Journey of Desire Part 4: Delight - Christmas

You're listening to the road with Pastor Teacher Steve Holt.

So listen to what I'm saying.

God loves you with all of his heart.

When you begin to worship him, when you begin to have a conversation with him in prayer, when you begin to read his word, and you're expressing love to him, what you're doing is you're lining up your heart with his heart for you.

That is where fullness of joy comes from.

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We hope you are encouraged by today's message from pastor teacher Steve Holt.

All right, turn your Bibles to the most loved passage in Scripture on the Christmas story, which is Luke chapter 2.

Luke 2 · chapter mention

And if you've been with us the last four weeks, we've talked about desire.

We've talked about darkness.

We've talked about destiny last week.

And this week I want to talk about delight.

And when you read the Christmas story, it is full of delight.

It's full of praise.

It's full of joy.

And I want to take that message, let me just say this, into Christmas Eve.

So this is kind of part one of delight, and then I'm going to carry it over some more and some different aspects and angles on it at the Christmas Eve service, which is on Tuesday.

And it came to pass in those days that a decree went out from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be registered.

This census first took place with Corinius, governing Syria.

So all went to be registered, every one to his own city.

Joseph also went up from Galilee out of the city of Nazareth into Judea to the city of David, which is called Bethlehem, because he was of the house and lineage of David, to be registered with Mary, his betrothed wife, who was with child.

So it was that while they were there the days were completed for her to be delivered.

And she brought forth her firstborn son, and wrapped him in swaddling clothes, and laid him in a manger, because there was no room for them in the end.

Verse 8.

Now there were in the same country shepherds living out in the fields, keeping watch over their flock by night.

And behold, an angel of the Lord stood before them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were greatly afraid.

So I've said this many times, I'll just emphasize it again.

You know, people who've said to me, and maybe even said it to you, man, if I just saw an angel, I would believe.

Every time an angel shows up, everybody freaks out.

They're scary, they're awesome, they're holy, and it just they just break into the three-dimensional world, and it's freakish, man, when they come, because God brings them out of the fourth dimension into the three-dimensional world.

And so they're always having to say, Don't be afraid.

So don't ask for that.

Not good.

If God wants to send you an angel, he will.

Then the angel said to them, Do not be afraid.

For behold, I bring you good tidings of, and this is what you should circle, underline, highlight, and whatever Bible you have, great joy, which will be to highlight, underline, circle all people.

God brings great joy to everyone who receives him.

Anyone who receives Christ, anyone who experienced Christ in their life can experience great joy.

Isn't that exciting?

Verse 11.

For there is born to you this day in the city of David a Savior, a Savior who is Christ the Lord.

And this will be a sign to you.

You will find a babe wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in a manger, and suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly hosts praising God and saying, Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men.

And so it was when the angels had gone away from them into heaven, that the shepherds said to one another, Let us now go to Bethlehem and see this thing that has come to pass, which the Lord has made known to us.

Verse 16.

And they came with haste and found Mary and Joseph and the babe lying in a manger.

Now when they had seen him, they made widely known the saying which was told them concerning this child.

And all those who heard it marveled at those things which were told to them by the shepherds.

But Mary kept all these things and pondered them in her heart.

Then the shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all the things that they had heard and seen as it was told them.

This first Christmas announcement is just full of joy.

It's full of praise.

It's full of excitement.

When I read the story, what jumps out to me is the amount of joy and excitement that's in juxtaposition to the loneliness and the fear and the poverty and the displacement of Joseph and Mary.

And so it says to me again, and it says to all of us today, that wherever you are socioeconomically, no matter where you are on the ladder of your success or lack thereof, God comes at Christmas and he brings us a reminder of the praise and joy that is ours.

And so in Matthew, the description is given to Joseph in a dream.

These words Behold, the virgin shall be with child and bear a son, and they shall call his name Emmanuel, which is translated, God with us.

You see, church, in the presence of Emmanuel, God with us, in the presence of Jesus is fullness of joy.

The writer of Psalm 16, 11 says, You will show me the path of life.

In your presence is fullness of joy.

At your right hand are pleasures forevermore.

The more we invite the presence of God, the more joy we should be experiencing.

Here's my thesis today.

Jot this down, write this down, unless you're using the app and you see it there.

My thesis is that when you have a real desire for, when you have a real desire for and delight in the presence of God, true joy is always the result.

When you have real desire for and delight in the presence of God, true joy is always the result.

But there's this satanic notion.

Some of you still struggle with this today, and I've certainly struggled with it at times in my life, and it's this idea that if I surrender myself fully to God, I'm gonna get ripped off.

That my desires will never be fulfilled if I surrender everything to Him.

And it's a false narrative.

It's demonic, it's satanic.

It's this idea that I'll find joy if I follow my desires, and if I follow God's desires, I'll be bored.

And that's why Jesus said that the enemy comes to steal, kill, and destroy, but I came that you might have life.

So the narrative isn't my desires bring me happiness, and God's desires bring me boredom, but rather that God's desires bring me joy, and my desires can create bondage.

The dichotomy is not pleasure versus boredom, but slavery and bondage versus life and joy.

St.

Augustine, who in the year 386 found freedom from lust and lechery and the superior pleasures of God, wrote, quote, how sweet all at once it was for me to be rid of those fruitless joys which I had so feared to lose.

You drove them from me, you who are the true and the sovereign joy.

You drove them from me and took their place, you who are sweeter than all pleasure.

Jonathan Edwards wrote, The happiness of the creature consists in rejoicing in God, by which also God is magnified and exalted.

The end of creation is that the creation might glorify God.

Now, what is glorifying God?

But a rejoicing at that glory that He has displayed.

I see three ways that we experience God's joy in our life.

Three ways that we give of ourselves with our whole heart, mind, and strength.

The first is worship.

Worship, as I would define it, is focusing our heart on Christ, focusing our attention on Christ, giving Christ our full attention.

Praise elevates Christ in our life.

And in so doing, there's fullness of joy.

The writer of Psalm 43 writes this then I will go to the altar of God, to God my exceeding joy.

And upon the lyre I shall praise you, O God, my God.

Worship.

Taking time throughout the week, prayerfully taking time each day for worship.

Just two or three songs.

You've heard me say it, you know, incessantly over the years, to use YouTube or whatever form you want, either hymns or contemporary songs.

But before you start your day, I think it's imperative that you start your day this way.

To start your day with closing your eyes and doing two songs, just worshiping the Lord, focusing your attention off of your job, off of your relationships, off of your problems, and put your eyes and your heart and your focus on Christ.

So first is worship.

Second is prayer.

Second is prayer.

Prayer is focusing your desires and emotions upon Christ.

So I see the first is worship is our attention upon Christ.

Secondly, prayer is sharing our heart with Him, a conversation with God, having a relationship with Him where we share with Him from our emotions, from our problems and desires, but also in intimacy with Him.

Be anxious for nothing, but in all things, through prayer and supplication with thanksgiving, which is praise and worship, let your request be made known unto God, and the God of what?

Peace shall guard your heart and mind in Christ Jesus.

That's joy.

Anyone need more peace in your life?

Anyone need more joy?

I mean, when we begin to take our anxiety, and a lot of us are anxious these days, a lot to be anxious about.

Liz and I were talking this morning how, you know, everything is like blasted now.

I mean, you gotta be so careful with your phone because you're just getting blasted with some positive information, but I'll tell you like 90% of it's negative.

You guys know the news is not there to inform you.

The news is there to startle you.

The news is there to startle you because that's how they make money.

They make money by you going to their apps and looking and all the advertisements that go with it.

So the news is not about information anymore.

It's really about startling you.

So be careful of that.

And so we get anxious, don't we?

There's a lot to be anxious about.

But joy comes when we take those anxious thoughts and we give them back to God.

God, I'm anxious about this.

God, I'm really super worried about this or that.

God, I give it to you.

So first, worship.

Second, prayer.

But then third is the word, God's word.

That's where we give our attention mentally to the Lord.

We spend time, we study his word each day.

We spend time in his word, and God settles our mind.

Do you know that our mind is what instructs our brain?

And it's our brain that instructs the rest of our body.

And when we look at stressors that we're dealing with today, we're finding that it's how you think, it's what you believe that affects your physical and mental health.

And so God's word is living and active, and it comes and it settles our hearts.

I love Psalm 119.

I rejoice in the way of your testimonies as much as in all riches.

I will meditate on your precepts and contemplate your ways.

I will delight myself in your statutes.

I will not forget your word.

Almost every week for the last seven or eight weeks, I've had the privilege personally of leading a number of you into a personal, vital, dynamic, growing relationship with Jesus Christ.

Right up here at the altar as I'm leaving.

Someone comes up and I have the privilege.

Maybe some of you have had that.

And I want to just say that, stop just for a moment and say everything that I've said is dependent on you having a relationship with Christ.

So, church, men and women here today, if you've never surrendered to Christ, what a better time?

Christmas.

Christmas 2019.

Give yourself to Jesus.

Come to Christ.

It's as simple as saying, God, I thank you for dying on the cross for my sins.

I give you my heart.

I surrender everything to you.

Would you come and live your life in me?

I give you my emotions.

I give you my heart.

I give you my body.

I give you my spirit, man.

I give it all to you.

And that's where it all begins.

And then the adventure starts there.

That's true joy.

That's the presence of Emmanuel within us.

Again, my thesis.

When you have a real desire for and delight in the presence of God, true joy is always the result.

I've been deeply impacted by John Piper and Jonathan Edwards and C.S.

Lewis through the years in understanding that it's so crucial, church, that we walk with a fullness of joy.

Now follow me in this.

I'm going to give you three verses, three passages that are going to come up on the screen.

Follow my reasoning.

The first one is one we're all familiar with, it's John 3.16.

For God so loved the world, for God so loved everyone in the world, for God so loved all people of the world that he gave his only begotten Son.

And then in Jeremiah we read, I have loved you with an everlasting love.

Therefore, with loving kindness, I have drawn you.

Those two verses alone say that God loves each one of us in this room with all of his heart.

With all of his focus, he says, You are his beloved.

But then when Jesus was being challenged and debated about what is the greatest commandment, he said, love the Lord your God with all of your heart, soul, mind, and strength.

And he says, all the prophets and all the law are sustained or fulfilled in this.

So listen to what I'm saying.

God loves you with all of his heart.

When you begin to worship him, when you begin to have a conversation with him in prayer, when you begin to read his word and you're expressing love to him, what you're doing is you're lining up your heart with his heart for you.

That is where fullness of joy comes from.

Because what we're doing when we say, God, I love you, I bless you, and we have these praises that come forth, and I believe you need to verbalize it, not just think it, but you verbalize it unto the Lord.

You're simply lining yourself up with what God already thinks about you.

Isn't that exciting?

So when you line yourselves up with heaven, the joy of the Lord truly does become your strength.

It's a lining up of our heart with what God says about you.

And I believe that's what the church should be like.

Disneyland and Disney World should not be the happiest places on the face of the earth.

The local church should be.

This should be the happiest place on the face of the earth.

Instead, what we do is we we shoot each other.

I was telling the other day, you know, all the stuff that's out there right now about a couple churches and some things that are happening.

We shoot our wounded, but we also shoot our healthy.

If the church could begin to major on the majors and minor on the minors, we actually might see a kingdom of God revolution.

We need to come together.

That we might be a church at the road that's joyful serving, delighted in worship and overflowing in love.

Let me say that again.

That we be joyfully serving, delightful in worship and overflowing in love.

You know that's God's heart?

You know that's God's heart for the church?

It really is.

Listen to this.

In Deuteronomy, God actually rebukes the nation of Israel for not serving him with joy.

Deuteronomy 28.

Because you did not serve the Lord your God with joy and a glad heart, for the abundance of all the things, therefore you shall serve your enemies, whom the Lord will send against you in hunger, in thirst, in nakedness, and in the lack of all things.

Hello?

So this stoic kind of religious spirit of being so holy.

Not biblical.

Now, I mean, if that's someone's personality, that's fine.

But I believe what we need today is more joy, more delight, more happiness, and you know, I don't want to go into the whole definition, but I would just say happiness tends to be circumstantial.

Joy tends to be non-circumstantial based in your identity of who you are in your relationship with God.

So joy or happiness, I don't care what you call it.

C.S.

Lewis called it happiness, John Piper calls it joy, and Augustine called it happiness, and Pascal called it happiness and joy.

Whatever.

God wants us serving him with gladness and joy.

Psalm 102.

Serve the Lord with gladness.

Come before him with joyful singing.

God has filled our heart with a longing for joy, and a longing for happiness, and a longing for something more than what we're living in right now.

The French philosopher Blaise Pascal, arguably one of the greatest minds of Western civilization, once said, All men seek happiness, and this is without exception.

Whatever different means they may employ, they all tend to this end.

The will never takes the least step but to the object of happiness.

This is the motive of every action of every man.

Pascal on November 23rd, 1654.

He was 31 years old.

For two hours, from 10 30 p.m.

until 12 30 a.m., he experienced a kind of spiritual inferno.

He journaled the experience on a piece of paper that he sewed into his coat next to his heart that he wore every day.

Here's what he wrote: fire.

God of Abraham, God of Isaac, God of Jacob, not of philosophers and scholars.

Certainty, certainty, heartfelt joy, peace, certainty.

God of Jesus Christ, God of Jesus Christ.

Joy, joy, joy, tears of joy.

And this is eternal life that they might know thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent.

Jesus Christ, Jesus Christ.

Pascal also wrote in the Infinite Abbas.

There was once a man, a true happiness of which there now remained to him only the mark and an empty trace, which he in vain tries to fill from all his surroundings, seeking from things absent, the help he does not obtain in the things that are present.

But these are all inadequate, because the infinite obis can only be filled by an infinite and immutable object, and that is to say, only by God Himself.

Pursuing joy in Jesus Christ is our highest calling.

Pursuing joy in Christ brings the most glory to God.

C.S.

Lewis said, it is a Christian duty, as you know, for everyone to be as happy as he can.

The old Westminster Confession of Faith reads, What is man's chief end?

The answer, man's chief end is to glorify God and enjoy him forever.

I like what John Piper wrote.

He rephrased the confession to these words: man's chief end is to glorify God by enjoying him forever.

That when you enjoy God, it glorifies him.

When you enjoy God the most, God is most glorified by your life.

In John 15, 11, Jesus says, The things I have spoken to you, so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be made full.

I love the great parable of the kingdom of heaven and the treasure hidden in a field.

Jesus said, The kingdom of heaven is like a treasure hidden in a field which a man found and hid, and for joy over it, he goes and sells all that he has and he buys that field.

Church, that's what true conversion is.

That's what we need as we go into the new year.

A greater joy.

Go after joy.

Go after happiness in Christ by delighting in him.

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We hope you have been blessed by today's message.

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