Why is it that some people, in the midst of a good life, decent
health, good income, financial stability, still have no joy?
They have enough to eat, a roof over their heads and decent
health, and still no joy. Why is that?
I want to ask us this morning. I'm not going to ask anybody to
raise their hands or anything, but do you have joy?
Are you joyful today? You may be wondering, well, what
does that look like? You may feel joyous, foreign to
you. Maybe you've lived a life.
I'm always hoping to one day have it.
Well, we're in the Advent season and we want to focus on that
subject this morning. And I want to just dwell on this
topic for a little bit before we go into a Scripture passage.
Let me ask, what is joy? Maybe you're asking that
question. How do you get it?
The Bible says that joy is a state of the heart.
Galatians 522 calls it a fruit of the Spirit.
It's something that happens inside of you.
And true joy, according to Scripture, is not connected to
money, as if you'll have more money, you have more joy.
It's not how it works or how many possessions you can
acquire. How big your house is, how much
stuff you got has nothing to do with being powerful or famous,
in charge and control. True joy is tied to a
relationship with God. A state of joy for a person who
believes in God is when that person's connected to God and is
satisfied in God. True joy is independent of
earthly, temporal, material things, and it's not found
inside of ourselves even. It's more about being than
doing. It's a state of being that does
not expire, does not fade, and not wear out.
It's permanent. Yes, we sometimes don't feel
joy, and sometimes we have so much sorrow that it's buried in
pain. But as believers recalled to
this, and you may ask, what are there not times in the lives of
Christians when they don't have joy?
Well, there are states of being. Sometimes it's emotionally,
spiritually, so heavy. Everything seems buried in a
pile of pain, in a mountain of pain.
In the Gospel of John, we read that when Jesus was getting
ready to leave this earth, in chapter 16, he's talking to the
disciples and says now you have sorrow, but your joy will come.
And it did. I'm not here to say this morning
I always have it. Nope, I'm human too.
I sometimes don't have joy. But Paul writes in Philippians
chapter 4. He says, rejoice.
And again I say to you, rejoice. Well, where was Paul writing
from? He had been thrown in jail for
preaching the gospel. And in jail he was tied with
chain. So he was not going to get out.
I don't know what's chain on his legs or something.
He could still write letters. So he wrote letters.
And then he says to this audience, whoever he wrote to,
Philippians is 1. We don't know if he wrote many
rejoice in the Lord and again I say rejoice.
If he can rejoice in that level, having zero, no money and no, no
contacts really he couldn't get out of prison.
He was stuck. He thinks of the Philippian
Church, Rejoice, he says, rejoice.
There are times when temporary happiness can be mistaken for
joy. You know, like maybe you get a
good raise, Wow, you're happy. Got a good raise, you're really
happy. You maybe mistake that for joy.
And maybe there's a shady overlap.
I'm not saying there's no overlap ever, but let's not
mistake that for joy because that raise wears off pretty
soon. That raises old stuff.
They need another one. It's good, it's nothing wrong
with it, but that's not where you anchor and where you tie
down on. You don't tie off on that, tie
down on that, that that moves. Maybe you're healthy, you know,
and now you have joy. Well, your praise God for the
health, but that can change again.
You can get sick again. Emotional happiness, feelings of
happiness is not what the Bible is talking about when it talks
about joy. Feeling good is good, but it
fades. Joy is the Bible describes.
It is the deep inner state of being rooted in God, not
influence, control, or moved by worldly events and things that
don't last. A person is deeply rooted in
God, may or may not feel good but a certain event or about
life, but their joy is not tied to those things.
It's independent of that. Their joy is tied to what goes
on between him or her and God, people who are rooted in God.
Their inner joy is one of one of the reason why so many
Christians don't fear death. Because Paul writes in
Philippians, in fact, is what does it matter if I die and go
home to be with Christ? That's cool, that's better.
But if I stay here, then I'll just continue serving you.
As the years are going by for myself, I'm increasingly aware
of how fleeting and short and temporary everything is, and our
need to focus our hearts and minds on what lasts for eternity
in this life. Nothing that we see in this
room, on this yard, even in this building, will last for
eternity. Not our bodies, not our stuff.
Nothing lasts for eternity. But our soul does.
Our relationship does. And that should give us joy.
And I'm not saying here we should now not earn money and
tend to our lives or what we or we.
And if we do, we should do it with sadness.
No, no, enjoy it. It's great.
God blesses us with health. Enjoy it blesses us with
resources, enjoy them, but not in the context of this is now
where it's at. Christians should be and in many
places are the most joyous and cheerful people on this earth.
The difference between Christians and non Christians is
who and what they follow, what they're rooted in.
Non believers can have good times too.
They get raises, They're happy too, but it's temporary.
Nothing wrong with being happy but having a good raise or good
stuff. But we look for the eternal
stuff. Where it comes down to is what
meaning do we attach to it? As I said before, we're in the
Advent season this morning and we've been looking in the Gospel
of Luke where we read of several people who experienced joy even
when the circumstances were not ideal.
We learned when Zechariah was old, no longer expecting that
his prayers to have children would be answered.
And God sent the Angel Gabriel to give Zechariah the good news
that he and his wife Elizabeth would have a son.
And the Angel says in Luke 114, you will have joy.
Angel promises him that he finds it very hard to believe and
given the fact that he's way past that age and his wife is
past that age and how this happened and God says because
you don't believe you won't be able to talk.
So there was a bit of a damper there, but it happened.
Elizabeth conceives, becomes pregnant in her old age and has
the blessings of a child. Then last Sunday we heard from
from the store Philham preached on how the Angel came to Mary
and Nazareth and he did the impossible and he told her the
good news. She's going to have a baby and
your baby will be the Messiah and he will have the king, the
the throne of King David and his Kingdom.
There will be no end of. And she too wonders old, but I
don't have a man. She was engaged to a man named
Joseph. But we're not married yet.
You know, we can't have a baby. And the Angel says don't worry
about that. God's going to look after that.
The baby will be of the Holy Spirit.
And Mary just accepted that the the Holy One will over shadow
you and you'll have a son. Well, let's just pause for a bit
with these two women, Mary and Elizabeth.
Both of them had very unusual callings.
Mary not at the baby stage yet. She's coming.
Elizabeth, we were way past that.
Both out of the field, both were called to something they never
would have expected, never would have dreamed would be their
case. For Elizabeth, she's old.
Imagine a woman in the final phase of life becoming pregnant.
I don't know if she's walking with a cane or not.
We don't. We're not told.
I don't think she was. But just imagine some of you
women who are older now, having a baby and chasing after a
toddler. I'm actually thankful that
that's not our situation. I couldn't keep up.
Both of us couldn't keep up. And that's what happened.
Elizabeth became a mother. What a surprise.
What a life to look forward to, right?
Grey and old in body, but not in spirit.
And she became a first time mother.
Then there's this young virgin named Mary.
Angel Gabriel comes to her, gives her a promise that she'd
be the mother of the Messiah. Well, of course she got wedding
plans. Not baby plans.
Not being pregnant, not yet at least.
Planning for married life his Angel you'll have a baby.
And so God just interrupts these women and restructures their
lives and organizes their lives for them.
This would because for worry about how will it all happen?
How will it all be. What's interesting here in both
of these stories is that these were situations out of the norm,
out of the normal sphere of life as they would know it and it
wasn't different than it is now. Everybody knows old grandmas
can't have babies. Everybody knows that.
And why should they? They're not.
They're not able to really care for little ones.
And everybody knows you shouldn't have babies at a
wedlock. Everybody knows that too.
But what did these two women do? They embraced their role with
joy. They had joy.
These two women, one the ain't the old grandma, not grandma.
She wasn't a grandma, but grandma's phase of life.
She was ready to just pack it in and just, OK, we're going to
wrap this thing up. We'll be going home soon.
And the other one, she hadn't even started yet.
She isn't even married yet. But they embraced their new
season of life with joy. For them, this was a journey
they had to make mentally, emotionally and spiritual.
Sermon title this morning is Journey to Joy.
Journey to joy. Are you and I this morning on a
journey to joy? Are we on a journey to misery?
To fear, to doubt, to worry? These were extreme situations
and they embraced them with joy. For Elizabeth and for Mary, both
were not in the norm in terms of as all working out as planned.
How can we have a journey that leads to joy in our life This
morning we want to read Luke chapter one, verse 39 to 45.
Well, that's we'll just read the first part.
It won't read all of it. 39 Luke 139 and just keep your Bibles
and phones open too. But this passage when you get
there, verse 39 begins Now Mary Rose in those days went with
went to the Hill Country with haste to a city in Judah and
entered the House of Zacharias and greeted Elizabeth.
And it happened when Elizabeth heard the greeting of Mary that
the babe leaped in her womb and Elizabeth was filled with the
Holy Spirit. Then she spoke out with a loud
voice and said, blessed are you among women, and blessed is the
fruit of your womb. But why is this granted to me,
that the mother of my Lord should come to me?
For indeed, as soon as the voice of your greeting sounded in my
ears, the babe leaped in my womb for joy.
Even the little unborn 1 was joyful.
Blessed is she who believed, for there will be a fulfillment of
those things which were told her from the Lord.
So let's pause there again. These two women, now here they
are together, each in their new strange calling.
Not normal circumstances, once too old, have babies.
One shouldn't have babies yet, but they both have joy and
they're sharing it. Both are grounded and rooted in
God. As we know from the story.
They're both righteous women, worshippers of God, God the
character. And both were in a position
where God could use them for tasks that he would not use
normally use people for. God can't use just anybody for
these things. He uses special people, people
like Elizabeth and like Mary. And so here we have Mary and
Elizabeth, and they share a common joy.
You know something about joy. If you add it, it multiplies, it
increases. It's not like 1 + 1 is 2.
No, 1 + 1 is. However many can be, can be
much. It's an it's just, it just
multiplies. These two women both shared the
same mission in God's plan to bring salvation to this world.
Elizabeth, her son would be preparing the way and Mary her
son would be the way. These two old, these two women,
1 old and one young, both of them are generation apart, blood
relatives. But more than that, they shared
a common faith in God. Both were believers experiencing
something miraculous in nature in their time and both were
benefiting from each other. So that's what happens here.
And as we heard last Sunday, we need to remember that what the
Angel told Mary about Elizabeth and it says in Luke chapter one
verse 36 going back up a bit says now indeed Elizabeth, your
relative has also conceived a son in her old age.
And this is now the 6th month for her who was called barren.
For with God nothing is impossible.
When Mary had been told by the Angel that her relative
Elizabeth was expecting and in the six months already at the
time. What does Mary do?
It says she left with haste to visit her cousin.
She hurried for Mary. This was exciting news.
Hey, my old relative Elizabeth, down South in Judah, she's
having a baby. We don't know exactly how far
this was. This was a long distance, but
commentators suggest that would have been about 100 miles or 150
a 160 kilometers, give or take. So the same thing as walking
from this church to the City of London.
And it's it's it's safe to say that Mary, I don't think she had
a donkey. I don't think so.
And she would have made that journey on foot and would have
taken a while. There was no Tim horton's on the
way or on route where she could stop for a break and sit in a
nice air conditioned car or a car with a good heater or a
comfortable. It was none of that.
It was a big deal. She arrives there and the joy
begins. Well, she had joy probably
before that already, but this joy now is coming together and
it just ignites into something big.
It's something special. It says, even says that the baby
leaped in Elizabeth's womb. This was a great moment in time.
And Elizabeth and Mary, they experienced this together.
Both Elizabeth and Mary experiencing this common get
together. But I want to also mention a few
things that were not happening that were not taking place.
They were not focusing on the challenges that this would
bring. You know that for older women to
have a child can be extremely problematic.
They can die in childbirth. It's some would say not safe
past a certain age. Well, God doesn't worry about
those things. She was old and physically not
at that stage in life anymore for having babies and she
doesn't talk about it. If she did, it's not not
mentioned, but just physically in your mind.
Imagine going to a restaurant now with your husband, old and
white hair as well, and then you're getting the seniors
discount and oh what a wonderful grandchild.
Noah is our son. You get the idea.
So much was not normal. What would like, what would life
like be as a mother for her? No doubt this changed their
whole structure, how they did their house stuff, their house
arrangement, everything was changed.
And it doesn't say they talk about that, any of that.
They had planned for the sunset years, but now it was the other
way around. What about Mary?
She's pregnant, too. Just just pregnant.
She's starting out. She's expecting.
But yeah. Who's the dad?
Well, I don't have. Well, the Holy Spirit people in
the community might say, well, we're not buying it.
And even Joseph from the Gospel of Matthew believed, OK, she's
unfaithful, so I'm going to divorce her.
In that day and age, an engagement could only be
nullified through a divorce. So that's what he's planning to
do. That was later on.
And the Holy Spirit sends an Angel intervenes and no, no, no,
Joseph, don't worry, she's pregnant.
But it's not what you think it is.
The Holy Spirit overshadowed her and she's expecting a son and
he'll be the son of the Most High.
Sometimes we just need to let things be.
Let God handle it. There's situations and
circumstances we have no solution for or don't have an
answer to or shouldn't try to solve.
And So what these two women do is the best thing that women and
these women in their situation could be, you know what they do?
They embrace the journey. When do we embrace the journey?
Or we got to fix it, change it, alter it, modify it, sometimes
as it's placed, but not always. These pregnancies in both these
women changed everything. They would never be the same
again and it would bring pain. We don't know how old Zechariah
and Elizabeth were. Maybe they lived long enough.
I don't think so. But they could have maybe lived
long enough to see their son John being thrown in prison.
We don't know. They would have gotten really
old by that time. Maybe they're already passed on.
We don't know. We don't know what happened to
John, grew up, lived in the desert, ate wild honey and
locusts and camels hair garment and preached repentance to the
nation of Israel and didn't last very long and he was thrown in
jail and then sometime after that was killed.
They knew none of this. And Mary at the time didn't know
either that this little boy she was carrying would by the time
he was 33 or so, he would be arrested, falsely charged and
and condemned and he would be nailed to a cross.
And when she was around maybe 50 or so, we don't know what how
old Mary was when the Angel came, but maybe commentator
suggests she was a teenage girl. That would have been about the
time and Jewish culture when a woman would get engaged and be
married before 20. Nothing couldn't happen after.
But that would have been roughly about what they did.
So she would have been maybe 50 or so, give or take, when she
saw her son hanging on a cross. But here, now, today, in this
story, these two women rejoice together as they embrace their
shared experiences. And God wants us to embrace the
path He has for us. Our path will not be like that,
no doubt. But whatever our path may be
like, and it may not be convenient, may not even be
comfortable, may not even be safe, may not even be
acceptable, never mind about all the other stuff.
But what it will do, if we embrace it, it will lead us to
maturity. In Christ that will lead us to
humility, to surrender and to obedience and these two women
have a great time together. Elizabeth praising God Mary's
Mary's arriving, they didn't have no text and she couldn't
send a text. I'm coming over.
Just she comes and there she is and she's happy.
She's excited and now Mary responds, let's read Luke
chapter one verse 46. And Mary said, my soul magnifies
the Lord and my spirit has rejoiced in God my Savior, for
he has regarded the lowly estate of his maidservant.
For behold, henceforth all generations will call me
blessed. She is focusing on what God has
done for her. She's magnifying God, rejoicing
in God and look what God has done for me.
She's positioning her heart for worship to God.
She's magnifying her creator. She's focusing in her heart on
fulfilling what God has called her to.
She calls God my saviour. She's trusting in him.
She says my heart has rejoiced my my spirit has rejoiced.
My spirit has rejoiced in God my Saviour.
It's not something she was just starting to do now.
She had been doing this. She was a godly young woman
practicing and worship, worshipping God.
When our spirit rejoices in God, that puts us in the place where
true connection happens between US and God.
And it's at that point where Mary just launches into a song
of praise and worship for who God is, what He has done, and
what He is doing. She's aware and accepts her
position as the mother of Jesus. It says in verse 48, she
mentions how God has regarded her lowly estate, her lowly
position, her humble state. This simply means that Mary's
humility put her in a place where God could use her as the
person to fulfill the purpose which he wanted to bring in
which He wanted to bring Jesus into this world.
You see, humility is not optional.
If we're going to connect with God, if we're going to have joy,
humility is a must. And you know what else?
If humility is there, pride has to go.
You can't be joyful and selfishly proud at the same
time. Doesn't work.
Humility is not something that we give her.
Oh, she will add a pinch of humility and a pinch of this and
a buffet style. Now worship God.
No, no, everything has to be in a humble environment.
A person can never be joyfully, pridefully connected with God.
Selfish pride always cancels out joy.
Mary's very much aware what's going on.
She knows her history, She knows the stories of King David and
the promises that God made to his people in the past.
And she knows her son will be the king of a never ending
Kingdom. And because of that, she knows
the future generations will call her blessed.
And she goes on praising God, worshipping God, mentioning what
God has done. Now we have only a very short
little passage here, and it takes only a minute or two to
read it. I'm sure she, her, she
worshipped longer than that. But let's read what she did.
Let's let's read further. It says here in verse 48.
And on it says, For he has, I'll read 48 again.
For he has regarded the lowly state of his maidservant.
For behold, henceforth all generations will call me
blessed. And here it goes.
For He, for He who is mighty has done great things for me, and
holy is His name, and His mercy is one of those is on those who
fear Him from generation to generation.
He has shown strength with His arm.
He has scattered the proud in the imagination of their hearts.
He has put down the mighty from their Thrones and exalted the
lowly. He has filled the hungry with
good things, and the rich He has sent away empty.
He has helped to servant Israel in remembrance of His mercy as
He spoke to her Father's, to Abraham, and to His seed
forever. And Mary remained with her,
meaning. Elizabeth about 3 months and
returned to her house. What is Mary's focus in the song
again? Note again, pay attention to
what she is not doing. She's not asking for a single
thing. Joy is not based on.
What can I get God to do for me? Oh yes, we pray for things to
happen, that is good, we should, but that's not the starting
point. She's looking.
What has God done? And don't we all have a ton of
things every day we can thank God for what He has done started
sometime, sometime in the morning, take a piece of paper
and start thanking God for everything you can imagine that
morning you should thank Him for.
Well, you had a good night's rest maybe.
Or maybe you had a your own place to sleep, You had maybe
you got health, maybe you have enough food for the day.
There's always a long list we can joyfully thank God for.
And I'm not saying we shouldn't pray for things that are on our
hearts, that are heavy, that need to happen.
We can do those. We should do those.
But let's not be that that. Let's not let that be the
starting point or the only point.
Let's, let's bundle this up a little bit.
Let's pack this together. See what it looks like when we
just pile it up. He has regarded the lowly state
of his maid servant. This is what God did.
He has done great things for me. Well, there's a long list behind
that one. His mercy is on those who fear
Him. He has shown strength.
He has scattered the proud. He has put down the mighty.
He has exalted the lowly. He has filled the hungry.
He has sent the rich away empty. He has helped the servant
Israel. But 10 things or so that pop out
right here. What's her focus?
It's on God. We know from this passage that
Mary has joy, and here we see what this joy does.
It exalts God. Her joy is grounded in what God
is doing and has done and is doing.
And isn't that the kind of person that God would want to
use to bring the Messiah into this world?
What about if she was grumpy, pessimistic, negative, cynical?
The cup is always half empty. That kind of a lifestyle.
Oh, I'm a Christian, all right. But hey, the world's a bad
place. That doesn't work well.
You see folks, true joy is rooted in God.
Mary's proclaiming all this, what she's saying she's doing
from a historical context, connecting the past to the
present and can ongoing and what's going to come.
And with God, there's no time constraints.
He's been working then, he's working now.
We'll continue to work in the future.
And for Mary, she knows he's chosen her for that time and
that's phase of life. And when we say things like, Oh,
I wish I could have lived back when or lived in that season and
time. And then there's an God has us
here. Why?
He has us here for a reason. We may not know for sure, but
there's a purpose behind it. Let's embrace it.
Let's have joy in it. Earlier in verse 48, she talks
about taking note of her lowly estate.
And he says God has done great things for for, for her.
And she's just humbly accepting it.
And here together with her cousin Elizabeth, she's
rejoicing God season takes note when a person is in relationship
with him and walks in obedience. He takes note when a person has
joy and you can can use that person for a purpose that the
world will not understand. Mary goes on and credits got all
these things. Let's go back to this list
again. I think it's a pretty good list
that Mary had there that Luke wrote down.
And again, let's note what's not there.
Nothing here that can be viewed from a negative standpoint.
It's all good stuff, even taking it's good when God subdues the
proud and and the haughty and so on.
It's good when God does that. She's mentioning that it's all
good stuff here. And again, the humility in which
Mary presents her song, She's surrendered.
She's devoted, giving him all the glory and all the honour for
what he does. Mary's journey to joy had taken
her from being close to God to even closer to God, surrender to
him and in a relationship with Him.
If we're going to have joy, we do well to ponder and meditate
on stories like this. Real God focused joy has nothing
to do with this world, with politics, with the economy,
nothing. Real God focused joy is solely
grounded in what he is doing. And yes, we pray around what's
going on here. We pray for the government, we
pray for our world, we pray for the situations and whatnot.
But that does not shade or shape or condition our joy.
And as valuable as the earthly things us for our for us to live
off of the money and food and shelter.
The problem with them sometimes is they become distractions.
They can become distractions and we start placing joy in those
things and we should never thank God for them.
But no, they'll be taken away. It says that she spent three
months there. 90 days would have been.
I wonder if Mary kept the journal.
I would have liked to read it. I encourage people to journal.
I do journaling. It's very helpful, it's very
good. We can just imagine what they
all talked about. We don't know if Mary stayed
just past John was born or just before he John was born.
She left just before that. We don't know.
But we know from a worldly standpoint, political
standpoint, these two experiences of these two women,
Nope, not even a blip on the radar.
Nobody would have noticed. But for them, this was a special
thing and it was a world impacting event.
They did not live their lives based on who knows and how wide
is it known? And no, this just let God take
care of things. Their relationship with God,
they're worshipping God, praising God together, these two
humble, surrendered women, devoted and loyal to him.
And I think they did not even realize at the time how big of
an impact they truly would have. And we know the story and time
Mary gave birth to her first born name in Jesus, trained him,
raised him. He grew up, became a teacher.
At the age of 33, he was killed. And if that had been the end of
him, that would have been the end of what he had started.
But it wasn't. Three days later, he rose from
the tomb. Today, the world recognizes this
event. Jesus of Nazareth, the greatest
person to ever live. But to the US Christians, he's
way much more. He's everything.
He's in heaven today, sitting at the right hand of God and
advocating for us. And it says in John verse 12
kind of what he did. But because many has received
him to them, He gave the right to become children of God to
those who believe in His name. You and I connect too.
So again, the question, do you have joy?
If not, it's not because it's not available.
Maybe you're seeking it but haven't found it yet.
Maybe you're seeking among the wrong things.
Maybe you've been hoping and wanting for others to treat you
right. And then you'll have joy.
Maybe if your boss was better, you'll have joy.
Maybe if your parents were better, or your spouse was
better, or your kids were better, or your neighbor was
better, that's not how you'll get it.
Maybe when you get that big break, no, it's not how you'll
get it or the big break needs to come, but that's not how you'll
have joy. It comes from being connected
with God, being in relationship with God regardless of the
situation around us. Maybe you're here this morning
so much long for that deep, inner, satisfying sense of being
right with God. And it's a good longing to have.
But it will never come through self effort, never come through
performance. It will come only as we lay down
and let go of whatever it is that's between US and God.
The expectations and the fears just surrender.
And when we're able to do that, surrender everything to Christ,
our dreams, our ambitions, and whatever we have, we'll find
ourselves taking a journey to the cross.
And they're at the cross. We find that all we ever needed
and truly wanted was Him. That's it.
Because they're at the cross. That's where Jesus gives us His
peace, exchanges His righteousness for our sin, takes
our sin, and we're saved. We have this freedom, and then
we have joy. My prayer is that all of us
would have it, and if you don't have it yet, find it.
Oh yes, there'll be struggles and challenges in life.
They will come, but they can't dampen that because this is
eternal. It won't come through anything
else. And with a faith that's anchored
and rooted in God, our joy will outlast all the struggles and
trials and challenges this life can throw at us.
My prayer is that God will give each one of us the eyes to see
and the ears to hear and hearts to understand what this means,
and we will have that joy.