Filled with Joy

This is Luke 139 and through fifty-sect.

In those days Mary rose and went with haste into the hill country, into a town in Judah, and she entered the house of Zechariah and greeted Elizabeth.

And when Elizabeth heard the greeting of Mary, the baby leaped in her womb, and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit, and she exclaimed with a loud cry, Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb.

And why is this granted to me that the mother of my Lord should come to me?

For behold, when the sound of your greeting came to my ears, the baby in my womb leaped for joy, and blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her from the Lord.

And Mary said, My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior, for he has looked on the humble estate of his servant.

For behold, from now on all generations will call me blessed, for he who is mighty and has done great things for me, and holy is his name.

And his mercy is for those who fear him from generation to generation.

He has shown strength with his arm, he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts, he has brought down the mighty from their thrones and exalted those of humble estate.

He has filled the hungry with good things, and the rich he has sent away empty.

He has helped his servant Israel Israel in remembrance of his mercy, as he spoke to our fathers to Abraham and to his offspring forever.

And Mary remained with her about three months and returned to her home.

This is the word of the Lord.

Thanks be to God.

On this second sat Sunday of Advent, we now light the candle of joy.

The candle is lit to remind us though we have not seen him, we love him.

Though we do not now see him, we believe in him and rejoice with joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory.

Amen, church.

You guys can be seated.

Great, good, doing well.

Heard a couple of different variable answers here.

I'm doing awesome.

I tell you what, though, I noticed that the colder it gets, the harder it is for me to get out of bed.

Is that true for anyone else?

I don't know why that is.

I need some type of like traveling heat blanket that just engulfs me everywhere I go.

So when I get up from bed and go into this room and that thing, get ready for the morning, I'm just constantly warm.

I need some type of heat cloak that I can sleep in, also eat breakfast in, and also come to work in.

That would be wonderful.

Uh my name is Justin.

I'm one of the pastors here at Misio.

It's my pleasure to be able to bring to you God's word.

Like uh we've heard all this morning, we're in Advent.

Um, and so before we jump into the text, I do want to talk about one thing real quick.

We said last week we've been changing some things with our Missio Kids programs because we've just been growing and have so many kids involved, and we had different room assignments and situations last week, but guess what?

We changed them on you.

We have one thing at Missio.

We add a beatitude to the Sermon on the Mountain, and it is blessed are the flexible, for they shall not break.

Uh so be flexible with us as we are trying to maneuver our way through this building to make it work for us long term.

Uh so if you have grade schoolers, that is first grade, all the way up through uh fifth grade or 12 years old, they are now in the old sanctuary there.

You can pick them up there and they're staying there the whole service.

Then if you have a preschooler, K3 through K5, they are upstairs and they are staying put there the whole time.

We thought that it was a better security measure to have our little ones upstairs instead of right by that front door that they could just dart out of if they saw a squirrel or something of that nature and they wanted to do that.

So uh nonetheless, we uh have that, so make sure you pick your kids up from the right places after the gathering.

But Luke 1, 39 through 56 is what we read this morning.

And so this second Sunday of Advent, we're focusing on joy.

Last week we were looking at hope, and we talked about how the message of the Messiah was this hopeful message to hopeless people.

And we talked about Mary's state of uh who she was, this 12 to 14-year-old junior high girl who was betrothed to this labor worker who had really no future ahead of them by all circumstances.

We said last week that she would uh grow older, she would have uh give birth to many poor children, they would probably not travel far from their home, and then they she would just die like thousands of others before her.

Uh but at this moment in time, Gabriel comes and changes Mary's whole world.

But the reality is that the message he gave her, while it was hope-filled, right?

The Messiah is coming and you're gonna be the one to bear him.

Really, it was her death sentence on a social level, on a on a religious level.

This virgin's gonna have birth, this poor, illiterate girl, and we saw how that would follow her and Jesus their whole life.

He would be called born out of sexual morality.

He would be taunted and mocked because of the way that he came to earth.

And Mary definitely didn't have it much better.

She, everyone would constantly question the validity of her story.

And so now what we see is we're on the second part of this message that was given to her, and she gets up and goes with haste, and she actually is going to greet her relative, Elizabeth, who also had a pronouncement of a miraculous pregnancy given over her, right?

So Elizabeth is one of Mary's relatives, and she's known to be barren and old in age.

And Gabriel comes to Zechariah, her husband, and says, No, she's gonna give birth to a son, and he's gonna be this forerunner who will go out before Jesus.

And then after he left uh Zechariah and Elizabeth, he then Gabriel comes and sends a message to Mary and says, Now, Mary, you're a virgin, but you're gonna give birth, and you're gonna name him Jesus.

And so where we find ourselves now in the story is that Mary actually gets up and she goes to travel and spend time with Elizabeth.

And so our summary here for verses 39 through 41A is we see that Mary goes to be comforted and cared for by her relative Elizabeth.

You see, Mary actually takes about a three to four-day journey to get from where she lives to where her relative Elizabeth lives.

And so you can imagine this young girl who has just found out she's gonna be pregnant through this supernatural circumstance.

She takes off, it says, with haste, she goes into the hill country.

So she travels about a three to four-day journey to meet her relative Elizabeth.

Because Gabriel said, look, to help you have assurance and confidence that what I'm saying is true, your relative Elizabeth also will give birth to a son.

And so Mary was probably trying to understand what's going on.

She wants to go be with her to see if these things are true.

So they've both been receivers of this miraculous pronouncement of pregnancy.

And Elizabeth, presumed to be barren in old age, is pregnant with John the Baptist, and Mary herself, like we said, just a 12 to 14-year-old virgin, is pregnant with Jesus.

And as soon as Mary greets Elizabeth, it says that John the Baptist, the baby who is in her womb, leaps with joy.

Because if we think back to what we learned last week, when Gabriel had actually come and pronounced to Mary that she would give birth to Jesus, Elizabeth was already about six months pregnant when Gabriel made the announcement to Mary.

And so when she greets Mary, she's traveled three to four days, she comes bursting through the front door.

I'm sure Elizabeth didn't know that she was coming.

I don't know how kind of the USPS worked back then, but probably didn't have a letter of some sort that said, hey, I'm coming.

Definitely didn't make a phone call.

So she comes in, she greets Elizabeth, and John the Baptist leaps within her womb.

Now, listen to me.

This is no kick.

For any of you who have been pregnant, right?

And you've felt a baby in your womb.

This is no kick.

This is no false alarm gas pain, right?

You remember those?

Like, oh my gosh, I think some.

And then we hear the relief of that.

Husbands, you know what I'm talking about, right?

Oh no, that wasn't, that wasn't labor.

That was Chipotle.

No, John the Baptist actually leaps in the womb.

And this is this jump of a forerunner, this one who's ready to take off and sprint before Jesus, declaring that the Messiah was coming.

The one who would go before Jesus to make his way leaps inside of the womb.

And then 41B through 45, what we see is that actually the Holy Spirit produces right confession.

And so this is just a fascinating point in the story as Luke is trying to investigate and actually write down what all has happened.

Remember, we talked a little bit about Luke's profession as a as a doctor, and he's been hired by this man named Theophilus to bring back a true and evident report of the life and death and resurrection of Jesus.

You can imagine him actually investigating and having different interviews with eyewitnesses andor people who were actually there, Mary and Elizabeth herself, perhaps.

And he's documenting these things and he puts this very specific point right before Elizabeth actually greets Mary back.

It says, and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit.

So here we have Mary coming into the house, welcoming, being welcomed by Elizabeth.

John the Baptist leaps in her womb and then Elizabeth is filled with the Holy Spirit, and out of her mouth produces and follows a right confession.

Now, listen to this.

She didn't get a phone call from Mary announcing that she was expecting.

She didn't see Mary's Facebook status update that great news, the pregnancy test came back positive.

She didn't hear from her second cousin twice removed about this scandalous pregnancy.

You know how family can start talking behind one another?

No.

Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit.

And look what she exclaims Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb.

And why is this granted to me that the mother of my Lord should come to me?

Elizabeth has no clue what's going on.

She has no previous history of knowledge of what is inside of Mary, what's going on with this miraculous pregnancy and being filled with the Holy Spirit, what follows from Elizabeth is a right and true confession of who Jesus is.

You see, the Spirit produces right confession in people.

It's only through the power of the Spirit filling Elizabeth that she's actually able to respond with such a joyous confession.

Blessed are you.

And who am I that the mother of my Lord should even come to me?

For behold, when the sound of your greeting came to my ears, the baby in my womb leaped for joy, and blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of that what was spoken to her from the Lord.

The filling of the Spirit to Elizabeth precedes her joyous confession.

Imagine her response without the Spirit.

What?

You're pregnant?

You're betrothed to Joseph?

You're not married yet?

You say you're a virgin?

Imagine she is trying to be comforted in this shocking, scandalous pregnancy news.

She's trying to go to the one whom Gabriel said.

Look, look, if you want to go be comforted, if you want to be cared for by someone, go to Elizabeth, because I just came from her six months ago and told her she was going to be pregnant supernaturally too.

Without the spirit, it would have been filled with doubt, unbelief.

Maybe shame.

Maybe she would have said, get out of my house, you adulterous, sexually immoral woman.

You want me to believe your story?

But by the power of the spirit, she's able to exclaim, No, blessed are you, Mary.

You carry the Lord within you.

Verses 46 through 50, after we see this right confession flow from Elizabeth, because she was filled with the Spirit, we see that here Mary then responds and sings a song of joy.

Mary has been overtaken by the Spirit.

And so we remember that Mary's this illiterate, poor country girl, 12 to 14 years old.

But yet when you see the song that she declares, that's spirit-filled.

That's spirit-powered.

It reminds us of psalms that we have read.

It reminds us of this very eloquent response of scholars and educators and psalmists and songwriters who have declared the glorious works of the Lord.

And so after hearing Elizabeth declare joyous praise over her, Mary now responds with a joyous response of her own.

And Mary begins to magnify the Lord.

So a lot of us understand this section of Scripture, this song recorded in the New Testament as the magnificat, right?

And the magnificat just simply means the magnification.

Mary begins to magnify the Lord.

And so what does it mean to magnify the Lord?

If this throughout time, since the beginning of the church, this song that's recorded has been understood as the magnification of the Lord.

We have to ask ourselves, well, what is there then to magnify?

Or what does it mean to magnify the Lord?

I'm sure some of you have read in uh different Psalms where it says to magnify him, or maybe you've sang a song in church, or maybe you've heard some uh uh kind of worship leader who tries to coerce you into doing things, say, Come on, church, magnify the Lord.

And you're I don't, I don't know what that is.

You can tell me raise my hands, I understand that one, but when you tell me magnify the Lord, I have no clue what you're saying.

What we have to understand is that when we look at this process of magnification, there's really two different types of magnification.

There's one type that tries to make small things big, and there's the other type that tries to make big things truer to our perspective.

You see, one thing one seeks to make small things big, the other seeks to make big things as big as they truly are to us.

You see, both we actually have difficulties seeing with our own eyes, that which is microscopic and that which is distant and grandor and full of majesty, but yet we see it as so tiny and out of its true perspective.

We need assistance to see them.

We need assistance to see them for how they truly are.

And so what we're not doing is when we magnify the Lord, is we're not looking at this small thing and trying to make it bigger than it really is.

God is not some weak, small, pathetic being that we try to make bigger than it is.

It's not a carved wooden image or something fabricated out of stone by the works of man that we're trying to make it to be something that it's not.

No, when we seek to magnify the Lord in our own hearts, what we're seeking to do is actually put him in his right perspective because, church, he is far larger and more grandor and more majestic than our eyes can be able to see.

And so when we say, my soul magnifies the Lord, it's that I'm fully seeing God for as big as he truly is, and in retrospect, I'm seeing myself for as small as I truly am.

It puts God in the right perspective because the deeper that we go into relationship with God, the bigger that he becomes, and the smaller we become.

In fact, the bigger his righteousness and perfection, his glory and majesty, his salvific how salvific work, that's a mouthful, becomes to us.

And the smaller our sin, the smaller our pride, the smaller our egos all comes.

When we rightly magnify the Lord, we put him into his proper perspective.

We don't have to labor to make some small things seem bigger than it should be.

We have to labor to see God rightly.

Now, Mary's center of joyous response is the work that the Lord has done for her.

If we look at this, it has actually nothing to do with herself.

In the very beginning, after she says, My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God, my savior, for he has looked on the humble estate of his servant.

For behold, from now on all generations will call me blessed.

For he who is mighty has done great things for me.

And holy is his name, and his mercy is for those who fear him from generation to generation.

You see, it has nothing to do with her, it has everything to do with what God has done for her.

God has seen her in her humble estate, and God, even though Mary was the most unqualified person to carry the son of God in her womb, in his providence and in his sovereignty, he chooses her.

This is the way my son's gonna be born.

This is the way salvation is gonna come to my people.

This is the way that liberation will come to those who are in bondage through this poor, young, illiterate peasant girl.

She's a nobody from nowhere.

But now she would be blessed for all generations because of the mighty hand of God in her life.

And one thing that we have to understand as a Protestant church is that too many times we over-correct to this false understanding of who Mary is.

What we tend to do is we tend to squash her and place her aside or dismiss her because we don't want to be in jeopardy of exalting her to a place that she never should be.

But, church, this is Jesus' mother.

If you call my mama ugly, right?

If you call my mama names, there's been one boy who made fun of my mama and he went crying home, right?

He said that she lived in a Barbie trailer.

Yeah, it was a weird thing.

But I knocked him out.

Punched him right in the stomach.

But look, we tend to dismiss the beauty of what Mary is.

She will be called blessed for all generations.

This is inspired by the Holy Spirit proceeding from her mouth.

She would be blessed from all generations.

And so we should rightly respect her.

We should rightly reverence her because she's the greatest woman in history.

She carried our Lord.

Now we should be cautious about wrongly exalting her into places that she should have never been.

She is not our mediator.

We have one mediator who is Christ Jesus our Lord forever and ever.

Amen.

She has no gifting to be able to give to us because we are gifted alone by the Holy Spirit, and he is generous with his gifts.

But she is a woman who was chosen by God's sovereignty and providence to be the mother of Jesus.

In verses 51 through 53, we see that God has done and will do great things.

As she has says, Blessed will I be from generation to generation because of what he's done for me.

Then she begins to declare the works of the Lord.

You see, I love how she says this.

She's talking future tense but using past tense language.

God has done.

She's speaking so confidently of the work of God as if it had already been accomplished.

And so she begins to declare the powerful acts of God.

And like I said, she says them in this past tense form.

There's truth that God has done all of these things before, but now what we are seeing and getting a glimpse into is that Christ will be the complete fulfillment of these acts.

You see, in all of the promises of God, he has given his people tastes of his finished work.

He has given them tastes of deliverance.

He has given them tastes of his good pleasure.

He has given them tastes of all of his promises.

But it is in Christ, and in Christ alone, will the fulfillment and completion of all of those promises come to his people.

It is no longer that we will have tastes in these little morsels of what God is, but we will be filled to the brim of the fullness of what God has promised us.

And we see in her magnificent.

Her song that she sings, three primary works spoken of in this joyous song.

Number one is his very arm scatters the proud.

His very arm scatters the proud.

Jesus' birth, life, death, and resurrection would cause the proud to be scattered.

How could a king be born in such mean a state?

How could the Savior, the Messiah, be this person, this hands worker, this poor boy from Nazareth?

How could he be this one who, as Isaiah declares, has no majesty or beauty about him?

How could such a humble person be our king?

Even today, Jesus' work continues to scatter the proud.

We can't accept Jesus for who he really is simply because he so starkly contradicts all we think that he should be.

You see, one of the real reasons people have a hard time with accepting Jesus is because when they look at him and they look at his word and they look at his promises and they look at his life and they say, that's not what God should do or look like or be.

You see, actually, what they're saying is that he doesn't match the standards of which I've set forth in my own heart.

That's pride.

And God scatters the proud.

He says, You're right, I'm nothing like you could ever fabricate in your own heart.

Everything you think I should be, I'm the exact opposite.

You see, he contradicts our own false images and our own false idols that we create in our own hearts.

Ultimately, we want to worship a God of our own creation rather than the God who created us.

And so Jesus continues even to today to scatter the proud.

Number two, he topples the kingdoms of the earth and exalts the lowly.

The kingdoms of this earth will fall.

They have fallen.

Jesus establishes his kingdom, and of it there will be no end.

And in the completion of his work, the Father has seated Jesus in the highest, exalted place and given him the name that is above every name.

You see, that's what we see as the outcome, the outflow of the accomplished, finished work of Christ and his life, death, burial, and resurrection that God has awarded him with all that is due.

The earth becomes his footstool.

His name is exalted above every name.

He is seated at the right hand of the Father.

He is eternally reigning and ruling as King of all creation.

And all of those who are in him is exalted to be seated in him.

Ephesians 2, 5 and 6 says this.

We said that God topples the kingdoms of the earth and exalts the lowly church.

There is no lower place of which you could be exalted from than death itself.

And then he didn't just make you alive, he then raised you up and seated you with him in the heavenly places.

Surely God exalts the lowly because he has raised us from our own death.

Three, he fills the hungry and sends away the rich empty.

I can't help but be drawn to the teaching of Jesus from the Sermon on the Mount when approaching this mighty work declared by Mary.

If we look in Matthew 5, 6, Jesus says this: Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied.

Church, Jesus has nothing to offer those of us who have been filled with the empty things of this world.

He has nothing to offer us.

If we can say and approach the throne of God and say, we are satisfied and filled by the things of this world, Jesus will be empty-handed and send you away hungry.

He'll send you away empty.

But to those who are starving, beyond anything that this world could ever satisfy, Jesus fills so that we might never hunger and thirst again.

Is this what he did to the rich young ruler?

You want me, you want eternal life, then get rid of all this stuff.

And the rich young ruler looked at him and said, No, I'm satisfied.

I have all these things, I have satisfaction.

I don't hunger and thirst because I have all that I could ever ask for.

And he was sent away empty.

But to the beggar, to the one who can't be satisfied by this world, who cannot be satisfied by the things that can be offered to us in this earth, Jesus fills us.

So we never hunger or thirst again.

In the closing of this song, this passage of Scripture, we see in 54 through 56 that the promise of God is yes and amen.

The promise of God is yes and amen because Mary's bringing to remembrance the promise of God that was given to Abraham.

Think about this poor peasant girl, the way that she's just articulating text, the way that she's pulling back biblical narrative of what God has promised, of what God has shown to us that He would fulfill.

She's being able to articulate it and sing about it and come from within her being, says, You made this promise to Abraham that his seed would produce blessed people forever and ever.

And your promise is yes and amen.

Ultimately, Jesus is the fulfillment of God's promises because the promises God gives to his people find their beginning and their end in him alone.

Every single promise that God has ever made to us find their beginning and their end in Jesus Christ alone.

You cannot have or benefit from God's promises apart from Jesus because you are cursed without him, you are cast off without him, you are severed from his presence without Christ reconciling you to the Father.

You cannot experience or be blessed in the outpouring of his promises.

Jesus is the seed of Abraham who would create an eternally blessed people.

Eternally blessed.

And then says that Mary remained with Elizabeth, sharing in their miraculous experiences, learning to be mothers together, being sources of comfort to one another.

Mary stayed and imagine the three months that her and Elizabeth got to share with one another.

Knowing that she would have to go back home at some point in time, knowing that she would have to show her face to the people in her community, knowing that there would be people who would doubt her and disbelieve her, people that would want to put her to death, who would want to stone her and place her under the penalties of which she would rightfully deserve if she truly did practice in sexual immorality.

Imagine how Elizabeth had to build her up and strengthen her in the promises of God and care for one another.

What we see this morning is our main idea is this that people filled with the Spirit respond in joy to God's work.

People filled with the Spirit respond in joy to God's work.

Both Elizabeth and Mary had the only appropriate response to God's work.

As women who had both encountered the power of the Holy Spirit, they respond to God's work in joy.

And they both have a true confession of the person of Jesus because of the Spirit's work in them.

And it's only by the Spirit that we will be able to have a true confession and a joyous response to the work of God.

It's only by the Spirit that you and I are able to have a true confession and a joyous response to God's work.

Without the Spirit, we would not believe.

We would not find joy in the work of God.

We would not find comfort in the work of God.

Like we said last week, when we say we're Christians, what we're saying we believe is absolutely absurd.

It's absurd.

And there's a hundred other fabricated stories of which would be safer and sound less crazy to believe in for your faith.

We have to have the spirit, just like Elizabeth did, to when this absurd circumstance comes through her front door and declares to her, I'm pregnant.

She says, It's the Lord that's within your womb.

Blessed are you, Mary.

Look, the Spirit allows for absurd circumstances to be met with true confession and joy.

And it's only by him.

We can't muster this up.

We can't become believing on our own.

Left to ourselves, we would be the ones who would call for Mary's execution, not the ones who would call her blessed.

And being a people filled with the Spirit, we should be joyous.

And we should be declaring a true confession because that's what the Spirit's work does in us as people.

When we look at John 15, 26, Jesus declares this about the work of the Holy Spirit.

But when the helper comes, the Holy Spirit, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth who proceeds from the Father, he will bear witness about me.

You see, the Spirit's primary ministry to us as people is to bear witness about the person and work of Jesus.

If we ever find ourselves in a situation where people are declaring that the Holy Spirit is moving, but there's no one pointing to the finished work of Christ and his death, burial, and resurrection, we can have confidence it's not the Holy Spirit that is moving.

His one true and faithful ministry to us, in its primary essence, is to bear witness about Christ.

He empowers us, like Mary, to respond in joy and to respond with true confession.

It is the Lord within you.

But our story is this some of us fail to find joy in God's work.

We do.

We fail to find joy in God's work.

Look, the work of God as we're discovering that He's doing in Elizabeth and Mary isn't always good in the way that we understand good, in the way that we understand blessed, in the way that we understand or perceive or think or assume God's moving and working should look like in our lives.

We talked last week about how contradictory it is, uh the moving and working of God in our lives to what we have called the blessed life.

Mary was living the blessed life.

She was ostracized, ridiculed, mocked.

Christ, you can't argue, lived the best life.

Best blessed life.

Mocked, scorned, attempted to be killed on several situations, ultimately crucified in public estate for all to gaze upon his shame.

That was the blessed life.

And see, some of us don't find joy in God's work because it doesn't match up with what we assume blessed living should look like.

Hard trials, tribulations, sufferings.

When things don't go our way, we are quick to say, I can't find joy in this because this isn't what it should be.

But all you're really saying is that you're the one who dictates what God's work in you should look like.

And when it doesn't match that, you call God a liar.

God is not a liar.

And God promises us in through Paul in the book of Romans, inspired by the Spirit, that He does all things for good for those who love Him.

There is nothing that you can go through that is not for your good.

No loss you can experience, no suffering you could endure, no trial that you could go through.

There is nothing that God is not working for your good.

That's blessed.

That is being blessed.

And there's another thing.

A lot of us cannot find joy in God's work because we lay our joy at the altars of joy thieves.

Social media.

Acceptance of others.

We constantly place the root of our joy at the altar of the very thing that seeks to steal it from us.

And you know, when you put things out there and people don't respond to it, you invite them over to your house through social media and they don't ever respond if they're coming or not.

You have no idea.

You go back and you look at seen by but not responded to.

You think that that should have got more likes, more clicks.

You think people should have been ooing and guying all over your precious little child or this thing that you made in your home today.

And then what?

Your joy is gone.

Because why?

People didn't double-click your picture.

Man, the church in America, we have such an issue with not having joy because we sacrifice it continually.

These things cannot give us joy.

These things cannot give us what we're really looking for.

And instead of laying it before God, the giver of inexpressible joy, eternal joy, we cast our pearls before swines who will just devour them.

When I think about joy, I am going to be forever in my life reminded of this story that I read as a young teenager.

And this book, you probably, some of you have probably read it.

It's called Jesus Freaks, right?

And DC Talk, this band who's, you know, probably the greatest band to ever live, uh, wrote a book of stories about martyrs in the church.

And I'll never remember, I'll never forget this one story in that book.

There was a church that was uh ramsacked and caught in South Korea, and they drugged their parishioners in the congregation outside, and they laid them side by side on the ground, and they fired up a steamroller, and the congregation began singing hymns of God's glory and praise as they were crushed to death by a steamroller.

Their joy could not be robbed from them, no matter the circumstance.

Church, think about what you allow to steal your joy.

Because if you allowed these, and I'm talking to myself, if I allow these small things to steal my joy in the face of death, what will I do?

I don't know that I would have the boldness, the courage, the joy that that church had that day.

We fail to find joy in God's work because we fail to see our good and his glory in the midst of it.

Number two, some of us fail to have a right confession.

Some of us fail to have a right confession.

Listen, our faith is built on right confession.

We have to say what is true about God.

We don't get the opportunity to make false statements.

We don't get the opportunity to say or declare what we want about God.

We have to be as submissive servants, faithful to confess what he has declared about himself.

We have to.

If we look at the story of Jesus and one of his disciples, Peter, he asks them, Well, who do you say that I am?

Or who do they say that I am?

And people started, people, some of his disciples and apostles started calling out different things.

Some of them think you're Isaiah, some of them think you're Elijah, some of them think you're Moses.

And Jesus looks at Peter and says, But who do you say that I am?

And Peter responds, You are the Christ.

And Jesus looks at Peter and says, Blessed are you, Simon Barjona, for flesh and blood have not revealed this to you, but my father did.

And upon this rock, this true confession, I will build my church.

The foundation of the church is the right confession of who Jesus is.

We don't get the opportunity to have a wrong confession.

And as spirit-filled people, we should be empowered and strengthened to give the right confession of who he's revealed himself to be.

We said this a few weeks ago, but we don't have the opportunity to be bad theologians.

We are all theologians.

Every single person in this room, whether you call yourself a Christian or not, you are a theologian.

The question is: are you a good one?

Are you a bad one?

You see, Christ, God Himself has revealed Himself to us through His word.

And we have to be diligent to study and examine His revelation to us.

Because this is what God did.

God counted us blessed by not uh concealing Himself from us.

He didn't keep us in speculation so that all we had was our best guess at who he might be or how he might conduct himself among us.

He didn't uh remain in concealment, but he revealed himself to us that we no longer have to remain in speculation, but we have confidence, assurance of who he is.

That's how much God loves us.

He says, You I want you to have a relationship with me, but you have to have a relationship with me, not for the person you think I should be, not for the person who you want me to be, you have to have a relationship with me.

So therefore, my image bearers of whom I love, I will reveal who I am to you so that you can have right relationship with me.

And all of that is contingent upon right confession.

You see, if we don't worship God for how he's revealed himself to be, we don't worship God.

We worship a fabrication, an image, an idol.

And God is the one who declares what it looks like to have the right relationship with him.

Not only does he reveal who he is through his word, but then he sets forth the guidelines and standards of how you would have a relationship with him.

He gets to declare what is true worship, he gets to declare what is true service, he gets to declare what is true uh uh faith, he gets to declare those things.

We don't get the opportunity to do that.

We see this even in the story of Cain and Abel.

Both brothers bring forth an offering of worship before God, and God says, Is this how I said you would worship me?

No.

Therefore, he accepted one sacrifice of worship and he rejected the other, and the outcome, as we know, resulted in hate and murder.

Because God said, I'm not going to be worshiped this way, I'll be worshiped this way.

And he does the same thing for us.

In the story of the woman at the well, Christ comes forth after he meets this woman who's in the middle of the day drawing water from the well, and she says, My fathers say that we should worship on the this mountain, and your fathers say that you should worship in the temple.

Which one's true?

And Jesus says, I tell you how you will worship me, and it will be in spirit and in truth.

Christ sets the terms, Christ sets the conditions.

So, how do we correct this?

How do we fix this inside of us when we fail to see God's work, where we fail to have right confession?

This is your preschool answer, K through through K5.

They're gonna say this a hundred times today.

Jesus.

Jesus.

It's really that simple.

Why?

Because Jesus gives us his spirit.

Jesus gave up his spirit so that we might be filled with his.

Spirit, as we're given joy, as we have this right confession, so that we are called blessed forever.

Listen, we are blessed forever and ever.

Mary said, generation after generation will call you blessed.

Surely, surely they have, and they will continue to do so.

But when we are in Christ, when we get saved and reconciled to the Father, we inherit a blessed state that can never be taken from us.

And for eternity, we with one accord will call one another blessed.

You've been blessed, you've been blessed.

And that will echo for eternity.

And just like Mary, we will pronounce with joy that the reason for our blessed state is because of the Lamb who was slain before the foundations of the earth.

Glory to you, the Lamb who was slain.

Majesty and honor and power be owed to you.

That's what we'll do.

For all of eternity, we'll look at the cost of what it took to make us blessed.

Because it says in Revelation that they gaze upon the Lamb who was seated on the throne, and they could still see the nail-pierced hands and the nail-pierced feet.

And we will forever remember and gaze upon what it cost to purchase us by his very blood.

And we'll sing praises to his name.

And so that we might be filled with his spirit, Christ on the cross gave up his.

Father, into your hands I commit my spirit.

The Bible says that any man who is hung on a tree is cursed, and so that we might be blessed forever, Christ became a curse for us.

And as he cried out in some of his last words, My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?

He was filled with agony so that our mouths might be filled with joy.

Church, the way that we fix this is deeper faith and trust in Jesus.

He's already accomplished this for us.

And he gives us his spirit and fills us with these gifts that we so long to have.

We have to press in deeper to the presence and power of the Holy Spirit in our lives so that greater joy, greater faith, truer confession can be cultivated in our hearts.

And this is how we should live in light of the truth of what Christ has done for us.

We would live joy-filled lives in all circumstances.

We would live joy-filled lives in all circumstances.

Listen, one thing that we have for us in our confession, in our faith, is that Christ didn't remain dead.

And so where there once was this giving up of spirit, this cursing of a state of which he took upon himself, this agony that filled him, no longer does it so because Christ has overcome the world.

And so he is reigning and ruling.

And he fills his people with his spirit, and he gives us our blessed state, and he fills our hearts with joy so that forever and ever we can join the refrain of his worship and praise.

And so, church, we have to live that now.

Man, think about your life of how we talked about earlier.

What steals your joy?

What allows you to take your joy?

When we allow something to steal our joy, what we're really doing is we're taking Christ and putting him back in the tomb.

And we're worshiping a dead God who can do nothing about our circumstance.

Rather than a truer confession of a resurrected Christ who has overcome all things that we could ever encounter, who changes every circumstance because of his victorious resurrection.

We should live joy-filled lives in all circumstances, no matter what we are going through, because we have been reconciled to the Father by His Son Jesus.

And so, no matter what you're going through, joy should be there.

No matter what financial state you are in, joy should be there.

No matter what your family is doing to you or around you, joy should be there.

No matter what is happening at your workplace, joy should be there.

No matter what is happening in your missio community, joy should be there.

No matter what is going on around you, joy-filled lives should be the mark of which we live.

Joy-filled, and this is not happiness.

This is not fake it till you make it garbage teaching.

This is true joy that cannot be stolen from you because it was given to you by the Spirit and nothing can take it from you.

The same Spirit who gifted you with such joy should preserve and keep joy in you.

That's one of his fruits.

When we look at, as we grow in relationship with Christ, as we grow in relationship with the Spirit, He produces and fosters fruit in our lives, and one of them is joy.

And when we look back at the uh at the just at the beginning of the New Testament, we look through Acts and some of the different stories of what the apostles and the early followers of Jesus go back and read them.

It constantly talks about the joy that they had.

No matter the circumstance, Stephen being stoned to death, looked up with to heaven, eyes gazed upon Jesus full of joy, beaten and thrown out of a city.

They got back up and went back in full of joy, imprisoned and in chains.

They preached the gospel full of joy, beheaded, fed to lions, no matter the circumstance, shipwrecked.

They were filled with joy.

And me and you will allow our children to steal it in two minutes before them waking up.

Oh, that I would have joy that nothing could shake.

Oh, that I would have joy that would persevere in any circumstance.

Oh, that I would have joy to one day joyfully give my life for the cause of the gospel.

Let's pray.

Father, thank you for the truth of your word.

Thank you for the gospel of your son Jesus.

Lord, thank you for the Holy Spirit.

Holy Spirit, we so often neglect you.

We so often act like one-third atheists.

But Holy Spirit, thank you.

Thank you that you fill us with joy.

Thank you that you lavish upon us gifts.

Thank you that you put right confession in our hearts.

Thank you that you keep us, you preserve us.

Holy Spirit, thank you.

I pray that we press into you more.

That we pursue your presence, that we pursue your gifts in our life, that we pursue the fruit of your work fostered within our very being.

Let us be a people of inexpressible, unremovable, unshakable joy for your glory and our good.

In Jesus' name we pray.

Amen.