Description
JUICY FRUIT SERMON SERIES
JOY
ED YOUNG
SEPTEMBER 15, 1996
You know I am always careful not to make a broad based, all-encompassing, sweeping type statement to a congregation this large because there are so many people here from different backgrounds, different heritages. Every time that I have done that there are always two or three people who come up to me after the service and say that they are an exception to that statement. But today, on this stage, I am going to take the communicative risk, I am going to step out on a limb and make a broad based, categorical, all-encompassing statement and here it is. Every person in this room would rather be joyful than sorrowful. If given a choice, we would choose gladness over sadness. We would choose a win over a loss. We would choose sun outside rather than rain. We would rather attend a wedding then a funeral. We would rather ride the crest of a wave than sink into the seas of despair. If given an option, we would rather sing, dance and shout than moan, weep and pout.
We have this joy seeking, joy hunting nature in all of our lives, don’t we? And I have this theory. I believe we choose friends, spouses, careers, even churches on the basis of the joy factor. And that leads us to this question. What is it that can make me a consistently joyful person? What is it? To answer this question, we have to look at what we say to ourselves about joy. You know when you have a case of the blues, you might say, if I could only have a problem free life, then I will experience joy. If I can eliminate all of my problems, then I will have true satisfaction. So, we change jobs and spouses and even geographical locations all in an attempt to gain joy. I don’t care if you are CEO of the world while married to Miss World and driving the hottest sports car in the world and flying to your homes around the world, you are still going to have problems with the world. The problem with life is the problems. You can’t get around them. You can’t eliminate them. You can’t wash them away. They are looming large everywhere we turn. Even Christians have problems. We have as many problems as those who don’t know Christ.
We also say to ourselves that if we were wealthy and owned property and lots of possessions that surely that would bring us joy. So we acquire a lot of stuff. And the reality about all the stuff that we have is that the forces of rot, rust, deterioration, depreciation hit and everything we have is slowly fading away. Instead of owning things, the things begin to own us. That doesn’t bring us joy. Then we move to the next avenue. We decide to jump on the health bandwagon. We say that if we eat properly and look good, that will do it. So, we tan and train and lift and laser and liposuction our way into oblivion thinking that will do it. I am going to tell you something. Even the most buff and beautiful man or woman here is going to be ugly in about 25 or 35 years. You are going to get a bunch of wrinkles. Your teeth are going to fall out one day. Your hair is going to fall out one day. You will not look the way you do now. I don’t care if you are married to a plastic surgeon, you are not going to look the way you do 20, 30 or 40 years from now. So that is a formula from frustration, the health kick.
Then we say, what else. Accomplishments. If I can claw and climb my way to the top, to the corner office, to the senior pastorate, to the quarterback, to the captain, to the manager, to the vice president, that will do it. That will really give me joy. And once we get there we look around and wonder if this is really it. Also there is always someone on the horizon who is a little smarter, a little sharper, a little better looking, a little cuter, a little funnier. We say these things to ourselves, don’t we, about joy? Yet we are not experiencing joy. We lie to ourselves.
Let’s look at what the armchair experts tell us about joy; our friends, our associates. We have a case of the blues and our friends will say things like, “Hey, let’s go out tonight and get drunk. That will do it.” Or they say, “Snap out of it, man, smell the coffee. Get in the game. Get real.” And we look back and say, “If I could get in the game, if I could snap out of it, I would but I am feeling down.” Then some women, especially, might say to a friend who is feeling down, “Well, you just need to go to Neiman’s and buy a new outfit.” The armchair experts, our friends, our family, they mean well. They really do. But their advice is worth pretty much what you paid for it – nothing. Their suggestions are shallow and superficial. They give you fast, temporary relief. But that is about it. They can’t bring you the real joy.
We lie to ourselves. The armchair experts lie to us. Surely, the world of scholars and academia will tell us the truth about joy. Surely, they know about joy because they are much smarter than we are. I want to talk to you about three gentlemen. These three people have researched the human dilemma. They have spent tens of thousands of hours on case studies and in interviews. Here is what they say about the joy factor. The first quote will be from William Glasser. He is a 20th Century psychologist, the founder of reality therapy. Here is what Glasser said. “From birth to old age, we need to love and be loved. Our health and happiness depend upon both.” Glasser says, if you read his work, that the key to joy is finding meaningful relationships. And I have got to agree with him. He is right on target. The people I know who have the most joy are the people who have dynamic relationships. That is why we spend large blocks of time and money in this church to give you opportunities to build relationships. Opportunities are provided through our small groups, our Bible study classes and our retreats. I just got back from a men’s retreat yesterday and one of the overriding comments I heard from the men had to do with relationships. So Glasser is a smart guy.
Let’s see what another guy, Victor Frankel, says. He took it a step further than Glasser. He is a 20th century existentialist. He said, “Striving to find meaning in one’s life is the primary motivational force in man.” Frankel is saying that there is more to life than relationships. You have got to have purpose, you have got to have meaning. Think about the people you know, those who have that drive, that focus, they are usually joyful people. He was right.
The third person, and this man makes the all-name team, is Bruno Betelheim. He also was a 20th century psychologist. He survived a Nazi concentration camp. He says, “Man cannot have joy without hope.” He looked at the prisoners and said that the moment they lost their joy, “they became as living corpses.” Glasser, relationships are cool. Frankel, purpose is fine. But he said the deal is hope. You have got to have hope. Hope will bring you joy.
Here is the problem I have with all of these theories. I think these men have served humanity well, but they have fallen short in a major area. They have identified the problems that we face, but they didn’t really tell us the solution. I want to say to these guys, “Where is the shot? Who mixed the serum? Who injects me with joy?” They stop short of giving the true answer.
But we left out one person we need to examine. Let us see what this authority said on the subject of joy. This person knows what joy is all about. What does our loving God say about the subject of joy? What does he say about it? Get this. Our God has put the production of joy at the top of His to-do list in your life and mine. In other words, it is God’s priority to produce joy in our lives, to turn us from a self-centered person into an other-centered person, to turn us from a sorrowful person into a joyful person. He is totally committed to carrying out this work.
I want to do a quick time out. I feel like taking a picture. I have a Polaroid Who wants to have their picture taken? One, two, three, four, five. Will you come up onto the stage, please? Let’s put our hands together for these people. Real quick. Now these people are very brave. They had no idea I would do this. Here we are, we are going to do a nice picture. This will be great. Could you kind of group together closer? I am going to say one, two, three. When I say three, I want everyone here, along with these people, to say joy. OK, now I will tell you what. I want you all to make your way back to your seats and we will see what develops in this picture.
Galatians 5:22-23. “The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.” God’s heavenly priority, again, is to produce joy in your life and mine and these are the nine characteristics that we must reflect if we are in a relationship with Jesus Christ. One of the first things Jesus Christ does the moment He comes into your life is He places the Holy Spirit in your being. The Holy Spirit does a covert operation to work from the inside out to change us, to mold us, to make us into people who produce joy.
What is joy? Let’s start with a definition. Joy can be defined as the positive confidence I feel from knowing and trusting God regardless of the circumstances. Now just for a second, let’s try to get into the mind of God. God is the creator, we are the creature. God could have said that He wanted the prevailing attitude of His children to be one of solemnness. He could have said that. And all believers would have walked around solemn. He loved us so much that He put the Holy Spirit into us so that the prevailing attitude would be one of joy. Joy is woven into the very fabric and framework of who God is and He wants to produce joy in our lives.
The fruit of the spirit is love and joy. As we noted last week, there is a battle going on in our lives. The Holy Spirit is saying, “Let’s produce joy. Let’s manufacture joy.” He is fighting, He is battling and we are just trying to jam Him, and say that we don’t want joy. Instead we will listen to what we say, what the experts say. We fight the Holy Spirit with three weapons. I call these weapons joy jammers. We all use them. Joy jammers.
The first one is right up there on your outline. Selfishness. Let’s take, for example, relationships as we talk about joy. Selfishness is a joy jammer. The Holy Spirit says let’s produce joy in this relationship and we say no, no, no. The Bible says in James 3:16, “Wherever there is jealousy…..” Take your pens out and circle the word jealousy. Yesterday, I was reading over this message and the Holy Spirit said, “Ed, look at jealousy.” Right in the middle of the work jealousy is the word lousy. If you are jealous, you are going to be lousy. “Wherever there is jealousy or selfish ambition….” Circle the word selfish. The root of every relational problem always goes back to selfishness. You trace the root system and it always goes back to the joy jammer called selfishness. “Wherever there is jealousy or selfish ambition, there will be disorder and every other kind of evil.”
Yet we say to ourselves, because we are in the 90s, I have got my rights. Well that is true. We do. But if you are always focusing on your rights, you are not going to complement the other person, you will tear them apart. You see, we are basically selfish, at least I am. I think about myself, what I can obtain from the relationship, what I can get from you. And I struggle with this, with my family, with the staff and with others. For example, remember the photo? Watch this. Tell me your name, Sir. Come on up here. You can come up here barefoot, that’s all right. I like that, casual. You see, Rick is Biblical. You see most of the disciples walked around in sandals or they hung out barefooted. In fact, if you did some study of the New Testament, I am sure you would find that they went to church barefooted and they left their sandals outside. Anyway, now Rick is a handsome guy, he is a sharp guy. I am getting ready to show Rick this picture. Now I want you to watch his reaction when I show him this picture. Now, let’s get ready to rumble. I am showing him the picture. One, two, three. What do you think? (Rick answers, “Good”) Now Rick, why did you say that this picture is good? I am going to ask you a very difficult question here and it will be truth-telling. When I showed this picture to you, who did you look at first? (“Me. I wanted to see if I looked good.”) That is why the picture looked good, because he looked at himself and he photographed well. We laugh here at Rick, but we do the same thing, don’t we? And it shows how we are all self-centered. We are thinking of ourselves. You see it didn’t matter if the rest of them in the picture had their eyes closed, or looked funny, he looked fine so it was a good picture. Thanks, Rick. Self-centeredness, selfishness.
Another joy jammer is bitterness. See it there is Hebrews 12:15. “Watch out that no bitterness takes root among you, for as it springs up it causes deep trouble, hurting many in their spiritual lives.” We all deal with bitterness. It is a joy jammer. You are going to deal with hurt in relationships. Always. There is no way you can be involved in a relationship and not get hurt and not have a little bit of bitterness going on.
The issue is, what do we do with the bitterness. A lot of relationships here are torn apart because of bitterness. We are hurt and we get bitter and we get so bitter that the bitterness begins to pacman all of our relational and emotional energy. It just pacmans it up. It eats our relational lunch. One day we look at the other person and say, “I don’t feel like I love him any more. I don’t feel like I love her any more. Something must have changed. Oh, no. I had better bail out of this relationship.” It is bitterness. You have not dealt with bitterness. It is eating alive all the energy that you have and until you deal with it, you are not going to have joy. We use bitterness to do battle against the Holy Spirit of God.
A third joy jammer is fear. I John 4:18 (Phillips), “Fear always contains some of the torture of feeling guilty. The moment fear comes into a relationship, joy just jumps out. The man who lives in fear has not yet had his love perfected.” Fear causes us to build walls not bridges. We are fearful. We say, “I can’t reveal my true self to you in this relationship because if I did, you might not like me. If I really told you what I was struggling with, you would feel like you are better than me.” So we get fearful. Fear is a joy jammer.
Are you trying to jam the Spirit of God? I am. There is a constant battle going on. Yet, God is committed. I told you that at the top of His to-do list He lists the job of turning people like you and me into people of joy. It is his priority. God sees the battle going on. We hear the roar of a fast paced car zooming by, the screech of rubber as the car U-turns. We think that we will see Kyle Petty’s name on the side of the car. But on the side of the car it says, God Himself. When we open the door, God says, “Hey, believer, come on in now. I want to take you on a joy ride, a true joy ride.” And we get in and strap in. He has got the pedal to the metal and we are pulling some Gs. Then God says, “Hey, while I am taking you on this joy ride, I want you to concentrate on a couple of things. Concentrate on giving not getting.” We want to get this, we want to get that. God says that we have got it wrong.
The Bible says in Acts 20:35, “It is more blessed to give than to receive. John 3:16 says, “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son.” What are you giving in relationships? What are you giving to your spouse? What are you giving to your children? What are you giving to those people who need this character quality called joy? Are you giving it out? The world is dying for it. And God wants our joy to jolt, to snap the heads of people we come in contact with. And if you are not joyful, something is wrong in your relationship with Jesus Christ. It is as simple as that.
Also, God says, “Concentrate on healing, not hurting.” The Bible says in Colossians 3:13, “ Be gentle and ready to forgive.” You see, Jesus doesn’t just forget, He is ready to forgive you and me. Are you ready to forgive people who have hurt you? Are you ready? Just think about it. When I say, “Jesus, I am sorry, forgive me of this sin.”, He doesn’t just say, “That’s OK, Ed.” Don’t ever say that’s OK to someone. It is not OK. It is not OK that we have sinned before a holy God, it is not OK if someone hurt you. It is not OK. But we are to forgive them. And in the middle of the word forgive is the word give.
I love what my wife says about forgiveness. I will demonstrate it. Turn to your neighbor and say, forgive. You can’t say forgive without smiling. Do it again. See. Forgive. Forgive. Forgive. “Be gentle and ready to forgive. Never hold grudges.” Whoa. Remember, the Lord forgave you. So you must forgive others. Most of us concentrate on hurting, don’t we? We keep score. And the grudge builds and builds and builds until we are ready to hammer the person.
You know, slander is a tough thing to deal with. We all get slandered. We take one little phrase someone said and we play it over and over and over and over again in our minds. But the person just dropped one little bit of slander. Concentrate on healing, not hurting.
Concentrate on God’s power, not your problems. We get so enmeshed in our problems. Psalm 62:8. “Trust in God some of the time.” No, no, no, it doesn’t say that. It says, “Trust in God in all times.” My mind rushes back to St. Paul. St. Paul was in prison and he wasn’t singing sad Johnny Cash songs. You know what Paul did? He wrote a letter and this letter is known as the book of Philippians in the New Testament. Go home and read it this afternoon. You can read it in one of the commercial breaks during the Cowboy’s game. Take a wild stab at what the theme of Philippians is. You guessed it. The theme is joy. Nineteen times the words joy and rejoice are used. The Apostle Paul was joyful even in prison. And isn’t it great to know that the Lord Jesus Christ is going to use anything, bad times, good times, mediocre times to do wonderful things in our lives. He is going to use all things, good and bad and in between to work for good. And because we know that, it should bring us joy in the middle of our trials and tribulations.
Trust in God at all times. Pour out your heart to Him. Be honest with God. You can express anger to God. You can express laughter to God. God says that He wants our hearts to so overflow with joy, that we have got to sing, shout, dance and get fired up.
This past week in my preparation, I looked up the Greek term for the word grace. I was thinking about the grace of God and how I don’t deserve it. The word grace in the Koina Greek is pronounced karis. Karis means grace. Then I looked up the word joy. Joy is pronounced in the Koina Greek, kara. Kara, joy comes from karis, grace. They are inseparably linked. Thus, when I think about the grace of God, I have got to have joy. I am talking about joy, joy down in my heart.
You see, God is simply saying to you and to me, there is a seat open, jump aboard and let Me take you on a joy ride.