The Advent of Joy

Here's the question I want to set up for us this morning.

Is the good news of Jesus great joy for you?

Is the good news of Jesus great joy for you?

This passage this morning is out of the Gospel of Luke.

And Luke is the most detailed account of the birth of Jesus.

And we read here in the passage that actually the first public proclamation that Jesus had been born.

And Luke records that it was actually given to these lowly shepherds, this crew of social outsiders who were tending to their flocks in the evening.

You see, the shepherds were outside of the city of Bethlehem in this uninhabited pasture, and they had to remain there because their very work violated the ceremonial law of cleanliness.

And so they were considered dirty people, not just because they messed around with sheep all the time, but ceremonially they were considered unclean.

And so they had to be removed from the people of Israel and had to do their work outside of the city.

They were probably a couple miles away from the city limits, they're tending to their flock.

Now, they were probably taking turns in the middle of the night, some resting, some sleeping, but at least one of them was awake.

And they were tending to the sheep.

They were guarding that entry to the pen that they had constructed to make sure that their flock was safe.

And in that moment, this angel appears to them.

And the angel lights up the evening sky with the glory of the Lord that shone all around them.

And when the shepherds saw this phenomenon, right, you could imagine some of them waking up at this brilliant light.

The Bible declares to us that they were filled with utter dread at the sight of this magnificent and spectacular creature filling the night sky with the glory of God.

They were filled with utter dread.

You see, they didn't know what was going on.

What we understand from Scripture that it had been at least 500 years since an angel appeared to man.

The last time it was ever recorded with inside of history was to the prophet Zechariah.

And so it's been 500 years since such a phenomenon has taken place, and these angels don't know what to make of it.

And so they're filled with this fear, and they were terrified at the sight.

And the angel sees these lowly shepherds in their state of fear, and he commands them fear not.

Fear not.

Now, this is a pretty normal command given by an angel after they've revealed themselves to someone.

Like I don't know if you realize this, but angels don't look like precious moments, right?

Uh when we look at the scriptures and the description of them, they are terrifying beings.

And so this angel filling the night sky looks at these shepherds and commands them, fear not.

We can only imagine what it would be like to behold such a majestic and awe-inspiring creature.

But I want to draw our attention to the reason that the angel commands them to not be afraid.

You see, he says, fear not for.

There's this why that he's setting up, that these shepherds' hearts should be comforted in this moment.

And he declares to them, Behold.

I love this command that the angel gives to the shepherds, because what are they doing?

They are looking at him, they are fixing their eyes on this angel before them, and he says, Don't fear, but behold.

It's almost as if he's saying, take your eyes off of me and set them on something more glorious, more wonderful, more joyful, more beautiful.

Fix your eyes on the message, the pronouncement that I'm about to make.

For behold, I have good news of great joy.

You see, the word for good news that he declares is eugangelezo, and it's where we derive the word gospel from.

The word gospel in Greek is eugangelion.

But here, ewangelezo means to preach, to proclaim the good news of the gospel.

And so the angel is commanding the shepherds to fix their gaze on the gospel of which he is proclaiming to them, which its substance is that of great joy, he says.

This message I bring to you, this gospel good news is one of great joy for all people.

This word for joy is often found predominantly within the Psalms.

And the psalmists use it to declare the redemptive work of God as joyful, as a reason to rejoice within us.

And so think about what the angel is saying here.

He's bringing comfort to the fear-filled hearts of these shepherds by proclaiming to them that he has a gospel to preach to them, whose substance is the redemptive work of God for his people, and this should cause their hearts to rejoice at beholding it.

Imagine getting woken up to that.

Right?

What was this joy-producing gospel message of the redemptive work of God that the angel was preaching to them?

It was this, verse 11.

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

See the angel saying, On that night, there was a savior who was born.

And so what we see in the text is that there is joy because there is a savior.

There is joy because there is a savior.

You see, the angel roots the reason for joy in the reality of a savior being born.

I have good news.

I'm preaching this gospel to you.

And it's one of great joy rooted in the redemptive work of God.

There's a savior that was born.

And who is this savior?

He is Christ the Lord.

You see, Christ means anointed one or messiah.

It stands for someone who has been marked and set apart by God Himself for a specific work.

It would be this realization of the person of Jesus as one who was marked by God to fulfill what had been commanded of him, that he was commissioned and equipped for the purpose of God rescuing his people.

And his title of Lord would acknowledge him as sovereign ruler, able to accomplish all that God had called him to.

So when the angel declares that he is Christ the Lord, what he is declaring to these shepherds is he is the one who has been set apart and marked by God to fulfill the work of which he has called him to rescue his people, and he is powerful enough.

He is all powerful, in fact, to accomplish it.

This is Christ the Lord.

This is the Savior who was born.

So the rescuer has come.

The long-awaited Savior is finally here, and so do not fear, but have great joy.

You see, the angel's proclamation that is the means of great joy for us is that Jesus is the rescuer of his people.

But we have to ask ourselves something.

I think we have to ask ourselves, what are we supposed to be joyful about being rescued from?

If the good news that should fill us with great joy is that a rescuer has come, well, what are we being rescued from?

You see, I think we fail to understand our need for rescue.

And for a lot of us, we struggle with joy in our life because we fail to understand what we need rescued from and who is the one who is able to rescue us.

You see, many of us we may struggle to see what actually threatens the life we long for, the goodness that seems out of our grasp.

And tied together in that, we fail to recognize the one who can truly rescue us and bring us out of the sadness and sorrow that we constantly face.

And I believe that because of this, because we don't understand what we need rescued from, and we fail to see who is able to rescue us, often the good news of Jesus just isn't that good of news.

It's not one that brings us great joy to hear that a savior has been born.

I think many of us, if we can really search our hearts and look honestly at ourselves, we would see that we actually believe a different savior will rescue us.

We believe a different Savior will rescue us.

Now, none of us would outright say that, but I think our lives really reflect that in the ways in which we long for other saviors to rescue us from our state.

You see, many of us we fail to have true, deep, everlasting joy because we're looking for a different Savior to come and rescue us.

And so the good news of Jesus, right?

This gospel message, it's often received as dull, uninspiring.

Ultimately because we fail to realize what is truly keeping us from the life that we really long for.

You see, we've convinced ourselves of something.

We've convinced ourselves if we just obtain what we feel is missing in our life, if we just grab hold of what we've convinced and persuaded our own hearts will bring us joy, then we will actually be able to have the life we desire.

If we simply have more money, more success, if we can find a spouse, if we can bear children, if we can have more power, if we can have a community of friends to do life with, et cetera, et cetera, right?

If we have these things, then we'll have joy.

And so what does that cause us to do?

It causes us to look for the things that we believe can give that to us as the rescue we really need.

What we do is we look to other saviors to give us those things, to rescue us from the perceived hell of being without them.

And we all too often soon realize that they were unable to provide us with all our hearts hoped for.

You see, we we behold, right?

We fix our eyes upon our career because we believe that it's going to provide us with joy.

Joy in more money and more security and more comfort and more success or power.

We behold or we fix our eyes upon our marriages to provide us with joy in the absence of loneliness and the presence of fulfillment.

We behold and fix our eyes upon our children because we think that living through them is somehow going to satisfy what's missing inside of us.

Or we behold or fix our eyes upon the local church because we believe that it's going to bring us the community and the relationships, the purpose and meaning that seems so absent in this moment.

And all of them are pathetic saviors that cannot bring you the joy that you so desire.

You see, we can go on and on and on.

This is the essence of idolatry.

We believe, see, idolatry isn't so much in stone and wood carved images.

That is idolatry, right?

It's not that that's not idolatry, but the thing that we can get lost in is that we think because we don't have some statue in our foyer at our home that we burn incense to, we don't participate in idolatry.

But our hearts constantly construct idols of which we serve because we desire this thing that we do not possess, and we look to a savior to provide it for us.

You see, a failure to see sin as what keeps us from the life that we so desire will cause us to fail to see Jesus as the only good and true Savior.

And we wonder why our lives seem so absent of joy.

Maybe it's because we're beholding joyless saviors in hopes that they will be the ones to rescue us from the hell we find ourselves in.

Isaiah proclaimed to the people of Israel that there is no other God but Yahweh.

And Isaiah 45, 5 through 6 says to his people through the prophet, I am the Lord, and there is no other.

Besides me, there is no God.

I equip you, though you do not know me, that people may know from the rising of the sun and from the west that there is none besides me.

I am the Lord, and there is no other.

Church, there is no other God.

There is no other Savior who can rescue you.

None who is able, but Christ.

He is the Savior that we all need.

Now, some of us, we struggle with something a little different.

I think there's this absence of joy in our life because far too often we believe that what we really need rescued from is the sins of others.

We believe that we need rescued from the sins of others.

Think about this for a moment.

How much of your time and energy every day is spent pondering the sins of other people?

My guess is it's a lot, especially in this information culture that we find ourselves in, where at any moment you are constantly bombarded with the shortcomings, failures, sins of the people around you.

And we convince ourselves if we were just rescued from their sin, everything would be great for us.

Because after all, we're pretty amazing.

I think it's fascinating how many of us as Christians are saved as younger brothers.

What I mean by that is the parable of the prodigal son, right?

The younger brother was the one who lived this licentious life, squandered his inheritance, finds himself out eating out of a pig trough.

Like that was me, right?

That was me.

I was the kid who was at the bottom of life when Jesus saved me.

I was the younger brother.

But here's the fascinating thing about us, right?

We turn into older brothers really, really quick.

We turn into self-righteous, judgmental, arrogant, and proud people.

Because what?

Jesus saved you, put his spirit in you, caused his righteousness to be produced in your body.

What right do we have to be such self-righteous people?

You see, I think a lot of our time and energy is focusing on the sins of others around us, and we really do convince our hearts that we need to be rescued from them, right?

Some of us believe that all we need to do is be rescued from the political ideologies and agendas of those that we disagree with and believe are oppressing our lives, right?

That it's been the last year plus of our life.

If we can just get out from under their sin, I don't care if you think the right is the ones doing it or the left is the ones doing it.

It doesn't matter.

Both of y'all, including me, have convinced ourselves at times if we can just get out from under their sin, everything will be great.

And we've spent countless amounts of time wasted on contemplating the sins of others and believing if we were just rescued from them, everything would be great.

We'd have joy in our life.

Right?

Some of us believe that we when we when we see the sin of friends and acquaintances on social media, we ponder in our hearts how this life would just be better if they just got their mess together.

Don't act like you haven't.

I've done it all the time.

Like probably yesterday, probably saw some of y'all.

It was like, man, if they just got their mess together, my life would be a lot better.

If I could get free of their sin.

We experience true and genuine hurt and pain from people that we trust, like our bosses, our co-workers, our neighbors, our family members, our friends.

And what do we do?

We meditate on their actions and words that have caused us distress in our life.

If we're honest with ourselves, we spend an excessive amount of mental and emotional energy obsessing over the sins of others.

And in that process, we convince ourselves if I could just be rescued from their sin, I'd have joy in my life.

But let's look at a private proclamation from an angel to a young Joseph in Matthew 121.

Here's why Jesus came.

She, being Mary, will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus.

Why?

Because he will save his people from their sins, from their sin.

Not the sin of those around them.

Not the sin of the political agenda that was oppressing them.

Not the sin of those who had hurt them.

Their sin.

You see, the sin we truly need rescued from, church, it's our own.

We don't meditate on that enough.

We don't contemplate that reality enough.

The sin that truly keeps us from the life that we long for, it's our own.

Perhaps we're absent of joy because we actually don't reflect enough on the presence of our own sin in our life.

The way it keeps us from the abundant life that Jesus promises to us and displays him as the great savior that he is to rescue us from us.

You see, it seems to appear cut.

Contrary to one another, right?

How can you talk about sin and joy in the same sentence?

It doesn't make sense on the surface, but perhaps there actually is more joy in the reflection on in the mortification of our own sin.

If in that pursuit we see Jesus as a more glorious Savior.

You see, that's when the good news of Jesus becomes great joy to us.

To consider the ways of which our sin we needed rescue from.

We continue to need rescue from.

We need to be conformed to his image.

We need to put the unrighteousness that remains in us to death that we might be like him and that we might uh communicate, right?

Or display his glory to the world around us.

If we are able to see the bigness of our sin, but we see Jesus as a bigger, more glorious Savior, would that not cause joy to rise up in us?

Because joy is going to be rooted in gratitude.

Think about it.

If you don't really believe that you needed rescued from you, then the good news isn't going to be that much joy.

If we are ever going to truly have joy, it's only going to be discovered in the true understanding of our need of rescue from our sin, in seeing Jesus alone as the only one who can truly rescue.

This is why Jesus is the advent of joy.

Because he saves me from me.

You see, to increase in joy is to continually see Jesus as a bigger rescuer than the big sin that remains in my life.

And our good news is that Jesus is the Savior who rescues us.

This is the good news that brings great joy to his people.

You see, Jesus was born to die.

That's why he came.

He was born to die that he might save us from our sin.

To cause our hearts to behold him as the true and better Savior.

And to take our eyes off of the idols who leave us joyless.

You see, Jesus is the advent of joy because he has come to rescue us from the hell that bound us in sorrow.

Our sin that kept us from the source of all life, the Lord our God.

This is why we celebrate Jesus as the advent of hope, peace, love, and joy.

Because he alone is our hope.

Jesus alone is the one who gives us a confident longing for future beauty.

Christ alone is our peace, reconciling us to God the Father through his blood and tearing down what divided us through the tearing of his own flesh.

Only Jesus displays the holy passion of God's love for us and absorbing in himself the wrath of the Father that was kindled against us because of our rebellion against his holiness.

And it's only Jesus who is our joy, because he alone is our rescuer, rescuing us from our despair and bringing us into the light and life of his kingdom.

So what I want you to hear this morning is that there is joy because there is a Savior, Christ the Lord.

So my prayer for us over this Christmas season is that we would have joy in beholding our Savior.

Think for a moment, right?

Take a moment just to invite the Spirit to bring to your awareness, what are you fixing your eyes upon?

Right?

What is that that's not in your life right now that you've convinced yourself if you just if you just had that, you'd actually have joy.

You'd actually be happy for once.

And what savior, what idol are you looking to to try and provide that for you?

Or maybe think for a moment, the time and energy you've put into obsessing over the sins of others?

And how much time throughout the day have you just reflected on your own sin, your own need for rescue?

Ask yourself this simple question: Is the good news of Jesus great joy for you?

And if not, why?

I pray that this Christmas we're able to take our eyes off of all of the things that rob us of joy.

That we turn our eyes from joyless idols, that we turn our eyes away from the sin of others, and with God-fearing awareness of our own sin.

Let us behold with great joy Jesus who alone can rescue us.

It seems funny, doesn't it?

That your joy is going to increase in the meditation of the sin in your own life.

If it points you to seeing Jesus as the only one who can save you, it will.

Because that's the good news.

You see, we're called to be a people of great joy.

It's supposed to be a marker of the Christian life.

That no matter what we face, no matter what's happening in the culture around us, no matter what's happening politically around us, no matter what's happening within our workspace around us, right?

No matter what we're find ourselves in, we're supposed to be marked by joy because of Jesus.

And the measure of our joy is fundamentally determined by what we fix our eyes upon.

The measure of our joy is determined by what we fix our eyes upon.

You see, the scriptures tell us that the eyes are the lamp of the heart.

And if we fix our eyes on darkness, how dark will our hearts be?

But if we fix our eyes on that which is light, how how brilliantly shining will we be?

And so what are we fixing our eyes on?

Are we fixing our eyes on Jesus?

If not, church, do so.

Do so.

And in that, see how great your joy will become.

You see, on this final Sunday in Advent, we light the Christ candle to remind ourselves that Christ has come as the joy of his people: that a Messiah has been born to us.

And as we prepare our hearts to respond in singing, in worship, will you just hear the words of one of my favorite Christmas hymns?

Come, thou long expected Jesus.

It reads this way.

Come, thou long expected Jesus, born to set thy people free from our fears and sins, release us.

Let us find our rest in thee.

Israel's strength and consolation, hope of all the earth thou art, dear desire of every nation, the joy of every longing heart.

Amen.

Amen.

Let's pray.