Sermon Cloud

"All men seek happiness, this is without exception. Whatever different means they employ, they all tend to this end. The cause of some going to war, and of others avoiding it, is the same desire in both, attended with different views. The will never takes the least step but to this object. This is the motive of every action of every man, even of those who hang themselves."  - Blaise Pascal

 

INTRODUCTION

 

The last few weeks we've joined the historical and universal church in celebrating Advent, when we celebrate the coming of God in the birth of Jesus.  In joining in this celebration we've also picked up the traditional topics of Advent season: Hope, Peace, Love and this morning, Joy. 

 

One of our goals was to be clear rather than sentimental during this time.  We've wanted to look at what each of these means rather than assume we all know what it means to have hope, peace, love and joy. 

 

We also have engaged in a kind of battle in our hearts as we've discussed the idols that promise us these things, but don't deliver.  These false gods that call us to trust in them are so powerful that when we begin to expose them, we feel a kind of discomfort or tension, an irritation that tells us to just move on to the next topic. 

 

When we discussed hope, we spoke of the idol of progress and technology and how it promises us a bright future.  In the message on peace, we looked at our faulty view of being nothing more than an absence of war and how national security and personal protection will never bring us peace.  For love, we discussed how we've twisted love into nothing more than our pursuit of sexuality and how this fails us because it only brings us shame and destroys us. 

 

This week as we talk about joy we want to discuss those things that we pursue that promise us joy and instead actually block true joy.

 

Our Fixation with Happiness

 

Our culture is fixated on becoming happy.  We've set two things against one another, joy and duty.  We've come to believe that if we pursue obligation we'll be miserable so we're to pursue happiness instead. 

 

Modernism pushed down our emotions and made rational thinking the most important.  But, we were designed for such emotions and any time something that is created good is pushed down it is like a coiled spring that one day breaks free and becomes loosed.  So today, rational thinking is suspect but our emotions are considered most important.

 

So much pop-psychology fed to us by Oprah and the like tell us that we're to do what makes us happy.  You may have even said this to a friend when giving them counsel-"Just do what makes you happy." Or, "Well, if you're not happy, then you should break up."  Parents, how about this counsel, "I just want my children to be happy, and if this makes them happy, then I support them."

 

Pascal was right when he said that everything a man does, without exception, is to seek happiness.  Even in the deepest, darkest, hour of someone contemplating suicide, the contemplation has arisen out of a desire to be happy and to end the unhappiness.  Every motive, every action, is a pursuit of what we think will bring us joy.  This is why we do it.  Even our greatest sacrifices in life are sacrificed because the ultimate goal is a promise of lasting joy.  This promise makes us willing to rid ourselves of lesser enjoyments. 

 

And it would seem that in all our hard pursuit of finding happiness, we would actually be happier than we were, say, 40-50 years ago.  Is this true? 

 

Think about these facts:

 

We are better paid, better fed, better housed, better educated, and healthier than ever before, and with more human rights, faster communication, and more convenient transportation than we have ever known.  In this same period we are more psychologically, emotionally, spiritually, socially, and morally adrift.  

Had you fallen asleep in 1960 and awakened in the 2000s, would you feel pleased at the cultural shift?  Here are some other facts that would greet you.  Since 1960:

 

          The divorce rate has almost tripled.

          The teen suicide rate has more than tripled.

          The recorded violent crime rate has quadrupled.

          The prison population has quintupled.

          The percent of babies born to unmarried parents has sextupled.

          Cohabitation (a predictor of future divorce) has increased sevenfold.

          Depression has soared to ten times the pre-World War II level.

                                                          -David Myers, The American Paradox

 

Our culture, by the witness of many psychologists, is perhaps the most depressed than at any other time in our history of analyzing such things. 

 

Charles Dickens, in his famous book A Tale of Two Cities writes this:

 

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way.   

 

At a time when we have more of everything we've ever dreamed of, more than what we could have never imagined 500, 100, 50 years ago, we are more depressed and dissatisfied.  In other words, we're unhappy.  Yet we have all this seeming happiness around us. 

 

How is that we are so obsessed with something we have so little of?  Or, put another way, has our pursuit of joy and happiness actually made us unhappy and depressed?  Our country is filled with some of the most creative minds and yet when it comes to making joy, we have not only failed, we've made matters worse.

 

We live in a kind of paradox.  We've never had it so good, yet we've never had it so bad and our society seems to be on the brink of utter collapse.  Every major world power that fell apart at its peak did so, not from outside force or military loss, but from the crumbling of its culture, its society from the inside.  There are many who believe we are in the midst of this collapse, a collapse of the American dream.  

 

Compared with their grandparents, today's young adults have grown up with much more affluence...less happiness and much greater risk of depression and assorted social pathology...Our becoming much better off over the last four decades has not been accompanied by one iota of increased subjective well-being.

- Hope College psychologist David G. Myers, PhD, author of the article, which appeared in the American Psychologist (Vol. 55, No. 1).

 

Wrong Goal or Wrong Means to the Goal?

 

Is the pursuit of the goal in question or the means to accomplish that goal?

 

Q-Is it wrong to pursue joy?  

Q-What is Joy?  

Q-How do we know when we have it? 

Q-How do we measure whether we need more or not? 

Q-What good is it? 

Q-What gets in the way of our happiness, our joy? 

Q-What if you're not very good a getting it?

 

What Blocks our Joy?

 

Idolatry

 

Ezekiel 14:2-6: "And the word of the LORD came to me:  3 ‘Son of man, these men have taken their idols into their hearts, and set the stumbling block of their iniquity before their faces. Should I indeed let myself be consulted by them?  4 Therefore speak to them and say to them, Thus says the Lord GOD: Any one of the house of Israel who takes his idols into his heart and sets the stumbling block of his iniquity before his face, and yet comes to the prophet, I the LORD will answer him as he comes with the multitude of his idols,  5 that I may lay hold of the hearts of the house of Israel, who are all estranged from me through their idols.  6 Therefore say to the house of Israel, Thus says the Lord GOD: Repent and turn away from your idols, and turn away your faces from all your abominations.'"

 

This demonstrates that idolatry is not only something physical, but ultimately its greatest harm is owing to its worship in our hearts.  And idol of the heart becomes something we turn to for our hope, love, peace, and joy.  It gives us meaning and security.  It replaces God. 

 

We become what we worship

 

Psalms 115:5-8: "They have mouths, but do not speak; eyes, but do not see.  6 They have ears, but do not hear; noses, but do not smell.  7 They have hands, but do not feel; feet, but do not walk; and they do not make a sound in their throat.  8 Those who make them become like them; so do all who trust in them."

 

If we're not able to shake the idols of our culture, our witness will always be undermined.  The only possible way to do that is to identify and understand the idols of our culture.

 

To the degree that Israel was sucked into worship of the Canaanite idols, she lost her ability to be a light to the nations.  We see this clearly in the book of Judges as they are given to this idolatry. 

 

At our time of history, a time when the world most needs a powerful witness of a gospel community, the American church has blended the gospel with the idolatry of our culture and we are in an advanced state of decay by our witness. 

 

It is vitally important to expose our idols and call us to repentance. 

 

So should we abandon our pursuit of joy?  Give it up and just forget about it since our hearts are so fickle?  Is our desire for joy so strong that it is too strong? 

 

We were made for Joy

 

It goes back to Moses who wrote the first five books of the Bible, who said in Deuteronomy 28:47-48:  "Because you did not serve the LORD your God with joyfulness and gladness of heart, because of the abundance of all things,  48  therefore you shall serve your enemies..."

 

It goes back to David the king, who called his God "exceeding joy" (Psalm 43:4); and said, "Serve the Lord with gladness" (Psalm 100:2); and "Delight yourself in the Lord" (Psalm 37:4); and who said that lasting pleasure and joy is found in God alone: "In your presence is fullness of joy; in Your right hand are pleasures forever" (Psalm 16:11). 

 

It goes back to Jesus, who said, "I have spoken to you so that My joy may be in you, and that your joy may be made full" (John 15:11).

 

To James, the brother of Jesus, who said, "Consider it all joy when you encounter various trials" (James 1:2).

 

To the Apostle Paul, who was "sorrowful yet always rejoicing" (2 Cor. 6:10); and who described the ministry of his team as being "workers with you for your joy" (2 Cor. 1:24); and who commanded Christians to "rejoice in the Lord always" (Phil. 4:4).

 

To the Apostle Peter, who said, "To the degree that you share the sufferings of Christ, keep on rejoicing, so that also at the revelation of His glory you might rejoice with exultation" (1 Peter 4:13); and "Though you have not seen him, you love him.  Though you do not now see him, you believe in him and rejoice with joy that in inexpressible and filled with glory," (1 Peter 1:8). 

 

We are commanded to rejoice

 

It isn't as if God's commands and joy are at odds, or duty and happiness are at odds.  It becomes our joy to obey Him, and our duty to find joy in Him.  The two are not at odds.  He commands us to rejoice!

 

Psalms 32:11: "Be glad in the LORD, and rejoice, O righteous, and shout for joy, all you upright in heart!"

 

Psalms 67:4: "Let the nations be glad and sing for joy, for you judge the peoples with equity and guide the nations upon earth. Selah."

 

Psalms 37:4: "Delight yourself in the LORD..."

 

Luke 10:20: "...rejoice that your names are written in heaven."

 

Philippians 4:4: "Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice."

 

God wants us to pursue pleasure and joy.  We were made for it.  He gave emotions for it.  This isn't an option, it's what God intended all along, that we would rejoice, find our joy, in Him. 

 

God is Happy

 

Psalms 115:3: "Our God is in the heavens; he does all that he pleases."

 

Do you hear what this is saying?  It is saying that God's sovereignty means that He does whatever pleases Him.  This means because He is sovereign, He is happy, and nothing ultimately, no matter in the moment, will take His joy away.

 

He is the happiest of all beings.  God's happiness is the fountain from which we're to drink.

 

How do you see God right now?  What is the look on His face?  When He thinks about you, what is His expression?  Disappointment?  Disapproval?  Disgust? 

 

How you see God is going to determine how you relate to Him. 

 

Can you imagine what it would be like if the God who ruled the world was unhappy?  What if God were pouting and depressed?  What if God was despondent and gloomy?  How could we possibly join king David and declare, "O God, you are my God; earnestly I seek you; my soul thirsts for you; my flesh faints for you, as in a dry and weary land where there is no water" (Psalm 63:1)?

 

We would all relate to God like little children who have a frustrated, gloomy, dissatisfied father.  They can't enjoy him.  They can only try not to bother him, or maybe try to work for him to earn some favor. 

 

If God is not happy, then we have no foundation for our happiness.  Nothing to cling to and no way we can delight in Him, cherish Him and enjoy His fellowship, just as children cannot enjoy the fellowship of their father if he is unhappy.  The foundation for our joy is the joy of God!

 

God delights in His glory.  God delights in the glory of His Son.  God delights in saving us to Himself so that we can enjoy His glory.  God is all about glory and we are glory-starved, which is why we are starved for joy.

 

If man's chief end is to glorify God by enjoying Him forever, God's chief end is to glorify Himself by enjoying Himself forever.  Joy and glory in the Trinity have always, and will always be our great foundation.

 

The Primary Cause: sin exercised in the idolatry of Consumerism, Individualism and Hedonism

 

The Connection between depression and consumerism

 

Why Advent is a time of joy

 

Luke 1:5-14: "In the days of Herod, king of Judea, there was a priest named Zechariah, of the division of Abijah. And he had a wife from the daughters of Aaron, and her name was Elizabeth.  6 And they were both righteous before God, walking blamelessly in all the commandments and statutes of the Lord.  7 But they had no child, because Elizabeth was barren, and both were advanced in years.  8 Now while he was serving as priest before God when his division was on duty,  9 according to the custom of the priesthood, he was chosen by lot to enter the temple of the Lord and burn incense.  10 And the whole multitude of the people were praying outside at the hour of incense.  11 And there appeared to him an angel of the Lord standing on the right side of the altar of incense.  12 And Zechariah was troubled when he saw him, and fear fell upon him.  13 But the angel said to him, "Do not be afraid, Zechariah, for your prayer has been heard, and your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son, and you shall call his name John.  14 And you will have joy and gladness, and many will rejoice at his birth."

 

Luke 1:39-44: "In those days Mary arose and went with haste into the hill country, to a town in Judah,  40 and she entered the house of Zechariah and greeted Elizabeth.  41 And when Elizabeth heard the greeting of Mary, the baby leaped in her womb. And Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit,  42 and she exclaimed with a loud cry, ‘Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb!  43 And why is this granted to me that the mother of my Lord should come to me?  44 For behold, when the sound of your greeting came to my ears, the baby in my womb leaped for joy.'"

 

Luke 2:7-11: "And she gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped him in swaddling cloths and laid him in a manger, because there was no place for them in the inn.  8 And in the same region there were shepherds out in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night.  9 And an angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were filled with fear.  10 And the angel said to them, ‘Fear not, for behold, I bring you good news of a great joy that will be for all the people.  11 For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord.'"

 

How Jesus won our joy

 

John 15:11: "These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full."

 

Hebrews 12:1-2: "Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us,  2 looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God."

 

John 17:13: "But now I am coming to you, and these things I speak in the world, that they may have my joy fulfilled in themselves."

 

Becoming a contrast community of joy in a world of despair

 

We can fight for joy as we trust in Jesus and His gospel.  We fight because Jesus fought for us.  We have joy because Jesus is filled with joy for His Father.