Journey to Joy (Jake Enns)

Why is it that some people, in the midst of a good life, decent

health, good income, financial stability, still have no joy?

They have enough to eat, a roof over their heads and decent

health, and still no joy. Why is that?

I want to ask us this morning. I'm not going to ask anybody to

raise their hands or anything, but do you have joy?

Are you joyful today? You may be wondering, well, what

does that look like? You may feel joyous, foreign to

you. Maybe you've lived a life.

I'm always hoping to one day have it.

Well, we're in the Advent season and we want to focus on that

subject this morning. And I want to just dwell on this

topic for a little bit before we go into a Scripture passage.

Let me ask, what is joy? Maybe you're asking that

question. How do you get it?

The Bible says that joy is a state of the heart.

Galatians 522 calls it a fruit of the Spirit.

It's something that happens inside of you.

And true joy, according to Scripture, is not connected to

money, as if you'll have more money, you have more joy.

It's not how it works or how many possessions you can

acquire. How big your house is, how much

stuff you got has nothing to do with being powerful or famous,

in charge and control. True joy is tied to a

relationship with God. A state of joy for a person who

believes in God is when that person's connected to God and is

satisfied in God. True joy is independent of

earthly, temporal, material things, and it's not found

inside of ourselves even. It's more about being than

doing. It's a state of being that does

not expire, does not fade, and not wear out.

It's permanent. Yes, we sometimes don't feel

joy, and sometimes we have so much sorrow that it's buried in

pain. But as believers recalled to

this, and you may ask, what are there not times in the lives of

Christians when they don't have joy?

Well, there are states of being. Sometimes it's emotionally,

spiritually, so heavy. Everything seems buried in a

pile of pain, in a mountain of pain.

In the Gospel of John, we read that when Jesus was getting

ready to leave this earth, in chapter 16, he's talking to the

disciples and says now you have sorrow, but your joy will come.

And it did. I'm not here to say this morning

I always have it. Nope, I'm human too.

I sometimes don't have joy. But Paul writes in Philippians

Philippians 4 · chapter mention

chapter 4. He says, rejoice.

And again I say to you, rejoice. Well, where was Paul writing

from? He had been thrown in jail for

preaching the gospel. And in jail he was tied with

chain. So he was not going to get out.

I don't know what's chain on his legs or something.

He could still write letters. So he wrote letters.

And then he says to this audience, whoever he wrote to,

Philippians is 1. We don't know if he wrote many

rejoice in the Lord and again I say rejoice.

If he can rejoice in that level, having zero, no money and no, no

contacts really he couldn't get out of prison.

He was stuck. He thinks of the Philippian

Church, Rejoice, he says, rejoice.

There are times when temporary happiness can be mistaken for

joy. You know, like maybe you get a

good raise, Wow, you're happy. Got a good raise, you're really

happy. You maybe mistake that for joy.

And maybe there's a shady overlap.

I'm not saying there's no overlap ever, but let's not

mistake that for joy because that raise wears off pretty

soon. That raises old stuff.

They need another one. It's good, it's nothing wrong

with it, but that's not where you anchor and where you tie

down on. You don't tie off on that, tie

down on that, that that moves. Maybe you're healthy, you know,

and now you have joy. Well, your praise God for the

health, but that can change again.

You can get sick again. Emotional happiness, feelings of

happiness is not what the Bible is talking about when it talks

about joy. Feeling good is good, but it

fades. Joy is the Bible describes.

It is the deep inner state of being rooted in God, not

influence, control, or moved by worldly events and things that

don't last. A person is deeply rooted in

God, may or may not feel good but a certain event or about

life, but their joy is not tied to those things.

It's independent of that. Their joy is tied to what goes

on between him or her and God, people who are rooted in God.

Their inner joy is one of one of the reason why so many

Christians don't fear death. Because Paul writes in

Philippians, in fact, is what does it matter if I die and go

home to be with Christ? That's cool, that's better.

But if I stay here, then I'll just continue serving you.

As the years are going by for myself, I'm increasingly aware

of how fleeting and short and temporary everything is, and our

need to focus our hearts and minds on what lasts for eternity

in this life. Nothing that we see in this

room, on this yard, even in this building, will last for

eternity. Not our bodies, not our stuff.

Nothing lasts for eternity. But our soul does.

Our relationship does. And that should give us joy.

And I'm not saying here we should now not earn money and

tend to our lives or what we or we.

And if we do, we should do it with sadness.

No, no, enjoy it. It's great.

God blesses us with health. Enjoy it blesses us with

resources, enjoy them, but not in the context of this is now

where it's at. Christians should be and in many

places are the most joyous and cheerful people on this earth.

The difference between Christians and non Christians is

who and what they follow, what they're rooted in.

Non believers can have good times too.

They get raises, They're happy too, but it's temporary.

Nothing wrong with being happy but having a good raise or good

stuff. But we look for the eternal

stuff. Where it comes down to is what

meaning do we attach to it? As I said before, we're in the

Advent season this morning and we've been looking in the Gospel

of Luke where we read of several people who experienced joy even

when the circumstances were not ideal.

We learned when Zechariah was old, no longer expecting that

his prayers to have children would be answered.

And God sent the Angel Gabriel to give Zechariah the good news

that he and his wife Elizabeth would have a son.

And the Angel says in Luke 114, you will have joy.

Angel promises him that he finds it very hard to believe and

given the fact that he's way past that age and his wife is

past that age and how this happened and God says because

you don't believe you won't be able to talk.

So there was a bit of a damper there, but it happened.

Elizabeth conceives, becomes pregnant in her old age and has

the blessings of a child. Then last Sunday we heard from

from the store Philham preached on how the Angel came to Mary

and Nazareth and he did the impossible and he told her the

good news. She's going to have a baby and

your baby will be the Messiah and he will have the king, the

the throne of King David and his Kingdom.

There will be no end of. And she too wonders old, but I

don't have a man. She was engaged to a man named

Joseph. But we're not married yet.

You know, we can't have a baby. And the Angel says don't worry

about that. God's going to look after that.

The baby will be of the Holy Spirit.

And Mary just accepted that the the Holy One will over shadow

you and you'll have a son. Well, let's just pause for a bit

with these two women, Mary and Elizabeth.

Both of them had very unusual callings.

Mary not at the baby stage yet. She's coming.

Elizabeth, we were way past that.

Both out of the field, both were called to something they never

would have expected, never would have dreamed would be their

case. For Elizabeth, she's old.

Imagine a woman in the final phase of life becoming pregnant.

I don't know if she's walking with a cane or not.

We don't. We're not told.

I don't think she was. But just imagine some of you

women who are older now, having a baby and chasing after a

toddler. I'm actually thankful that

that's not our situation. I couldn't keep up.

Both of us couldn't keep up. And that's what happened.

Elizabeth became a mother. What a surprise.

What a life to look forward to, right?

Grey and old in body, but not in spirit.

And she became a first time mother.

Then there's this young virgin named Mary.

Angel Gabriel comes to her, gives her a promise that she'd

be the mother of the Messiah. Well, of course she got wedding

plans. Not baby plans.

Not being pregnant, not yet at least.

Planning for married life his Angel you'll have a baby.

And so God just interrupts these women and restructures their

lives and organizes their lives for them.

This would because for worry about how will it all happen?

How will it all be. What's interesting here in both

of these stories is that these were situations out of the norm,

out of the normal sphere of life as they would know it and it

wasn't different than it is now. Everybody knows old grandmas

can't have babies. Everybody knows that.

And why should they? They're not.

They're not able to really care for little ones.

And everybody knows you shouldn't have babies at a

wedlock. Everybody knows that too.

But what did these two women do? They embraced their role with

joy. They had joy.

These two women, one the ain't the old grandma, not grandma.

She wasn't a grandma, but grandma's phase of life.

She was ready to just pack it in and just, OK, we're going to

wrap this thing up. We'll be going home soon.

And the other one, she hadn't even started yet.

She isn't even married yet. But they embraced their new

season of life with joy. For them, this was a journey

they had to make mentally, emotionally and spiritual.

Sermon title this morning is Journey to Joy.

Journey to joy. Are you and I this morning on a

journey to joy? Are we on a journey to misery?

To fear, to doubt, to worry? These were extreme situations

and they embraced them with joy. For Elizabeth and for Mary, both

were not in the norm in terms of as all working out as planned.

How can we have a journey that leads to joy in our life This

morning we want to read Luke chapter one, verse 39 to 45.

Well, that's we'll just read the first part.

It won't read all of it. 39 Luke 139 and just keep your Bibles

and phones open too. But this passage when you get

there, verse 39 begins Now Mary Rose in those days went with

went to the Hill Country with haste to a city in Judah and

entered the House of Zacharias and greeted Elizabeth.

And it happened when Elizabeth heard the greeting of Mary that

the babe leaped in her womb and Elizabeth was filled with the

Holy Spirit. Then she spoke out with a loud

voice and said, blessed are you among women, and blessed is the

fruit of your womb. But why is this granted to me,

that the mother of my Lord should come to me?

For indeed, as soon as the voice of your greeting sounded in my

ears, the babe leaped in my womb for joy.

Even the little unborn 1 was joyful.

Blessed is she who believed, for there will be a fulfillment of

those things which were told her from the Lord.

So let's pause there again. These two women, now here they

are together, each in their new strange calling.

Not normal circumstances, once too old, have babies.

One shouldn't have babies yet, but they both have joy and

they're sharing it. Both are grounded and rooted in

God. As we know from the story.

They're both righteous women, worshippers of God, God the

character. And both were in a position

where God could use them for tasks that he would not use

normally use people for. God can't use just anybody for

these things. He uses special people, people

like Elizabeth and like Mary. And so here we have Mary and

Elizabeth, and they share a common joy.

You know something about joy. If you add it, it multiplies, it

increases. It's not like 1 + 1 is 2.

No, 1 + 1 is. However many can be, can be

much. It's an it's just, it just

multiplies. These two women both shared the

same mission in God's plan to bring salvation to this world.

Elizabeth, her son would be preparing the way and Mary her

son would be the way. These two old, these two women,

1 old and one young, both of them are generation apart, blood

relatives. But more than that, they shared

a common faith in God. Both were believers experiencing

something miraculous in nature in their time and both were

benefiting from each other. So that's what happens here.

And as we heard last Sunday, we need to remember that what the

Angel told Mary about Elizabeth and it says in Luke chapter one

verse 36 going back up a bit says now indeed Elizabeth, your

relative has also conceived a son in her old age.

And this is now the 6th month for her who was called barren.

For with God nothing is impossible.

When Mary had been told by the Angel that her relative

Elizabeth was expecting and in the six months already at the

time. What does Mary do?

It says she left with haste to visit her cousin.

She hurried for Mary. This was exciting news.

Hey, my old relative Elizabeth, down South in Judah, she's

having a baby. We don't know exactly how far

this was. This was a long distance, but

commentators suggest that would have been about 100 miles or 150

a 160 kilometers, give or take. So the same thing as walking

from this church to the City of London.

And it's it's it's safe to say that Mary, I don't think she had

a donkey. I don't think so.

And she would have made that journey on foot and would have

taken a while. There was no Tim horton's on the

way or on route where she could stop for a break and sit in a

nice air conditioned car or a car with a good heater or a

comfortable. It was none of that.

It was a big deal. She arrives there and the joy

begins. Well, she had joy probably

before that already, but this joy now is coming together and

it just ignites into something big.

It's something special. It says, even says that the baby

leaped in Elizabeth's womb. This was a great moment in time.

And Elizabeth and Mary, they experienced this together.

Both Elizabeth and Mary experiencing this common get

together. But I want to also mention a few

things that were not happening that were not taking place.

They were not focusing on the challenges that this would

bring. You know that for older women to

have a child can be extremely problematic.

They can die in childbirth. It's some would say not safe

past a certain age. Well, God doesn't worry about

those things. She was old and physically not

at that stage in life anymore for having babies and she

doesn't talk about it. If she did, it's not not

mentioned, but just physically in your mind.

Imagine going to a restaurant now with your husband, old and

white hair as well, and then you're getting the seniors

discount and oh what a wonderful grandchild.

Noah is our son. You get the idea.

So much was not normal. What would like, what would life

like be as a mother for her? No doubt this changed their

whole structure, how they did their house stuff, their house

arrangement, everything was changed.

And it doesn't say they talk about that, any of that.

They had planned for the sunset years, but now it was the other

way around. What about Mary?

She's pregnant, too. Just just pregnant.

She's starting out. She's expecting.

But yeah. Who's the dad?

Well, I don't have. Well, the Holy Spirit people in

the community might say, well, we're not buying it.

And even Joseph from the Gospel of Matthew believed, OK, she's

unfaithful, so I'm going to divorce her.

In that day and age, an engagement could only be

nullified through a divorce. So that's what he's planning to

do. That was later on.

And the Holy Spirit sends an Angel intervenes and no, no, no,

Joseph, don't worry, she's pregnant.

But it's not what you think it is.

The Holy Spirit overshadowed her and she's expecting a son and

he'll be the son of the Most High.

Sometimes we just need to let things be.

Let God handle it. There's situations and

circumstances we have no solution for or don't have an

answer to or shouldn't try to solve.

And So what these two women do is the best thing that women and

these women in their situation could be, you know what they do?

They embrace the journey. When do we embrace the journey?

Or we got to fix it, change it, alter it, modify it, sometimes

as it's placed, but not always. These pregnancies in both these

women changed everything. They would never be the same

again and it would bring pain. We don't know how old Zechariah

and Elizabeth were. Maybe they lived long enough.

I don't think so. But they could have maybe lived

long enough to see their son John being thrown in prison.

We don't know. They would have gotten really

old by that time. Maybe they're already passed on.

We don't know. We don't know what happened to

John, grew up, lived in the desert, ate wild honey and

locusts and camels hair garment and preached repentance to the

nation of Israel and didn't last very long and he was thrown in

jail and then sometime after that was killed.

They knew none of this. And Mary at the time didn't know

either that this little boy she was carrying would by the time

he was 33 or so, he would be arrested, falsely charged and

and condemned and he would be nailed to a cross.

And when she was around maybe 50 or so, we don't know what how

old Mary was when the Angel came, but maybe commentator

suggests she was a teenage girl. That would have been about the

time and Jewish culture when a woman would get engaged and be

married before 20. Nothing couldn't happen after.

But that would have been roughly about what they did.

So she would have been maybe 50 or so, give or take, when she

saw her son hanging on a cross. But here, now, today, in this

story, these two women rejoice together as they embrace their

shared experiences. And God wants us to embrace the

path He has for us. Our path will not be like that,

no doubt. But whatever our path may be

like, and it may not be convenient, may not even be

comfortable, may not even be safe, may not even be

acceptable, never mind about all the other stuff.

But what it will do, if we embrace it, it will lead us to

maturity. In Christ that will lead us to

humility, to surrender and to obedience and these two women

have a great time together. Elizabeth praising God Mary's

Mary's arriving, they didn't have no text and she couldn't

send a text. I'm coming over.

Just she comes and there she is and she's happy.

She's excited and now Mary responds, let's read Luke

chapter one verse 46. And Mary said, my soul magnifies

the Lord and my spirit has rejoiced in God my Savior, for

he has regarded the lowly estate of his maidservant.

For behold, henceforth all generations will call me

blessed. She is focusing on what God has

done for her. She's magnifying God, rejoicing

in God and look what God has done for me.

She's positioning her heart for worship to God.

She's magnifying her creator. She's focusing in her heart on

fulfilling what God has called her to.

She calls God my saviour. She's trusting in him.

She says my heart has rejoiced my my spirit has rejoiced.

My spirit has rejoiced in God my Saviour.

It's not something she was just starting to do now.

She had been doing this. She was a godly young woman

practicing and worship, worshipping God.

When our spirit rejoices in God, that puts us in the place where

true connection happens between US and God.

And it's at that point where Mary just launches into a song

of praise and worship for who God is, what He has done, and

what He is doing. She's aware and accepts her

position as the mother of Jesus. It says in verse 48, she

mentions how God has regarded her lowly estate, her lowly

position, her humble state. This simply means that Mary's

humility put her in a place where God could use her as the

person to fulfill the purpose which he wanted to bring in

which He wanted to bring Jesus into this world.

You see, humility is not optional.

If we're going to connect with God, if we're going to have joy,

humility is a must. And you know what else?

If humility is there, pride has to go.

You can't be joyful and selfishly proud at the same

time. Doesn't work.

Humility is not something that we give her.

Oh, she will add a pinch of humility and a pinch of this and

a buffet style. Now worship God.

No, no, everything has to be in a humble environment.

A person can never be joyfully, pridefully connected with God.

Selfish pride always cancels out joy.

Mary's very much aware what's going on.

She knows her history, She knows the stories of King David and

the promises that God made to his people in the past.

And she knows her son will be the king of a never ending

Kingdom. And because of that, she knows

the future generations will call her blessed.

And she goes on praising God, worshipping God, mentioning what

God has done. Now we have only a very short

little passage here, and it takes only a minute or two to

read it. I'm sure she, her, she

worshipped longer than that. But let's read what she did.

Let's let's read further. It says here in verse 48.

And on it says, For he has, I'll read 48 again.

For he has regarded the lowly state of his maidservant.

For behold, henceforth all generations will call me

blessed. And here it goes.

For He, for He who is mighty has done great things for me, and

holy is His name, and His mercy is one of those is on those who

fear Him from generation to generation.

He has shown strength with His arm.

He has scattered the proud in the imagination of their hearts.

He has put down the mighty from their Thrones and exalted the

lowly. He has filled the hungry with

good things, and the rich He has sent away empty.

He has helped to servant Israel in remembrance of His mercy as

He spoke to her Father's, to Abraham, and to His seed

forever. And Mary remained with her,

meaning. Elizabeth about 3 months and

returned to her house. What is Mary's focus in the song

again? Note again, pay attention to

what she is not doing. She's not asking for a single

thing. Joy is not based on.

What can I get God to do for me? Oh yes, we pray for things to

happen, that is good, we should, but that's not the starting

point. She's looking.

What has God done? And don't we all have a ton of

things every day we can thank God for what He has done started

sometime, sometime in the morning, take a piece of paper

and start thanking God for everything you can imagine that

morning you should thank Him for.

Well, you had a good night's rest maybe.

Or maybe you had a your own place to sleep, You had maybe

you got health, maybe you have enough food for the day.

There's always a long list we can joyfully thank God for.

And I'm not saying we shouldn't pray for things that are on our

hearts, that are heavy, that need to happen.

We can do those. We should do those.

But let's not be that that. Let's not let that be the

starting point or the only point.

Let's, let's bundle this up a little bit.

Let's pack this together. See what it looks like when we

just pile it up. He has regarded the lowly state

of his maid servant. This is what God did.

He has done great things for me. Well, there's a long list behind

that one. His mercy is on those who fear

Him. He has shown strength.

He has scattered the proud. He has put down the mighty.

He has exalted the lowly. He has filled the hungry.

He has sent the rich away empty. He has helped the servant

Israel. But 10 things or so that pop out

right here. What's her focus?

It's on God. We know from this passage that

Mary has joy, and here we see what this joy does.

It exalts God. Her joy is grounded in what God

is doing and has done and is doing.

And isn't that the kind of person that God would want to

use to bring the Messiah into this world?

What about if she was grumpy, pessimistic, negative, cynical?

The cup is always half empty. That kind of a lifestyle.

Oh, I'm a Christian, all right. But hey, the world's a bad

place. That doesn't work well.

You see folks, true joy is rooted in God.

Mary's proclaiming all this, what she's saying she's doing

from a historical context, connecting the past to the

present and can ongoing and what's going to come.

And with God, there's no time constraints.

He's been working then, he's working now.

We'll continue to work in the future.

And for Mary, she knows he's chosen her for that time and

that's phase of life. And when we say things like, Oh,

I wish I could have lived back when or lived in that season and

time. And then there's an God has us

here. Why?

He has us here for a reason. We may not know for sure, but

there's a purpose behind it. Let's embrace it.

Let's have joy in it. Earlier in verse 48, she talks

about taking note of her lowly estate.

And he says God has done great things for for, for her.

And she's just humbly accepting it.

And here together with her cousin Elizabeth, she's

rejoicing God season takes note when a person is in relationship

with him and walks in obedience. He takes note when a person has

joy and you can can use that person for a purpose that the

world will not understand. Mary goes on and credits got all

these things. Let's go back to this list

again. I think it's a pretty good list

that Mary had there that Luke wrote down.

And again, let's note what's not there.

Nothing here that can be viewed from a negative standpoint.

It's all good stuff, even taking it's good when God subdues the

proud and and the haughty and so on.

It's good when God does that. She's mentioning that it's all

good stuff here. And again, the humility in which

Mary presents her song, She's surrendered.

She's devoted, giving him all the glory and all the honour for

what he does. Mary's journey to joy had taken

her from being close to God to even closer to God, surrender to

him and in a relationship with Him.

If we're going to have joy, we do well to ponder and meditate

on stories like this. Real God focused joy has nothing

to do with this world, with politics, with the economy,

nothing. Real God focused joy is solely

grounded in what he is doing. And yes, we pray around what's

going on here. We pray for the government, we

pray for our world, we pray for the situations and whatnot.

But that does not shade or shape or condition our joy.

And as valuable as the earthly things us for our for us to live

off of the money and food and shelter.

The problem with them sometimes is they become distractions.

They can become distractions and we start placing joy in those

things and we should never thank God for them.

But no, they'll be taken away. It says that she spent three

months there. 90 days would have been.

I wonder if Mary kept the journal.

I would have liked to read it. I encourage people to journal.

I do journaling. It's very helpful, it's very

good. We can just imagine what they

all talked about. We don't know if Mary stayed

just past John was born or just before he John was born.

She left just before that. We don't know.

But we know from a worldly standpoint, political

standpoint, these two experiences of these two women,

Nope, not even a blip on the radar.

Nobody would have noticed. But for them, this was a special

thing and it was a world impacting event.

They did not live their lives based on who knows and how wide

is it known? And no, this just let God take

care of things. Their relationship with God,

they're worshipping God, praising God together, these two

humble, surrendered women, devoted and loyal to him.

And I think they did not even realize at the time how big of

an impact they truly would have. And we know the story and time

Mary gave birth to her first born name in Jesus, trained him,

raised him. He grew up, became a teacher.

At the age of 33, he was killed. And if that had been the end of

him, that would have been the end of what he had started.

But it wasn't. Three days later, he rose from

the tomb. Today, the world recognizes this

event. Jesus of Nazareth, the greatest

person to ever live. But to the US Christians, he's

way much more. He's everything.

He's in heaven today, sitting at the right hand of God and

advocating for us. And it says in John verse 12

kind of what he did. But because many has received

him to them, He gave the right to become children of God to

those who believe in His name. You and I connect too.

So again, the question, do you have joy?

If not, it's not because it's not available.

Maybe you're seeking it but haven't found it yet.

Maybe you're seeking among the wrong things.

Maybe you've been hoping and wanting for others to treat you

right. And then you'll have joy.

Maybe if your boss was better, you'll have joy.

Maybe if your parents were better, or your spouse was

better, or your kids were better, or your neighbor was

better, that's not how you'll get it.

Maybe when you get that big break, no, it's not how you'll

get it or the big break needs to come, but that's not how you'll

have joy. It comes from being connected

with God, being in relationship with God regardless of the

situation around us. Maybe you're here this morning

so much long for that deep, inner, satisfying sense of being

right with God. And it's a good longing to have.

But it will never come through self effort, never come through

performance. It will come only as we lay down

and let go of whatever it is that's between US and God.

The expectations and the fears just surrender.

And when we're able to do that, surrender everything to Christ,

our dreams, our ambitions, and whatever we have, we'll find

ourselves taking a journey to the cross.

And they're at the cross. We find that all we ever needed

and truly wanted was Him. That's it.

Because they're at the cross. That's where Jesus gives us His

peace, exchanges His righteousness for our sin, takes

our sin, and we're saved. We have this freedom, and then

we have joy. My prayer is that all of us

would have it, and if you don't have it yet, find it.

Oh yes, there'll be struggles and challenges in life.

They will come, but they can't dampen that because this is

eternal. It won't come through anything

else. And with a faith that's anchored

and rooted in God, our joy will outlast all the struggles and

trials and challenges this life can throw at us.

My prayer is that God will give each one of us the eyes to see

and the ears to hear and hearts to understand what this means,

and we will have that joy.