WHERE TO FIND JOY

 

As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Abide in my love. If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and abide in his love. These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full. “This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends. (John 15:9–13 )

Something I have been convicted of lately is my tendency to look everywhere but the right place for joy. I confess I often look to the congregation to give me joy. I look to how joyful your faces are on Sunday morning to inform me of how joyful I should be. If I see faces that are anything less than joyful (and there has been alot of this lately!) then I find it hard to have joy myself.  I look to your investment in each other’s lives for joy. If I see a preoccupation with one’s self I find it hard to have joy. I sense some of you feel the same way. Maybe you come on Sunday and you feel like it’s a drag. It's hard to get excited about what’s happening. You come out of obligation because you know you should. I know what you mean. I have experienced this myself many times. What exactly are we expecting from one another? We want everyone else to give us a reason for joy but if everyone is doing this (and I think everyone IS doing this) and no one is joyful then no one will be. See the problem?  We are all horribly unreliable when it comes to supplying joy. Therefore it is the duty of every Christian to look in the right place for joy. Jesus says we are to look to him and his love. I want to invite you to come repent with me for looking for joy in all the wrong places.

Jesus makes this amazing statement in verse 9 - “As the Father loves me so I have loved you.”  Did you catch that? Jesus’ love for us is compared to the love God the Father has for God the Son. This is astounding!  It is not simply like it but is the source of his love for us also. Jesus looks upon us with a deep and abiding love. This is important because God’s love does not change. “The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; his mercies never come to an end...” (Lamentations 3:22)    “For great is his steadfast love toward us, and the faithfulness of the Lord endures forever. Praise the Lord!” (Psalm 117:2)  Good thing too because if it changed, we would never know if we were in or out of favor with him. And as a result we would be no better off for God would be equally as unreliable as we are to one another. But because his love endures forever, we have a reliable source of joy. Jesus taught about his abiding love “so that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full.”

This enduring, unchanging steadfast love of God is where we must look for joy. And this joy then becomes a source of strength when we are downcast and weary. In Nehemiah’s day God’s people struggled with many things. There was hardly a day that went by that they were not facing some monstrosity of a problem or some major area of compromise. Basically, they were a church with issues, just like us.

"And Nehemiah, who was the governor, and Ezra the priest and scribe, and the Levites who taught the people said to all the people, “This day is holy to the Lord your God; do not mourn or weep.” For all the people wept as they heard the words of the Law. Then he said to them, “Go your way. Eat the fat and drink sweet wine and send portions to anyone who has nothing ready, for this day is holy to our Lord. And do not be grieved, for the joy of the Lord is your strength.” (Nehemiah 8:9–10)

Notice he doesn’t say - look to one another for joy. Look to every one else’s excitement and peace if you want to have some for yourself. Why? For starters, NOBODY had it! The joy of the Lord is where they will find strength. The simple fact that they were back in their homeland and that restoration was (slowly!) taking place meant that God’s unchanging love was upon them which led to joy and then to strength to face the challenges.

I am convinced that many of us are lacking joy these days. But coming to church looking to others as the source of joy is the wrong way to find it. We must first look unto Jesus and his love. And once we have filled ourselves up with the joy of the Lord THEN and ONLY then can we be channels of joy to one another. But even then, it is not coming from us - but through us from the Lord. I want to challenge you to focus on Christ’s love rather than on the problems at church or problems in the world. Yes we have problems, but even then what Jesus says is still true: as the Father loves him so has he loved us. And his love will never change! I cannot think of a better reason to have joy than this. Can you?