Christmas Unwrapped - Session 3: Joy | Pastor René Dekker

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Good morning, everyone.

We're continuing this sermon series Christmas on Rep.

We're doing this four or five week series.

This is where we're unrepping the impact that Jesus has on our lives.

Over the past two weeks, you heard Pastor Phil and myself already unrepping both hope and peace.

And today we will unrepped together joy.

That's what Jesus came to bring.

We all crave joy.

And the reason why we crave joy is because joy makes our lives nicer and easier.

But away we often don't refer to it as joy.

We prefer the term happiness.

That's okay.

Let's not get stuck on definitions here.

Over a few years ago, Forbes Magazine did a survey under their readers and they asked

them to answer this question.

If there would be one thing, you could have more of in your life what would that be.

And of course that list of top ten answers included things like, wow, I would like to have

more self-esteem and confidence and money and all of that.

But the number one answer given by the readers of Forbes Magazine was happiness.

The readers wanted more happiness.

That may not be a surprise.

It was not really a surprise to me.

But I was struck by a comment that I read that they published at the end of their survey.

This was their concluding comment.

Happiness has become so hard to achieve and even harder to maintain.

Happiness is constantly out of our control and a perpetual moving target that never stands

still long enough for us to grasp.

That's annoying.

I mean, we want to be happy, but apparently it's out of our control and it's this moving

target that we're never able to grasp.

If it's not this, how will we ever get happy?

Well, the good news is there's more research done on the topic of happiness.

The University of Bristol actually did a study called the Science of Happiness.

Can you believe it?

There is a science of happiness.

And in their conclusions, they wrote that they found seven happiness hex that if you

would apply those to your life, you would become a happy person.

Are you ready to hear those hex?

Yeah?

Well, here are the seven happiness hex.

Perform acts of kindness, increase social connections, save our experiences, deliberately

draw your attention to positive events, practice feeling grateful, be physically active,

explore mindfulness and other meditation techniques.

There you have it, seven hex to happiness.

And what the University of Bristol did is they incorporated these hex in one of their

courses.

And they found that 228 students that had actually gone through that course experienced the

10 to 15% increase in their well-being after the course.

And 50% of those students continue to have a positive outlook on life when they continue

practicing these hex of happiness.

I believe the outcomes, by the way.

This is solid, sound, scientific research.

I firmly believe that if you and I would be consistently doing this, we would be happier

with people.

I just think it's a lot of work.

It requires a lot of our own determination and all of that only for 10 to 15% increase

in happiness.

It seems that in order to be happy, you need to be a work of hollick and most work

of hollicks that I know are not the happiest people on earth.

What if there would be a different kind of happiness?

A greater kind of happiness with less work involved and with a more lasting impact.

Wouldn't that be good news?

Well, this is exactly the reason why Jesus came and he was wrapping up his three plus

years of training time with his disciples.

This is what he told them.

Guys, I have told you all these things so that you will be filled with joy.

Yes, your joy will overflow.

Apparently, Jesus teachings in his way of life have our joy in mind not just any more

joy overflowing joy.

Earlier this week, a couple of days ago, I was getting ready for the day and I was

brushing my teeth in our bathroom and something caught my attention.

It was my wife's toiletry bag.

She doesn't know.

I didn't tell you.

I would show you actually your, it was my, you recognize it?

It was my wife's toiletry bag.

She keeps her little mirror and hair clip and lipstick and makeup in here and there.

But what caught my attention with the words on the back, choose your moments of joy.

I think what it means is that when you grab something out of that bag and you apply it

to yourself, you, you, you, you pretty yourself up and you become a happier person.

But as I don't use these kind of things, my attention was drawn to hate.

This may be a good idea for a sermon as I was thinking about it.

And if you think that is where the Holy Spirit can use anything to inspire a sermon,

including your wife's toiletry bag, just so you know.

Choose your moments of joy.

Is that, is that really how it works?

Is joy a choice as the bag suggests?

Is joy a moment by moment thing as we can read on the makeup bag?

And what is joy in the first place?

Well, let's, let's unwrap this thing.

Shall we?

Let's unwrap joy so that we have an understanding of what it really is.

Joy is a central theme in the story of Jesus' birth.

It's mentioned eight times in the whole Christmas narrative that we find in Matthew and Luke primarily.

It's a theme that we see everywhere.

We sing about it.

We hear about it and scripture speaks about it.

And we find one of these occasions of joy in Luke chapter 2, where an angel appeared to a group

Luke 2 · chapter mention

of shepherds who were looking after their sheep, not to far from the place where Jesus was born.

This is how the story goes.

That night there were shepherds staying in the fields nearby, guarding their flocks of sheep.

And suddenly an angel of the Lord appeared among them, and the radians of the Lord's

glorious surrounded them.

They were terrified.

But the angel reassured them.

Don't be afraid, he said.

I bring you good news that will bring great joy to all people.

The Savior, yes, the Messiah, the Lord, has been born today in Bethlehem, the city of David.

And you will recognize him by this sign.

You will find a baby, wrapped snugly in strips of cloth lying in a manger, good news that

will bring great joy to all people.

That's the central message of the angel to the shepherds.

In this short message, we find three characteristics of joy that we just need to know.

Here's the first one.

Joy is given to you.

It is not achieved by you.

The angel didn't say, hey, guys, I found the hex to get joy.

If you just apply this and that for three times per day, every day for the rest of your

life, you will receive joy.

Is that what the angel said?

It's not what the angel said.

The angel said that the joy, the great news of great joy, was found in the Messiah.

The baby that was born a couple of kilometers away.

The son that was to be given as the prophet Isaiah had already prophesied, had come and

he was the one.

He was the reason for great joy.

Joy is not found in an ABC to happiness.

Joy is found in a baby that was given to us by God and his name is Jesus.

Because our joy is in Jesus.

We don't have to work for it and it will never expire.

You know why?

Because Jesus is the everlasting God who always was, who always is and who always will

be.

Therefore joy is not found in what you have.

Joy comes from what you know cannot be taken from you.

This means that joy does not depend on your circumstances.

They made a takeaway that job from you but you can still find joy.

That relationship you were in may have been broken up but you can still find joy.

Your health may be failing you but in the midst of that you are still able to find joy.

It's not found in what you have.

It's found in that someone, Jesus, who cannot be taken from you.

Here's the second thing that we learn about joy.

It is available to everyone.

The great joy that the angel speaks of is not an offer for members only for an exclusive

group.

You don't need to be of a certain kind.

It's not just for a few people, it is for all people.

And the fact that the angel brought the message first to the shepherds speaks volumes about

that.

These were men who were lived in the margin.

They were spit out by society.

They were not even allowed to go into this synagogues.

These were outcasts.

Society considered them no-goes.

They were to these people, shepherds, people in the margin, that the news about Jesus

was first shared with.

And they were to first, literally, run to Jesus and counter him where he was and they

couldn't help but sharing the news, spreading the news to anyone they met after because

they had seen, they had found their Messiah.

So what do you consider yourself a success or a failure?

Do you consider yourself intercore or outcast?

What do you consider yourself recognized or unseen?

Joy, real joy is available to you because it's available to everyone.

One more characteristic of joy that we find in this brief message that the angel brought

joy is the result of salvation.

The reason for joy is not just the baby.

Don't get me wrong.

Babies are cute, babies are great.

But if it's just about the baby, babies turn into toddlers, then into younger children, teenagers,

and then adults.

I mean, how much joy is there to be found that it's not about the baby.

It's about what that baby came to do.

And the angel said, the Savior is born.

The Savior has come.

This baby, his name is Jesus, came to save us.

Why is that reason for joy?

What can I just be honest with you?

Our situation without Jesus, without his Savior, is that we are dead people.

We're dead people, spiritually dead now and dead dead at one of the time comes when we

pass away.

This is how Paul says it in Ephesians 2.

Once you were dead because of your disobedience and your many sins.

Without a Savior, this would be a situation that people and just so you know, that people

are not joyful people.

But Paul continues.

He expresses this good news that brings great joy for all people.

You want to hear it?

Here we go.

God is so rich in mercy and he loved us so much that even though we were dead because

of our sins, he gave us life when he raised Christ from the dead.

It is only by God's grace that you have and I have been saved.

For he raised us from the dead along with Christ and he ceded us with him in the heavenly

realms because we are united with Christ.

We don't have enough time to unpack the immenseness of the verses that I just read.

But would you please take away one thing?

Salvation in Jesus means nothing short of being raised from death to life.

Okay?

One more time.

Being saved by Jesus means nothing short of being raised from death into a new life.

I say that's the reason for celebration.

Without a Savior, you are warned out and run down by your sin.

With Jesus, you have light and life in your life.

He resurrects you from a certain death into a certain life.

This is reason for feasting the rest of your life.

The rest of our years on earth and the rest of eternity rejoicing in our salvation.

Joy is the result of salvation.

The thing is if you just admire the Christmas baby and I know many people

do that.

It's the season for admiring the baby.

You will miss out on the joy.

I'm pretty sure if you're just admired the baby you're here to celebrate Christmas with

us wonderful.

You will find happiness.

I guarantee.

The thing is that happiness will soon dissolve after the festive season is over and

you enter a new year and all of what you have to do overlamish.

Good news will only turn into great joy when it becomes personal.

If you would tell me after the service, hey, Pastor Renee, I wonder lottery, that would be

good news for me.

But when I get a letter tomorrow morning in my mailbox, it says that I have one

of the letterly, it will become great joy because it has become personal.

The same with Jesus.

The good news of Jesus will only turn into great joy when you make things personal with

him how by wanting to be saved from your sin by him, following him, recognizing that you

need him as the Savior of your life.

Oh, that's the joy of Christmas in a nutshell of once.

It's given, not achieved.

It's available to everyone and it's the result of salvation in Jesus.

That's good news, right?

Is that good news?

Does it bring great joy?

It does.

But somehow we seem to be struggling with experiencing that joy.

At least experiencing it consistently.

Maybe you're wondering he's talking about joy, but I have no idea.

There seems to be things in our lives that overshadow joy and that can even rub us from

our joy.

What I want to do is I want to have a look with you for the remainder of our time at four

common joy rubbers and then relate them to four characters in the Christmas story that

had to deal with these joy rubbers, but they found an entidode so that they would not

lose their joy.

Here's the first common joy rubber that we face.

It's called fear of the unknown.

We tend to worry about a lot of things, right?

We worry about our health, our children, our finances, our future.

We worry about our exams, we worry about relationships.

Research shows that over the past four years, global anxiety levels have risen by 25%

and although the Europe and North America still rate among the highest, also in Africa,

South America and Asia, the levels of anxiety are rising at a concerning level.

Anxiety seems to be everywhere and when anxiety presents itself at your front door, always

joy leaves through the back door.

Mary, the mother of Jesus, can relate.

Mary was faced with circumstances that really could easily have cost her to fear the unknown.

He was what happened to Mary as we read in Luke 1.

The sixth month of Elizabeth's pregnancy, God sent the angel Gabriel to Nazareth, the

village in Galilee, to a virgin named Mary.

She was engaged to be Mary to a man named Joseph, a descendant of King David.

Gabriel appeared to her and said, greetings, favored woman, the Lord is with you.

Confused and disturbed, Mary tried to think what the angel could mean.

Don't be afraid Mary, the angel told her, for you have found favor with God, you will

conceive and give birth to his son and you will name him Jesus.

He will be very great and will be called the son of the most high.

The Lord God will give him the throne of his ancestor David and he will reign over Israel forever.

His kingdom will never end.

Mary asked the angel, but how can this happen?

I'm still a virgin.

The angel replied, the Holy Spirit will come upon you and the power of the most high will

overshadow you.

So the baby to be born will be holy and he will be called the son of God.

Mary had many reasons to be anxious about the future.

She was likely only 14 or 15 years old when she got this news from the angels.

She was already engaged.

People got married younger in those days because they didn't get that old.

14 or 15 years old.

She got the news that she would become pregnant of the Savior of the world.

No stress Mary.

Oh, and by the way this would not be a natural conception, naturally conceived.

It would be the Holy Spirit actually who would make her pregnant of the son of God

who she would carry.

And yeah, she would become the mum of the Savior of the world, the one who would carry

away the sins of all people.

And later on, we didn't read it now.

Several of days before she actually was due to give birth to her baby.

She had to sit on a donkey for two days.

Make a journey all the way to Bethlehem only to find out that was not a clean bed

and a comfortable room waiting for her.

So she had to stay over in a place where animals were normally fed.

And that's where she had to give birth to her baby.

I mean, Mary had a lot of reasons to fear the unknown.

That's why in Luke 1, the verse we just read, we find her confused, disturbed, and afraid.

Wouldn't you be if you were in Mary's situation?

But there is a term.

Something is happening in the story.

This is what Mary says in response to what the angel had just told her, I am the Lord's

servant, may everything you have said about me come true.

That's a pretty mature response for a 14-year-old.

Lord, whatever you want to do with my life, what you just do in, I'm your servant.

What is the last time that you told God that?

Mary had decided to trust God and to go along with His plan.

Did you have all the answers?

No, no.

She probably had a lot of doubts.

All those things that I just laid out before you, did these already happen?

No, all of these still had to happen.

And yet, Mary was ready to trust God and go along with His plan and where she found herself

a couple of verses ago, confused, disturbed, afraid.

This is where she found herself now.

Oh, how my soul praises the Lord.

How my spirit rejoices in God my Savior.

What has happened to this 14-year-old go?

He trusted God and agreed with His plan for her life.

I don't know what you are anxious about.

When you think of the future, what are you fearful for?

I don't know that, but I do know the end I don't.

Trust God and embrace His plan for you.

Mary is a witness to that and I know there are many witnesses in this room to that as well.

If you're a witness, you can say amen if you want.

I'm a witness as well.

You can trust God and you can trust His plan for you.

The reason why we often cannot make sense of the things that God is doing and maybe

Mary thought that as well, God, this does not make sense.

The reason why we think that is God thinks differently than you and I do.

His thoughts are higher than you are in my thoughts.

His ways are higher than our ways.

That's why it often doesn't make sense, but you need to know one thing.

God knows perfectly well what He is doing, always.

And He always works for your good and for His glory.

And when those two things come together, you're good and His glory over a flowing joy will

be the result.

You can trust God and His plan for you.

It's the end-tide-ode for fear of the future of the unknown.

Here's the second common joy rubber and it is called bitterness.

One of the consequences of doing life in a broken world as we do is that people hurt each

other.

We all have been wounded and we all have wounded people.

People may have heard you with their words.

People may have heard you by rejecting you.

You may have been heard because someone has abused you sexually, physically, emotionally.

You may have been mistreated.

Whatever your heard is that has caused pain, deep pain in you.

And regardless of the type of heard, your response to that heard is a key factor in how

you will come out of the pain that you are facing.

And a lot of people choose bitterness or resentments as their response to pain.

And when that is your response to the heard that someone has caused in you, then you will

not find joy.

But instead you will even find more pain.

If there was someone in the Christmas story who could relate and who was at risk of becoming

a bitter man, it was Joseph.

This is what we read about Joseph in Matthew 1.

This is how Jesus the Messiah was born.

His mother Mary was engaged to be married to Joseph.

But before the marriage took place while she was still a virgin, she became pregnant

through the power of the Holy Spirit.

Joseph to whom she was engaged, he was a righteous man and did not want to disgrace her publicly.

So he decided to break the engagement quietly.

Here's what you need to know.

God had told Mary everything about what we have.

We just read it.

The angel came, Mary you would become pregnant.

It's the Holy Spirit.

You didn't sleep with the man.

You will be the savior of the world.

All of that, God made known to Mary.

He only had said nothing to Joseph.

We don't know why this is.

Maybe this was a test of character for Joseph.

But for all Joseph knew when he saw his fiance, pregnant, was that his wife cheated on

him, betrayed him, slept with another man and God's pregnant.

Reasons for Joseph to turn into a bit of man.

How do you deal with the news that your fiance has pregnant and it wasn't you?

And upset as he probably was, Joseph could have decided to throw Mary under the bus.

To publicly defend himself, say, guys, it wasn't me.

She slept with another man.

Don't blame it on me.

He could have become angry.

He could have become bitter.

But it's not what Joseph did.

As the story tells of Joseph was a righteous man and did not want to shame Mary.

Remember, Mary did nothing wrong.

She did nothing wrong.

Didn't sleep with another man.

But Joseph didn't know that.

He was not part of that story yet.

So for him in his situation, he thought she had betrayed him.

But he didn't want her to be shamed in public.

What he did, he decided to break up the engagement.

That's a big deal in those days.

An engagement was a formal agreement and breaking up an engagement literally meant divorce.

But instead of blaming his wife, Joseph extended grace.

He was the one deciding to break up the engagement.

This would have meant that people would come to him and say, Joseph would have you done.

What have you done?

Why did you divorce your fiance and Joseph would say, guys?

It's on me.

I have made that decision.

Joseph extended grace.

And after that, only after that did an angel appear to Joseph in a dream telling him exactly

what he had told Mary that he would become the step that of the savior of the world.

Exciting news.

Great news.

He came after Joseph had extended grace to his fiance.

If you have been heard by people and you have, I know, you may have made it a commitment

to yourself not to forgive your offender.

And this is the reason why you are bitter.

This is the reason why you lack joy.

And that is where you are.

You give the person who has heard you permission again and again to hurt you without them

even knowing that all the while you're thinking, I will not forgive the one who has

wronged me because I'm paying him or her back.

You're not paying him or her back.

You're actually keeping up a lot of pain in yourself.

Your joy is leaking.

Don't let bitterness overtake your life.

Love once.

Augustine once said resentment is like drinking a cup of poison waiting for the other person

to die.

You know what that other person will not die.

You are the one dying on the inside.

Don't let bitterness overtake your life.

Extend grace to those who have heard you.

I notice can be hard and for some of you it is even unthinkable that remember forgiveness

is not for the sake of your offender in the first place.

It's for your sake.

For giving your offender as impossible as it may seem will make sure that you will be freed

from bitterness.

The abundant joy of Jesus can flow, can overflow in you, extend grace to those who have

heard you.

Here's the third robber of joy I want to share with you today.

Losing hope in the waiting.

I think I speak for most of us when I say that we don't like waiting, right?

Right?

When that waiting involves bigger things, more important things in life, you may have been

waiting for the love of your life to arrive.

You may have been waiting for that career move.

You may have been waiting for God to give you a baby.

You may have been waiting for a country to resettle to because you have been here as a refugee

for many, many years.

Maybe you're just waiting for life to do you a good deck of cards.

And you've probably noticed that it's so easy to lose hope in the waiting, right?

There's a character in the Christmas story that can relate.

His name was Simian, and this is what we read about him in Luke 2.

At that time there was a man in Jerusalem named Simian.

He was righteous and devout and was eagerly waiting for the Messiah to come and rescue

Israel.

The Holy Spirit was upon him and had revealed to him that he would not die until he had

seen the Lord's Messiah.

Simian was most likely an older gentleman.

He was a Jew.

And as the Jews were expecting the Messiah, it was told over and over in the Old Testament

to them.

He was waiting for that Messiah to come.

And although many of his fellow Jews, many of his fellow countrymen had given up on the

hope for this Messiah not so with Simian.

His logic was very simple.

God had told me that I will see the Messiah before I die, so I will see the Messiah before

I die.

Simian knew that when God says he will do something, he will always do something, consider

it's done.

And the waiting was not in vain.

It was eight days after the birth of Jesus.

And his parents brought him to the temple in Jerusalem to be circumcised, which was

a ritual when this happened.

That day the Spirit let him, Simian, to the temple.

So when Mary and Joseph came up to present the baby Jesus to the Lord as the law required,

Simian was there.

He took the child in his arms and he praised God saying, sovereign Lord, now let your

servant, servant, die in peace as you have promised, I have seen your salvation which

you have prepared for all people.

Simian had not lost his hope in the waiting and it paid off.

It paid off the Holy Spirit let him to the temple on that day and he saw his Messiah.

When holding him in his arms, he praised God saying, Lord, I am ready to die now.

My life is fulfilled.

You have kept your promise.

I have seen the Messiah with my own eyes.

Let me go.

I am ready, Lord.

Take me.

Friends, I don't know what it is that you are waiting for and how long you have been waiting

for it.

It may have been so long that you have lost your hope.

But if Simian would be here today, he would tell you that you can rely on God's faithfulness

and his promises.

He would tell you that when God says that he will do stuff, he will always do that stuff

that he promised always.

This is a solid foundation for not losing your hope in the waiting.

You know what the Bible says?

The Bible says that all of God's promises have been fulfilled in Jesus with a resounding?

Yes.

All of God's promises have been fulfilled in Jesus with a resounding.

Yes, you know what this means?

It means that when you have Jesus, you qualify for all of God's promises to be fulfilled

in you.

Did you hear that?

When you have Jesus, you qualify for having all of God's promises, having fulfilled

in your life.

You won't have to question, is God even for me?

Well, he looked after me, well, he loved me, well, he cared for me, well, he protected

me, well, he'd be working for my good, well, he'd be leading me into my career.

The answer is a resounding.

Yes, because you have Jesus and in him, all of God's promises have been fulfilled.

He looked different than what you had in mind yourself.

God tends to do that.

But when it looks different than you are planning for yourself, for some reason, it's always

better.

It's always better.

When God overtakes and leads and fulfills His promises.

One more, Joy-Rubber, Lek of Direction.

Have you had these times when you were on your way to a place where you had not been

before?

Which you think you'll get there because you have the address and you have Google Maps on

and people told you where it is.

But on the way, Google gets it wrong.

The address is not right.

There's some roadworks ahead and you don't want to listen to your wife's instructions.

Have you had those moments?

It's frustrating, right?

Frustrating that you don't end up at that place where you desire to be.

Well, when that Lek of Direction involves the bigger things in life, the purpose.

What am I here for?

Meaning, it's going to be frustrating.

It's going to be confusing and there goes your joy.

And the Christmas story we introduced to a couple of men from the East.

They cannot just bust the myth that there were three.

We don't know how many wise men there were.

Three is a made up number.

Actually, the picture shows three.

That's the picture I found, okay?

But we don't know how many of the words.

They were from the East.

Likely, they were from Babylon, which today is known as Iraq.

And they had seen a star someday.

And this star was different.

It was brighter.

It was bigger.

And experts in reading the movement of the stars as they likely were.

They knew something is up here.

That star indicates that something is up.

So they read through some ancient readings and they knew a new king is born.

And it launched them into a journey like the of months to look for that king.

This is how it works.

Matthew 2 tells us how that went.

Jesus was born in Bethlehem in Judea during the reign of King Herod.

About that time, some wise men from Eastern lands arrived in Jerusalem asking, where is the

newborn king of the Jews?

We saw his star as it rose and we have come to worship him.

Of course they went to Jerusalem.

I mean, that's where kings lived.

That's where King Herod reign at that point of time.

So if there was a newborn king, Jerusalem was definitely the place to go.

But it turned out not to be the place where Jesus was.

I'm not sure what they were thinking.

Maybe they misread the star, but they ended up at a place where Jesus was not.

So they had to ask the way and they began to ask around, where is this new king, newborn

king of the Jews?

People gave them answers and after a detour because they had to be interviewed by King Herod

who got a little bit anxious about this new king, they got the answers they were looking

for and with renewed focus.

It could go continue their way to Jesus after this interview with Herod, the wise men

went their way and the star they had seen in the east guided them to Bethlehem.

It went ahead of them and stopped over the place where the child was.

When they saw the star, they were filled with what?

The joy.

They entered the house, they saw the child with his mother Mary and they bowed down

and worship him.

What it took for these men to leave their comfortable homes in Bethlehem was an intriguing

star that indicated something is up.

That got them out of their seats and got them on a long, long journey.

But what ultimately led them to find Jesus, the destination they were looking for, was

them asking the way, asking for direction as they were looking for Jesus.

If you are looking for answers about your life, about your purpose, about your direction,

even without you knowing maybe Jesus is the one you're looking for.

Jesus says about himself later, I'm the way, I'm the truth and I'm the life.

So when you have Jesus, you have answers, you have clarity, you have direction for your

life.

For these wise men it was the star that was intriguing and that got them going engaging

this journey on their way to the newborn king.

Maybe your intriguing way of being introduced to Jesus was a conversation that you had

with a friend.

Maybe God gave you a dream, he does that, a compelling dream of Jesus, you wonder what

is this?

I need to go after it.

Or maybe it was a memory from the past when you still used to go to church with your

parents or your family.

Whatever intrigued you to engage the journey, continue the journey will you.

It is a good, good journey.

But would you please be smart like these wise men?

Whenever you get stuck, whenever you don't know, whenever you walk or run against the wall,

would you just ask, would you just pose your questions, would you just engage the conversation

with fellow travelers, fellow sergerners or people who have already found Jesus any

question can be asked, engage the journey but also don't forget to ask the way, don't

be foolish, don't be stubborn, ask for direction and you need to know that Jesus is

waiting to be found by you, did you know that?

He is waiting to be found by you, so, whomever will be seeking Jesus will find Jesus.

That's a promise.

That's a guarantee.

So, as we have seen, a lot of joy in this Christmas story, right?

Truly good news about great joy for all people.

And now we know the Antidos as well, from four characters in the Christmas story, how to

counter those annoying joy robbers that we all face in our lives.

So, I will be wrapping up, I want to go back to my wife's toiletry bag and I want to

assess the message that is written on it.

We will quickly, okay, let's start in a reverse way, is joy to be found?

I hope you know, oh yeah, abundantly so, available to everyone in Jesus.

Is joy a choice?

Oh yeah, joy is a choice.

Joy is available for anyone who decides to accept Jesus as their Savior, Savior for their sin,

and to follow Him, to let Him lead you in your life.

The bag got at right and those two fronts.

The bag got at totally wrong on this moment thing.

In Jesus, we get to choose a lifetime of joy.

Are you tired of pursuing the kind of happiness that comes and goes, that is fleeting?

Are you done with putting all the effort and the work in to become a happy person?

And then you need to put more work in to maintain that happiness and to remain a happy person?

Because that's you choose a lifetime of joy.

How choose Jesus?

If you're new to the story of Jesus, you came here because a friend took you a colleague

or a relative and you wonder, this is a good story, but I have no idea about Jesus.

Well he knows you inside out.

You know, your story, he is writing it, he is continuing.

He invites you, he wants to be your Savior, the Savior for your sin, and he wants to be the

Lord to lead you to accompany you, to bless you, to change you.

And if you find today God speaking to you, today is an opportunity for you to say Jesus,

I'm going to answer with yes, I'm going to choose you, I desire a lifetime with you,

and therefore a lifetime of joy.

At the end of the service that will be people here, I will be here as well, come.

If God has been speaking to you, if you've been a follower of Jesus, a believer for a

longer time, and joy is lacking.

Maybe you've never experienced the joy of Jesus.

Something is up.

Maybe one of those joy robbers that is stealing your joy, apply the antidotes.

Well you, and if you don't know exactly how ask for help.

You know, your life group, your brother or sister in Christ, come to one of the pastors we love

to help you with that.

But please don't do this.

Don't go looking frantically for happiness in your life.

Yes, also believers, we do that.

Don't go for the next Netflix show.

Don't go for the next relationship.

Don't go for the next addiction.

What you just simply ask God for more joy.

Why do I say this?

You have the Holy Spirit in you, and one of his roles and functions is to produce joy.

So whenever you let joy ask for more joy.

King David, when he was in a dark season of his life, after he had committed, well, immorality,

sexual immorality.

You know what he asked God?

He cried out, said, Lord, restore the joy of your salvation.

If this is you, cry out to God.

He once should overflow you with joy.

Lord, restore the joy of your salvation.

Would you close your eyes with me and let's bow our heads and be quiet for a couple of

moments.

Jesus?

There are people here in this room who are hurting today and have chosen to hold on to bitterness

and resentment.

You want them free from that pain.

So Holy Spirit, empower your deeply loved child.

So let go to forgive so that freedom will be restored and joy will overflow.

Jesus, there are people in this room who have heard about you are intrigued about you,

but is not personal yet between you and them all, Jesus.

Would you encounter my friends and this room and the other rooms open their eyes through

you are Lord so that they may come to a place of abundant joy by seeing yes to your

salvation.

And Lord, there are people in this room and here today who you so deeply love, but they

lack your joy.

Something is in the way.

Holy Spirit, which you ministered to, my brother, my sister.

Would you pour out your joy and more joy and more joy?

And if there is work to be done by my brother or my sister or Holy Spirit, make them

aware of that and empower them to do it.

You came to give us overflowing joy, Jesus.

Thank you and counter your people in your name we pray.

Amen.

Thank you for tuning in to the ECB-Sermon podcast.

Whether near or far, if you are looking for community or in need of prayer, we welcome

you to engage by sending us an email to office at ECB.asia.

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And remember to join us next week.

God bless you.