m just so depressed about and really anxious and I hope you never ask me about it, right and they can happen the same week This is what happens in the Christian life, but praise God for joy.

And so, what I’ve noticed is when the circumstance is low, kind of view it as a Venn diagram, right? So it’s like, communion, character, circumstance, you really hit the jackpot when they’re all working together. But I have found when my circumstances aren’t good, it makes me lean more into communion, which also builds my, my character, right?

So all, there’s always a way to build your joy in every season. And I want you to see too, I think there’s levels to joy and I think for some of us we’re at different levels. We love to talk stage theory here that we’re all in different parts of the journey. And so let me end here by showing three different stages of joy.

And I want you to identify where you’re at and kind of lean into that and see what God would do for you. The first stage of joy is stage one, which is we reap joy when we sow obedience. There is a direct correlation between our joy and our obedience. You actually see that in John 15, right? Remain in me, follow my commands, and then as a result, guess what happens?

As you experience my love, your joy will be in you. That joy will be complete. And so, Joy is a byproduct of following Jesus. So for us, we’re not following joy. We’re following Jesus and joy comes along the way. And so this is like when you first come to Christ, sadly, a lot of churches only stay here. And I actually think it’s not a more holistic understanding of life and the sorrow that happens, but that’s okay.

And this stage, and I think it’s okay to have this stage, it’s like the stage of like loving the book of Proverbs and only understanding Proverbs, not Ecclesiastes. And Job talked to me after. I can nerd out about that, but I won’t. Your guiding principle in this stage is you reap what you sow. If I put in, I will get out this.

So if I tithe, God will bless me financially. And you get joy from that. That’s probably true, especially in the beginning parts of your journey. If I pray, then God will give me a sense of peace. I love those stories. I pray that you do that every day. If I go to church. God’s going to give me some sort of success, or God’s going to give me a community.

True! So, so a lot of us, we’ve never even just obeyed and done any hard thing. So no wonder you haven’t experienced any joy. Stage one. Do the thing. Do the next right thing, and you’ll be amazed the joy that comes along the way. So many of us, we wait for joy. Is that going to be there? Then I’ll do it. That never happens.

You do it, and then it comes. You guys see that? Right? Okay, stage two, though, is God entrusts you with maturity. This is what begins to happen. We experience joy when we risk for God’s kingdom. So it’s no longer, if I do this, then God will do that. That’s a fun season, but it’s also kind of, it’s just, it’s, it’s not fully mature.

It’s not always right. That’s why we have Ecclesiastes as wisdom literature as well. You kind of shift from when I do this, God might do that, but I’m still going to do it anyways. So, if I step out, when I step out the boat, God might show off his glory. When I get on my knees to pray, and pray big prayers, God might save my neighbor, heal my cousin, whatever it is.

When I sacrificially give to my church, God might bless me financially. God might use it to show off his glory. God might use it to grow our church. Right? We don’t know. But there is joy when we’re willing to risk. No risk it, no biscuit. Amen? No, it’s not in the Bible. Um. But it makes you vulnerable, right?

It puts you in a spot. I don’t know. I might do this and it might not pay off. That’s when you experience incredible amounts of joy. Some of us will never get there because we keep, we want it first and then do, no, no, no. Okay, stage three. We are full of joy when we rest in God’s love. So first stage is, if I do this, God will do that.

Second stage, if I do this, God might do that. The third stage, even if this bad things happens to me, God is still really good. For example, even if I die in this hospital, God is love. A stat that just shocks me. They actually say some of the most joyful people on the planet are actually those who have been diagnosed with cancer.

How’s that possible? I don’t know, but what I’ve heard is they recognize the preciousness of life. They know that tomorrow is not guaranteed and they just have this new sense of understanding of what life’s all about and there’s joy. And I’d say if you, as a Christian, there’s just joy unspeakable, because, because you know that your life, you have another one, right?

It’s not just about here and now. Even if I lose all that I have, God is still good. That’s, that’s joy. Even if I am persecuted, God is still sovereign and he’s still in control. See the deepest joy comes when we leave all the outcomes to God and just say, God, I don’t care how you respond. I just, I know you’re good, and I rest in that.

Outcomes are none of my business. That kind of perspective just gives you unspeakable joy. And I want you to know, at Passion Creek, our deepest desire is for you to experience the deepest joy. We really want that. And so, for example, this last year we’ve gone through three practices, Sabbath, Scripture, and Simplicity.

And so, let me just say this, if you have viewed any of those, Sabbath, Scripture, Simplicity, as the opposite of joy, one of two things have happened. One, I’m really bad at my job, which, okay, or two, you’ve misunderstood what we’re saying all along. Okay, why do we practice Sabbath? To rejoice in God, to delight in his creation, to live a life of gratitude.

I need Sabbath to remind myself God is so good and I can rest in his love. That’s the whole point of Sabbath. Why do I engage in the scriptures? There’s a bunch of reasons, but one of them is that I want to live a life of joy, and I know that all the lies of the enemy ultimately lead to depression and chaos and division and darkness.

And so, therefore, Jesus says, You shall know the truth, the truth will set you free. I need to bury myself in this book because I can begin to detect those lies and choose life and life in abundance and the fullness of joy will be mine. You see that? So, it’s our minds, our understanding of reality points, gives us to more joy or to more chaos.

Why do we talk about simplicity? I don’t care if you do it or not. I just want more joy in my life. And I have found when I over clutter my life. Right? When I buy too many things, I’m really, I’m trying to find happiness by emptying my bank account. Right, my attention span, I need to simplify what I consume, not because like there’s some weird rule that, no, it’s, I want to live a life of joy, I want to be a thoughtful person, I want to be a caring person, I want to know what’s going on in life, and when I simplify my life, I am able to get the fullness of joy that’s on offer in Jesus Christ.

That’s why we talk about simplicity, not because it’s some random rule, and me and Caleb are weird dictators, we’re going to control your life, that ain’t it. These practices. are so that you can get your motor back. Joy is the motor that keeps everything else going. But here’s the reality check as we close.

You can’t reap risk or rest until you repent. Some of us, we’ve been searching for joy in all the wrong places. Right? Maybe we’re isolating ourselves. Engaging in substances or addictions to give us enough energy, enough hope to live another day. And so, we just need to repent. We need to turn to Him. Some of us, we’re innovating.

We keep thinking, maybe I need to get a new job, which isn’t always bad, right? Maybe I need to redefine who I am. We’re looking for these tools and these experts to give us what can only come outside of us, which is God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. See, repentance means to just change your mind and to go the other direction.

It’s a declaration of loyalty to the one true king, the one who came down from heaven so that he can bring us back up with him. It’s acknowledging that your sin and foolishness is what brought you to this chaos and mess. But at the same time, you’re embracing the gift of forgiveness. You declare that you’re forgiven in Christ and redeemed.

Friends, you and I were made for joy because you and I were made for Jesus. Surrendering to His loving embrace. Being honest with Jesus and speaking forgiveness over our lives because of the cross of Jesus. Embracing victory because Jesus rose again. We, we can have joy because ultimately Jesus has already defeated sin, Satan, and death.

This kind of joy is a byproduct of life with Jesus, and we want to invite you into that.