Heaven Come Down – Joy Is My Job

This podcast is presented to you by Pastor Jason and Liz Burns in Access Church in Lakeland and Bartow, Florida.

For more information, visit Access.tv.

Well, let's get to work today, everybody.

Today, we are in part three.

We are wrapping up our little three-part series called Heaven Come Down.

And if you've missed any of it, Heaven Come Down is really the Christmas story that God gave us the greatest gift.

It's when heaven came to earth, when God looked at heaven's resources and bankrupted heaven's resources to send his son to earth for us.

We started week one by saying this: that God so loved the world that he gave his son for us.

Week one was love.

It was the gift from heaven to earth.

Week two, we said this that what the world needs is hope, that there is this hope that we can anchor our souls to, and no matter what's happening around us, there is this hope that we cling to.

Let me tell you what I'm talking about this week for Christmas.

It's one of the gifts from heaven to earth.

It's the gift of peace.

And I want you to hear this because this is a big deal.

We live in a world that is devoid and lacking peace.

Peace relationally, peace in our souls.

We're riddled with anxiety and depression.

But I believe the greatest peace the world is lacking is not peace here on earth, it's peace with the one who created us, peace with God.

I want you to bring somebody, bring a friend.

Let's fill this place up and so let's see people experience that peace.

Today, I want to talk about one of the greatest gifts that God has given us.

It's one of the greatest gifts that we see in the Christmas story.

And when you get this gift, it's gonna change your whole life.

People are gonna notice something different about you.

You're gonna walk into rooms, and the room's gonna light up because you're there.

It is the gift of joy that we have.

To get us started today, there is a four-word statement that I believe elicits fear in the human heart.

Maybe you've had someone you love say this to you, maybe you've read it in an email.

It's the worst when you get it in the text message, because in the text message you don't know the tone.

Here's the four words.

I hate these words.

We need to talk.

You ever gotten this?

And isn't it terrible when someone says this to you?

Don't you just assume the worst?

Don't you just assume that they've gotten a bad diagnosis or they're angry at you or they're quitting or they're leaving or they're they're ending the relationship or they're ending the friendship.

We need to talk.

I hate it when this happens.

One time I was on a vacation with my family overseas on the last night of our trip.

And I got a text that basically said these four words, and it ruined my vacation.

I was so angry, I tossed and turned that night.

Why?

Because we assume that what we're gonna get when someone says we need to talk is not good news, we assume it's bad news.

Can I give you a little free tip, by the way?

This is not in the Bible, this is not, this is probably not even a very good thing to do.

But if you feel like someone has disrupted the rest in your soul, the peace in your soul, and someone says we need to talk, get the power back by responding with these three words.

Yeah, we do, I'm telling you, they will be on their heels and not sleeping in no time.

All right.

Now, why is it that when someone says we need to talk, our assumption isn't good news?

Why is it that we assume bad news?

I would like to submit to you because we live in a world full of bad news.

We just do.

I I read some social science reports this week that are really interesting to me.

One study said that because we're so conditioned to getting bad news, that we have this condition that when we're on our phones and we get a message or some sort of an alert or uh some sort of notification or an email or a text message, we don't do it on purpose, but we unintentionally hold our breath.

They've called it screen apnea.

It's when you hold your breath for just a moment before you can know if it's good news or bad news.

Why do you hold your breath?

Because the assumption is not that it's gonna be good, it's gonna be bad, right?

A study was done uh studying the top 47 news agencies in our country from the year 2000 to the year 2020.

And they studied every major headline from 47 leading news agencies in the world, and it's interesting, look at look at these results, look at this chart.

When they studied terms like fear, the terms like fear, the the news reports on fear skyrocketed.

Things, topics that dealt with anger, completely skyrocketed.

Here's another one disgust, things that make people just feel disgusting and gross, it skyrocketed.

And conversely, things that would be positive like joy, look what joy did as they studied it.

It tanked.

Why?

It's because bad news sells.

That there's an old phrase in news, if it bleeds, it leads.

If it's something bad, people will pay attention to it.

That there is a part of the human brain that is called the amygdala.

The amygdala is kind of the alert center of the brain.

It is that part that hundreds of years ago, before people had modern technology and stuff, if you were out walking in a field and you felt the ground rumbling underneath you, your amygdala would fire off.

Alert, alert, alert, pay attention, look around because there could be a stampede coming at you.

It's it's there for your own safety, right?

You understand this?

The problem is the American brain, the amygdala, has been so overrun that people live every single day with adrenal fatigue, emotional fatigue, compassion fatigue.

We are just completely alerted out with bad news.

And then you would think, like, we have to cope somehow, don't we?

And there's good coping and there's there's bad coping, but everybody copes with this life somehow.

Some people turn to alcohol and drugs, and that never leads to a good place.

Another place that a lot of people have turned and they think that they're not doing any harm to themselves or to their body, is this phenomena that a few years ago didn't exist.

In fact, it's such a new phenomena that Websters had to come up with the word to describe it.

The word they came up with is doom scrolling.

Doom scrolling is when you get on your phone, you get on Instagram Reels or TikTok or whatever your choice is, and you just scroll and you scroll and you scroll.

And if you pay attention, what's funny is a lot of the things that you pay attention to aren't good news.

They're not wonderful, healthy, life-giving, they're difficult, negative, and dark.

It's it's darkness.

And what I read this week was kind of amazing to me is that in generations before social media, the average American got one piece of bad news every one to two days.

In this generation, the average American sees a minimum of 50 to 100 pieces of bad news every single day.

If you're my age or older, have you had this thought before?

When I was a kid, we would go out, our parents wouldn't even know where we were, we would ride the bikes all across the neighborhood, and we just had to be home before the sun went down.

Maybe you've thought this.

And then it's like now these days, we don't want our kids going to the next door neighbor's house because we don't know what's happening and what's around them.

Scientifically, and based on research, the world has never been more safe than it is right now.

But we see so much bad news that in our minds we assume that everything is bad, evil, and dark.

All right, now that I have fully depressed you, there will be counselors for you on the way out today, okay?

But there's bad news all around us.

You don't have to go far to find it.

It's hard to watch the 630 news without seeing something that's sad or detrimental to your soul.

And if you can hold on to that feeling of darkness and difficulty and anxiety and depression, now you understand the backdrop of the Christmas story.

For 400 years, God had been silent.

For 400 years, people had wondered, did he leave?

Does he care?

Does he do we matter to him at all?

And out of that 400 years of silence, God speaks and his voice comes as a piercing light piercing the darkness.

Here's the story from Luke's point of view, and it's really interesting.

It says, while they were there, the time came for the baby to be born, and she, Mary, gave birth to her firstborn son.

And she wrapped him in cloths and placed him in a manger because there was no guest room available to him.

If you missed a couple weeks ago, I said, if you were God and you were writing the Christmas story, the story of you sending your son as a savior to the world, where would you want him born?

And to whom would you want him born?

My guess is it wouldn't be this little stable in the middle of nowhere, in the middle of no city that was that anyone knew of.

My guess is it wouldn't be to two nobodies, it would be to influencers or to nobility or to kings or to princes.

And in this middle of nowhere city, in the middle of nothing, to a bunch of nobodies, the Savior is born.

And then the story takes this interesting turn and it goes out to the shepherds.

It says, and there were shepherds living out in the fields nearby, keeping watch over their flocks at night.

Now pause here for just a moment.

To understand what's about to happen, you need to understand the world in which Jesus was born to.

Shepherds were seen as nobodies.

They had no value, they had no worth, they didn't contribute to society.

In fact, they were so excommunicated from the world around them that they weren't even able to vote in whatever elections they had.

And to these nobodies comes the greatest announcement, the pronouncement that there is a light that is coming to the world that pierces all the darkness.

Now try to imagine this with me.

You're shepherds, you're out in the field, there's no city light, it's dark outside, and you're just doing your thing.

You're just out there shepherding it up, whatever shepherds do.

And the story says, an angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and those shepherds were terrified.

Like, of course they were.

You ever walked out of a movie theater in the middle of a day and you go from the darkness to the light, and you can't see, and you think you're gonna be blind forever?

Imagine being out in a dark field, you can see the sky littered with stars, and all of a sudden, piercing through the darkness, comes an angel of the Lord.

Of course they were terrified.

Of course you would be scared.

But it says, goes on and it says, But the angel said to them, Do not be afraid.

To which I would be like, easier said than done.

What are you?

Right?

The angel said, I bring you what?

Good news.

And that good news will cause great joy for who?

All the people.

There's these shepherds doing their thing, shepherding it up, and all of a sudden an angel comes and says, Three things.

You don't have to be afraid.

Here's the three things.

I bring you good news.

It's good news of great joy that will be for all the people.

And here's what that good news is.

Today, in the town of David, a Savior has been born to you.

He is the Messiah, the Lord.

Some translations say he is the Christ, the Lord.

Now, this is a fascinating moment in human history.

God had been silent, God's voice had not been heard for 400 years, and piercing through that darkness to these nobodies in the middle of nowhere, the angel of the Lord appears and he says, You can relax.

You don't have to be afraid because I'm not bringing you bad news.

Instead, I'm bringing you good news.

And it's not just good news, it's good news that's gonna spark something in you.

It's good news of not just joy, but it's some great joy.

And it's great joy for who?

For all the people.

It's not just for you, it's not just for your family, it's not for a chosen group of people.

It's good news of great joy for all people.

So, what I want to do is I want to break these three things down.

The first thing the angel says is I bring you some good news.

Couldn't you use some good news right now?

Don't you love getting that phone call that's so excited?

Don't you love it when one of your friends calls and says, I'm so excited he proposed to me.

I'm so excited I got the doctor's report back and everything is good.

Aren't you so excited when someone says, I got the raise, or my my children were born happy and healthy and wonderful.

Don't you love it when people have good news?

The reality is all of us live in this weird tension.

The tension is between what I would call gravity and levity.

Gravity is the weight that we live under.

Levity is when that weight doesn't feel that heavy.

And all of us live in this weird tension, don't we?

Between the good news we get and the bad news that we get.

Now, one of the things I love about the Bible is the Bible is refreshingly honest.

One of the things I know is that just because you follow Jesus, it doesn't promise you a pain-free, gravity-free kind of life.

I've talked to people who have said, I'm a follower of Jesus and I had to bury my mother.

I'm a follower of Jesus and my children have kind of gone their own way.

I'm a follower of Jesus, but I lost my job.

I'm a follower of Jesus, but I got the bad diagnosis.

Help me understand what I'm walking through.

The reality is if you're a follower of Jesus or not, you will walk through moments of intense gravity and moments of levity.

It's the reason I love this verse.

Some 700 years before Jesus, the prophet Isaiah said this.

He said that Jesus, the Savior, the Christ, the Messiah, was coming to give them beauty for ashes, levity for gravity, the oil of what?

Joy for mourning.

So I want you to see this.

Joy, which is levity for mourning, which is gravity.

And then I love this phrase.

He says, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness.

I love this phrase because this is a gravity and levity moment, but here's what I love that he says.

He says that you can put on praise, that you can literally make this decision.

He compares it to a garment.

Like when I woke up this morning, I put this sweater on, I put it on, I chose to put it on.

Can I tell you something that I tell our worship pastors and worship leaders at all of our locations?

I want the worship that we bring to God on Sundays to be the kind of stuff that literally lifts our spirits up.

Why?

Because I want people to put on praise.

What does praise do?

It lifts the spirit of heaviness or the gravity that people carry.

Here's what I know.

Every single week, thousands of people come to our church and hundreds, if not thousands, more join us at church online.

That means that every single week, when people walk through the doors, there are people who are they they feel disoriented by the diagnosis the doctor gave them.

Every single week.

Every single week, someone's walking through trauma or pain.

In between services today, I had a conversation with someone who is dealing with a traumatic moment in their life, doesn't know what to do.

Gravity.

Every single Sunday that we gather, every time we gather together in Jesus' name, there's someone wondering how they're gonna make their finances work.

There's someone wondering if they're gonna lose their job.

Every single time we gather, people walk in physically and emotionally, feeling like this.

They're wearing what I would call a spirit or a garment of heaviness because the world's heavy.

And what I love is that you and I can make a choice to put on joy.

How?

By putting on a spirit of praise.

In any circumstance, you can make this decision to magnify my circumstances or magnify my God.

A little spoiler alert, whatever you magnify gets bigger.

And a lot of us magnify our circumstances.

The promise from the angel was I bring you good news, something that's gonna change the environment for you, and it's not just good news, it's good news of what?

Great joy.

Not just joy, but like great joy.

I I love this.

If I were to ask every single person at our church today, hey, what is the definition of joy?

My guess is I'd get hundreds of different answers, but a lot of them would center around the wrong idea.

A lot of us think joy is a synonym of happiness.

We think that if I have joy, that means everything is happy.

We've got some good news and some bad news for somebody today.

I love happiness.

I love being happy, I love being smiley, I love having a good time, I love laughing until my side hurts, I love all of that, but you need to understand something.

Joy and happiness are not the same.

They're not mutually exclusive, but they are not the same thing at all.

You can walk through the most difficult, dark circumstances of your life, and you can walk through it characterized by joy.

Joy and happiness are not the same.

Let me show it to you like this.

Happiness is external, joy is internal.

Happiness is based on circumstance, joy is based on Christ.

Happiness happens by chance, joy happens by choice.

What does it mean?

It means you can choose to put on joy no matter what you're walking through.

You ever known someone walking through a difficult situation?

And yet, no matter how hard it gets, they have joy.

You ever notice this?

Six months into my marriage, my wife got the most devastating diagnosis of her life.

Six months into marriage, they found non-Hodgkins lymphoma in her body.

Cancer.

That's a big word for a 23-year-old.

They diagnosed her with this terrible cancer.

It felt so tragic, it felt so difficult, and it was.

And for six months, I watched her wake up every single day and choose joy.

I watched her every single day wake up.

There were days when she had didn't have the strength to sit up in bed.

There were days when her face had lost its color, her eyes were so sunken in from the anemia she was in, she was so, so sick.

And you know what she would do?

She would make the doctors laugh, she would make the nurses laugh, she brought joy everywhere she was.

Why?

Because joy has nothing to do with your circumstances.

Joy is based on what Christ has done for you.

I love this quote from Kay Warren, Pastor Rick Warren's wife.

He said, Joy is the settled assurance that God is in control of every detail of my life.

It's the quiet confidence that ultimately everything will be alright, and the determined choice to praise God.

Hey, what would it look like if whatever you're walking through, no matter how dark or difficult or heavy, full of gravity it feels, you chose joy.

Can I tell you what would happen to you?

You would stand out.

If you were here last Sunday, I showed you these five candles.

They're called the five candles of Advent, and I look like I need some joy in this picture.

And um thank you.

And uh I want you to I want you to see this.

There are five candles.

The first three are purple, and they they stand for different things.

One one of them stands for the love of God, one of them stands for the hope that we have in Christ, and then one stands for peace.

And these are all wonderful gifts that we celebrate every single Christmas because Jesus is and he brings these things.

Then the the middle one is the white candle, that's the one that is to be lit at midnight on Christmas Eve going into Christmas Day, and it's this reminder that Jesus has come, he is the light of the world, and where there is light, darkness has to flee.

But then it's weird.

Because there's that pink one.

And it's like it feels inefficient, doesn't make sense to me.

Like I would have had four purple ones and then one white one.

But the reason they chose pink, I researched this, is because pink stands out.

And I want you to hear this.

In a world full of cynics and critics and haters, in a world full of people who are dealing with depression and darkness, in a world full of people who feel the gravity of their circumstances, you and I can stand out when we choose joy, when we make this decision that no matter what I'm walking through, joy is a choice that I choose every single day.

It also means that there is nothing that can happen to me greater than the price Jesus paid for me.

So because he's already settled the accounts and because my soul will forever be with him, what's the worst thing that can happen to me?

What, I die and then I wake up in the presence of God.

Look at this.

One of the marks of a true believer, of a mature believer, is how you respond to difficult circumstances.

I got good news and bad news, you will have some difficult circumstances around you, but it's how you respond that makes the difference.

I can't help when I think of this to think about Paul.

Paul, who wrote like half of the New Testament, he finds himself later in his life in the city that he longed to preach in, Rome, but he wasn't standing on a platform, he found himself in a prison.

If you ever get to go to Rome, I want you to do this, okay?

Certainly, if you go to Rome, you'll see the Colosseum, the famous Colosseum.

Next to it, literally right next to it, is what's called the ancient Roman ruins.

It's where you see those ancient pillars that you think of when you think of Rome.

And a lot of people don't know this, but literally, like three blocks away, right around the corner, there is either the jail that Paul was held in or one just like it.

And I've gotten to go two times.

The first time I went, it was much more rustic, and then in between they built like a museum on it.

And when you go, like the first time we went, there was like a room that was the courthouse room, and if they found you guilty, they would lower you by rope through a hole in the ground to a major hole in the ground.

And you'd be underneath the ground.

And the first time we went, it was summertime, and it was hot outside, but underneath the ground in what would have been the jail cell, it was really cold.

Our Torah guide said, Imagine this.

If it's that hot outside and it's this cold here, imagine how cold it would be in the winter.

Imagine you'd be freezing.

On top of that, they didn't have the drainage that we have today.

And so if there was ever rain or snow and the snow melted, what would happen?

The water would find the lowest level, which would have been that place in the ground.

So prisoners would be chained to the wall or chained to a guard, standing freezing in water that would be freezing.

They told us the situation and circumstance was so bad, like there's no bathroom, so people just go to the bathroom there.

It smelled bad, you were freezing, you thought you were gonna die, and it was so bad that many people would just take their own life rather than stay in that prison.

And from that prison, Paul writes a letter that we call Philippians.

Scholars call it the book of joy.

Think about this if you were in prison, wrongfully accused, and you knew that any day could be the day when you get led out into the wilderness and your head's taken off.

What would you write?

I would write, get me up out of here.

Love Jason.

That's just what I would write in the whole letter.

Here's what Paul writes: Philippians chapter 1, verse 3.

Philippians 1:3

Chained to a Roman guard.

He says, I thank my God every time I remember you.

In all my prayers for all of you, I always pray with what?

Joy.

Because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now, being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.

Paul's in prison.

Like that's way worse than my bad days.

Come on, you ever have a bad moment that ruins your whole day?

Like someone cuts me off in traffic, it ruins my day.

A couple weeks ago, I was at Publix and I ran into a pastor friend and he looked me up and down.

He goes, You look like you've been eating good.

It ruined my whole day.

It did.

Don't laugh at that.

Okay, like ruined my day now.

But but here's what Paul's saying.

Look at this.

No matter what your circumstances, you can have joy.

Why?

Because my joy is in Christ.

So here's my challenge to you, Access.

This Christmas season, here it is.

My joy is my job.

That because of what Jesus did for me, I can work towards this, I can stand out in the crowd.

That no matter what circumstances I am facing, I can have a different kind of levity to me.

Why?

Because my joy isn't based on my circumstances.

My joy is my job.

Are you with me?

Good news of great joy for all people.

And I'm so grateful this is true.

I'm so grateful that it it wasn't good news of great joy for good people or for the people that were born in the right city or born in the right zip code or born to the right family.

It's not just good news of great joy if you voted a certain way or believe a certain thing about God.

It's not just good news of great joy if you're a Christian.

It's good news of great joy to all people.

Cynics and skeptics and haters and critics.

Atheists and agnostics and Christians and people of other faith.

It's good news of great joy for you and for your neighbor.

It's good news of great joy for you and your friends.

It's good news of great joy for you and people who think differently than you, vote differently than you, look differently than you.

It's good news of great joy for all people, including the Philadelphia Eagles fan sitting on the second row staring at me this whole time with disgust in his eyes.

It is good news of great joy for all people.

It should be a hate crime, everybody.

Good news, great joy.

For all people, the book of John says it like this.

In him, Jesus was life, and that life was light of all mankind for everyone.

The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.

Jesus came as a light to the world, right?

Think about the verses we just read.

Why?

For today in the city of David, a savior has been born to you.

Savior means you can't save or rescue yourself, but God knew what you needed.

It's good news of great joy.

That you can't do more to earn it, you can't do more to receive it, you can't do enough to attain it.

It's good news of great joy for all people that a savior has been born.

What does a savior mean?

It means that God stepped into the mess.

It means that no matter what we've done, no matter how far we feel from God, no matter what our life has screamed to God, God stepped into the mess for us.

That for unto you is born this day in the city of David, a savior.

And it's not just the savior, he is Christ the Lord.

This word Christ in Greek is this beautiful word.

It means anointed one, but it also means one who lifts the yoke.

It lifts the burden from you.

So instead of you striving and working to get God's favor, I've got good news, you can't earn it.

It's a gift given to you.

He's a savior.

And I want you to see this.

What makes all of this good news is when you're included in it.

What makes good news good news is when you and I get in, when we're invited in.

Last thought, then we're done.

I love the Christmas story because it's so multifaceted.

It's like every time you peel back a layer, you find more beauty.

I love this.

If you have a nativity set, you got Mary and Joseph and Jesus, and you got the camels and the sheep and all of that stuff.

But then there's usually two groups of people who come it's the shepherds and the wise men.

Told you earlier, shepherds were despised.

They were social outcasts, nobody liked them, they had no vote, they were seen as worthless.

Then you had these wise men who came from the east.

There's an interesting connection in the book of Daniel to these people that someday I'll try to teach.

But you had these like people who were outcast, and these people who were seen as like the most sage, wise, brilliant leaders, teachers, and thinkers.

People on both extremes of whatever the continuum of society was for them, both welcome.

Why?

Because Jesus and the Christmas story is God screaming through the darkness.

Good news, not bad news, good news of great joy.

It's not based on your circumstances, not based on what's happening around you.

It's internal, it's because of what Christ did for you.

It's good news of great joy for all people, which means for for you.

So here's how I want to end today.

I want to ask you this question, and I want you to be honest.

Have you experienced that good news for yourself?

Has the good news of great joy that a savior has been born, has it ever made the journey from the Christmas story on the pages of the Bible to your heart?

And if it hasn't, I want to give you a moment to experience what Christmas is all about.

Listen, no one loves Christmas and celebrates Christmas like the Burns family.

We got so many gifts, we got a beautiful tree.

We love lights and Christmas cookies, we love carols, we love it all.

But Christmas was never meant to be celebrated, it was meant to be experienced.

So here's what I want.

All across this place and at all of our locations, would you bow your head and close your eyes?

And I want you to ask the question have I accepted Jesus as my savior?

Have I made the decision to let him be the Lord of my life?

Which means he's in charge and he calls the shots.

And if you haven't, or maybe you prayed when you were a kid, but you just feel like you've walked away and today you want to come back to that.

I'm gonna ask you to have three seconds of courage right now and say, Jason, if this is me, if you've made this decision, today's the day I'm choosing to follow Jesus, have three seconds of courage.

And would you raise your hand right now?

Because I want to pray with you.

Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, wow, thank you.

Wow, so cool.

At all of our locations, I'm gonna invite you to pray with me.

And if you raise your hand, I want you to pray this out loud and know this you won't pray alone.

Our whole church family will pray out loud with you because that access nobody stands alone.

And if this is you, I want you to pray this and mean this.

Would you say, Jesus, I give you my life.

Thank you for coming into this world to save me.

Jesus, I believe you're the Son of God.

I believe you gave your life for me, and today I choose to give my life to you.

From this day forward, I'll follow you.

Jesus, I love you.

I need you to save me, and from this day forward, I give you my life, and it's in your name I pray, Jesus.

Amen.

Come on, church family, everywhere.

Let's celebrate.