“Soul Joy is found in God

“Soul Joy is found in God

and God Alone!”

Isaiah 61:10

Sermon for Sunday December 14, 2008

Our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition, when infinite joy is offered to us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in the slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.

C.S. Lewis.

In his book called The Book of Joy, Sherwood Wirt so excellently says "The radiant joy of the Holy Spirit shining in the face of a believer will pierce the religious fog in a friend's mind better than any number of sermons from the pulpit. Without that joy, the Gospel of Jesus Christ will never break down the resistance of our skeptical generation. All the ardor, the fervor, the devotion and the prayers of the faithful may well fail to penetrate today's unbeliever unless the Gospel message carries the same note of joy it had when it was first proclaimed. Fear won't do it. Wrath won't do it. Arguing won't do it. Pleading won't do it. JOY will do it. Because Satan is on a rampage and the Christian faith is under deadly assault, many earnest evangelicals are telling us that we must fight back. We must "defend the Bible." But Charles Spurgeon retorts, "Defend the Bible? I would as soon defend a lion." Righteous anger is not the strongest weapon in God's armory. JOY is.

1. Good Morning. Let’s pray. O Lord may the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be pleasing to You O Lord, our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen.

2. Well it’s Gaudete Sunday – the Joy Sunday! The season of Advent originated as a fast of forty days in preparation for Christmas, commencing on the day after the feast of St. Martin (12 November), whence it was often called "St. Martin's Lent"-- a name by which it was known as early as the fifth century.

Over the first millennium of Christianity Advent was like a late Lent. Both were 5 weeks long, both were marked by fasting and penance and both gave the faithful a day off half way through. In Lent Laudate Sunday is still, roughly, half way through the 5 week season. Advent, however, was shortened to 4 weeks in the 10^th century, and Pope St. Gregory the Great eased the fasting and penitential aspects of this season in the 12^th century, but the no-so-half-way Gaudete Sunday has remained. It is literally, the “rejoicing” Sunday when we look more directly at Jesus’ coming at Christmas!

So today is roughly in the middle of the Advent penitential season and today we let down our hair and rejoice. We forget about penance and sorry and sadness and surrender ourselves to joyful anticipation of the second coming of our precious Lord!

Now that sounds good doesn’t it but what does it mean to you and me today – here and now?

Do you and I become filled with joy as we think about Jesus’ Second coming at the end of all time?

Or would it be more fair to say that we really don’t have much emotion around this thought one way or the other . . . . . but . . . perhaps a little curiosity might be an honest response.

But joy . . . . Hmmmmm . . . No!

The truth of the matter is that probably the most dominant feelings most of us are feeling right now range from our children’s excited anticipation of Christmas morning and presents . . . . to father’s and mother’s stress over not forgetting to get the Christmas cards sent on time – it’s probably too late right now for Australia – thank God for email! and buying those last minute presents that you always leave to the last minute!

But “Joy” – Hmmmmm – maybe . . . but it must be confessed that “Joy” is hard to muster up at this time.

So, the Early Church Fathers made sure that we set aside a Sunday in the Penitential Season of Advent to really focus in on the sublime reality of Joy that is ours because of God’s Advent 2,000 years ago and His soon to come final Advent at the end of all time!

3. Focusing on Joy! So – Joy – Let’s discover – recover – enter into - the joy that must be ours at this time and in this place – SHALL WE!

Now this is going to take some effort and some imagination to do this because our weary – stressed out hearts and minds - don’t have much energy left for this sort of exercise. So pray for me and for you that we will be equal to the task – ha!

OK – Joy – what is it. By the way, whenever I asked this question of anyone as I prepared for this sermon invariably they envisioned someone smiling or laughing with abandonment – giving unabashed expression to their inner joyfulness.

Let me show you joy . . . (show picture of Hayley laughing) – that’s joy! Unadulterated joy! I know because I was there! Hayley surrendered herself to joy!

I want to ask Kevin to now show all of the other images that I found around the theme of joy and as I talk you can enjoy expressions of “Joy” – OK?

So what it joy. My compact Oxford English Dictionary defines it this way:

Joy a vivid emotion of pleasure arising from a sense of wellbeing or satisfaction; the feeling or state of being highly pleased or delighted; exultation of spirit; gladness, delight.

A pleasurable state or condition; a state of happiness or felicity; the perfect bliss or beatitude of heaven; hence the place of bliss, paradise, heaven.

Joy is an essential spiritual practice growing out of faith, grace, gratitude, hope, and love. Joy is our elated response to feelings of happiness, experiences of pleasure, and awareness of abundance. It’s also the deep satisfaction we know when we are able to serve others and be glad for their good fortune.

Hmmmmmm . . . Yep that’s joy. The Anchor Bible Commentary defines it this way - the experience of deliverance and the anticipation of salvation provide the most significant occasions for rejoicing among the people of God in the OT. The coming of the Messiah, who delivers his people and brings salvation becomes the basis for rejoicing in the NT. The response of joy, gladness, or happiness is not only a deep inward feeling, but is expressed in celebration when God’s people gather together.

Not only do God’s people rejoice, but God himself is represented as rejoicing “in his works” (Ps 104:31) and in his people (Deut 30:9; Ps 147:11; 149:4; Zeph 3:17).

Incidentally, joy doesn’t always have religious connotations in the OT. Good wine can bring joy (Ps 104:15; Judg 9:13), and so also should a birthday (Job 3:7), and the years of one’s youth or old age (Eccl 11:8–9).

4. Focusing on Scripture: Listen once again to the expressions of joy in our Scripture readings today:

First we heard it in the OT book of Isaiah: Is. 61:1

The Spirit of the Sovereign LORD is on me,

because the LORD has anointed me

to preach good news to the poor.

He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted,

to proclaim freedom for the captives

and release from darkness for the prisoners,

And then we heard these same words of joy read by Jesus in the Gospel of Luke – announcing His Advent to the world:

Luke 4:18

“The Spirit of the Lord is on me,

because he has anointed me

to preach good news to the poor.

He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners

and recovery of sight for the blind,

to release the oppressed,

But it’s the next verse in Isaiah that caught my attention and gave me the title for this Homily:

Is. 61:10

I delight greatly in the LORD;

In my God is the joy of my soul,

For he has clothed me with garments of salvation

and arrayed me in a robe of righteousness,

as a bridegroom adorns his head like a priest,

and as a bride adorns herself with her jewels.

11 For as the soil makes the sprout come up

and a garden causes seeds to grow,

so the Sovereign LORD will make righteousness and praise spring up before all nations.

Ah! In my God is the joy of my soul!

And our Responsorial Psalm repeats the phrase: “My soul rejoices in my God.”

Soul joy is found in God and God alone!

The joyful soul is the soul who has found its home in God! It’s at peace with the God of all creation!

Truly Joy is a pleasurable state or condition; it’s a state of happiness or felicity; it’s the perfect bliss or beatitude of heaven!

C.S. Lewis wrote about joy in his biography entitled “Surprised By Joy” and in it he defines joy –

“not mere pleasure but the sublime experience of the transcendent, the glimpse of the eternal that is only fleetingly available in earthly loves and aesthetics. It is, for Lewis, only finally received in heavenly glory at the consummation of the age, a joy to be found in the Creator who himself invented both world and word, person and personality. It is He alone who redeems his fallen creation and provide them joy.”

Lewis goes on to write: "Joy, must be sharply distinguished both from Happiness and Pleasure. Joy has indeed one characteristic, and one only, in common with them; the fact that anyone who has experienced it will want it again...I doubt whether anyone who has tasted it would ever, if both were in his power, exchange it for all the pleasures in the world. But Joy is never in our power and pleasure often is."

Oswald Chambers speaks about it like this: "A Life of intimacy with God is Characterized by Joy."

5. Application. So when was the last time you felt – experienced - unadulterated joy?

Do you think perhaps that it’s only for the young – perhaps the very young?

Do you think that joy is lost with age – leached out of us by aching aging bodies and the inexorable disappointments of life – disappointments and lost dreams concerning ourselves and our loved ones?

Can we find joy – real unadulterated joy – in old age?

Perhaps the most compelling scripture that I think about when I ponder this is St. Paul’s comment on Joy in his letter to the Christian church in Philippi:

Phil. 4:4 Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice! 5 Let your gentleness be evident to all. The Lord is near. 6 Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. 7 And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

Ah – joy comes with the nearness of our God! Joy is not something that depends upon the happenstance of any given situation. It’s about nearness to the God of all God and the Lord of all Lords! Ultimately it’s about that exquisite sense of nearness of the lover of your soul!

Imagine: Just take a moment right now and try to imagine how you would look if Jesus – I mean the real physical man from Galilee, came up to you and stood right in front of you and said or did something that convinced you beyond the shadow of a doubt that it really was Him? Try to imagine what you would look like – what emotions would be coursing through your mind? What thoughts would be racing through your brain. Just imagine now that that joy which we have been talking about suddenly came to rest within you – what do you look like – what do you feel? What does joy feel like?

I suspect that some of us may be having some real trouble with this little exercise perhaps because you have never distinguished joy from happiness and perhaps because the experience of closeness – I mean real intimacy – with our Lord – is a foreign experience to you. I don’t know but I want to strongly encourage you to believe that what we’re reflecting on here is a spiritual reality that can and should be yours – sooner than later and right now the Source of this Joy – Jesus Christ – Immanuel – God with us – is offering to draw close to you and to bless you with this gift.

Yes, you can be happy, even content – even emotionally well balanced but joyful?????? – that’s a spiritual gift that comes with intimacy – closeness to God! And it’s not dependent at all upon outward circumstances. People have been filled with joy as they were martyred. Joy has nothing to do with your current circumstances – outward circumstances that it – but it has all to do with your spiritual condition – are you close to God or not?

You can find a level of emotional groundedness with therapy but joy – ah! That will elude you until you come to terms with the reality of God!

There are so many “joy” counterfeits. They try to imitate or impersonate joy but they fail because joy – real joy - is a spiritual reality – a spiritual gift that comes with our nearness to God!

And it’s so so attractive – As Mother Theresa once said, “Joy is a net of love by which you can catch souls.”

"What is joy? According to a man called Sherwood Wirt from His book “Jesus Man of Joy,” . . . “

It is the enjoyment of God and the good things that come from the hand of God. If our new freedom in Christ is a piece of cake, joy is the frosting. If the Bible gives us the wonderful words of life, joy supplies the music. If the way to heaven turns out to be an arduous steep climb, joy rigs up the chairlift. The fact is that joy is an attribute of God Himself. It brings with it pleasure, gladness, and delight. Joy is merriment without frivolity, hilarity without raucousness, and mirth without cruelty. Joy radiates animation, sparkle, and buoyancy. It is more than fun, yet it has fun. It expresses itself in laughter and elation, yet draws from a deep spring that keeps flowing long after the laughter has died and the tears have come. Even while those who mourn, it remains cheerful in a world that has gone gray with grief and worry. Joy is not a sentimental word. It has a clean tang and bite to it, the exhilaration of mountain air. It blows away the dustiness of our days with a fresh breeze, and makes life more carefree..."

Joy is infectious! When people see it they want to know its source – they want to come and partake from this source!

How may Christians do you know who show a singular lack of joy in their lives?

One has to wonder if they know, indeed, if they ever knew the true source of all real joy – God Himself!

So we’re left with the question – how to reclaim our joy – the joy that many of us have bartered away to the God’s of consumer happiness and material greed!

In this time of remembering our Lord’s first coming and anticipating His second coming we draw near to Him – the source of all real joy.

We simply take time to sit in His Presence – to find a quiet place this afternoon and to sit still and to apprehend His Presence and to rest in it.

I would like to encourage each and every one of us to bow our heads and close our eyes and imagine that Jesus has just come to sit beside you and rest His hand upon your head. He is praying for you right now – let Him, believe that He really is with you – because He is – remember – we live and move and have our being in God. He’s with us – all around us wanting us to be present to Him as He is present to us . . .

Amen!

Men have pursued joy in every avenue imaginable. Some have successfully found it while others have not. Perhaps it would be easier to describe where joy cannot be found:

Not in Unbelief -- Voltaire was an infidel of the most pronounced type. He wrote: "I wish I had never been born.” Not in Pleasure -- Lord Byron lived a life of pleasure if anyone did. He wrote: "The worm, the canker, and grief are mine alone.” Not in Money -- Jay Gould, the American millionaire, had plenty of that. When dying, he said: "I suppose I am the most miserable man on earth.” Not in Position and Fame -- Lord Beaconsfield enjoyed more than his share of both. He wrote: "Youth is a mistake; manhood a struggle; old age a regret.” Not in Military Glory -- Alexander the Great conquered the known world in his day. Having done so, he wept in his tent, before he said, "There are no more worlds to conquer."

Where then is real joy found? -- the answer is simple, in Christ alone.

The Bible Friend, Turning Point, May, 1993.