Pastors Heather, Josh and Anthony
John 15:9-11
Transcribed by TurboScribe.ai.
[Pastor Heather]
As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Abide in my love. If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and abide in his love.
These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full. John 15: 9 through 11. Welcome to the Bridgeway Christian Church Daily Advent Devotional for Sunday, December 15th.
My name is Heather Johnson, and I am the Community Group’s pastor. And today, I’m joined by Pastor Anthony Lipscomb and Pastor Josh Ute. And today, we’re discussing joy, which is our theme for this week.
Joy is a key theme that runs throughout both the Old and New Testament. In the Old Testament, joy was most often expressed through various festivals and feast days, and joy was closely connected to God’s nearness to his people. One obvious example that many of us know is out of Psalm 16, and it starts by saying, I have set the Lord always before me, because he is at my right hand.
I shall not be shaken. Therefore, my heart is glad, and my whole being rejoices. And then, just a little later, in verse 11, he says, In your presence there is fullness of joy.
And then, of course, this is Advent, so, you know, Jesus’s birth is announced by the angels as good news that brings great joy. So, let’s get into this conversation about joy. Why does God care so much about us being joyful people?
What do you guys think?
[Pastor Josh]
I think a large portion of that is defining joy properly, to understand that. And that’s beginning with the idea that joy is not simply an emotion. It has emotional expressions, and it has emotional components to it, but joy is rooted in something different than our emotion.
It’s rooted in a knowledge and a trusting that God is enough, that God is for us, that God is with us. And that breeds a relationship of satisfaction. It’s a contentment-based relationship.
We are not yearning for something beyond what we already have. And so, God is saying, he wants a relationship with us that is enough for us. That we’re not saying, God, you’re good, but I also need this Ferrari.
Like God, you are good, and I am content with you. And that contentment breeds and leads to joy in our lives, because it’s not rooted in something that we’re yearning for a lot more than ourselves. But when we associate it with pure emotion, then joy is fleeting.
Then joy is something we’re chasing. And that chasing is not contentment. That chasing is actually something that almost becomes an idol.
We’re chasing this happiness in replacement of God, not receiving joy as a reward or as a benefactor of being in good relationship with God.
[Pastor Anthony]
Yeah, definitely. So, like you’re saying, joy really is a matter of perspective. Joy is sourced in God.
He gives us a reason for joy. And we enact it as a show of agreement with who God is and what he’s doing in our lives. So, I think of joy in terms of, so like biblical words that we translate as joy, especially in the Old Testament, which was the disciples in Jesus’ scripture.
You know, we, like you said, Josh, we miss the rich conceptual content if we reduce joy just to feelings or some kind of state of mind. So, biblical Hebrew joy refers to celebration. It’s, in many cases, it speaks to a person’s willingness to participate in an endeavor, a commitment to a cause or a person.
And so, this shows up in the first five verses of our Psalm 16, where the psalmist tells God that while some go after another God, I put all my eggs in your baskets. I align completely with you and you give me a reason to celebrate being in your will. And the New Testament is well aware of this Hebraic notion of joy.
We even see this in our John 15 passage where Jesus commends his disciples a life of covenant loyalty to the Father. So, it’s keeping the commandments, right? And then says, I tell you this so that my joy, and we can read that, my willing alignment with the Father may be in you and that your joy may be complete.
And so, joy doesn’t have to be something that’s all feely, showy, or anything. It’s an enactment of a relationship that says, yes, I am part of God’s family. And, you know, talking about Luke 2, there’s an announcement of good news, of great joy.
Well, what is the context? A new king has arrived for us to show loyalty to.
[Pastor Heather]
Yeah, so good. And it’s, I mean, you guys summarized it so well. It’s just, it’s an attitude that we have, right?
That God’s people have that we adopt. Sometimes we choose into, you know, we don’t necessarily feel it, but we choose it because of the hope that we have in God’s love and promise.
[Pastor Josh]
Absolutely.
[Pastor Heather]
And we see story after story. Anthony, you gave us such great examples, you know, of God’s people expressing joy in the midst of suffering, oppression, waiting, disappointment. Like, it is often a choice.
And so, kind of give us some examples or maybe some specific ways that you found your relationship with God to be that source of joys. Maybe those choices you’ve made, even in the midst of challenging times.
[Pastor Josh]
So, yeah, I think one of the things that I have found in my life is that when hardships are happening, it’s really easy to complain. I know that’s groundbreaking and everybody is just like, wow, that was some deep. No, it’s, but it gets easier and easier to complain.
It’s always easier to complain about your boss than to celebrate them. Especially ours. No, just kidding, Pastor Lance.
We love you. Please don’t fire me. We can complain really easily.
And when the circumstances of life get us down, it’s really easy to be like, well, I’m not happy. And to be my authentic self, I need to express my depression or express my sadness in a way that everybody knows that I’m sad because this is my authentic self. Whereas joy says, even in the midst of this being dark, I still will be content in the Lord.
For he is with me, he is for me. And if he is with me, who can be against me? And that’s that choice that we have to do.
And so I’ve been thinking about when I left our last church, there was a lot of sadness and a lot of hurt and a lot of confusion based around that. But what never left was hope that the church was still okay. The organization might be messed up.
The institution is completely messed up, but like the bride of Christ is still a good place and there’s still hope in this. And I think that’s the big choice is that when we choose hope and we choose that, we actually have the foundation for joy that be there because we’re choosing to trust God. That is what hope is.
It’s a choice to choose God, even when we don’t see the outcome.
[Pastor Heather]
Yeah, so good. Any other thoughts, Pastor Anthony?
[Pastor Anthony]
I think you covered it amazingly well, Josh. I would say that in my personal experience, that joy has a very anchoring place for me. The times where there might have been uncertainty in my life, whether it’s health problems in the family or other struggles, it wasn’t an overwhelming feeling I ever had, but it was that assurance that God is here in the midst and he’s given me reason to trust him and to know that as long as I stay faithful and as long as I leave the burdens at his feet, then I know that he’s going to come through. And so there’s an anticipation that I balance with that uncertainty and like, Lord, I believe it helped my unbelief, right?
[Pastor Heather]
Yeah, yeah, totally.
[Pastor Anthony]
And so it’s a very human thing for us to struggle with being celebratory, to have joy, to anticipate the good when it’s hard to see how can the good ever come out of this.
[Pastor Heather]
Yeah, and I think it’s helpful for us to think about different ways that joy manifests itself too, besides just like this party, you know, that joy has a lot more expressions than just champagne and bubbly and loud celebrating, you know.
[Pastor Josh]
Absolutely. One of my favorite Christmas movies is Christmas Vacation, not for the kids. And the entire movie from the opening scene to the very end is Clark Griswold is chasing this emotional, like joy, completely fulfilled feeling because of all the things that he’s doing.
And from moment one, it’s just failure after failure, after failure, after failure, because his joy is rooted in something other than what it should be rooted in. He’s chasing after nostalgia. He’s chasing after this perfect moment.
And it’s this, if I only had this, if I only had this moment, then this would be completely perfect. It would be the perfect Christmas. It would be the perfect moment.
And I think about that in the context of joy, when we are seeking after other things other than God, we’re constantly chasing after something that can’t possibly pay off. We’re buying lottery tickets that we just can’t win. Like it’s not going to happen.
And we were chasing the wrong things. But when we chase after who our God is, then we’re settled into who he is. That changes our perspective.
That changes the way we navigate difficult times. It changes the way that we navigate good times. It is that perspective change, as you said earlier, that’s so important for us, especially in this season.
[Pastor Heather]
Yeah. And honestly, that’s just a beautiful place to end because I feel like that’s our invitation. You know, where we started in your presence is fullness of joy.
Absolutely. So we welcome you to enjoy the devotionals this week on joy in Advent. Thanks, everybody.
Have a great week.
Transcribed by TurboScribe.ai